Gayle Woodson is an award-winning writer and internationally-respected surgical educator. She began her career a time when female surgeons were an oddity and was one of the first women to train as a surgical resident at Johns Hopkins. She's been involved in...
Outlawed is an amazing speculative Western that really shakes up the Western genre by tackling the patriarchy, gender roles/identity, race, religion, fertility, and medicine in a unique way. The protagonist is irresistible: a no-nonsense, determined heroine, who has...
I read In a Town Called Paradox shortly after reading Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, set in the same geographic area. Paradox is, in part, the story of how cowboy movies began to be made in Utah—which is diametrically opposed to Abbey’s vision of the West,...
Visiting with me in a safe distanced interview is Rea Frey. Rea is the celebrated author of Not Her Daughter, Because You're Mine, and Until I Find You as well as four nonfiction books, so she's been around the publishing block. Her passions include telling stories,...
Strange Deaths of the Last Romantic is a genre-breaking book with elements of thriller, science fiction, New Adult, and even romance. Which may or may not be a good thing. A boy commits suicide, but doesn’t die—he simply is transported to another location—sans...
With me today is John Cahill, a writer of historical fiction and the author of The Boschloper Saga, set on the frontier of seventeenth-century New York. Boschloper is Dutch for “runner in the woods” and refers to fur traders in general. John was born and raised in...
I read this book because I adored Anita Diamant's earlier novel, The Red Tent. Dogtown, a real community on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, was populated by the downtrodden in early 1800s. When its industry moved elsewhere, those who remained included widows, orphans, freed...
Karen Havelin is a writer and translator from Bergen, Norway. She attended Skrivekunst-akademiet i Hordaland, and has a Bachelor’s degree in French, Literature, and Gender Studies from the University of Bergen and University of Paris Sorbonne. She completed her MFA in...
A Question of Betrayal is the second in Anne Perry's spy series set just prior to World War II. I found it worked well as a stand-alone novel. Elena Standish’s grandfather, Lucas, has retired from British Intelligence, MI6. She follows in his footsteps, and on her...
Today I'm enjoying a virtual interview with Don Hartshorn, author of The Guilty Die Twice, which features a capital murder case deep in the heart of Texas and two lawyer brothers as opposing counsel in the trial. This definitely sounds like I should read it! SS: How...
I'm thrilled to announce that Hunting the Devil is a finalist in the Story Circle Network Sarton Awards for 2020. A Different Kind of Fire is a finalist in the Top Shelf Book Awards in the Social Issues category.
Waiting for the Night Song is a genre-breaking work—literary fiction blended with suspense, racial issues, and climate change. The protagonist, Cadie Kessler, is an entomologist studying beetles and how they kill trees, which in turn, because of the increase in fuel,...
Joining me today for a Covid-safe, very socially-distanced interview is Julie Carrick Dalton. Her debut novel, Waiting for the Night Song, has been named to Most Anticipated 2021 lists by several platforms including Newsweek, Buzzfeed, and Medium, and is an Amazon...
Jaycee Jarvis has been an avid romance reader since devouring all the Sweet Dreams books her middle school library had to offer. Also a fantasy fan from an early age, she often wished those wondrous stories had just a bit more kissing. Now she writes stories with a...
I finally pulled Circe off my to-be-read pile and, Wow! I loved it, even more than I did Miller’s earlier work, The Song of Achilles. As much of mythology is male-centric, it comes as a delight and a surprise that author Madeline Miller riffs on the myth of Circe and...
Joining me today is Pamela Humphrey, author of sweet romantic comedies. She was inspired to write after researching her genealogy. Intending to create a booklet for her mom and immediate family, she set about gathering stories and pictures of the Ramirez family. She...
Valentine begins on February 14, 1976 when a fourteen-year-old Mexican girl, Gloria Ramirez, is picked up at a drive-in by a young oil field worker, Dale Strickland. He's the son of a preacher from Arkansas and reported to be a "good boy." However, hepped up on...
The Library of Legends is a gorgeous novel, a unique blend of historical fiction—based on Ms. Chang’s family stories about the second-Sino Japanese war—mysticism, and folklore. The storytelling is enchanting. The book, due to its broad scope, is told in an omniscient...
Set in present-day Massachusetts, Hinterland is stark and poetic, with far more beneath the surface than the words indicate. It is the third book I’ve read by L.M. Brown, and as in her others, melancholy runs like a ribbon through the pages as does (it seems strange...
Joining me today is Heather Duerre Humann. She is the author of four books: Domestic Abuse in the Novels of African American Women: A Critical Study (2014), Gender Bending Detective Fiction: A Critical Analysis of Selected Works (2017), Another Me: The Doppelgänger in...
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