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)
Boss, Scott, Entry Level (Three Ravens Press, 2025)
Buck, Libby, Port Anna (Simon & Schuster, 2025)
Church, Meagan, The Mad Wife (Sourcebooks Landmark, 2025)
Cline, Denise Smith, The Resettlement of Vesta Blonik (Regal House, 2025)
Deaver, Mason, I Wish You All the Best (PUSH, 2019)
Ewing, Paige, Explosive Chemistry (City Owl Books, 2023)
Hudson, Patricia L., Traces (UP of KY, 2022)
Joslin, Nell, Measure of Devotion (Regal House Publishing, 2025)
Maren, Mesha, Perpetual West (Algonquin, 2022)
Mayo, Michael, The Spies in Jimmy’s Place (Camel Press, 2025)
Moose, Ruth, The Goings on at Glen Arbor Acres (St. Andrews University Press, 2022)
Nevruz, Cori, Noxious (5310 Publishing, 2024)
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)
Sefrin, Eliot, Port City (Pisgah Press, 2025)
Zelder, Martin, Recovering Maurice (Atmosphere Press, 2025)
Short Stories
Oliver, Diane, Neighbors and Other Stories (Grove Atlantic, 2024)
Mystery/Thriller
Bradley, Benjamin, What He Left Behind (CamCat Books, 2025)
Brown, Nick Allen, Beneath the Estate (Turner Publishing, 2024)
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
Pelletier, Stacia, The Deliverance of Barker McRae (Mercer UP, 2025)
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)
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)
Gordon, Brett, If It Calls Your Name (Jack Wild Publishing, 2024)
Gow, Robin, Laternfly August (Driftwood Press)
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)
Knauth, Stephen, All Calm Beyond (Four Way 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)
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)
Rigsbee, David, Paradiso (translation) (Salmon Poetry, 2019)
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)
Wickless, Bob, The Secret Care the World Takes (Orchard Street Press, 2023)
Wolff-Francis, Liza, 48 Hours Down the Shore (Kelsay, 2024)
Drama
Ijames, James, Fat Ham (Theatre Communications Group, 2023)
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)
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)
Griest, Stephanie Elizondo, Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life (Beacon Press, 2025)
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)
McClanahan, Rebecca, Light Falls on Everything: A Daughters Memoir of Caregiving, Grief, and Possibility (UNC Press, 2025)
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)
Rankin, Richard, Local Signs and Wonders: Essays about Belonging to a Place (Mercer University Press, 2024)
Rozzell, David, Troubled Sleep (Redhawk Publications, 2025)
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)
Children’s and YA Literature
Bartlett, Stacey, Free Sings the Sea (Monarch Educational Services, 2024)
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, 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)
Heyes, Eileen, Bountiful Red Acres (NC Office of Archives and History, 2023)
Liu, Jennie, The Red Car to Hollywood (Carolrhoda Lab, 2025)
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)
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.