Reviewing books for NCLR energizes me. I enjoy keeping up with new publications about our state, especially from our state’s many authors, to learn what they teach us about history and our contemporary world. What could be better than indulging oneself in powerful language and terrific stories? Reviewing for NCLR, made easy by clear guidelines, friendly submission processes, and helpful staff, enables me to contribute to the vitality of North Carolina literature. I am glad that I joined the team!
—Rebecca Godwin, Professor Emeritus, Barton College
We are seeking reviewers for the books listed below. Click the button above if you are interested in writing a review for NCLR. And please read our book review guidelines.
Book authors and publishers, if your North Carolina-related book is not on this list (and has not been previously reviewed in NCLR), click the button above to have it added. NOTE: no self-published / vanity press books, please.
Novels
Baker, Peter C., Planes (Knopf, 2022)
Barnhardt, Wilton, Western Alliances (St. Martin’s Press, 2023)
Bauer, John A., All The Bay’s Clams and All The Bay’s Men (Lysestrah, 2020)
Bathanti, Joseph, Too Glorious to Even Long For on Certain Days (Regal House Publishing, 2026)
Bennett, Walter, Sayla is My Name (Regal House Publishing, 2026)
Bockino, David, Over/Under (Pegasus Books, 2025)
Boss, Scott, Entry Level (Three Ravens Press, 2025)
Brown, Joshua Trent, The Walls Are Closing In On Us (Malarkey Books, 2026)
Brown, Teri M, Daughters of Green Mountain Gap (Atmosphere, 2026)
Buck, Libby, Port Anna (Simon & Schuster, 2025)
Burugapalli, Sri, A Father’s Cry for Meaning (Paper Angel Press)
Church, Meagan, The Mad Wife (Sourcebooks Landmark, 2025)
Cline, Denise Smith, The Resettlement of Vesta Blonik (Regal House, 2025)
Cornett, Sheryl, No Secrets in this House (Ray McAllister Books, 2026)
Crowther, Hal, Bible Belt Blues (Blair, 2025)
Deaver, Mason, I Wish You All the Best (PUSH, 2019)
Evans, Virginia, The Correspondent (Penguin Random House, 2025)
Everhart, Donna, Women of a Promiscuous Nature (Kensington Publishing Corp, 2026)
Ewing, Paige, Explosive Chemistry (City Owl Books, 2023)
Gaitonde, Vishwas, On Earth as It Is in Heaven (Orison Books, 2025)
Gene, Nichol, Now What? How North Carolina Can Blaze a Progressive Path Forward (Blair, 2025)
Gopo, Patrice, We Deserve to Heal: Black Women on the Perils and Promises of Friendship with White Women (University Press of Kentucky, 2025)
Hays, Tommy, The Marriage Bed (Blair, 2026)
Hudson, Patricia L., Traces (UP of KY, 2022)
Joslin, Nell, Measure of Devotion (Regal House Publishing, 2025)
Kara, Layla, Forbidden Sanctuary, (Lazuli House, 2026)
Mayo, Michael, The Spies in Jimmy’s Place (Camel Press, 2025)
McCoy, Sarah, Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely? (William Morrow/Harper Collins, 2025)
Moose, Ruth, The Goings on at Glen Arbor Acres (St. Andrews University Press, 2022)
Nevruz, Cori, Noxious (5310 Publishing, 2024)
Pelletier, Stacia, The Deliverance of Barker McRae (Mercer UP, 2025)
Perry, Princess Joy L., This Here Is Love (W. W. Norton & Company, 2025)
Poling, Nancy Werking, Leander’s Lies (April Gloaming, 2025)
Polverari, Kammeron, From the Fires Scattered There (Warren Press, 2025)
Rhea, John, Lifer (Redhawk Publications, 2025)
Roberts, Terry, In the Fullness of Time (Turner Publishing Company, 2025)
Ross, Robert Scott, Revival (Redhawk Publications, 2026)
Sefrin, Eliot, Port City (Pisgah Press, 2025)
Thurman, Hannah, Mercy Hill (Penguin Random House, 2025)
Wilensky-Lanford, Brook, A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America (Grove Atlantic, 2026)
Zelder, Martin, Recovering Maurice (Atmosphere Press, 2025)
Short Stories
Carpenter, Nora Shalaway, Onward: 16 Climate Fiction Short Stories to Inspire Hope (Charlesbridge, 2026)
Oliver, Diane, Neighbors and Other Stories (Grove Atlantic, 2024)
White, Rhonda Browning, ED, Appalachian Grit Lit: A Short Story Anthology (Redhawk Publications, 2026)
Mystery/Thriller
Bradley, Benjamin, What He Left Behind (CamCat Books, 2025)
Chafin, Jill Amber, Shaken (Vine Leaves Press, 2025)
Deaver, Jeffery, Hunting Time (Penguin Random House, 2024)
Kasper, Jason, Lethal Horizon (Severn River Publishing, 2024)
Nevruz, Cori, Left Without Answers (Masonboro P, 2025)
Nevruz, Cori, The Unwelcome Guest (Masonboro P, 2025)
Nevruz, Cori, Making a Killing (Masonboro P, 2021)
Nevrus, Cori, Murder Manor (Masonboro P, 2026)
Sirois, A.L., Murder in Mennefer (Regal House Publishing, 2024)
Slocumb, Brendan, Symphony of Secrets (Anchor Books, 2023)
Speculative Fiction
Drama
Ijames, James, Fat Ham (Theatre Communications Group, 2023)
Poetry
Note that we would love it if you find more than one collection that you feel would work well to review together (if you later determine they don’t, you can write 2 separate reviews). Also, we do not review chapbooks.
