September 2008
Kathleen Kent – The Heretic’s Daughter
Kathleen Kent is a tenth-
generation descendant of
Martha Carrier. She is also
a masterful storyteller, and
in her first novel she paints a
haunting portrait, not just of
Puritan New England but also
of one family’s deep and
abiding love in the face of
fear and persecution.
Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha’s courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.
Read the interview with Kathleen at the Author 10 Q&A page.
The Heretic’s Daughter is available for purchase at:
Blog Stop dates and blogs:
September 1 – Devourer of Books
September 5 – Anything That Pays… A Freelance Writer’s Blog
September 8 – Literarily
September 10 – Writers, Witches and Words… Oh My!
September 12 – Book Room Reviews
September 15 – Something She Wrote
September 17 – She Reads Books
September 19 – Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
September 22 – Presenting Lenore
September 26 – Bookish Ruth
Christine Blevins – Midwife of the Blue Ridge
Christine Blevins grew up on the south side of Chicago. She is the youngest of four children born to Ukrainian immigrants.
While in Scotland on vacation, a story popped into her head – not an unusual event. Two years later it was finished – her first book – a historical novel set in 18th century Scotland. She learned many things in completing this first effort – most important being how much she enjoyed research and how much she loved storytelling. The muse very quickly smacked her on the head again, and this time, MIDWIFE OF THE BLUE RIDGE was born.
Christine Blevins lives in Elmhurst, Illinois with her husband Brian, two of said four children (the elder two having moved onward) and the family golden-doodle, Dude.
The year is 1763 and the British have defeated the French, putting an end to the intercontinental war that had ravaged the American Colonies for seven long years.
In the highlands of Scotland, Maggie Duncan is desperate to alter the course of her lonely, hardscrabble life. In search of a new beginning, the young midwife puts her mark to terms of indenture, turns her back on her homeland, and embarks on an adventure into the great unknown.
Maggie survives the perilous journey across treacherous seas and makes landfall in Virginia Colony. Her indenture is sold at auction and she is bound to provide four years of service to a farming family living on the remote frontier in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
No longer under threat of war, the Virginian uplands are being claimed and settled by bold men seeking their fortunes. Frontier folk face adversity daily as they carve out an existence in this wild, beautiful place. Rugged backwoodsmen vie with determined homesteaders and brutal land speculators for ground, game, and the favors of a handful
of women.
More than one of these daring men are drawn to the pretty midwife, and more than ever Maggie must rely on her wits, her healing skills and her strength of heart to survive in a savage land where the whisper of Indian uprising lies just over the horizon.
Midwife of the Blue Ridge is available for purchase at:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Read the interview with Christine at the Author 10 Q&A page.
Blog Stop dates and blogs:
September 1 – Mom Is Just A Nickname
September 5 – Mama Needs A Book Contract
September 8 – The Book Faery Reviews
September 10 – From The Cheap Seats… Writings, Reviews and More
September 12 – Jenn Hollowell: Working Writer
September 15 – Vitesis
September 17 – Devourer of Books
September 22 – Bookish Ruth
September 26 – Flibbity Gibbet
September 29 – The Bluestocking Society
Camille Marchetta – The River, By Moonlight
Camille Marchetta is a woman of many talents. In addition to various episodes and TV movies, she was story-editor on Dallas its first two seasons, watching as it climbed from obscurity to international hit. She wrote and produced the series Nurse, which won Michael Learned an Emmy, and Dynasty the year it reached the top of the ratings. Camille co-executive-produced Falcon Crest, and was story consultant on Central Park West. With Ivana Trump, she co-authored two best-selling novels, and has written three of her own: Lovers and Friends, The Wives of Frankie Ferraro, and now, The River, By Moonlight.
On a rainy April night in 1917, a passing vagrant sees a young woman fall (or is it jump?) into New York City’s Hudson River. He tries to save her, but fails. The police tentatively identify the woman as Lily Canning, twenty-five years old, from Minuit, a town in the Hudson Valley.
But is it Lily? The question torments her mother, Henrietta, as she awaits confirmation. And when it comes, even more anguishing questions arise, for neither accident nor suicide makes sense. Lily could swim like a fish, and with her looks, and wealth, and talent, with an exhibition of her paintings about to open at a prestigious New York gallery, she had everything to live for.
