Simon Tolkien
Simon Tolkien is the author of No Man’s Land , Orders from Berlin, The King of Diamonds, The Inheritance, and Final Witness. He studied modern history at Trinity College, Oxford, and went on to become a London barrister specializing in criminal defense. Simon is the grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien and is a director of the Tolkien Estate. In 2022 he was named as series consultant to the Amazon TV series The Rings of Power. He lives with his wife, vintage fashion author Tracy Tolkien, and their two children, Nicholas and Anna, in Southern California. Follow Simon at https://www.simontolkien.com/
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Monique Truong
Born in Saigon, South Vietnam, Monique Truong came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1975. She is a writer based now in Brooklyn, New York. Her award-winning novels are The Sweetest Fruits (Viking Books, 2019), Bitter in the Mouth (Random House, 2010), and the national bestseller The Book of Salt (Houghton Mifflin, 2003). She is the co-editor of Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose, 25th Anniversary Edition (DVAN Series, Texas Tech University Press, 2023). With fashion designer Thai Nguyen and New York Times bestselling illustrator Dung Ho, Truong is the co-author of Mai's Áo Dài, a children's picture book (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2025).
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A Guggenheim Fellow, U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Fellow in Tokyo, Visiting Writer at the Helsi -
María Alejandra Barrios Vélez
María Alejandra Barrios Vélez is a writer born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of Manchester and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and scruffy dog, Gus.
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She was the 2020 SmokeLong Flash Fiction Fellow, and her stories have been published in Shenandoah Literary, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, El Malpensante, Fractured Lit, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Offing, and more. Her work has been supported by organizations such as Vermont Studio Center, Caldera Arts, and the New Orleans Writers’ Residency.
The Waves Take You Home is María’s debut, inspired by the resilience and strength of the women in her family and the Caribbean city she spent most of her life in. -
Galina Vromen
Galina Vromen began writing fiction after more than twenty years as an international journalist in Israel, England, the Netherlands, France, and Mexico. After a career with Reuters News Agency, she moved to the nonprofit sector as a director at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.
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Vromen launched and directed two reading readiness programs in Israel, Sifriyat Pijama (the Hebrew version of the Grinspoon Foundation’s PJ Library Program) and Maktabat al-Fanoos in Arabic. During her tenure, the two programs gifted twenty million books to young children and their families and were named US Library of Congress honorees for best practices in promoting literacy.
Vromen’s stories have been performed on NPR’s Selected Shorts program and appeared in magazin -
Gene Yu
Gene Yu was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1979, and entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1997, where he majored in computer science and graduated top of his class. Gene served in Korea and Japan as a US Army Armor and Special Forces officer. He deployed for four combat tours in Iraq and the southern Philippines, and is a recipient of two Bronze Star Medals, two Joint Commendation Medals, and the Combat Infantryman Badge. In 2015, Gene founded Blackpanda Group, a cybersecurity insurance and emergency response services company headquartered in Asia, and currently serves as the CEO. Gene is also an alumnus of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Juilene Osborne-McKnight
Juilene Osborne-McKnight's newest book is Storyteller: Irish Myths, Legends and Folktales for Americans. Her nonfiction history The Story We Carry in our Bones: Irish History for Americans is now in its fifth printing. Both are available at Barnes & Noble, on amazon.com and from Pelican Publishing. She is also the author of four novels from MacMillan: I am of Irelaunde, Daughter of Ireland, Bright Sword of Ireland and Song of Ireland, available on amazon.com and barnes and noble.com.
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Rand Miller
Rand Miller (born January 17, 1959 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.) co-founded Cyan (now Cyan Worlds) with brother Robyn Miller and became famous from the unexpected success of their computer game Myst, which remained the number one-selling game for the remainder of the 1990s. Rand also worked on the game's sequel, Riven, and later Myst III: Exile, Myst IV: Revelation, Myst V: End of Ages, realMyst, and Uru. The brothers also acted out parts in the game, with Robyn as Sirrus and Rand as Achenar and Atrus.
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P.D. James
P. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.
