Top Summer Reads from Park Road Books

Oh, how we writers love our independent book stores. They host our readings, sell our books, and provide jobs for our friends and neighbors. Besides, they’re some of the only people who love books as much as we do. In this post, the marvelous book sellers at Park Road Books have winnowed down their favorite reads for summer. The only thing left to choose? Poolside or beachside.

Sally:

In West Mills by De’Shawn Charles Winslow (June 4)

Azalea “Knot” Centre is determined to live life as she pleases. Let the people of West Mills say what they will; the neighbors’ gossip won’t keep Knot from what she loves best: cheap moonshine, nineteenth-century literature, and the company of men. And yet, Knot is starting to learn that her freedom comes at a high price. Alone in her one-room shack, ostracized from her relatives and cut off from her hometown, Knot turns to her neighbor, Otis Lee Loving, in search of some semblance of family and home.

Otis Lee is eager to help. A lifelong fixer, Otis Lee is determined to steer his friends and family away from decisions that will cause them heartache and ridicule. After his failed attempt as a teenager to help his older sister, Otis Lee discovers a possible path to redemption in the chaos Knot brings to his doorstep. But while he’s busy trying to fix Knot’s life, Otis Lee finds himself powerless to repair the many troubles within his own family, as the long-buried secrets of his troubled past begin to come to light.

Set in an African American community in rural North Carolina from 1941 to 1987, In West Mills is a magnificent, big-hearted small-town story about family, friendship, storytelling, and the redemptive power of love

Substitution Order by Martin Clark (July 9)

Kevin Moore, once a high-flying Virginia attorney, hits rock bottom after an inexplicably tumultuous summer leaves him disbarred and separated from his wife. Short on cash and looking for work, he lands in the middle of nowhere with a job at SUBstitution, the world’s saddest sandwich shop. His closest confidants: a rambunctious rescue puppy and the twenty-year-old computer whiz manning the restaurant counter beside him. He’s determined to set his life right again, but the troubles keep coming. And when a bizarre, mysterious stranger wanders into the shop armed with a threatening “invitation” to join a multimillion-dollar scam, Kevin will need every bit of his legal savvy just to stay out of prison.

A remarkable tour of the law’s tricks and hidden trapdoors, The Substitution Order is both wise and ingenious, a wildly entertaining novel that will keep you guessing—and rooting for its tenacious hero—until the very last page.

Shauna:

Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (May 14)

Casey McQuiston’s debut is a fun, quirky romance set in an alternate reality that boasts a more beautiful world after November 2016, in which the First Son falls for the Prince of Wales. With an enemies-to-lovers romance between the First Son and the Prince of Wales, an intricate and well-developed familial bond, and a hopeful political landscape, this book is salve on an open wound.

Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck & Fortune by Roselle Lim (June 11)

When Natalie Tan returns to her home in Chinatown following her mother’s death, she finds that the neighborhood she grew up in is in danger of being sold off and gentrified. Using her grandmother’s cookbook, she re-creates recipes meant to heal the wounds of the neighborhood in order to save it. Roselle Lim’s debut is a delightful, cultural novel with recipes, magic dumplings, and a touch of romance.

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal (May 14)

This whirlwind Arabian-inspired fantasy by debut author Hafsah Faisal is filled with heart-stopping twists, tight-knit and unbreakable friendships, a slow burn romance, and bright, lyrical prose that left me breathless. Readers of fantasy novels such as Children of Blood and Bone and City of Brass will devour this tale that left me drawn into the story long after it was over.

James:

The Never Game by Jeffrey Deaver (May 14)

Deaver is back! This time with an intriguing new protagonist by the name of Colter Shaw. Raised by a bi-polar survivalist, Shaw becomes a “tracker” who finds missing people. On his current case Shaw finds himself in the world of computer gamers and the intrigue of Silicon Valley. This is a “can’t put it down” thriller.

Recursion by Blake Crouch (June 11)

I liked Crouch’s previous novel, I loved this one. Straddling a fine line between being science fiction and a thriller, Recursion explores the ideas of memory, perception, identity, and reality. At its core, this page-turner explores the concept of a technology that can be used to capture memories and let its user experience them again.

Megan:

Broken Things by Lauren Oliver (YA)

This fantastic book is like reading a mix of Pretty Little Liars, The Slender Man and Bridge to Terabithia. A page turning, gripping thriller about three friends, a secret, and a mystery.

