New Books In Literature

Lyndsey Ellis’s debut novel, Bone Broth (Hidden Timber Books 2021) tells the story of Justine Holmes, who is mourning her husband’s death and grappling with both societal and family tensions. It’s 2015, and the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri are still simmering after the fatal police shooting sparked a national debate about use-of-force law, militarization of police, and the relationship between the police and African Americans. Justine’s adult children, an unemployed former activist who is angry at her mother, a realtor still mourning the loss of her only child, and a defeated politician who struggles with his sexual identity, are all mourning their own losses. Tension builds as Justine faces her activist past, her marriage to an abusive husband, and her unquenched longing for family peace, but the only thing that makes her feel alive is stealing small items from other people’s funerals. Lyndsey Ellis is a fiction writer, essayist, and novelist. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, Catapult, Fiction Write