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The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospita -
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William Dietrich
William Dietrich is a NY Times bestelling author of the Ethan Gage series of eight books which have sold into 28 languages. He is also the author of six other adventure novels, several nonfiction works on the environmental history of the Pacific Northwest, and a contributor to several books.
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Bill was a career journalist, sharing a Pulitzer for national reporting at the Seattle Times for coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He taught environmental journalism at Huxley College, a division of Western Washington University, and was adviser to Planet Magazine there. He was Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and received several National Science Foundation fellowships for reporting on science. His travels have taken him from the South Pole to -
Morgan Callan Rogers
For marketing purposes, one of my publicists asked me to think about why I stand out. That's a hard question to answer during fractured times filled with bombastic narcissists shouting LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! It's almost better to NOT stand out. So maybe the question is, what is anti-special about me? You're only cool when you don't worry about being cool. It's a Catch-22.
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I've had my moments. I rode a three-speed bicycle across England during a very rainy summer. When I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed, I related to her excitement (high) versus preparedness ratio (low). I was an actress for twenty years, appearing in everything from Skin or Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder to Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas. I have an awesome voice, discovered when I -
Paulette Kennedy
Originally from the Missouri Ozarks, Paulette Kennedy now lives with her family in a quiet suburb of Los Angeles.
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When she's not writing or reading, she enjoys tending to her garden, knitting, and finding unique vintage treasures at thrift stores and flea markets.
As a history lover, she can get lost for days in her research—learning everything she can about the places in her stories and the experiences her characters might have had in the past.
This dedication to research infuses her world-building with realistic detail and creates a cinematic, immersive experience for the reader.
Paulette’s next novel is The Devil and Mrs. Davenport, a domestic gothic set in the 1950s about a homemaker who develops psychic abilities after a viral illness. -
Nicola Kraus
Kraus graduated from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She met Emma McLaughlin while both were attending New York University, and working as nannies. She lived as a child at 1000 Park Avenue, whose residents she claims inspired some of the characters in her fiction.
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Barbara Kyle
Thanks for visiting!
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Here’s a little about me. Before becoming an author, I enjoyed a twenty-year acting career playing Shakespearean heroines on stage, leading roles in daytime TV dramas, and characters in Disney made-for-TV movies. It felt like a natural extension of my acting to create characters for fiction, and I hope you'll enjoy my novels. Over half a million copies have been sold worldwide.
My seven-book Thornleigh Saga series is set in 16th-century England and follows a middle-class family’s rise through three generations and three tumultuous Tudor reigns. ("Riveting Tudor drama" - USA Today). I’m also the author of acclaimed thrillers.
My new novel, THE DEADLY TRADE, is a murder mystery. I hope you’ll love it!
As a writing mentor I’ve -
Sofia Robleda
Sofia Robleda is a Mexican author. She spent her childhood and adolescence in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. She completed her undergraduate and doctorate degrees in psychology at the University of Queensland, in Australia. She currently lives with her husband and son in London.
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Her debut historical fiction novel, Daughter of Fire, was an Amazon First Reads and Editor's Pick for July 2024 and hit the top 100 Kindle bestselling list. It has been translated into Spanish.
Her second novel, The Other Moctezuma Girls, is now available for preorder. Join Sofia's newsletter Author Antics (via her website) for more insights into her writing process, travels, and historical research. You can also follow her on Instagram (@sofiarobleda). -
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of The Harmless People, a non fiction work about the Kung Bushmen of southwestern Africa, and of Reindeer Moon, a novel about the paleolithic hunter gatherers of Siberia, both of which were tremendous international successes. She lives in New Hampshire.
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David G. Dalin
Rabbi David Gil Dalin is a Conservative rabbi, and author and co-author of several books on Jewish history. He is currently a professor of history and political science at Ave Maria University, and was previously associate professor of American Jewish history at the University of Hartford.
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Dalin received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, a master's and doctorate from Brandeis University, and his Rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
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Rachel Swaby
Rachel Swaby is a producer of the podcast Runner's World, and the author of Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science--and the World as well as its young readers adaptation, Trailblazers: 33 Women in Science Who Changed the World. She lives in Los Angeles.
