The Seaboard Review of Books
Issue Date: Monday, August 17, 2026
In this issue:
Externalities by D.H. Johnston (Fiction)
Over the Lights and Over the Houses by Tom Halford (Fiction)
Owl King by Bex Hogan (Fiction, YA)
Plants of the Pacific Coast (Non-Fiction)
Children of the SS Atlantic by Danille Metcalfe-Chenail (Non-Fiction)
In the Dark Hours by Jeremy Le Page (Poetry)
Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review of Books!
James M. Fisher, editor-in-chief
Fiction
Externalities by D.H. Johnston
Family histories have a way of compressing lives into milestones. Someone leaves home. Someone builds a business. Someone dies. Years later, those events become the story a family tells about itself. In Externalities, D. McCall Johnston invites readers to linger over what lies in between.
Over the Lights and Over the Houses by Tom Halford
Over the Lights and Over the Houses by Tom Halford is the forthcoming novel published by Porcupine’s Quill in September 2026. We follow Nicky’s story in reuniting with his sister and facing their ghosts from the past, present, and future. The siblings have to face the consequences of unresolved pain as they learn to connect again with one another. Nicky…
Owl King by Bex Hogan
Owl King by Bex Hogan is the second in her YA fantasy Faery Realms series. You don’t have to have read the first book, Nettle, to enjoy Owl King. While it’s set in the same world and Nettle and Ellion are secondary characters, Owl King stands on its own. After reading
Non-Fiction
Plants of the Pacific Coast by Jim Pojar, Andy MacKinnon, Jamie Fenneman, and Leigh Joseph (Styawat)
Charles Darwin couldn’t just stop and smell the roses. Or, for that matter, any other plant.
Children of the SS Atlantic by Danille Metcalfe-Chenail
On April 1, 1873, the SS Atlantic sank off the coast of Prospect/Terrance Bay in Nova Scotia, an event that led to the deaths of 550 out of 952 passengers and crew. It’s the first of two White Star Line disasters connected to Nova Scotia, the second being the more famous Titanic.
Poetry
In the Dark Hours by Jeremy Le Page
The spare poems in Jeremy Le Page’s debut collection In the Dark Hours (Lost Telegram Press, 2026) retain a cryptic stillness not unlike wildlife one might come upon in a forest, or some other natural setting of the psyche where these poems reside. Best not to make any sudden moves lest they skitter away. They seem to ask for some kind of communal respe…
August’s Saturday Short
Traveling West by C. Lee McKenzie
Salman hoisted the Gucci bag over his shoulder. He'd discarded the crude leather case he'd purchased before leaving home and replaced it with this one as his first business in the United States. With one hand firmly grasping the rail, he stepped into the train.
Contributor News
Lisa Timpf recently had a guest post about the farms of the future on Timothy S. Johnston's blog (he's a Canadian writer based in Southern Ontario).