In the days following her drowning, her heartbroken mother, her estranged husband, Edmund, her family, her friends, even the servant girl, Nuala, try to unravel Lily’s secrets and to come to terms with the devastating consequences of her loss on their own lives.
Set in New York City and the Hudson River Valley, when the country was poised on the brink of the First World War, The River, By Moonlight is a vivid evocation of time and place, and a poignant portrayal of what happens when individual actions and national events collide.
Above all, it is a deeply moving study of grief and despair, of the resilience of human nature, and the triumph of determination and hope.
Read our interview with Camille at the Author 10 Q&A page.
The River, By Moonlight is available for purchase at:
Blog Stop dates and blogs:
September 1 – The Bluestocking Society
September 5 – Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
September 10 – B&B ex libris
September 15 – Jenn Hollowell: Author and Mixed Media Artist
September 17 – From The Cheap Seats… Reviews, Writings and More
September 19 – Writers, Witches and Words…Oh My!
September 23 – Vitesis
September 24 – Sharp Words
September 26 – Mom Is Just A Nickname
September 29 – Devourer of Books
August 2008
Born in the Bronx, New York, to two devoted readers, Ellen Meister understood from an early age that the best way to get someone’s undivided attention was to put words on paper.
And so, after growing up in suburban Long Island with her parents, older brother, and younger sister, she did what any dreamy, unrealistic, word-loving girl of her generation did: She went to college and majored in English.
Ellen graduated Magna Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Buffalo and set off to take the publishing world by storm. Not, however, as a writer. She got a job as a promotions assistant for a small medical publisher with a budget so tight they couldn’t afford a trash can for her desk, let alone a living salary. So one year later, she left for the glamorous side of publishing and went to work for a gigantic literary agency.
The job seemed like a dream come true for the 23-year-old Ellen, whose romanticized notion of writers still fueled her passions. But her tender young nature was so ill-suited to the maniacal atmosphere of the place that one coworker remarked that she looked like Alice in Wonderland sitting at her desk.
Bev is the Smart One, who finally leaves her artistic ambitions in chalk dust (and her humor-impaired husband in the arms—and legs—of his nubile protégée) to become a schoolteacher. Clare is the Pretty One, who married well and seems to be living a designer version of the suburban dream. Joey is the Wild One, struggling to stay clean and sober now that she’s used up her fifteen minutes of fame as a one-hit-wonder rock star.
They love each other but mix like oil, water, and hundred-proof gin . . . a combination that threatens to combust over family tensions, suspected infidelities, a devastating accident, a stunning confession, and the sudden reappearance of their handsome, now all-grown-up former neighbor, Kenny Waxman, who’s back in town making his mark as a TV comedy writer.
It seems they’ll never understand where their differences begin and their own destructive tendencies end. Then it happens: the sisters discover a decades-old body stuffed inside an industrial drum and begin a bold, heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious journey that will either bring them together . . . or tear them apart for good.
See our interview with Ellen at the Author 10 Q&A page.
The Smart One is available for purchase at:
Blog Stop dates and blogs:
August 1 – Mom Is Just A Nickname
August 4 – Virtual Wordsmith
August 8 – Musings From The Mitten
August 9 – The Book Faery Reviews
August 11 – Maw Books
August 18 – Fighting With Writing
August 20 – Book Room Reviews
August 22 – Presenting Lenore
August 25 – Anything That Pays… A Freelance Writer’s Blog
August 29 – She Is Too Fond Of Books
July 2008
Leah Starr Baker – The Bunko Babes
The daughter of acclaimed author Richard Exley, a Mrs. Oklahoma winner and a former recording artist, Leah Starr Baker can now add “debut novelist” to her many accolades. Drawing from her own life experience and that of her colorful female friends, Starr Baker is the latest author to contribute to the growing category of “chic-lit” in women’s fiction.
Becca Thornton loves her thirteen year old twins, her husband Thomas, and her lovely home…but she is frazzled, exhausted, and longing for some time with her girl friends. With the help of her three childhood friends, she starts a weekly Bunko group involving an eclectic group of women. Their original plan was for an evening of fun – indulging in their favorite foods while laughing and talking over a game of Bunko. Little did they know that they were embarking on a faith journey that would change their lives and perspectives forever. Throughout the course of the year, these eight unique women come to depend upon one another in ways that will surprise them all.