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Midge Raymond
Midge Raymond is the author of the novels Floreana and My Last Continent and a short-story collection, Forgetting English, which received the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in TriQuarterly, American Literary Review, North American Review, Bellevue Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times magazine, Poets & Writers, and many other publications.
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Midge is also the author of Devils Island, co-authored with John Yunker. She has taught writing at Boston University, Boston's Grub Street Writers, Seattle's Richard Hugo House, and San Diego Writers, Ink.
Midge lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. Visit her online at www.MidgeRaymond.com and www.MidgeandJohn.com.
"FLOREANA is a beautiful, unexpected, and powerful novel a -
Andrea Catalano
Andrea Catalano is a historical novelist who holds a master of philosophy in historical studies degree from University of Cambridge, UK. Originally from the Boston area, she currently lives in Texas with her husband, children, two fluffy cats, and many, many books.
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Lyn Liao Butler
Lyn Liao Butler was born in Taiwan and moved to the States when she was seven. Before becoming an author, she was a professional ballet and modern dancer, and is still a personal trainer, fitness instructor, and yoga instructor. She is an avid animal lover and fosters dogs as well as volunteers with rescues.
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When she is not torturing clients or talking to imaginary characters, Lyn enjoys spending time with her FDNY husband, their son (the happiest little boy in the world), their three stubborn dachshunds, sewing for her Etsy shop, and trying crazy yoga poses on a stand-up paddleboard. So far, she has not fallen into the water yet. -
Marion Todd
Marion grew up in the City of Dundee, now home to the magnificent V&A Museum. Always a keen writer, she has had point-of-view pieces published in the Dundee Courier and short stories in My Weekly magazine. She won first prize in the Family Circle Magazine Short Story for Children Competition in 1987.
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More recently, Marion has turned her hand to crime fiction and was one of only six commercial fiction writers selected to pitch to an industry panel at XPONorth in Inverness in 2017. In 2018 Marion was long-listed for the Sunstory Award and the Scottish Arts Council Short Story Award. This year she was short-listed for Dundee Rep’s Stripped programme. She is represented by Northbank Talent Management and her debut novel, See Them Run, will be pu -
Luanne G. Smith
Luanne G. Smith is the Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Vine Witch series, The Raven Spell books, The Witch's Lens, The Wolf's Eye, and The Golden Age of Magic coming July 1, 2025.
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(*Scam Alert* SHE IS NOT ON FACEBOOK and she does not sell marketing or writing advice online. It is a scam.)
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Lorna Cook
Lorna Cook is the author of six historical fiction novels, weaving secrets and forgotten history with mystery and romance.
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She also writes contemporary fiction under the name Elle Cook. -
Jane Healey
Jane Healey shares a home north of Boston with her husband, two daughters, and two cats. When she’s not writing historical fiction, she enjoys running, reading, cooking and going to the beach.
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For more information on the author, her work and upcoming events:
Website: www.janehealey.com.
Facebook: facebook.com/JaneHealeyBooks/
Twitter and Instagram:@healeyjane -
Peter Colt
Peter Colt is currently a police officer in a small New England city where he has worked since 2007. He spent over twenty years in the Army reserve and was deployed to Kosovo in 2000, where he was attached to the Russian Army. He was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and again in 2008. He was fortunate to get to know many Vietnam vets and U.S. Army Special forces soldiers. He lived on Nantucket Island from 1973‑1986. He’s currently working on the next Andy Roark mystery.
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Merryn Allingham
I was born into an army family and spent my childhood moving around the UK and abroad. Unsurprisingly it gave me itchy feet and in my twenties I escaped an unloved secretarial career to work as cabin crew and see the world.
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I still love to travel and visit new places, especially those with an interesting history, but the arrival of marriage, children and cats meant a more settled life in the south of England, where I've lived ever since. It also gave me the opportunity to go back to 'school' and eventually teach at university.