Pride by Ibi Zoboi (YA)

A beautiful take on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Set in Brooklyn, Pride deals with gentrification, class struggles while still staying remarkably true to its roots.

The Ancient Nine by Ian K. Smith

This book is a suspense thriller that takes you deep inside one of our country’s elite Ivy League universities and its secret societies. Based on real life events, Ian K. Smith weaves a tale that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page.

Molly:

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Wickedly funny and dark, Braithwaite tells the story of how far a woman is willing to go to protect her sister, who has a nasty habit of killing her boyfriends. She soon finds herself second guessing her protective stance when a friend of hers is poised to be the next victim.

Alice isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink

In this perfectly creepy road trip mystery from the author of Welcome to Night Vale, Keisha takes up a job as a cross country truck driver to locate her missing wife, Alice, who she keeps seeing in the background of national news stories. Supernatural mysteries follow her on her journey, including a dangerous, man-eating, cryptid who knows too much of Alice for Keisha’s liking.


Charlotte Lit it grateful to Park Road Books for sending us their top picks for summer reads. Be sure to check their events calendar for upcoming readings by local authors. Follow them on Facebook and Instagram, and visit them in person at the Park Road Shopping Center.

Meet the Book Babes

As a child, reading was magical for me. It allowed me to transcend space and time. To travel to new worlds, worlds that might not even exist within our own. I’d stay up late with a flashlight under a blanket, reading until my eyes grew tired. I’d hang on every word of the story.

Back then, even the simple act of going to the library felt like a holy one. I’d leave with a brand new stack of books, ready to jump into new adventures. My mom was patient as I thumbed through spine after spine, trying to choose the perfect titles. She wouldn’t even try to limit my selections.

Somewhere along the way, I grew up. And although I’ve been a lifelong reader, that magic sort of flickered out at a certain point. I still went to the library. I still read. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t feel like a thrill anymore.

It’s sort of like going to Disney World as an adult. All of a sudden you notice the machines making the characters move. You aren’t in awe of the firework display because you’ve seen it before. You’re tired because it’s humid and lines are long. And you’re more concerned with the suddenly high price of a hot dog. “What do you mean, it’s $15?”  You might get excited for a brief moment seeing Cinderella’s Castle or feeling your stomach drop on Splash Mountain, but the magic is mostly gone.

Last fall, I brought up this phenomenon with three of my best friends: Abby, Emily and Laura.

We all love to read and constantly recommend new books to each other. We swap favorites until the pages start to look worn. It’s something that has always bonded us.

We discussed our beloved childhood books, reminisced about Reading Rainbow, and laughed over the pure thrill of going to a Scholastic Book Fair at school.

This was the day that Book Babes CLT was born.

We officially launched this past February. Book Babes is equal parts book review website and book Instagram (or #bookstagram). Our goal in creating it was to make an approachable place for readers and non-readers alike, to find book recommendations and fall in love with reading again (or possibly for the first time).

One thing we realized: picking out a new book to read can be surprisingly overwhelming. As adults, we have to make choices all day. What are we going to wear? What are we knocking out from our to-do list? What are we having for dinner? Picking out a book no longer feels like a luxury. Its like reading roulette – and if you pick wrong, you waste hours of your time.

Our strategy is simple: we find books we enjoy, and we pass them along to you. Were not the New York Times Book Review. Were honest, at times irreverent, and most of all, we just want you to actually like the next book you pick up. Oh, and we drink a lot of wine.

If you love murder mysteries, Lauras reviews will be your best friend. The more murder, the better. Abby loves to read literary fiction, and shes a sucker for nonfiction that promises to improve your life. Emily reads poetry and fiction with strong female leads, usually the self-deprecating kind. As for me, I still love books with adventure. I review everything from memoir to dystopian fiction.

Our hope is that we become that friend you trust to recommend a good book. Our dream is that we somehow reignite that flicker of reading magic youve been missing.

Were starting with book reviews but weve got a lot more in the works we can’t wait to share.


Abby, Samantha, Emily and Laura are four real-life besties who love to read – and then talk about what they’re reading, usually over a glass (or three) of wine. They created Book Babes because they think reading is magical, and they want it to be magical for you too.  Follow them on Instagram @bookbabesclt or read their reviews at bookbabesclt.com.  

Who you gonna call? Ghostwriters!

“Writers Wanted.”

