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S.J. Parris
S.J. Parris writes about her inspiration for Heresy, which masterfully blends true events with fiction into a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.
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In a letter to his readers, John Hart talks about becoming a writer and the challenges he faced in writing The Last Child.
Adam Haslett
A conversation with Adam Haslett, author of Union Atlantic, a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age, the first decade of the twenty-first century.
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Sarah Blake talks about her inspiration for The Postmistress, set in Europe and Cape Cod in 1940.
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   Summary and Book Reviews

Sweeping Up Glass: Summary and book reviews of Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall, plus links to an excerpt from Sweeping Up Glass and a biography of Carolyn Wall.

Sweeping Up Glass Sweeping Up Glass
by Carolyn Wall
Hardcover: Aug 2008,
278 pages.
Paperback: Aug 2009,
336 pages.

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Author Biography
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Critics' Opinion:   very good
Readers' Rating:  4.5 Stars
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Book Summary

Destined to be a classic, Sweeping Up Glass is a tough and tender novel of love, race, and justice, and a ferocious, unflinching look at the power of family.

Olivia Harker Cross owns a strip of mountain in Pope County, Kentucky, a land where whites and blacks eke out a living in separate, tattered kingdoms and where silver-faced wolves howl in the night. But someone is killing the wolves of Big Foley Mountain–and Olivia is beginning to realize how much of her own bitter history she’s never understood: Her mother’s madness, building toward a fiery crescendo. Her daughter’s flight to California, leaving her to raise Will’m, her beloved grandson. And most of all, her town’s fear, for Olivia has real and dangerous enemies.

Now this proud, lonely woman will face her mother and daughter, her neighbors and the wolf hunters of Big Foley Mountain. And when she does, she’ll ignite a conflict that will embroil an entire community–and change her own life in the most astonishing of ways.

Book Reviews

Very Good BookBrowse - BookBrowse First Impression Reviewers
Fifty-three BookBrowse members reviewed this book for "First Impressions", with forty-seven rating it 4 or 5 out of 5 stars – one of our highest ratings to date. This is what they say…
Sweeping Up Glass definitely 'swept me up' from the very first page (Linda G)... You will fall in love with the unusual cast of characters, share their loves, losses and pain, and eventually be swept into a fast paced race to a conclusion that you cannot possibly have imagined (Beth P). It's a great choice for book clubs, lots of 'hidden secrets' and issues for discussion (Linda G). Read all the First Impressions Reviews
Full Review Members Only (members only, 1344 words).


Good  Kirkus Reviews
Wall gives her heroine a powerful voice in this haunting debut.

Good  Booklist
This debut novel does so much more than traditional, tightly focused mysteries. It has a powerfully, sometimes uncomfortably, realized setting; characters who seem drawn from life; and a wide-ranging plot, bursting with complications ... A gripping story and a truly original voice.

Very Good  Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. As the action moves inexorably to its explosive conclusion, Olivia must come to grips with past betrayals, thereby earning a second chance at love, redemption and long overdue justice.

Very Good  Library Journal
Starred Review. The suspense is gripping, the danger is very real, and the reader gets caught up in Wall's powerful, moving debut. Highly recommended for all collections.

Very Good  O, The Oprah Magazine
Haunting, lyrical, entirely absorbing, Sweeping Up Glass deserves a place on the shelf next to classics like True Grit and To Kill A Mockingbird. Carolyn Wall is a brilliant storyteller and this book is a wonderful read

Very Good  The Boston Globe
This extraordinary debut novel, both a "what happened" and a "whodunit," explores survival and the guilt that can accompany it. The writing is filled with arresting images, bitter humor, and characters with palpable physical presence. The fresh voice of that clear-eyed narrator reminded me of Scout in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I literally could not put it down.

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