I've written seven historical novels, all mysteries with a helping of suspense and a dash of romance - sometimes set in exotic locations and often against a background of stirring world events.
My latest novel, A Tale of -
Robert Bailey
Robert Bailey is the bestselling and award winning author of the McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers series, which includes The Final Reckoning, The Last Trial, Between Black and White, and The Professor, as well as the Bocephus Haynes’ series, which debuted with Legacy of Lies. He is also the author of the inspirational novel, The Golfer’s Carol.
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Robert was born in Huntsville, Alabama, the son of a builder and a schoolteacher. From the time he could walk, he’s loved stories, especially those about Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and his beloved Alabama Crimson Tide football team.
Robert obtained a Bachelor of Arts in History from Davidson College in North Carolina. Law School at the University of Alabama followed, where Robert made Law Review, comp -
Suzanne Redfearn
Suzanne Redfearn is the award-winning author of Six novels: Hush Little Baby, No Ordinary Life, In an Instant, and Hadley & Grace, Moment in Time, and Where Butterflies Wander. In addition to being an author, she’s also an architect specializing in residential and commercial design. She lives in Laguna Beach, California, where she and her husband own two restaurants: Lumberyard and Slice Pizza and Beer. You can find her at her website, www.SuzanneRedfearn.com, on Facebook at SuzanneRedfearnAuthor, or on Instagram at SuzanneRedfearn.
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Mark Ellis
Former barrister and businessman from Wales. Author of 6 books in the Frank Merlin WW2 detective series:
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Princes Gate (1) now retitled The Embassy Murders
Stalin’s Gold (2) now retitled In The Shadows Of The Blitz
Merlin At War (3) now retitled The French Spy
A Death In Mayfair (4)
Dead In The Water (5)
Death Of An Officer (6)
Ellis has also written a short history, Boom Time: True Crime in WW2 London
Merlin 3 was nominated for a CWA Dagger
‘Must-read for murder mystery lovers’ Daily Mail
‘Masterly….compelling’ Bestselling historian Andrew Roberts'
‘Unputdownable’ WW2 historian Robert Lyman
‘Dead In The Water is to my shame the first Mark Ellis book I’ve read. If the others evoke a vanished London so impressively, are graced with such complex plots an -
P.D. James
P. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park, (born August 3, 1920, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died November 27, 2014, Oxford), British mystery novelist best known for her fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.
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The daughter of a middle-grade civil servant, James grew up in the university town of Cambridge. Her formal education, however, ended at age 16 because of lack of funds, and she was thereafter self-educated. In 1941 she married Ernest C.B. White, a medical student and future physician, who returned home from wartime service mentally deranged and spent much of the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals. To support her family (which included two children), she took work in hospita -
Behcet Kaya
Behcet Kaya is the author of nine novels. His first literary fiction novel, Voice of Conscience, follows, to some extent, his own life experiences. His second novel, Murder on the Naval Base is a fast-paced who-done-it, his recently published third novel, Road to Siran, Erin’s Story is the eagerly awaited sequel to Voice of Conscience and the fourth Treacherous Estate is a crime thriller and the fifth Body in the Woods, Appellant Judge. Murder in Buckhead, Uncanny Alliance, Deception.
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Born in northeastern Turkey, Behcet grew up in a very small village with long held traditions. His rebellious nature emerged at an early age and by time he was ten, he had read, in secret, all the Turkish translated stories of Mike Hammer. In addition, he read -
Rhys Bowen
I'm a New York Times bestselling mystery author, winner of both Agatha and Anthony awards for my Molly Murphy mysteries, set in 1902 New York City.
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I have recently published four internationally bestselling WWII novels, one of them a #1 Kindle bestseller, and the Tuscan Child selling almost a million copies to date. In Farleigh Field won three major awards and was nominated for an Edgar. My other stand-alone novels are The Victory Garden, about land girls in WWI and Above the Bay of Angels, featuring a young woman who becomes chef for Queen Victoria.
April 2021 will mark the publication of THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK--another sweeping historical novel of love, loss and intrigue.
