Reviews – Ring Reads

‘Race’ A Nail-Biting Cross-Country Roadtrip

The cover for Eric Moskowitz's debut, The Longest Hardest Race, featuring a colorized picture of two early Ford Model-Ts racing down a dirt road. The portrait of a fairly young Henry Ford is superimposed just beneath the title.

The Hardest, Longest Race at its core is about the struggle between the past and the future, between what’s true and what gets remembered.

Half-Broken a Near-Future Tale of Hope

The cover of Ode to the Half-Broken, featuring a humanoid mech looking down at a cyborg dog while crumbling buildings tower above them both.

In the acknowledgements, Suzanne Palmer calls Ode to the Half-Broken a book with grief threaded throughout every page. But for a book about grief, it brings a hopeful message that’s sorely needed.

‘Rachel West’ a Starstruck Mystery

The cover of Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet by Emma Mills, featuring a hot-pink flip phone against a bright blue background. The phone has skull and ribbon-bow charms.

Rachel West is a rare murder mystery that holds interest but doesn’t demand a reader’s heart rate spike as they fly through pages.

‘Boomtown’ Juggles Loads of Stories

The cover of Joe Pappalardo's Boomtown, featuring an illustrated flame over a sepia-toned photo of crashed 1920s-era cars on a dirt city street.

Pappalardo took on quite a project in trying to tell the story of Borger’s hectic year, particularly his dedication to weaving together so many threads rather than focusing on a single character or sector.

‘Japanese Gothic’ Bloody and Tender

The cover of Japanese Gothic, featuring a Japanese-style watercolor of a house surrounded by foliage, all in dripping black and red.

Baker’s pacing is quick enough, and the story compelling enough to keep the violence and characters’ hopelessness from bleeding too heavily into the reader.

‘Yesteryear’ Delves into Tradwife Life

The cover of Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, featuring a collection of farm buildings with a foreground of rolling golden hills. A golden and blue sky stretches overhead.

In delving into her main character’s psyche, Caro Claire Burke walks a fine line between psychological exploration and parody, but manages that balance well.

Family, Laws of Universe Clash in ‘Folding Space’

The cover of The Subtle Art of Folding Space, featuring pale hands with chopsticks reaching for a vertical cascade of steamer baskets. The top basket holds dumplings, but the subsequent baskets hold planets and gears.

In a story about bending, or breaking, the laws of the universe, you still can’t escape squabbling with your big sister.

‘Forest’ a Rallying Cry for Conservation

When the Forest Breathes is an important book detailing important work. It just also happened to be a very depressing book. But then, that seems less the fault of the trees than the state of the world we’re inflicted with.

‘Only One’ a Swift and Sharp Thriller

The cover for The Only One Who Knows by Lisa M. Matlin. A stylized illustration of a pink house and lighthouse upon a thin beach of yellow sand and before a teal ocean make up the bulk of the cover. In the water is a dark triangular shark fin. On the beach is the silhouette of a woman. The title and author are superimposed over the image in sans-serif font.

It can be daunting to let characters be messy, especially those whose eyes we borrow to experience the story, but Matlin does so with confidence.

‘Blood Relay’ a Thriller Built Around Dark Truths

The cover of Blood Relay by Devon Mihesuah, featuring illustrations of galloping horses and riders at the bottom against a long arc of red cut through with a line of white. Upon looking at the cover as a whole, the white becomes a long braid going down the back of a red dress or cloak worn by what appears to be an Indigenous woman. The title is superimposed in black sans-serif font.

None of the issues that Mihesuah incorporates into the story are done so subtly. Then again, none of these issues is exactly cutting edge; they’ve been ignored, dismissed, shrugged off for years, decades, over a century. Maybe what they need isn’t subtlety, but to be shouted from the rooftops.