Beneath the surface of their everyday lives each woman is dealing with her own personal issues. In the midst of ordinary routines, a weekly game night, laughter and tears, The Bunko Babes find strength and faith as they turn to each other in crisis with the bonds of friendship. A book that goes way beyond spa trips and beauty tips to deal with the real issues women face like infertility, loss, the heartache of infidelity, and temptation. Whether it is something as common as aging or as devastating as addiction, these “Bunko Babes” find new strength through faith and friendship as they turn to each other in times of crisis.
See our interview with Leah at the Author 10 Q&A page.
Bunko Babes is available for purchase at:
Amazon
Harrison House
Borders
BooksAMillion
Blog Stop dates and blogs:
July 1 – Not Enough Coffee
July 3 – Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
July 7 – Mom Is Just A Nickname
July 11 – Mama Needs A Book Contract
July 14 – Something She Wrote
July 16 – Virtual Wordsmith
July 18 – Writing From Kiddom
July 23 – Anything That Pays… A Freelance Writer’s Blog
July 28 – A Mama’s Rant
July 30 – From The Cheap Seats
June – 2008
Xujun Eberlein - Apologies Forthcoming
Xujun Eberlein grew up in Chongqing, China, and moved to the United States in the summer of 1988. After receiving a Ph.D. from MIT in the spring of 1995, and winning an award for her dissertation, she joined a small but ambitious high tech company. On Thanksgiving 2003, she gave up tech for writing. She has since won many literary awards. Her stories and personal essays have been published in the United States, Canada, England, Kenya, and Hong Kong, in magazines such as AGNI, Walrus, PRISM International, StoryQuarterly, Stand and Kwani. Her debut story collection Apologies Forthcoming won the 2007 Tartt Fiction Award and will be published in May 2008. She hosts the literary and cultural blog Inside-out China.
Four decades ago China was embroiled in the Cultural Revolution, a period that turned the country on end and defined the generation of Chinese now coming to power. This collection of stories opens a different door to life during and after that time.
“A totally illuminating collection of stories centered around China’s Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, which, as we learn, continues even today. Xujun Eberlein lived in China during that turmoil and now makes her home in America. This, her first story collection, is both disturbing and enthralling.”
– Livingston Press
Feel free to stop by Xujun’s blog at Inside-Out China. See our interview with Xujun on the Author 10 Q&A page.
Apologies Forthcoming is available for purchase at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Powell’s
Booksense
Blog Stop dates and blogs:
May 28 – Memory Writers Network
May 30 – Memory Writers Network
June 2 – Perpetual Folly
June 9 – From the Cheap Seats
June 12 – Writing From Kiddom
June 13 – Escape to Books
June 18 – Vitesis
June 25 – Musings From The Mitten
June 27 – Writers and witches, and words…oh my!
June 30 – Trish’s Diary
Christina Meldrum received her Bachelor of Arts in religious studies and political science from the University of Michigan. After working in grassroots development in Africa, she earned her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She has worked for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland, and as a litigator at the law firm of Shearman & Sterling. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family and is on the advisory board of Women of the World Investments. MADAPPLE is her first novel.
At once a literary novel and a psychological thriller, a novel of suspense and an intellectual puzzle, MADAPPLE draws the reader into a world where reality seems a puzzle in which the pieces are organic, forever changing: a world in which plants may be murder weapons; Roman letters may be runic symbols; the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil may be the Norse tree of life, Yggdrasil; and virgin births may be commonplace.
Told alternately in terse trial transcripts and in the atmospheric voice of Aslaug, a sixteen-year old girl on trial for murder, we learn of Aslaug’s childhood of seclusion in rural Maine, with a mother who is at once pitiful, cruel and cerebral. Aslaug’s mother tells her she has no father and teaches her daughter far more about mythology and botany than she does about the modern world. Aslaug knows of the God Odin, and of his secrets, and of the old crones who live at the base of Yggdrasil and who weave the tapestry of fates. And she knows how to use uncultivated plants for everything from food to soap to narcotics. And perhaps to poison.
