JP Pomare, author of In the Clearing, recently discussed his book with Betty Webb. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, asked Webb to read the book because Webb wrote two books about Arizona’s cult. Pomare explains his interest and the history of a cult that led to his book. You can order a copy of In the Clearing through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Ueevmo
Here’s the summary of In the Clearing.
A ticking-clock thriller that braids together the stories of a girl raised in a terrifying cult, and of an overprotective single mother whose fears for her child are about to come true.
Amy has only ever known what life is like in the Clearing, with her brothers and sisters–until a newcomer, a younger girl, joins the “family” and offers a glimpse of the outside world. Freya is living an isolated life with her son and their dog, going to great lengths to keep contact with the outside world like an “everyday mum” while being utterly terrified by it. When a news breaks of a missing girl–a child the same age as Freya’s son, Billy–Amy and Freya’s stories intertwine, and the secrets of the past will crawl inexorably into the present.
*****
Here’s the conversation with JP Pomare and Betty Webb.
The Poisoned Pen has a full slate of virtual author events for the next week, beginning tonight. You’ll want to order or pre-order copies of the books by your favorite authors. Check the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s the current schedule of virtual author appearances.
Diane Kelly, author of the Paw Enforcement novels and the House-Flipper mysteries, was so distracted she forgot to send me her “Distractions” post! However, during this pandemic and an election year, we’re all distracted. I told her we’re always eager to see what’s keeping an author’s attention. You can find Kelly’s latest Paw Enforcement novel, Bending the Paw, in the Web Store. Her next House-Flipper mystery, Murder with a View, is due out Feb. 9. You can pre-order it as well. https://bit.ly/2Ip7f4B
Diane Kelly is a former state assistant attorney general and tax advisor who spent much of her career fighting, or inadvertently working for, white-collar criminals. She is also a proud graduate of the Mansfield, Texas Citizens Police Academy. The first book in Diane’s IRS Special Agent Tara Holloway series, Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure, received a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award. Book #2, Death, Taxes, and a Skinny No-Whip Latte, won a Reviewers Choice award. Diane has combined her fascination with law enforcement and her love of animals in her K-9 cop Paw Enforcement series.
Kelly gives us a slightly different take on reading during a pandemic. Check out the audiobooks she’s listened to. You can order the audiobooks, or the books, through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
*****
My reading habits have definitely changed during the pandemic. Because there’s not much we can do for fun these days, and because staying cooped up in the house gets old, I’ve been taking many more walks than I used to. While the exercise is good for me, it cuts into what would otherwise be my reading time. To remedy the situation, I’ve shifted from reading primarily in print or e-book format to listening to audiobooks while I’m strolling the neighborhood. It’s a great way to multi-task! The exercise and distraction also help relieve stress. These are some of the books I’ve listened to and enjoyed:
Keep Moving by Dick Van Dyke ““ this autobiography is light, uplifting, and inspiring, just the thing we need right now. I’ve been a Dick Van Dyke fan since he appeared in the movies of my childhood, and it was nice to hear him read his own work.
How to Be Good by Nick Hornby ““ I love Nick Hornby’s stories. They’re about people with real problems, but who approach solving them in unique ways. They don’t have ideal endings, but they usually end on a hopeful note, with the characters having grown even if things don’t turn out exactly perfect or as expected. This book follows that format. It’s about a couple having marital problems, and working through them, trying to figure out what’s best for them and their children. Some odd people come into their lives and offer them new perspectives.
Dough or Die by Winnie Archer ““ this is a fun cozy mystery set in a bread shop called Yeast of Eden on the California coast. The shop is being featured in a reality TV show, but things heat up when someone attempts to kill the cameraman. It’s an enjoyable mystery, with a touch of romance and a very adorable dog. And who doesn’t love bread?
*****
As I said, you can find Diane Kelly’s own books in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Ip7f4B
Here’s her latest Paw Enforcement mystery, Bending the Paw.
Make way for the long paw of the law as police officer Megan Luz and her K-9 partner Brigit investigate a baffling new mystery in Bending the Paw, by Diane Kelly.
A MURDER WITHOUT A BODY IS LIKE A DOG WITHOUT A BONE
A bloodbath is a shocking new challenge for Megan and Brigit when Detective Audrey Jackson calls them to the scene of what could only be a brutal murder. But the one thing the nightmarish scene is missing is a victim. The frantic homeowner’s husband is gone, seemingly without a trace—and so is the money he was holding. Has a vicious killer committed what might just be the perfect crime?
