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...
Take It Back is so engrossing I stayed up until two a.m. reading it, then spent the next few hours replaying it in my head. Wow! Such a great book with challenging situations and legal and moral quandaries. Mariska Hargitay (Lieutenant Olivia Benson on Law & Order...
Linda Strader joins me today to talk about her memoir, Summers of Fire. Originally from Syracuse, New York, Ms. Strader moved to Prescott, Arizona with her family in 1972. In 1976, she became one of the first women on a U.S. Forest Service fire crew in the Santa Rita...
Blind Vigil is the seventh book in Coyle's Rick Cahill private investigator series, but reads well as a stand-alone book with just enough back story splashed in to orient the reader. Cahill is not on the best of terms with the local law enforcement stemming from days...
On this December 1st, Christina Hoag joins me in a Covid-safe interview. She is a former journalist who has had her laptop searched by Colombian guerrillas, phone tapped in Venezuela, was suspected of drug trafficking in Guyana, hid under a car to evade Guatemalan...
Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery is a look at the therapeutic psychological practice of Catherine Gildiner, a fascinating memoir of how she dealt with five clients, all so severely emotionally damaged that they had to...
Tonya Mitchell joins me today for an interview about what led to her novel, A Feigned Madness. Since reading Jane Eyre in high school, Tonya has been drawn to dark stories, particularly of the Gothic variety. Her influences include Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and...
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