Is Aslaug the innocent she would have the reader believe, or a calculated killer? Only MADAPPLE will tell.
See the interview with Christina at the Author 10 Q&A page.
Blog Stop dates and blogs:
June 2 – Book Advice
June 4 – Sharp Words
June 6 – The Book Faery Reviews
June 9 – Mom Is Just A Nickname
June 13 – From the Cheap Seats
June 16 – Something She Wrote
June 18 – YA Bookmarks
June 23 – Maw Books
June 27 – Writing From Kiddom
Susan Woodring – Springtime On Mars
Susan Yergler Woodring, an award-winning short story writer and novelist, grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. She also lived in California, Alabama, Illinois, and Indiana as a child. Upon graduating from Western Carolina University, she spent a year teaching in Vologda, Russia before moving to the foothills of North Carolina to teach middle school. Susan is a graduate of the Creative Writing MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte. She is the author of one novel, The Traveling Disease. Her short fiction has earned many honors, including the 2006 Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Fiction Award and the 2006 Isotope Editor’s Prize. Her work has appeared in Quick Fiction, Yemassee, Ballyhoo Stories, Slower Traffic Keep Right, The William and Mary Review, Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing, Passages North, turnrow, and Surreal South (Press 53). Susan currently lives, writes, and home-schools her two children in Drexel, North Carolina
Bees swarm. A president is assassinated. A young mother is electrocuted in her own basement. A space shuttle vanishes. One couple is struck by sudden wealth, another by lightning. An older woman obsesses over a bag boy at the local supermarket. People everywhere watch the sky for signs of intelligent life on Mars and covert Russian space missions. The television era begins, and the Vietnam War ends.
Ranging from the 1950s to present time, the stories of Springtime on Mars feature characters who grapple with the human extremes of despair and hope, holding faith in both God and science, and in the love and courage of those around them.
See the interview with Susan on the Author 10 Q&A page.
Springtime On Mars is available for purchase at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Powell’s
Blog stops and dates:
June 2 – Mom Is Just A Nickname
June 4 – She Reads Books
June 6 – Books On The Brain
June 9 – Devourer of Books
June 13 – Not Enough Coffee
June 16 – Escape To Books
June 20 – Writing From Kiddom
June 23 – Virtual Wordsmith
June 25 – Trish’s Reading Nook
June 30 – Perpetual Folly
April – 2008
Susan Breen – The Fiction Class
Susan Breen teaches fiction classes for Gotham Writers’ Workshop in Manhattan. Her short stories have been published by a number of literary magazines, among them American Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly and www.anderbo.com. She is also a contributor to The Writer and Writer’s Digest. She has an M.A. from Columbia University and has worked as a reporter for Fortune magazine and an editor for the Foreign Policy Association. She lives in Irvington, New York, with her family, two dogs, and one cat. Visit www.susanjbreen.com
Synopsis: On paper, Arabella Hicks is more than qualified to teach a weekly fiction class on New York’s upper west side. She’s an author herself, passionate about books. She’s even named after the heroine in a Georgette Heyer novel.
So why do her students seem so difficult? And why can’t she find an ending to the novel she has been working on for seven years? Arabella’s beginning to suspect that it’s because her mother, Vera Hicks, is driving her insane. After each class, she goes to see Vera in a nursing home outside the city. Every visit turns into an argument. Arabella can’t figure out how to make peace, until one day she discovers something surprising: Her mother wants to be a writer.
Slowly, cautiously, Arabella begins to teach her, and as the lessons preogress along with her class, Arabella discovers that it is she who has a lot to learn about writing, and about love.
Susan will be touring during the month of April. The Fiction Class is available for purchase at:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
Powells
Feel free to stop by her blog at Bloomer. See our interview with Susan on the Author 10 Q&A page.
Win an autographed copy of The Fiction Class!
Blog Stop dates and blogs:
April 1 – Thursday Bram
April 4 – Maw Books Blog
April 7 – Jenn Hollowell: Working Writer
April 11 – Writing From Kiddom
April 14 – Something She Wrote
April 18 – Mom is Just a Nickname
April 21 – Virtual Wordsmith
April 24 – A Mama’s Rant
April 30 – Escape to Books
