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An author blog from a Texas girl who’s seen the world…
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BOOK REVIEW: First Course by Jenn Bouchard

Janie Whitman, the protagonist in First Course, undergoes a life-changing twenty-four hours. First, she loses her job in Chicago and the boyfriend/boss there breaks up with her. Then, hard on those happenings, her parents die in a plane crash, and her sister, Alyssa,...

Enter My Holiday Giveaway!

One lucky participant will win: A hand-made cozy scarf A signed copy of A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE Bookish print swag Click here to enter, or use the widget below. No purchase necessary. The more ways you enter, the more your chances of winning. Good luck and have fun!...

A Halloween story: Morrigan

  Morrigan © Suanne Schafer A whistled song disturbs my sleep. Just outside the churchyard, I lie, warm and drowsy, buried within the earth, roofed by a grove of dark pines whose fallen needles and verdant mosses quilt my bed. Loath to leave a lovely pleasure, I...

New Book Trailer! Hunting the Devil

In case you missed it in my newsletter and here on the front and book pages of my website, here's the new goosebump-inducing book trailer for Hunting the Devil. I hope you love it as much as I do! 😈📚🎬

Enter My Summer-Into-Fall Book Lovers Giveaway!

One grand prize winner will receive a signed paperback copy of A Different Kind of Fire, a handmade beaded velvet bookmark, and a Hunting the Devil book bag. Ends at Midnight/CT on September 5th Good luck and have fun! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enter My First Springtime Giveaway

More daylight = more time to read, so it felt like the perfect occasion for a new bookish giveaway! 🌞📚One lucky winner will receive an eBook copy of A Different Kind of Fire, and a $10 Amazon gift card. This one ends a week from today, so get in while you can. Click...
-Blog Updates-
Book Review: The Van Gogh Woman by Debby Beece

Book Review: The Van Gogh Woman by Debby Beece

In the current surge of books written about the Post-Impressionist painter, Vincent Willem Van Gogh, author Debby Beece presents a somewhat unique view. She writes of the triad formed by Van Gogh himself, his brother Theo, and Johanna, Theo’s wife, seen primarily from...

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Book Review: Elektra by Jennifer Saint

Book Review: Elektra by Jennifer Saint

Elektra follows three different women through the Trojan War. First are Clytemnestra and Elektra herself, a mother-daughter duo that demonstrates the tragic interconnection between their fates. Cassandra, the “mad” daughter of King Priam and his wife, Hecuba, is...

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Book Review: The Doctor’s Daughter by Shari J. Ryan

Book Review: The Doctor’s Daughter by Shari J. Ryan

The Doctor’s Daughter is World War II fiction at its best. It shows how families can be divided by war and by political beliefs—and even misconceptions. The point of view alternates between the two protagonists, Sofia Amsler and Isaac Cohen, though Sofia's story...

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Book Review: Optic Nerve by María Gainza

Book Review: Optic Nerve by María Gainza

I started out not liking Optic Nerve, an “autofiction” book, feeling it read as the rather self-indulgent memoir of a neurotic woman. However, I soon changed my mind. The author, María Gainza, is an Argentine art critic, and her insights into herself and the paintings...

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Book Review: Rewrite the Stars by Christina Consolino

Book Review: Rewrite the Stars by Christina Consolino

Rewrite the Stars is about a failing marriage—one that is complicated by the husband’s post-Afghanistan PTSD. Sadie and Theo are watching their true love and dream marriage dissolve, and they must decide whether to give up or dig in and retrench. Sadie, a working...

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Book Review: Truth and Other Lies by Maggie Smith

Book Review: Truth and Other Lies by Maggie Smith

Truth and Other Lies is an impressive debut. Author Maggie Smith juggles two genres (coming-of-age and mystery), three nuanced female characters, and multiple difficult topics. The youngest of the three women, Megan Barnes, returns to Chicago after losing her job and...