You don’t see that sign in the windows of any businesses. Plenty of “Help Wanted” and “Cooks Wanted,” but no such pleading for writers. While perhaps not always wanted with our propensity to correct grammar at the drop of a dangling modifier, writers are needed daily by individuals and organizations around the country. Indeed, nearly everyone and every organization has a story to tell and, brilliant and successful as they are in their world, they often do not possess the time, skills, or discipline to write professionally.

Who they gonna call? Ghostwriters!

Everything you read has been written by someone. Yes, obvious, and books, articles, and blogs immediately come to mind. You can’t imagine how many books, articles, and blogs are crafted entirely or in part by ghostwriters (for celebs, sports stars, politicians, business execs, and regular folks for any multitude of reasons). Less obvious are other pieces of writing we encounter every day such as assembly instructions, that IQ test you took online, training modules, compliance courses, website text, speeches, even the directions on your shampoo bottle. “Wash, rinse, repeat,” someone was paid to write that—probably a ghost.

Ghostwriting has a long—and yes, storied—tradition likely with its infancy in the very dawn of writing. Think of those nameless scribes crafting text for royalty when few could read or write. Some even theorize that certain cave drawings were ghosted. Having grown into its own profession, ghostwriting is as robust today as ever. With hundreds of thousands of books published annually and individuals and organizations seeking to get their message and information out, in addition to all the other bits of writing that flow through our daily lives, the demand for ghosts is scary.

Ghosts can engage in any or every phase of the writing lifecycle including advising, conceptualization, structure and organization, research, writing, editing, proofreading, and formatting; and projects can vary in length from days to a year or more. Often ghostwriters will specialize in certain disciplines or genres. The ghost’s name may be on the final product, but probably won’t. We do this for the love of writing, and to sustain ourselves as we pursue our own literary passion.

The reality is that most writers do not support themselves with their own publications. Unless you’re independently wealthy, have a trust fund or patron, or are fortunate enough to live off your spouse without guilt (for some, the hardest part about being a writer), you must support yourself by other means. Through history, writers have worked about every job imaginable to keep the creditors at bay. If you love the challenge of writing as I do, I can’t think of anything that strikes as close to home for a living as ghostwriting.

Ghostwriting is serious business and we are hired as one would engage any other professional. Some of us work full-time and some work part-time. In 20 years as a ghostwriter, I have written nearly everything conceivable, worked with countless individuals and organizations (including projects that lasted for years and continue today), had my brush with the famous and infamous, had clients share more than I ever needed to know, and had my life threatened once! Seriously, who threatens to kill the writer? Sure, lawyers, accountants, even the piano player—that makes sense. But shoot the writer?

I’ve loved every minute of it—met people beyond my world, gained knowledge I may not have been exposed to, all the while honing my writing skills and paying bills along the way. I choose writing because I’m not much good at anything else and I’ve been told I’m better on paper than in person which I’ve ghosted into the compliment I’m certain it was intended to be.


Interested in learning more about life as a ghost? Join Axel for his upcoming class, “Author for Hire: The Joys and Challenges of Ghostwriting” on Tuesday, April 23, from 6 to 9 pm.


Axel Dahlberg has been a professional ghostwriter for nearly 20 years. He has helped countless individuals and some of the largest organizations in the nation conceptualize, structure, write, edit, and format their texts; working in subjects, genres, and industries he hadn’t dreamed about. Axel holds an MFA degree in creative writing from Arizona State University (where he taught writing) and a BA in English from the U of MN. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction book, Forever Hellos, Hard Goodbyes, endorsed by Make-A-Wish, the National Institutes of Health, the Society of Pediatric Nurses.

Carolyn Forché and the “Poetry of Witness”

By Alexia Paul and Lisa Rubenson

As part of CPCC’s 2019 Sensoria Festival (April 5-12), the public will have two opportunities to hear acclaimed poet and memoirist Carolyn Forché discuss her work and her recent memoir, What You Have Heard is True. Forché is Sensoria’s 2019 Irene Blair Honeycutt Distinguished Lecturer. Both events are free and will take place on CPCC’s main campus, Tuesday, April 9 at 8 pm in Tate Hall and Wednesday, April 10 at 10:30 am in Halton Theatre.

We’re grateful to Ms. Forché for taking time to answer these questions shared by Charlotte Lit members and Sensoria volunteers, Alexia Paul and Lisa Rubenson.

Q: Why did you choose the written word as your path to storytelling over other means of self-expression?

A: I have always written poetry and stories, since I was nine years old, so there was never a question about my mode of expression.

