Bestselling Author
the art of words
Bestselling Author
the art of words
AVAILABLE NOW!
“There’s plenty of sharp, suspenseful action to savor here in this impressively poignant, hauntingly realistic, and searingly moving tale. Schafer intensively explores themes of racism, violence, war, and human welfare. Vivid, boldly written, life-affirming historical fiction drawn from the horrors of the Rwandan genocide crisis.” —Kirkus Reviews
Now a #1 Amazon Bestseller!
In response to the worldwide epidemic of genocides and to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, Suanne Schafer has issued a second edition of Hunting the Devil, revised and with a new Author’s Note. The electronic edition was free from April 7 through July 15, 2024, the hundred days the 1994 genocide lasted.
Part medical procedural, part global political thriller, part vigilante novel, and part fractured romance, Hunting the Devil moves from the dusty washboard roads of Rwanda to an inner-city hospital in America to the Natural History Museum of Belgium to the halls of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania as it deftly traces one woman’s journey toward justice.
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“The depth of emotion of a modernist novel and the epic scope of a historical saga.” —Alicia Rasley, author of The Year She Fell
Passion & Paint (formerly A Different Kind of Fire) depicts one woman’s battle to balance husband, family, career, and ambition. Torn between her childhood sweetheart, her forbidden passion for another woman, the nobleman she had to marry, and becoming a renowned painter, Ruby’s choices mold her in ways she could never have foreseen…
AVAILABLE NOW!
“The depth of emotion of a modernist novel and the epic scope of a historical saga.” —Alicia Rasley, author of The Year She Fell
Ruby Schmidt has the talent, the drive, even the guts to enroll in art school, leaving behind her childhood home and the beau she always expected to marry. Her life at the Academy seems heavenly at first, but she soon learns that societal norms in the East are as restrictive as those back home in West Texas. Rebelling against the insipid imagery woman are expected to produce, Ruby embraces bohemian life. Her burgeoning sexuality drives her into a life-long love affair with another woman and into the arms of an Italian baron. With the Panic of 1893, the nation spirals into a depression, and Ruby’s career takes a similar downward trajectory. After thinking she could have it all, Ruby, now pregnant and broke, returns to Texas rather than join the queues at the neighborhood soup kitchen. She discovers her life back home is as challenging as that in Philadelphia.
Passion & Paint (formerly A Different Kind of Fire) depicts one woman’s battle to balance husband, family, career, and ambition. Torn between her childhood sweetheart, her forbidden passion for another woman, the nobleman she had to marry, and becoming a renowned painter, Ruby’s choices mold her in ways she could never have foreseen…
COMPLETE BOOK LIST
All the latest on my new book releases, including publishing news, critical acclaim, synopses and purchase information. View current and previous titles, plus a dynamic news feed on everything related to my short stories, articles and novels.
Suanne Schafer, born in West Texas at the height of the Cold War, finds it ironic that grade school drills for tornadoes and nuclear war were the same: hide beneath your desk and kiss your rear-end goodbye. Now a retired family-practice physician whose only child has fledged the nest, her pioneer ancestors and world travels fuel her imagination.
ABOUT SUANNE SCHAFER
Suanne Schafer, born in West Texas at the height of the Cold War, finds it ironic that grade school drills for tornadoes and nuclear war were the same: hide beneath your desk and kiss your rear-end goodbye. Now a retired family-practice physician whose only child has fledged the nest, her pioneer ancestors and world travels fuel her imagination.
In one of those random internet searches, I discovered that the United States Post Office issued a commemorative stamp for Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) way back in 2012. I don't know how I missed it, but here are some images to illustrate how Tarzan enchanted readers...
Here, Ruby Schmidt is leaving West Texas to study art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia:
Raised to ranch life, hard work did not bother Ruby. She loved the land as much as Bismarck did, but painting enraptured her. Deep in her soul, she knew she had talent. As far back as she could remember, at every free moment, she had drawn pictures. During times paper was scarce, she traced images in the dust with a stick, lamenting the interminable wind that blew them away. When she sketched, she felt as free as Bismarck’s mustangs. If not allowed to become a painter, she would shrivel up inside. But leaving Bismarck had been harder than she thought possible. At the break in his voice when he said goodbye, only her white-knuckled grip on the handrail kept her from falling into his arms. She could turn around. She could go back. It wasn’t too late.
The clacking of wheels on train tracks set the pace of her swirling thoughts. Yes. No. Stay. Go. The train’s whistle announced the stop in Big Spring. Ruby stood, preparing to get off the train, still not certain if she was coming or going, but thinking she should at least stretch her legs. As she descended, she noticed a careworn woman waiting on the platform. Not much older than Ruby herself, the woman was pregnant, had a toddler slung on one hip, and her fingers enclosed another child’s hand.
Ruby closed her eyes. That was her future if she returned home. She got back on the train and announced her final decision with a determined stomp of her foot, loud enough that the men around her looked up in surprise. After an apologetic shrug, she returned to her thoughts. She would stick with her original plan. Bismarck had agreed to wait a year. If her studies didn’t work out, she could always return home. Things would still be the same. Nothing ever changed in Truly.
Classical statues and Renaissance statues of the human body, like Michelangelo's David, were modeled on well-toned bodies of athletes. However, their genitalia was portrayed under-sized as artistic depictions of penises of normal size, even flaccid, distracted from...
My book, A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE, is about an eighteen-year-old woman who goes to Philadelphia to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). I will be blogging about some of the paintings and artists she encounters while at school. As as former physician, I have always been fascinated by The Gross Clinic, so of course, the painting had to be featured in the book.
My novel, A Different Kind of Fire, has been selected by Waldorf Publishing for publication in 2018. They have picked up my second novel, as yet unnamed, for 2019. Set against the Gilded Age of America, a time when suffragettes fight for reproductive rights and the...
My novel, A Different Kind of Fire, features a woman artist in the 1890s as she struggles to reconcile art, career, motherhood, lovers, and marriage. Sounds like nothing much has changed for women since then. Waldorf Publishing says it will be out sometime in 2018....
My novel, A Different Kind of Fire, was a finalist for the 2016 Gival Press Novel Award, judged by author John Domini.
News from the WisRWA Fab Five contest: A Different Kind of Fire placed third in the Wisconsin Romance Writers in the women’s fiction category.
Like thousands of other girls growing up in the fifties and sixties, I adored the Ape Man. The British anthropologist and naturalist, Jane Goodall admits her study of chimpanzees was an attempt to fulfill her dream of living among the apes like Tarzan. I envision a serious chick-fight between myself and Jane Goodall over the King of the Jungle. Like Goodall, I’m convinced I’d have been a better wife for Tarzan than Jane Porter, the American girl he married.
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