Abbate, Chris, Words for Flying (FutureCycle Press, 2022)
Bates, Jenny, Where the Deer Sleep (Hermit Feathers Press, 2022)
Bathanti Joseph, Steady Daylight (LSU Press, 2026)
Brown, Jaye Robin, The Key to You and Me (HarperCollins, 2022)
Brown, Joyce, Hard-Packed Clay (Redhawk Publications, 2022)
Brown, Les, Cold Forge (Redhawk Publications, 2022)
Cariño, Ina, Reverse Requiem (Alice James Books, 2026)
Carter, Catherine, By Stone and Needle (LSU Press, 2025)
Copeland, Beth, I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart (Redhawk Publications, 2025)
Crowe, Thomas Rain, Painting from the Palette of Love: The Mystical Poetry of Kabir (Shambhala Publications, 2023)
Cushman, Steve, The Last Time (Unicorn Press, 2023)
Dowdle, Morrow, Hardly (Bottlecap Press, 2024)
Downer, Hilda, Had I a Dove: Appalachian Poets on the Helene Flood (Redhawk Publications, 2025)
Fields, Bill, A Quick Nine Before Dark: A Life in Golf (Tatra Press, 2026)
Ferdon, Joel, The Arsonist’s Son (Louisiana Lit Press, 2024)
Galvin, Brendan, In Plenty’s Woods (LSU Press, 2025)
Gaspeny, Michael, Flight Manual: New and Collected Poems (Unicorn, 2023)
Gate, David, A Rebellion of Care (Convergent Books, 2025)
Gordon, Brett, If It Calls Your Name (Jack Wild Publishing, 2024)
Gow, Robin,Laternfly August (Driftwood Press)
Hettich, Michael, A Sharper Silence (Terrapin Books, 2025)
Huband, Ed, The Dix Hill Blues (Main Street Rag, 2026)
Johnson, Matthew, Far From New York State (New York Quarterly Press, 2023)
Johnson, Matthew, Too Short to Box with God (Finishing Line Press, 2024)
Kaufman, Debra, God Shattered (Jacar Press, 2019)
Kaufman, Debra, Outwalking the Shadow (Redhawk Publications, 2023)
Kirkpatrick, Kathryn, Creature (Jacar Press, 2025)
Knauth, Stephen, All Calm Beyond (Four Way Books, 2025)
Knauth, Stephen, Dear Dusk (Cloudbank Books, 2025)
Lake, Stan, A Toad in a Glass Jar (Dead Reckoning Collective, 2025)
McIlvoy, Kevin Singing Lessons (Press 53, 2024)
Meads, Kat, While Visiting Babette (Sagging Meniscus Press, 2025)
Mills, Joe, The Holiday Cycle (Press 53, 2025)
Moore, Lenard, A Million Shadows at Noon (Cuttlefish Books, 2023)
Moore, Lenard, LeJuane “El’Ja” Bowens, and Shannon C. Ward, Eds., A Path to Freedom: A North Carolina Anthology in Honor of Military Veterans (Longleaf Press, 2024)
Owens, Scott, Elemental (Redhawk Publications, 2025)
Owens, Scott, The Song Is Why We Sing (Redhawk Publications, 2026)
Phillips, Lance, Devil-Fictions (BlazeVOX, 2023)
Poston, David, Letting Go (Fernwood Press, 2026)
Pugatch, Ana, Engrams: Seven Years in Asia (Redhawk Publications, 2023)
Radavich, David, Here’s Plenty (Cervena Barva Press, 2023)
Ricketson, Mary, Tall Flowers and Living Long (Redhawk Publications, 2025)
Robles, Tony, Soups For The Storm: Poems Of Hurricane Helene (Redhawk Publications, 2026)
Rouphail, Maria, All the Way to China (Fishing Line Press, 2022)
Rouphail, Maria, This small house, this big sky (Redhawk Publications, 2025)
Shabazz, Phillip, Moonflower (Fernwood Press, 2025)
Sherbondy, Maureen, The Body Remembers (Unsolicited Press, 2025)
Ward, Junious “Jay”, Composition (Button Poetry, 2023)
Way, Maura, Mummery (Press 53, 2023)
West, Robert M., A Clear Eye (Broadstone Books 2026)
Wickless, Bob, The Secret Care the World Takes (Orchard Street Press, 2023)
Wolff-Francis, Liza, 48 Hours Down the Shore (Kelsay, 2024)
Nonfiction
Berry, Chris Aluka, Affrilachia: Testimonies (UP of Kentucky, 2024)
Brody, Inger S B, Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness (John Hopkins University Press, 2024)
Carter, Emily, A Spork in the Road (Epic Cartaret Books, 2025)
