Gin Phillips

“Fierce Kingdom”

Author: Gin Phillips   

Publisher: Viking

Pages: 274

Price: $ 25.00 (Hardcover)

“Fierce Kingdom” is Birmingham novelist Gin Phillips’ third novel and it is heartening to see the way this Birmingham writer has shaped a fine career with three very different novels, never repeating herself.

“The Well and the Mine,” 2007, was set northwest of Birmingham in a coal mining town in 1931. This novel is gritty/realistic—a family struggles to survive in hard times.

“A Little Bit of Spectacular”

Author: Gin Phillips

Publisher: Penguin, Dial Books for Young Readers

Pages: 160

Price: $16.99 (Paperback)

I have from time to time reviewed Young Adult novels and even a children’s book or two but this is my first foray into the Middle Grade, Young Readers category. Young Readers are ages 10 and up, grades 5 and up.

Those are kinds of novels this is not. What then are the strengths which led Barnes and Noble to make The Well and the Mine a "Discover Great New Writers Selection" and the Alabama Library Association to award it the 2009 prize for fiction? There are several.

By Don Noble