My books are currently translated into 29 languages and I have fans wo -
Rachel Howzell Hall
RACHEL HOWZELL HALL l is the critically acclaimed author and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist for And Now She’s Gone, which was also nominated for the Lefty-, Barry-, Shamus- and Anthony Awards and the Audible Originals bestseller How It Ends. A New York Times bestselling author of The Good Sister with James Patterson, Rachel is an Anthony-, International Thriller Writers- and Lefty Award nominee and the author of They All Fall Down, Land of Shadows, Skies of Ash, Trail of Echoes and City of Saviors in the Detective Elouise Norton series. Her next thriller, These Toxic Things, out in September 2021, recently received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, calling the novel ‘cleverly-plotted’ and ‘a refreshing take on the serial kille
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Mary Higgins Clark
The #1 New York Times bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark has written thirty-eight suspense novels, four collections of short stories, a historical novel, a memoir, and two children’s books. With bestselling author Alafair Burke she wrote the Under Suspicion series. With her daughter Carol Higgins Clark, she has coauthored five more suspense novels. Her sister-in-law is the also author Mary Jane Clark.
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Clark’s books have sold more than 100 million copies in the United States alone. Her books are beloved around the world and made her an international bestseller many times over. -
Robert Dugoni
Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, and #1 Amazon bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle, which has sold more than 11 million books worldwide. He is also the author of The Charles Jenkins espionage series, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and The Keera Duggan legal thriller series. He has written several stand-alone novels including the historical novels A Killing on the Hill and Hold Strong, as well as the suspense novel The 7th Canon, and Damage Control. He has written the literary novels, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell - one of Newsweek Magazine's Best Books of All-Time and Suspense Magazine’s 2018 Book of the Year, for which Dugoni’s narration won an AudioFile Earphones A
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Andrea Camilleri
Andrea Camilleri was an Italian writer. He is considered one of the greatest Italian writers of both 20th and 21st centuries.
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Originally from Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Camilleri began studies at the Faculty of Literature in 1944, without concluding them, meanwhile publishing poems and short stories. Around this time he joined the Italian Communist Party.
From 1948 to 1950 Camilleri studied stage and film direction at the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts, and began to take on work as a director and screenwriter, directing especially plays by Pirandello and Beckett. As a matter of fact, his parents knew Pirandello and were even distant friends, as he tells in his essay on Pirandello "Biography of the changed son". His most famous works, t -
Martha Grimes
Martha Grimes is an American author of detective fiction.
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She was born May 2 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to D.W., a city solicitor, and to June, who owned the Mountain Lake Hotel in Western Maryland where Martha and her brother spent much of their childhood. Grimes earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Frostburg State University, and Montgomery College.
Grimes is best known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Her page-turning, character-driven tales fall into the mystery subdivision of "cozies." In 1983, Grimes -
Michelle Ule
ABOUT MY BOOK REVIEWS
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IF NO STARS, it means I know the author, so, on principle I do not review unless I absolutely adore the book--and I will tell you why.
ONE STAR means I didn't like the book.
FIVE STARS are rare . . .
BIO
“Tell me a story,” has been my question since birth.
Since I love them so much, what better way to share the fun and interesting things I've learned than in writing stories myself?
I'm a “retired” Navy wife who has lived all over the United States and even Hawai’i.
Raised in San Pedro, California, a melting pot of many languages and cultures, I've traveled the world meeting people and laughing my way through ridiculous circumstances.
I love history, music, books, reading, my terrific family, amusing friends, travel opportunit -
Colin Mills
I grew up in Brisbane. I spent a total of eighteen years living in Japan between 1986 and 2005, with brief stints in Singapore and London, before turning to creative writing.