Meanwhile, it’s hailing cats and dogs all over Fort Worth, and roofing contractors have descended on the city in droves. With plenty of damage and continuing storms, work delays are building up like so much runoff, but Megan is suspicious that one roofer may be a scam artist. Determined to leash every lawbreaker she and her K-9 partner find, Megan is building a case for prosecution, all while Brigit has her nose to the ground for a murderer…
“Be prepared for a laugh fest. Diane Kelly is first class.”—Night Owl Romance
*****
Murder with a View is due out Feb. 9, but you can pre-order it.
Murder With a View is the third book in the delightful cozy mystery series from Diane Kelly set in Nashville, Tennessee—where the real estate market is to die for…
I just love the cover of Jacqueline Winspear’s memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing. It’s the current Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. You can still find a signed copy in the Web Store, along with copies of Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs books. https://bit.ly/2JDLy0W
Here’s This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing.
“Jacqueline Winspear has created a memoir of her English childhood that is every bit as engaging as her Maisie Dobbs novels, just as rich in character and detail, history and humanity. Her writing is lovely, elegant and welcoming.”—Anne Lamott
The New York Times bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series offers a deeply personal memoir of her family’s resilience in the face of war and privation.
After sixteen novels, Jacqueline Winspear has taken the bold step of turning to memoir, revealing the hardships and joys of her family history. Both shockingly frank and deftly restrained, her story tackles the difficult, poignant, and fascinating family accounts of her paternal grandfather’s shellshock; her mother’s evacuation from London during the Blitz; her soft-spoken animal-loving father’s torturous assignment to an explosives team during WWII; her parents’ years living with Romany Gypsies; and Winspear’s own childhood picking hops and fruit on farms in rural Kent, capturing her ties to the land and her dream of being a writer at its very inception.
An eye-opening and heartfelt portrayal of a post-War England we rarely see, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing chronicles a childhood in the English countryside, of working class indomitability and family secrets, of artistic inspiration and the price of memory.
Are you ready for the virtual book launch of Michael Connelly’s latest Mickey Haller novel, The Law of Innocence? It’s Tuesday, November 10 at 6 PM (8 PM ET) on The Poisoned Pen’s Facebook page. Signed copies should be still available through the Web Store, but you’ll want to order soon. They probably won’t last. https://bit.ly/2IlXgwY
Here’s Michael Connelly to tell you about the book.
Asha Lemmie is the debut author of Fifty Words for Rain whose novel was a Good Morning America book club pick, and New York Times bestseller. Bestselling author Lisa See recently hosted her for The Poisoned Pen. You can enjoy that conversation here.
Signed copies of Fifty Words for Rain are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2TIkv6F
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick and New York Times Bestseller!
From debut author Asha Lemmie, “a lovely, heartrending story about love and loss, prejudice and pain, and the sometimes dangerous, always durable ties that link a family together.”—Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale
Kyoto, Japan, 1948. “Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist.”
Such is eight-year-old Noriko “Nori” Kamiza’s first lesson. She will not question why her mother abandoned her with only these final words. She will not fight her confinement to the attic of her grandparents’ imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her skin.
The child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in, only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life, despite her natural intellect and curiosity. But when chance brings her older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, Nori finds in him an unlikely ally with whom she forms a powerful bond—a bond their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead. Because now that Nori has glimpsed a world in which perhaps there is a place for her after all, she is ready to fight to be a part of it—a battle that just might cost her everything.
Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to be free.
I love to be able to share the backstory of a book. Mary Anna Evans, author of the Faye Longchamp Archaeological Mysteries, took the time to write about Wrecked, the thirteenth in the series. You can order Wrecked, and the other books in the series, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2IrcqLo
Mary Anna Evans is the author of the Faye Longchamp archaeological mysteries, which have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Mississippi Author Award, and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. She is an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing. Winner of the 2018 Sisters in Crime (SinC) Academic Research Grant.
Here’s Mary Anna Evans’ backstory about Wrecked.
Going Underwater with Archaeologist Faye Longchamp
by Mary Anna Evans
I’ve been writing about an archaeologist, Faye Longchamp, for more than seventeen years. I’ve taken Faye (or should I say that Faye has taken me?) into old catacombs underneath Oklahoma City and into the romantic, spectral past of New Orleans. She’s traveled to rural Alabama, urban Tennessee, and small town New York. Faye gets around.
Faye swims like a fish, and she handles boats like the experienced sailor that she is. She’s a good mechanic who keeps her old car running and keeps her boat motors singing. She can operate a sewing machine. She knows her way around rare book libraries. She lives in an old house, so she can patch a tin roof and repair broken shutters. She has lived off the grid and, although she never wants to be without air conditioning and cell phone service again, she could manage if she didn’t have a choice.