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Book Review: Acts of the Women by Patrick Anderson

Book Review: Acts of the Women by Patrick Anderson

Acts of the Women is grounded in one of the most known and most sacred stories in history, the death of Jesus Christ. Author Patrick Anderson significantly twists this story by telling it from the points of view of the women involved, many of whom are well known,...

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Book Review: Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

Book Review: Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

Portrait of a Thief is told from the points of view of five Chinese-American college students. Will Chen, an art history student at Harvard, is approached by a Chinese super-corporation to  steal five sculptures (fountain heads looted from the Old Summer Palace in...

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Interview: Maggie Smith, author of Truth and Other Lies

Interview: Maggie Smith, author of Truth and Other Lies

Maggie Smith joins me today. She loves a challenge. In careers that have included work as a journalist, a psychologist, and the founder of a national art consulting company, she’s now added published author to her resume. Raised in Oklahoma but a resident of Wisconsin...

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Book Review: Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

Book Review: Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

Ariadne looks at the many ways women are subject to men (and how both males and females subject to the whims of the gods). All women face one or more of these at the hands of men: domestic physical and emotional abuse, rape, infidelity, being treated as chattel,...

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Book Review: The Bucharest Dossier by William Maz

Book Review: The Bucharest Dossier by William Maz

The Bucharest Dossier is a classic espionage thriller set in 1989 against the back drop of the Romanian Revolution and the fall of communism. The protagonist, Bill Heflin, is a double refugee. As a child, he moved from Romania to Greece then on to America, resulting...

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Book Review: Fairy Godmurder by Sarah J. Sover

Book Review: Fairy Godmurder by Sarah J. Sover

Sarah J. Sover’s first book, Double-Crossing the Bridge, is a play on the fairy tale “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.” If you ever wanted a story about the Underworld, filled with trolls and other monsters, Double-Crossing the Bridge is for you. Sover's second novel,...

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Book Review: The Third Warrior by Carol Potenza

Book Review: The Third Warrior by Carol Potenza

I've been a long-time fan of Tony Hillerman since my father introduced me to those mysteries way back in the early 1970s. Since then, I've read every Tony Hillerman book and, being raised in the Southwest, love how he (and later his daughter, Anne Hillerman) capture...

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Book Review: Erik the Red by Tilman Röehrig

Book Review: Erik the Red by Tilman Röehrig

Erik the Red is a fictional account of the life of the eponymous Erik Thorvaldsson, a medieval Norse explorer. Erik is portrayed as a hot-tempered young man and follows his life until his death. Other prominent characters include Erik’s wife as well as his best...

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Book Review: Out Front the Following Sea by Leah Angstman

Book Review: Out Front the Following Sea by Leah Angstman

Out Front the Following Sea is a delight to read. It’s thoroughly researched but doesn’t get bogged down in historical facts. Set in 1689, during the King William’s War between French and English settlers, the novel abounds with adventure and romance as it deals with...

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Book Review: What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

Book Review: What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

Stephanie Foo uses her journalism background to research and beautifully write her memoir of surviving long-term childhood abuse, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex. When her therapist reveals Ms. Foo's diagnosis of Complex PTSD, Ms. Foo begins years...

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Book Review: The Collector’s Apprentice by B. A. Shapiro

Book Review: The Collector’s Apprentice by B. A. Shapiro

In The Collector’s Apprentice, the author B. A. Shapiro disguises the life of Dr. Albert Coombs Barnes, the chemist and physician, as Edwin Bradley, a man with a similar history, and turns it into a thriller. Both men develop a medication, Argyrol, to prevent...

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Book Review: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Book Review: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Gods of Jade and Shadow is quite different from Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s noir-ish Velvet Was the Night. Gods of Jade and Shadow is set in the Yucatan peninsula during the 1920s. The old myths and religious beliefs of the indigenous folk have withered away, supplanted by...

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Book Review: Violeta by Isabel Allende

Book Review: Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta is a coming of age story written in an epistolary style in a very long manuscript she sends to her grandson, Camilo. The protagonist, Violeta Del Valle, came into the world with the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1920, and, now 100, faces the Coronavirus...

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