Bestselling Author
the art of words
Bestselling Author
the art of words
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“There’s plenty of sharp, suspenseful action to savor here in this impressively poignant, hauntingly realistic, and searingly moving tale. Schafer intensively explores themes of racism, violence, war, and human welfare. Vivid, boldly written, life-affirming historical fiction drawn from the horrors of the Rwandan genocide crisis.” —Kirkus Reviews
Now a #1 Amazon Bestseller!
In response to the worldwide epidemic of genocides and to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, Suanne Schafer has issued a second edition of Hunting the Devil, revised and with a new Author’s Note. The electronic edition was free from April 7 through July 15, 2024, the hundred days the 1994 genocide lasted.
Part medical procedural, part global political thriller, part vigilante novel, and part fractured romance, Hunting the Devil moves from the dusty washboard roads of Rwanda to an inner-city hospital in America to the Natural History Museum of Belgium to the halls of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania as it deftly traces one woman’s journey toward justice.
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“The depth of emotion of a modernist novel and the epic scope of a historical saga.” —Alicia Rasley, author of The Year She Fell
Passion & Paint (formerly A Different Kind of Fire) depicts one woman’s battle to balance husband, family, career, and ambition. Torn between her childhood sweetheart, her forbidden passion for another woman, the nobleman she had to marry, and becoming a renowned painter, Ruby’s choices mold her in ways she could never have foreseen…
AVAILABLE NOW!
“The depth of emotion of a modernist novel and the epic scope of a historical saga.” —Alicia Rasley, author of The Year She Fell
Ruby Schmidt has the talent, the drive, even the guts to enroll in art school, leaving behind her childhood home and the beau she always expected to marry. Her life at the Academy seems heavenly at first, but she soon learns that societal norms in the East are as restrictive as those back home in West Texas. Rebelling against the insipid imagery woman are expected to produce, Ruby embraces bohemian life. Her burgeoning sexuality drives her into a life-long love affair with another woman and into the arms of an Italian baron. With the Panic of 1893, the nation spirals into a depression, and Ruby’s career takes a similar downward trajectory. After thinking she could have it all, Ruby, now pregnant and broke, returns to Texas rather than join the queues at the neighborhood soup kitchen. She discovers her life back home is as challenging as that in Philadelphia.
Passion & Paint (formerly A Different Kind of Fire) depicts one woman’s battle to balance husband, family, career, and ambition. Torn between her childhood sweetheart, her forbidden passion for another woman, the nobleman she had to marry, and becoming a renowned painter, Ruby’s choices mold her in ways she could never have foreseen…
COMPLETE BOOK LIST
All the latest on my new book releases, including publishing news, critical acclaim, synopses and purchase information. View current and previous titles, plus a dynamic news feed on everything related to my short stories, articles and novels.
Suanne Schafer, born in West Texas at the height of the Cold War, finds it ironic that grade school drills for tornadoes and nuclear war were the same: hide beneath your desk and kiss your rear-end goodbye. Now a retired family-practice physician whose only child has fledged the nest, her pioneer ancestors and world travels fuel her imagination.
ABOUT SUANNE SCHAFER
Suanne Schafer, born in West Texas at the height of the Cold War, finds it ironic that grade school drills for tornadoes and nuclear war were the same: hide beneath your desk and kiss your rear-end goodbye. Now a retired family-practice physician whose only child has fledged the nest, her pioneer ancestors and world travels fuel her imagination.
The Seed Keeper is a multi-generational saga told from the points of view of four different women. The primary story is that of Rosalie Iron Wing, who is orphaned young and sent to foster care. There, she meets Gaby Makespeace, forming a friendship that lasts decades....
I enjoyed reading the first in Carol Potenza’s mystery series, String of Lies, and found I liked the second, Echo of Lies, just as much. Potenza writes of strong female protagonists who don’t need to be rescued—my kind of women. The newest protagonist, Francie Cortez,...
Minor Black Figures is an interesting blend of politics, art, and LGBTQI issues. Wyeth, a young Black artist, was raised by a distant White mother and absent Black father. He worries constantly about how people perceive him and his art. He’s having trouble painting...
After her husband’s death, the protagonist of Brenda Barker's Next Chapter, Brenda decides to write the book her spouse, Maynard, always disparaged. She married him, a rodeo cowboy turned construction worker, because he offered stability. Now, he’s dead, their only...
I enjoy reading about art and artists (especially women artists and their struggles for recognition in the male-oriented art world), so I was particularly drawn to this book. The Woman Who Painted the Seasons is the fictional biography of Lena Krassner (who renames...
Knowing that Susan Bernhard has a new book (Westerly) coming out on June 1, 2026, I decided to reread her marvelous debut novel, Winter Loon, before reading the new one. In Winter Loon, Wes Ballott watches his mother die in a frozen lake in Minnesota. After that...
As a physician, I enjoy reading books dealing with medical issues and/or medical ethics, especially if the author gets the "medical stuff" right without too many glaring errors. In Midwives, author Bohjalian does just that. He takes an experienced midwife,...
In Illusion of Truth, the third in the Detective Emily Hunter mystery series, author James L'Etoile continues the story of Emily Hunter as she solves a crime spree that affects her—and someone she loves—directly. One of the things I like best about this series...
The Nickel Boys, a multi-award winning novel (Pulitzer Prize, Kirkus Prize, National Book Award Nominee, etc etc etc), deserves every accolade. It is based on events that occurred in a reform school in Tennessee that for 111 years abused and neglected boys sentenced...
Tom Clavin brings to life another episode in the American Wild West during the late nineteenth century, this time focusing on the Daltons. The Last Outlaws deals with the Dalton gang (later becoming the Doolin-Dalton gang) that cut a reign of terror from Kansas and...
Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras is semi-autobiographical fiction in the vein of Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and is a masterful debut novel set in Columbia during the time it was controlled by 128 paramilitary groups, including Pablo...
I read the first two in Daniel Hecht’s Cree Black series, City of Masks and Land of Echoes, which are genre-bending mixes of mystery, paranormal, horror, and ghost stories. Cree Black is a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist who works for a company that investigates...
Jodi Picoult brilliantly blends multiple points of view in Handle with Care, a well-researched novel about a child born with osteogenesis imperfect (brittle bone disease). Picoult also tackles multiple difficult topics (wrongful birth, medical malpractice, our...
Hello Wife has a lot in common with Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver as both deal with the problem of drug addiction in contemporary America, though I preferred the Kingsolver version. Charlotte Lansing, the protagonist of Hello Wife, is a fifty-something woman...
The Pasha of Cuisine reminds me of another Turkish book I read recently, The Architect’s Apprentice by El if Shafak. Both are set in the Ottoman Empire, are based in a tradition of oral storytelling, and have a dash of magical realism. When the old sultan dies, his...
I’m continuing my quest to read the entirety of Larry McMurtry’s works. In The Last Kind Words Saloon, McMurtry returns to the late nineteenth century American West of Lonesome Dove. This is a sequel of sorts to Telegraph Days but with a different cast of characters...
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