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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-
Interview: Lauren Ho, author of Last Tang Standing

Interview: Lauren Ho, author of Last Tang Standing

Lauren Ho joins me today in a socially-distanced interview. She is a reformed legal counsel who writes funny stories. Hailing from Malaysia, she lived in the United Kingdom, France and Luxembourg before moving with her family to Singapore, where she is ostensibly...

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Book Review: After Elias by Eddy Boudel Tan

Book Review: After Elias by Eddy Boudel Tan

After Elias is one of the most beautifully-written books I’ve read recently. It’s also a genre-breaker, gracefully combining a fractured romance with elements of a thriller and psychological drama. One week before their wedding, Coen Caraway loses Elias Santos, the...

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Book Review: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Book Review: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles retells the story of Achilles from the point of view of his lover, Patroclus. With all the verve of Mary Renault, Miller gives new life to The Iliad as well as developing a sweet, tender love story between the two men. As a child, I read the Greek...

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Book Review: After Kilimanjaro by Gayle Woodson

Book Review: After Kilimanjaro by Gayle Woodson

After Kilimanjaro is Gayle Woodson’s debut novel, and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Her descriptions of the wilds of the Serengeti and the cities of Arusha and Dar Es Salaam are so accurate I sensed we’d stood in one another’s footsteps, particularly in parts of...

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Interview: Hend Hegazi, author of Even in the Breaks

Interview: Hend Hegazi, author of Even in the Breaks

I am thrilled today to welcome Hend Hegazi. It's definitely a Covid-safe interview because she's based in Egypt. Send was born and raised in Southeastern Massachusetts. Despite her desire to pursue writing as a profession, she graduated from Smith College with a...

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Book Review: Wild Land by Rebecca Hodge

Book Review: Wild Land by Rebecca Hodge

Wild Land is Rebecca Hodge’s debut novel. I read it in part because I had read parts of it in a writing class some time ago and wanted to see how the novel had turned out. Also, I was intrigued that Hodge had chosen a middle-aged female with breast cancer as her...

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Book Review: When the Coin Is in the Air by John Young

Book Review: When the Coin Is in the Air by John Young

When the Coin Is in the Air is John Young’s debut novel. It reads like a coming-of-age memoir. The protagonist, Jason Blake, grows up caught between a mercurial father who is often violent and emotionally abusive, and an older brother who is very competitive yet...

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Book Review: Mirador by James Jennings

Book Review: Mirador by James Jennings

Mirador is set in the United States and Mexico. The time is 1993. The North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is waiting to be ratified by the three countries involved: Canada, Mexico, and the US. To open the way to the potential economic expansion, Mexico has...

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Book Review: Where Will the Sun Shine Tomorrow

Book Review: Where Will the Sun Shine Tomorrow

Rashi Rohatgi’s literary debut is Where the Sun Will Rise Tomorrow. It is set in 1905 which is the early Edwardian era of Great Britain and her colonies. Britain still occupies India, and that colors everything in Indian life. Years ago I read An Autobiography or the...

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Book Review: Master Class by Christina Dalcher

Book Review: Master Class by Christina Dalcher

Master Class takes a dark look at how a near-future America slides into totalitarianism and eugenics. The system relies completely on a system of Q scores which encompass each person’s intelligence, economic status, etc. The higher one’s Q score, the more privileges...

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Interview: Natalee Cooper, author of A Heart’s Design

Interview: Natalee Cooper, author of A Heart’s Design

Joining me today in a Covid-distanced interview is author Natalee Cooper. While writing heartwarming romance is her passion, baking is a close second. And eating said baked goodness. Like bread. Homemade, warm, delicious bread. She's lived along the Wastach Front most...

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Book Review: Concealed by Esther Amini

Book Review: Concealed by Esther Amini

Concealed is an amazing memoir. So often I find that memoirs are really authors’ ego trips, and they never derive any life-changing conclusions from their stories. Concealed avoids that trap quite nicely. Of Persian Jewish descent, Esther grows up in Queens, New York...

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Book Review: The Best Part of Us by Sally Cole-Misch

Book Review: The Best Part of Us by Sally Cole-Misch

The Best Part of Us is a powerful novel about family dynamics and the human need to be true to one’s inner self. Beth, the protagonist, is a tweenager—she feels left out in her family; she’s too old for kid stuff and too young for everything else. Her older brother...

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Interview: Eddy Boudel Tan, author of After Elias

Interview: Eddy Boudel Tan, author of After Elias

Eddy Boudel Tan is the author of two novels, After Elias, to be released this week on September 12, 2020 and The Rebellious Tide, due out in the spring 2021. His work depicts a world much like our own—the heroes are flawed, truth is distorted, and there is as much...

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Book Review: Victorine by Drema Drudge

Book Review: Victorine by Drema Drudge

Victorine is Drema Drudge’s debut novel, and a delight it is. She's captured the spirit of Belle Époque France from the time of the American Civil War in the 1860s through the Siege of Paris by the Prussians in 1870-1871 and artist Manet’s death in 1883. Victorine...

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Interview: Jody A. Forrester, author of Guns Under the Bed

Interview: Jody A. Forrester, author of Guns Under the Bed

Jody A. Forrester and I are both "women of a certain age." She was born and raised in Los Angeles during the uneasy Fifties and tumultuous Sixties; I was raised in conservative West Texas during that same time frame. She graduated from high school in 1969, when the...

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Book Review: Scorpionfish by Natalie Bakopoulos

Book Review: Scorpionfish by Natalie Bakopoulos

Scorpionfish, released July 7, 2020 by Tin House Books, is a lovely novel about the a woman finding herself. Mira, a Greek-American academic returns to Athens to clean out the apartment of her recently-dead parents. While there, her long-term boyfriend breaks up with...

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Interview: Peggy A. Wheeler, author of Desert Raven

Interview: Peggy A. Wheeler, author of Desert Raven

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing a new-to-me author, Peggy A. Wheeler. Her non-fiction articles have appeared in numerous magazines. Her poetry appears in small press magazines and women’s anthologies dating back to the early 1980s. She has a B.A. in English...

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