When I began planning the latest Faye Longchamp archaeological mystery, Wrecked, I knew that I wanted to set this one at her home on Joyeuse Island, off the Florida panhandle. Joyeuse Island is an evocative setting, wild and beautiful, and Faye’s heart will always be there. I think it’s realistic for her to travel for her work, and it’s fun for me and for my readers to “visit” interesting places along with Faye, but I like to take her home every few years. I think that seeing Faye among her friends in her native habitat gives readers a fuller sense of who she is. Taking Faye home to Joyeuse also gives me a chance to explore her family history, which is another way of depicting the past that has shaped her.
(As an aside, let me say what a privilege it has been to explore and develop this character over thirteen books. I’ve published well over a million words about Faye, and I continue to find interesting depths to her character. When I began the series, I did not anticipate how much of a gift it would be to write the story of one person’s life over many years. The series as a whole gives me the feeling of diving into one of those Dickensian novels that serve as an exhaustive character study—”To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born…”)
So, once I’d decided to take Faye home to her island, I needed to decide what was going to happen to her and what she was going to do about it. Right away, it occurred to me that I had never done a book about underwater archaeology.
There was a very good reason for this. I don’t dive. In fact, the idea rather terrifies me.
I swim and I have snorkeled a bit, so I’ve felt comfortable writing scenes from Faye’s point-of-view while she does those things, but could I write about a subject that screams out for underwater scenes involving scuba gear? No spoilers, but if you’ve seen the gloriously spooky cover of Wrecked, you have probably guessed that people do in fact scuba dive in the book. And if you’ve read the back cover copy, you know that one of Faye’s friends is found drowned, wearing scuba gear.
How did I manage this? I reached out to people who had intimate knowledge of diving. I found people who have dived in the Gulf of Mexico and could tell me about the clarity of the water. (Or, at depth, the lack of clarity.) My friend Nadia, whose ecological business has included extensive diving ,told me her observations, and she sent me to someone with detailed knowledge of how diving equipment works…or fails to work. That conversation gave me enough information to explore the internet to find out how drowning deaths are investigated. The things I learned there took me to websites for sheriff’s offices in small Florida counties to learn about staffing for those investigations. And so on. Reaching out to experts always takes me down a research rabbithole that leads to a better book that I could have written if I’d tried to draw only from the contents of my own head.
And this research took me back to my character, Faye Longchamp, as good research always does. Readers are interested in how scuba equipment works, I’m sure, but they care about people. They care about Faye. I gave Faye my fear of diving, about which I am extremely well-qualified to write, and that fear raises the stakes of this investigation for her. She must rise above it or find a way around it, because it is deeply important to her that she find out what happened to her friend.
If you have my trepidation about sinking deep beneath the water, carrying nothing to keep you alive but a tank and some machinery that could fail, then perhaps you would enjoy diving into the pages of Wrecked instead. You can see the briny deep and never even get wet.
*****
Here’s the summary of Wrecked.
Next title in the Faye Longchamp Archaeological Mysteries. When tragedy strikes and everything she loves is threatened, Faye Longchamp, an expert in American archaeology, will resort to desperate measures. Because some losses cut to the bone…A murder mystery with an archaeological twist, Wrecked is:Florida-based mysteryPerfect for fans of James Lee Burke and Nevada BarrFor readers of archaeological mysteries
The suspicious drowning death of Captain Edward Eubank breaks archaeologist Faye Longchamp’s heart. It also confuses her, because he was found in scuba gear and she’s never heard him even mention scuba diving. During their last conversation, he told her that he believed he’d found a storied shipwreck, but when Faye checks it out, she finds nothing there—not a plank, not a single gold coin, nothing. If there’s no treasure, then why is her friend dead?
But the situation quickly escalates beyond a murder mystery. Surrounded by a community struggling in the aftermath of a major hurricane that has changed the very landscape, Faye grapples not only with the loss of her friend, but with her fears for her daughter, who is being romanced by a man who may be very dangerous.
As a professional with her own consulting firm, Faye had long ago given up her “anything goes” attitude when the law stood between her and an interesting dig. Now that recklessness is back. There’s nothing she won’t do to protect her daughter.
In this riveting addition to an archaeological mystery and thriller series perfect for fans of Nevada Barr, Faye must save her most precious cargo—her daughter.
Did you miss Janet Evanovich’s recent virtual event at The Poisoned Pen? It was the launch for the 27th Stephanie Plum book, Fortune and Glory. You can still order signed copies of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2kNWFsm
Here’s the summary of Fortune and Glory.