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Melissa Washburn
Melissa Washburn is an illustrator and graphic designer living just outside Chicago in the Midwest US. She grew up in upstate New York, in the foothills of the Adirondacks, but has lived in the Midwest since 1996. Her fascination with things that run, fly, and grow has led to editorial commissions for publications such as Charlotte Home and Garden, Spirituality & Health magazine, and Smithsonian Magazine. She continues to exhibit her work throughout Northwest Indiana as well as illustrate and design for advertising, editorial, surface pattern, and package design. Her background includes a bachelor of fine arts in painting and printmaking from Binghamton University, a master's degree in arts administration from Indiana University, coursework
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Olive Higgins Prouty
Though Olive Higgins Prouty is primarily remembered as a romance novelist, she was also a poet, writing her poetry whenever and wherever she could. Her poems were never published during her lifetime, as they were much more intimate writings than the novels she wrote professionally. Perhaps because she could put more of herself into her poetry than in her novels, Prouty’s poems are powerful and emotional, revealing ideas radical for the time in which they were written. Her children, Richard Prouty and Jane Chapin, published her poems in a very limited release in 1997.
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Prouty was born in Worcester in 1882 to Katherine Chapin and Milton Prince Higgins, who would raise one of Worcester’s most prominent, and one of Worcester Polytechnic Institute -
Louella Bryant
Louella Bryant’s novel WILLIE, RUM RUNNING QUEEN launched in early 2025 with Black Rose Writing. Her 2023 novel SHELTERING ANGEL, BASED ON A TRUE STORY OF THE TITANIC, has been a #1 bestseller on Amazon Kindle. Hot Springs and Moonshine Liquor, a family memoir follows the historic trail of bootleg liquor since the Revolutionary War. Louella's WWII novel Cowboy Code is based on the true story of a Virginia mountain town. Other books include While In Darkness There Is Light, nonfiction about the Vietnam era, a story collection, and two Civil War novels for young adult readers. Her award-winning writing has appeared in magazines and anthologies. A graduate of George Washington University and Vermont College of Fine Arts, Louella works as an in
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Sophie Santos
Sophie Santos is a comedian, writer, and actor based in Brooklyn, NY.
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Kelli Estes
Kelli Estes is the USA Today bestselling author of SMOKE ON THE WIND, coming June 2025. Her first novel, THE GIRL WHO WROTE IN SILK has been translated into twelve languages and was the recipient of the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association Nancy Pearl Book Award and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award (Debut). Her second novel TODAY WE GO HOME was the nationwide Target Book Club pick for September 2019. Known for dual-timeline stories that show how history is still relevant to our lives today, Kelli is passionate about learning all she can about people and events that shaped our world. Kelli lives in Washington State with her husband and two sons. Find Kelli on Facebook, Instagram, or at www.kelliestes.com.
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Ann Moore
Ann Moore grew up in the misty Pacific Northwest region of Washington State, spending childhood summers on Vashon Island. She is the internationally published author of three historical novels that encompass the 1845 Irish Famine, Young Irelander uprising, and the Irish emigration to America; her fourth novel, a contemporary mystery, is set on a remote island in the San Juan archipelago. Ann lives in Bellingham, Washington, with her family, among good friends and excellent dogs. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for all things bookish.
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James MacManus
James MacManus has worked in the newspaper business for 46 years. He is currently the Managing Director of the Times Literary Supplement.
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He is the author of On the Broken Shore (The Language of the Sea, UK edition), and Ocean Devil: The Life and Legend of George Hogg which was made into a film starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers
His latest book, Black Venus, is a vivid novel of Charles Baudelaire and his lover Jeanne Duval, the Haitian cabaret singer who inspired his most famous and controversial poems, set in nineteenth-century Paris. Duckworth will publish the UK edition of Black Venus on February 27th 2014.The UK edition follows the successful launch of the novel in the US by Thomas Dunne books of New York. -
Deborah J. Ledford
DEBORAH J LEDFORD is an Agatha Award winner and two-time nominee for the Anthony Award. REDEMPTION and HAVOC are from the Eva "Lightning Dance" Duran Native American suspense series.
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Her first series, the Smoky Mountain Intrigue Native American police procedural series, includes the titles CAUSING CHAOS, CRESCENDO, STACCATO, and the Hillerman Sky Award Finalist and New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards Finalist, SNARE.
Three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, her award-winning stories appear in numerous print publications as well as literary and mystery anthologies.
