News, Reviews & Views
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: 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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Book Review: Bayou City Burning by D.B. Horton

Book Review: Bayou City Burning by D.B. Horton

Bayou City Burning is the first in a series of father/daughter detective stories, the Harry and Dizzy Lark Books, by D.B. Borton. It’s set in Houston with an authentic sense of place complete with the stench of Texas oil refineries, arrow-straight stretches of...

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Interview: Michael Cordell, author of Contempt

Interview: Michael Cordell, author of Contempt

Michael Cordell has been a writer for many years. After having had a play produced by several theatre companies in the Midwest, Cordell turned his attention to screenwriting. He sold three screenplays to Hollywood, one of which was produced starring Harvey Keitel and...

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Book Review: Until I Find You by Rea Frey

Book Review: Until I Find You by Rea Frey

Until I Find You by Rea Frey was released on August 11 by St. Martin's Press. It is an emotional, poignant novel written in the points of view of Rebecca—a nearly-blind woman, a recent widow, and a new mother—and that of Crystal, a friend of Rebecca’s who lives...

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Interview: Barbara Conrey, author of Nowhere Near Goodbye

Interview: Barbara Conrey, author of Nowhere Near Goodbye

Joining me today is Barbara Conrey, author of Nowhere Near Goodbye, released August 4, 2020 by Red Adept Publishing. She worked in the health care industry for many years before opting for an early retirement, which lasted all of three months. She then accepted a...

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Book Review: Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins

Book Review: Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins

Megan Collins’s debut novel, The Winter Sister, was filled with gorgeous prose and a story that was spellbinding, atmospheric, and deeply touching. On August fourth, Atria Books released Collins's sophomore novel, Behind The Red Door. It doesn’t disappoint. Collins’s...

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Interview with Diane Zinna, author of The All-Night Sun

Interview with Diane Zinna, author of The All-Night Sun

Diane Zinna joins me virtually today. She received her MFA from the University of Florida and went on to teach creative writing for ten years. She was formerly the executive co-director at AWP, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, which hosts the largest...

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Book Review: Uncovered by Leah Lax

Book Review: Uncovered by Leah Lax

Uncovered by Leah Lax is her memoir of leaving her Hasidic Jewish community and becoming herself. It might be read in conjunction with Concealed by Esther Amini, also a memoir of leaving a fundamental Jewish family and becoming an integrated person. Lax, a Texan with...

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Book Review: A Matter of Chance by Julie Maloney

Book Review: A Matter of Chance by Julie Maloney

A Matter Of Chance, a domestic thriller, is Julie Maloney’s debut novel. Maddy Stewart, a single mom is on vacation at the Jersey shore with her eight-year-old daughter, Vinni. While on the beach with her daughter, she sees her elderly neighbors, and the husband...

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