She Writes Press

Clara at the Edge by Maryl Jo Fox is the story of an older woman’s journey through the hardships she’s never been able to get over.

Clara has moved to Jackpot, Nevada to be closer to her estranged son whom she’s pushed away for years in an effort to harden herself against both a troubled past and the potential of future hardship. Despite her effort to tuck away the past in a remote part of her memory, Clara cannot so easily give up the relics she holds on to. So, when she moves to Jackpot, she takes her whole house with her all the way from Oregon.

Clara at the Edge weaves through various characters’ heads unravelling Clara’s past in, sometimes, the strangest ways. We gain access not only to Clara and Frank’s minds, but to a pair of criminals, Frank’s love interest, and a host of others whom Clara meets in Jackpot. Weaving in and out of these characters’ minds, elements of each of their pasts is slowly revealed.

Rooted in magical realism, Fox’s book includes elements of fantasy that make it hard to know what’s real or who’s crazy. From talking purple wasps to fairy-like companions, Fox ravels together a story that goes beyond the everyday.

Slated for publication by She Writes Press on November 1, 2017, you can preorder a copy of Clara at the Edge at your local bookstore.

FTC Disclaimer: This book was given to me in return for a fair and honest review of the text.

To the Stars Through Difficulties by Romalyn Tilghman is an uplifting story about the strength of collectivity, especially the collective power of women.

To the Stars Through Difficulties follows three different women: Traci, Gayle, and Angelina. Each is dealing with a major life event, or series of life events, that has somehow led them to New Hope, Kansas. Traci has been hired as an artist in residency at the only arts center in New Hope, which also happens to be an old Carnegie library, which Angelina is writing her PhD dissertation on, and which Gayle is attending for therapeutic art classes, provided by Traci. The catch is that Traci has no experience teaching art, though she lied and told the arts center that she did; Gayle’s life was blown away in a tornado and she can’t seem to get her life back together; and Angelina has actually been working on her dissertation for ten years, and the dissertation is going to potentially get dropped by her university.

The Carnegie library turned arts center is the central meeting place not only for these women, but for the ideas that move the book forward. Tilghman weaves together a history of the women who came before Traci, Gayle, and Angelina with the journey of her three protagonists, using the library as the two histories’ point of intersection. In the past, we follow the women who helped make the Carnegie library a reality despite their hard times, while in the present the hardships look a bit different.

Focusing not only on the strength of women but also the power of print and the importance of history, both collective and one’s own, Tilghman leads readers through a maze of mysteries and hardships in To the Stars Through Difficulties.

Slated for release by She Writes Press on April 4, 2017, you can reserve your copy of To the Stars Through Difficulties from your local bookstore.

FTC Disclaimer: This book was given to me in return for a fair and honest review of the text.

Centered on Books

Book Reviews, Literary Discussion, and Author Interviews

‘Clara at the Edge’ by Maryl Jo Fox

‘To the Stars Through Difficulties’ by Romalyn Tilghman