Steve Bertrand on Books

Did you know there’s a book genre called the feminist caper? It’s having its moment with help from Alex Hay’s novel The Midnight Guests. This is a fun read that follows Diana Gold on the night she opens an opulent hotel...

Author Elizabeth Letts’ novel Fallen for France takes us from the farthest reaches of Morocco to the front lines in France during the early days of World War l with a captivating story of a young boy and his love for a...

Hope House is described as a tender, and yet profane, study of masculinity. Put another way: Hope House follows a group of delinquents trying to find a better life (in most cases) and a halfway house leader desperate to...

The Mississippi Delta and the Cajuns who live there are under threat. When the land dwindles, the culture erodes. That’s the setting behind Stephanie Soileau’s novel, Should the Water Take Us. The story...

Nightlife is under attack. In Imogen Willetts’ book Up All Night, she says the UK lost half of its nightclubs from 2013 to 2024. And the story is the same elsewhere. Why is that and is the traditional Saturday...

Would you buy a house where you know something terrible had happened in the past? That’s the question behind “Buyer Beware,” the latest novel from Irish writer Catherine Ryan Howard. She talks with...

If you’re a fan of British crime drama, you probably know Mark Billingham. His Tom Thorne series, and other projects, have made the jump to TV. His latest novel is Shadow Step, the third in his Detective Declan Miller...

You might know novelist Steven Rowley for his book The Guncle or The Guncle Abroad. His lead character really travels in his latest, Take Me With You. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and finding a bright...

Ben Reeves has written a beautiful debut novel about…death. Travis seems like an ordinary guy; he’s single and lives alone with his cat in his apartment. But his job is to be with us when we die. Some of us recognize...

You have too much stuff and Alan Anderson is the guy who convinced you to buy it. Now he sees the error of his ways and he’s shunned his worldly goods, living in a shed in his backyard and bathing in Long Island Sound...

You might know Bobby Finger from his two earlier novels, The Old Place and Four Squares, or maybe you follow his podcast, Who? Weekly, where he and his cohost Lindsey Weber keep track of would-be celebrities so you...

<p>Chicago writer Melanie Benjamin has made a career out of writing historical fiction with stories that largely center around women. Put another way, Melanie has given us fictional accounts of our non-fiction world. In...

<p>Djamel White is being called a powerful new voice in Irish literature. His debut novel, All Them Dogs, takes a look inside the crime underworld of west Dublin, focusing on a lost young man looking to be found...

<p>Hannah Thurman’s smash debut novel is set in Raleigh, North Carolina, mostly at an under-pressure mental institution. At the center of Mercy Hill is a family of four daughters, their dad, and the mom who is the force...

<p>Charles Schutt is a former Chicago priest who left the Church after 17 years and then successfully moved to the world of corporate recruiting. And he wants you to know why. He’s got a new book out called “A True...