Q: What role does poetry play in today’s social discourse?

A: Poetry has been called “the natural prayer of the human soul.” It is the oldest of the arts, related to ritual and song, and so it remains a powerful force in the human community, although stronger in some cultures than in others. In today’s social discourse in the United States, poetry is almost invisible, but it is culturally vibrant and ascendant, particularly in those communities who have been silenced or subject to repression. In times of crisis, poets are called upon to speak, even in the United States. This has been especially true in the first two decades of this century.

Q: Please tell us about the first time you discovered the power of words to change people’s understanding of the world around them.

A: My first experience of this would have been in childhood, reading and listening to stories and poems at home and at school, and the discovery of the power of words would have happened again and again. But as I grew up, I perceived that not everyone felt this way. Not everyone understood the power of language. But I have seen its power at work throughout my life. It is not only experience that changes human understanding. It is the articulation of that experience.

Q: Does empathy drive you? Hold you back? Is empathy rooted more in hope or despair?

A: Empathy is a gift, and it is one that can be nurtured and expanded. It is absolutely essential for writers to cultivate the empathetic imagination. This is the portal into the larger world of human experience beyond the self. I don’t think empathy is rooted either in hope or despair. Empathy gives us the capacity to touch others, to move beyond the bounds of ourselves. I would say that the capacity for empathy is the foundation of everything else in our spiritual, artistic, and social lives. There is no art without it. If hope is based on clear awareness, then empathy provides it.

Q: Tell us about your writing practice. When do you know it’s time to shift from experiencing/observing/asking and start writing? Or is there a dividing line at all?

A: I keep notebooks, small notebooks that capture my scribbles, that preserve moments I would otherwise forget. When I write, I must be alone if possible, and for a stretch of time uninterrupted. That is all that writing requires: time, solitude, paper, and pen. The poem begins always with a blank page, in a state of not really knowing anything. One discovers the poem as one writes. For prose, especially prose about a certain subject, place, or time, we must sometimes do research, or otherwise prepare ourselves, but there comes a point when such preparation must be set aside. The writer is again one with the paper.

Q: How was the experience of writing a memoir different from writing poems?  Is it a different muscle?

A: For me, the experience was very different. I am a slow writer, and I write many versions of something before I find the right one. That is true of both poetry and prose. But one must hold the whole work in the mind at once. That is a more difficult task with poems, which tend to be shorter, than with long-form prose. One must stay inside the work, live in the world, and this requires a greater commitment of time: days, weeks, months, and years of time. I wrote my prose memoir over a period of fifteen years. In the first phase, I narrowed my subject down to one particular part of my life. In the second, I wrote many hundreds of pages. In the final phase, I found the shape and structure. And I discovered the story that was trying to be told.


After beginning her career at The William Morris Agency, Alexia Paul honed her writing and editorial skills at the Joy Harris Literary Agency in New York, where she sold books to publishers such as Random House and Little Brown. Since the launch of Alexia Paul Editorial here in Charlotte in 2005, she has helped over one hundred clients create or perfect their work. Alexia lives in Plaza Midwood with her husband and two children. Learn more: alexiapaul.com.

Lisa Rubenson is a writer, editor, arts appreciator and Charlotte Lit member. Read more of her work here.

CPCC’s Sensoria Festival 2019 – April 5-12

Editor’s Note: Please join Charlotte Lit and CPCC on Monday April 8 to celebrate Judy Goldman, Sensoria’s 2019 winner of the Irene Blair Honeycutt Lifetime Achievement Award in Literary Arts. A reception in Tate Lobby at 6 pm is followed at 7 pm by the Award Presentation and a reading by and conversation with Goldman. Charlotte Lit is honored to partner with CPCC to present this award.


The writer’s role as truth-teller

By Alexia Paul and Lisa Rubenson

A thriving literary community demands diverse voices. So its a point of pride in Charlotte that Sensoria – CPCCs annual literary arts festival attracts a wide spectrum of writers.

Last year, U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith left Sensoria-goers beautifully awed. Her searing take on our countrys forever us-and-them struggle hit close to home for a city seeking healing in the wake of civic unrest and protests over racial injustice. The year before, Sensoria welcomed George Saunders, who received the 2017 Man Booker Prize for his novel, Lincoln in the Bardo.

Sensoria now continues its 26-year tradition of showcasing a range of literary talent. Poet-turned-memoirist Carolyn Forché has spent her career chronicling the painful intersection of the individual and the larger forces of war, violence, and protest in Latin America. Her term, poetry of witnessreflects a life spent giving voice to those unable to share their own in times of turmoil and persecution.

Poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib is himself a poet of witness, using his kinetic wit to tap into the often devastating reality of growing up black in America. Music is a through line in his work, welcoming us in to his worldview and giving us a beat by which we can stay connected to his story.

Carolyn Forché

Carolyn Forché’s haunting new memoir begins in 1978 when Leonel, a mere acquaintance, requests that she travel to El Salvador to bear witness to a civil war in which 75,000 civilians would die at the hands of a repressive regime. At the time, Forché was a 27-year-old American poet. Doubtful of her purpose on this mission, she continually asks, why me? Why not a journalist or historian? Does her role as a poet augment or diminish her credibility?

As we read, we are witnesses to her witnessing this historic atrocity unfold. The book is almost painfully intimate and demands we not look away, just as Forché chose to not look away. What You Have Heard is True asks the questions: what is the responsibility of storytellers to record and reflect the world around us? What role do poetry and prose have in pursuing and achieving social justice? As she weighs the decision to go to El Salvador, Forché accepts the weight of responsibility: I knew that if I didnt accept his invitation, I could never live as if I would have been willing to do something, should an opportunity have presented itself. I could never say to myself: If only Id had the chance.

What You Have Heard is True is a testament to the power of the written word to remember even the most horrific circumstances. In a 2017 interview, Forché said:

 [Leonel] believed that poetry would affect the world. And it would affect the world not only in our time but in the times to come, because in Latin America, and in many other countries, and in our own country, I would argue, poetry does survive the age. Were still reading Walt Whitmans poems about nursing soldiers wounded in the Civil War. Were still reading. [Source]

Were still reading. Were still writing. And, it matters. – AP

Hanif Abdurraqib 

Photo by Andrew Cenci

As poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib tells us on the cover of his new book, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Questhe has written a love letter to a group, a sound, and an era.The memoir is part homage to the rap group whose music foregrounded the authors experience growing up black in the 1990s in Columbus, Ohio, part autobiography, and part primer on the black communitys contribution to music-making through time.

Abdurraqib seamlessly intertwines the rise, fall and reimagining of A Tribe Called Quest with his own coming-of-age story. His writing moves in and out of the personal and universal, the cultural and historical, amplifying the impact of artists in a community and a shared cultural experience on the journey of a people.

Large lessons emerge from Go Ahead in the Rain. For one, we needn’t have grown up listening to hip-hop or rap to understand their importance and feel their legacy reverberate across a generation. Abdurraqib shows us that music can anchor us in time, place and visceral emotion, before setting us free to imbue it with our own meaning.

And, we dont have to have experienced anothers pain in order to bear witness to it. One way we do this is through art, by allowing ourselves to be moved to the edge of our senses by the lyricism of an image or feeling, turned to prose. Meditating on the idea of mercy as a momentary suspension of fear, Abdurraqib writes:

All of this is about mercy. Im talking about what it is to be from a place that promises to love you while holding a gun to your neck. Im talking about what it feels like to have the gun lowered, briefly, by the hands of some unseen grace. Sometimes, it is a protest that stretches long into a night, or sometimes, it is a reading where a room hears familiar words and cries along with you as you read them out loud. But sometimes, it is a perfect album that arrives just in time to build a small community around you. To briefly hold a hand over your eyes and make a new and welcoming darkness of the world outside, even when it is on fire. (p. 186)

More than a love letter to a group, sound and era, Go Ahead in the Rainis also a love letter sent straight to the heart of every reader. LR


Carolyn Forché has two appearances at CPCC’s main campus on Tuesday April 9 and Wednesday April 10. Hanif Abdurraqib speaks at CPCC’s main campus on Thursday April 11 and again later that evening at Goodyear Arts. See the Sensoria website for full details about the weeklong lineup of events. Note: in some cases, an event might be associated with more than one time and location.


After beginning her career at The William Morris Agency, Alexia honed her writing and editorial skills at the Joy Harris Literary Agency in New York, where she sold books to publishers such as Random House and Little Brown. Since the launch of Alexia Paul Editorial here in Charlotte in 2005, she has helped over one hundred clients create or perfect their work. Alexia lives in Plaza Midwood with her husband and two children. Learn more: alexiapaul.com.

Lisa Rubenson is a writer, editor, arts appreciator and Charlotte Lit member. Read more of her work here.