Christopher, Bryan, Stopping the Deportation Machine: One Immigrant Student’s Arrest and the Kids Who Took on Washington to Get Him Back (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Crowther, Hal, Bible Belt Blues (Blair, 2025)
Erbsen, Wayne, Southern Mountain Music: The Collected Writings of Wayne Erbsen (MacFarland, 2025)
Erhardt, Marianne Jay, Lucky Bodies (Texas Tech University Press, 2025)
Fields, Bill, A Quick Nine Before Dark: A Life in Golf (Tatra Press, 2026)
Harris, Trudier, Bigger: A Literary Life (Yale University Press, 2024)
Hitchcock, Shannon, Of Words and Water: The Story of Wilma Dykeman—Writer, Historian, Environmentalist (Reycraft, 2024)
Holsaert, Faith S., Ma Lineal: A Memoir of Race, Activism, and Queer Family (Wayne State UP, 2024)
Kirkpatrick, Kathryn J., Enraptured Space: Gender, Class, and Ecology in the Work of Paula Meehan (West Virginia University Press, 2025)
Maxwell, Tom, A Really Strange and Wonderful Time: The Chapel Hill Music Scene: 1989-1999 (Hachette Books, 2024)
McCown, Clint, Mr. Potato Head vs. Freud (Press 53, 2021)
McKechnie, Shelley, ed., Stronger than the Storm: Hurricane Helene in Western NC (Haw Creek
Press, 2025)
Peacock, Nancy, Wildwood (Lystra Books, 2026)
Rankin, Richard, Local Signs and Wonders: Essays about Belonging to a Place (Mercer University Press, 2024)
Smith, Stephen E., The Year We Danced: a Memoir (Apprentice House, 2024)
Swanson, Drew A., A Man of Bad Reputation: The Murder of John Stephens and the Contested Landscape of North Carolina Reconstruction (UNC Press, 2023)
Williams, Leslie, Matters for You Alone (Slant Books, 2024)
Woodford, Annie, Peasant, (Pulley Press, 2025)
Children’s and YA Literature
Bartlett, Stacey, Free Sings the Sea (Monarch Educational Services, 2024)
Beadle, Michael, Foodtopia (Bookbaby, 2025)
Beatty, Robert, Sylvia Doe and the 100-year Flood (Disney Hyperion, 2024)
Bell, Kamal E. and Akeem Bell, Akeem Keeps Bees! (Storey Publishing, 2025)
Bowles, Melanie Sue, Liberty Biscuit (Trafalgar Square Books, 2026)
Bowles, Melanie Sue, Little Pearl (Trafalgar Square Books, 2025)
Carpenter, Nora Shalaway, Fault Lines (Running Press Kids, 2023)
Deaver, Mason, I Wish You All the Best (PUSH, 2019)
Harris, Tevis, When Things Pass Away (Bookbaby, 2025)
Hatton, Katelynn, Blue’s March: An Overmountain Men Tale (NC Office of Archives and History, 2025)
Heyes, Eileen, Bountiful Red Acres (NC Office of Archives and History, 2023)
Liu, Jennie, The Red Car to Hollywood (Carolrhoda Lab, 2025)
Mudd, Ebony, Just Like Tina: Inspired by the Life of Tina Turner (Penguin Workshop, 2026)
Myers, Maya, Good Morning, Morning! (Holiday House, 2026)
Palmer, Caroline, Camp Prodigy, (Simon & Schuster, 2024)
Petrisin, Laura, Get Real, Lucille! (Monarch Educationational Services, 2025)
Price, Dorothy H., Daddy Daughter Day (Reycraft, 2025)
Rathbone, Sandra, Skelee Boy and the Demon King, Book 2 of the Skelee Boy: A Skelee Boy Book Series (Level Elevate, 2024)
Specht, Amie D., Dancing in the Storm (Penguin Random House, 2024)
Standish, Ali, The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall (Harper Collins, 2023)
Theodore, Adrea, A History of Me (Neal Porter Books, 2022)
Tucker, Talia, Solo Stan (Kokila Books, 2025)
Vacharat, A. A., This Moth Saw Brightness (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2025)
Vernon, Zackary, Eating on a Mountain at the End of the World (UNC Press, 2026)
Wheeler, Rebecca W., When Mama Grows With Me (Belle Isle Books, 2024)
Whitley, Jeremy, Navigating with You (Maverick, 2024)
Disclaimer: We cannot guarantee that your book will be selected for review. Even if it is selected by a reviewer, we request a copy from your publisher to be sent for review consideration. Read more about our book reviews here.