Big news! “Cracker Gothic: A Florida Woman’s Memoir” has recently been reviewed on The Florida Book Review website. It is an honor for me to be included among so many legendary Florida books and authors! FBR Contributing Editor Victoria Calderin writes:  “Anyone who has ever cared for an ailing family member, lost a spouse, felt that tourists just don’t get their town, won free coffee for a week, knows #floridaman, understands gator hunting to be a profitable business, or grew up looking at calendars in awe of their mysterious white winters will find a kindred spirit in Wanda Suttle Duncan.”

You can read the full review here.

The Florida Book Review website is a great resource for all types of Florida reading –  you’ll find reviews and articles on works by Harriet Beecher Stowe to Carl Hiaasen to Zora Neale Hurston, and of course, my favorite, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. There is something for everyone in Florida literature, and you’ll find it all on the FBR website. Contemporary works like “Mostly Dead Things” by Kristen Arnett and Lauren Groff’s “Florida” are reviewed there. So are the books that have come to be known as the bastions of Florida history and culture: “A Land Remembered” by Patrick D. Smith and Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s “The Everglades: River of Grass.” The website is divided into sections, providing a hint to the broad diversity of literary genres plumbed by Florida writers. Working through all of the books listed in the  “Classic Florida Reads” section would keep me happily reading, nonstop, for a year.

Along with many literary standards, there are some surprising jewels to be found as you peruse this website. A visit to the “Food and Drink” page provides a detailed and entertaining review of “The Storm Gourmet: A Guide to Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity” by Daphne Nikolopoulos. Lynne Barrett is the reviewer, and she explains why this book is invaluable not only to Floridians subject to arbitrary and lengthy power outages, but anyone who wants some culinary creativity when camping or boating, And let’s not limit this to Floridians; it could really come in handy if you’re stranded without electricity in January after an ice storm takes out the power lines to your neighborhood for days.  How can you resist a survival book that has the audacity to suggest a menu of Tapenade Toasts, Salmon-Tabouli Salad with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Pine Nuts, and Peach-Raspberry Torte? Another great find on the website’s “Food and Drink” page is “To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion” by Philip Greene. Reviewed by Bob Morison, the book is a cocktail itself of recipes, literary notes, and photos. There are children’s books, YA books, sports, fantasy, crime, mystery, you name it. As a writer, the list of Florida presses and Florida literary publications is particularly helpful.

I highly recommend a visit to The Florida Book Review, and send my thanks to them for taking the time to read and review “Cracker Gothic.”