The twenty-seventh entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series isn’t just the biggest case of Stephanie Plum’s career. It’s the adventure of a lifetime.
When Stephanie’s beloved Grandma Mazur’s new husband died on their wedding night, the only thing he left her was a beat-up old easy chair…and the keys to a life-changing fortune.
But as Stephanie and Grandma Mazur search for Jimmy Rosolli’s treasure, they discover that they’re not the only ones on the hunt. Two dangerous enemies from the past stand in their way—along with a new adversary who’s even more formidable: Gabriela Rose, a dark-eyed beauty from Little Havana with a taste for designer clothes. She’s also a soldier of fortune, a gourmet cook, an expert in firearms and mixed martial arts—and someone who’s about to give Stephanie a real run for her money.
Stephanie may be in over her head, but she’s got two things that Gabriela doesn’t: an unbreakable bond with her family and a stubborn streak that will never let her quit.
She’ll need both to survive because this search for “fortune and glory” will turn into a desperate race against time with more on the line than ever before. Because even as she searches for the treasure and fights to protect her Grandma Mazur, her own deepest feelings will be tested—as Stephanie could finally be forced to choose between Joe Morelli and Ranger.
*****
Even if you missed the virtual launch, you can catch Janet Evanovich’s conversation with Barbara Peters.
The winners of the World Fantasy Awards were just announced. The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the outstanding achievement in fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Check the Web Store for the winners. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Congratulations go to all the winners, beginning with the Lifetime Achievement Award winners, Karen Joy Fowler and Rowena Morrill.
Novel – Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender
Novella – Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
Short Fiction – “Read After Burning” by Maria Dahvana Headley, in A People’s Future of the United States
Anthology – New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, edited by Nisi Shawl
Collection – Song for the Unraveling of the World: Stories by Brian Evenson
Michael McGarrity’s Head Wounds is the current Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. That’s perfect because he’s the guest author for the virtual event on Poisoned Pen’s Facebook page, Friday, November 6 at 4 PM (6 PM ET). You can pre-order a signed copy of this latest Kevin Kearney book, as well as earlier ones, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/327ZVRN
Head Wounds is the final book in the Kevin Kearney series.
Clayton Istee, son of retired police chief Kevin Kerney, goes up against an elusive Mexican hitman in a mesmerizing story of murder, revenge, and redemption.
Given a chance to salvage his law enforcement career, Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Detective Clayton Istee catches a bizarre late-night double homicide at a Las Cruces hotel. Both victims, a man and a woman, have been scalped with their throats cut.
The murders show all the signs of a signature hit, but national and state crime databases reveal no similar profiles. Digging into the victims’ backgrounds, Clayton discovers that six months prior the couple had walked out of a nearby casino with $200,000 of a high-stakes gambler’s money.
He also learns the crime had been hushed up by an undercover federal DEA agent, who resurfaces and recruits Clayton for a dangerous mission to seize the Mexican drug lord responsible for the killings.
Thrust into the nightmare world of borderland drug wars and corrupt cops, Clayton duels with a cunning assassin poised to kill him and his family in a ferocious climax to the Kevin Kerney series that is sure to stun.
*****
With the publication of Tularosa in 1996, Michael McGarrity turned to writing full time. Many of his novels have been national best sellers. He holds a BA with distinction in psychology and a master’s degree in clinical social work. As an undergraduate, he held a Ford Foundation Scholarship at the University of New Mexico. Additionally, he is an honor graduate of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy.
His career in criminal justice spanned over twenty-five years and included creating treatment programs for drug offenders, supervising outreach services for at-risk juveniles, and re-establishing mental health services for the Department of Corrections after the infamous 1980 riot at the New Mexico Penitentiary. As a Santa Fe County deputy sheriff, he worked as a patrol officer, training and planning supervisor, community relations officer, and was the lead investigator of the sex crimes unit, which he established. Additionally, he taught courses at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, served as a caseworker and investigator for the Public Defender’s District Office, and conducted investigations for a state government agency. In 1980 he was named New Mexico Social Worker of the Year and in 1987 was recognized by the American Legion as Police Officer of the Year.
In 2004 he received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts — Literature. He is also the 2015 recipient of the Frank Waters Exemplary Literary Achievement Award and the 2015 Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts ““ Literature. He has been instrumental in establishing the Hillerman-McGarrity Creative Writing Scholarship at the University of New Mexico, the Richard Bradford Memorial Creative Writing Scholarship at the Santa Fe Community College, and the N. Scott Momaday Creative Writing Scholarship at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Emily Beth (Mim).
