Laura remembers being impatient with her father, when he discovered symbols of the four elements in a shopping mall's design. Water, earth, air and fire: he had spotted representations of all of them. She was carrying too many parcels, frustrated by needing to ask him to help with her burden,
What happens inside, behind closed doors, in private moments, and in minds and hearts: that's the stuff of Alix Ohlin's novel. House of Anansi, 2012 "'He wouldn’t let me in,' she said, 'and I refused to stay out.'" Mitch's mother says that of his father. She is not
I first posted about Robert Hough's novel in a whirl, having read Dr. Brinkley's Tower in less than 24 hours, falling fast and fully into the story. I avoided specifics about the plot and the characters, because the wonder of this novel is rooted in the telling. House of Anansi,
It is a basic human need. “Our need to know where we come from, to connect it to who we are and where we’re going.” Harper Collins, 2012 Ruth becomes aware of this need, first, when she is six years old, but that is just the beginning. It
These stories turn on moments in which their characters are yanked from their everyday existences. That ordinary, day-to-day life? It's there, and the reader understands its dimensions, but the focus is elsewhere. "Hard, steady work, and no money in it either. When there was fish, there was no price for