She is also a former Arizona State University adjunct professor for The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Ledford is President/Producer for the independent media company -
Andrea Catalano
Andrea Catalano is a historical novelist who holds a master of philosophy in historical studies degree from University of Cambridge, UK. Originally from the Boston area, she currently lives in Texas with her husband, children, two fluffy cats, and many, many books.
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Ellen Kirschman
I've been a police and public safety psychologist for thirty-plus years, before I had any gray hair. My work with first responders has taken me to four countries and twenty-two states.
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I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Know was my first book and, to date, it has sold more than 100,000 copies. I Love a Fire Fighter: What the Family Needs to Know came next, followed by Counseling Cops: What Clinicians Need to Know with two psychology colleagues, both of whom are retired cops.
I also write a mystery series. My protagonist, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff, is a fifty-something year old psychologist who should be counseling cops, not solving crimes. Too dedicated for her own good, she won't give up until justice is served, even when it jeopardizes h -
Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman is an American actress of stage, film and television. She has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards—more than any other female performer—and one Daytime Emmy Award. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in the 1971 film The Last Picture Show. She is best known for playing the nosy, self-centered and manipulative landlady Phyllis Lindstrom on the 1970s TV series Mary Tyler Moore, and later on the spinoff series, Phyllis. She also appeared in three Mel Brooks films, including Young Frankenstein. In recent years, she became very popular for her recurring role as Lois's ruthless mother on Malcolm in the Middle.
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Leachman was a contestant on Season 7 (2008) of Dancing With The Stars, paired with Corky Ballas. At the age of -
Jack Hitt
Hitt was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where he attended the Porter-Gaud School. He got his start in journalism as editor of the "Paper Clip," the literary magazine of Porter-Gaud's first through fifth grades. According to his biography, he published "some of the finest haiku penned by well-off pre-teens in all of South Carolina's lowcountry".
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Since 1996, Hitt has also been a contributing editor to This American Life. He contributed a story about a production of Peter Pan in an episode entitled “Fiasco”. Other pieces include his life growing up with one of the earliest transgendered women (“Dawn”), an hour long program on a group of prisoners in a maximum security prison putting on a production of Hamlet (“Act V”, #218), a s -
Lauren Stienstra
Lauren Stienstra’s professional life in government has been instrumental in shaping her literary voice. From the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic response to addressing the critical issue of climate change, Stienstra’s lived experiences and deep-rooted commitment to public service have informed and inspired her prose. She holds degrees in physiology and crisis management, has studied creative writing at UCLA Extension, and is currently completing her doctorate in public health at Johns Hopkins University. These endeavors have not only broadened her understanding of the world’s most pressing challenges but also fueled her passion for resonant stories that weave together the complexities of the world she knows so intimately. Based in Wash
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Diana Marcum
Diana Marcum was a Los Angeles Times reporter covering the Central Valley and the Sierra. She focused on personal, narrative tales that play out against the broader sweeps of poverty, immigration and, most recently, drought.
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In 2015, she won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for her narrative portraits of farmers, fieldworkers and other Californians in drought-stricken towns in the Central Valley.
Diana Marcum died on August, 9, 2023, in Fresno, California, following surgery to remove a glioblastoma several weeks earlier. She was 60 years old. -
Danielle Teller
Danielle Teller (formerly Morse, née Dyck) grew up in Canada, where she and her two brothers were raised by the best parents in the world. As a child, she was a bookworm who dreamed of being a writer, but she chickened out and went to medical school instead. In 1994, she moved temporarily to America, and she has been living temporarily in America ever since.
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Danielle attended Queen’s University during her undergraduate years, and she received her medical training at McGill University, Brown University and Yale University. She has held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University, where she investigated the origins of chronic lung disease and taught in the medical intensive care unit.
In 2013, Danielle quit her job -
Chris Lewando
I trained as an English teacher, but the planned storyline drifted off-track. I landed in an office, producing management statistics – a different kind of fiction. I have been writing for many years, with quite a few mainstream genre novels and short stories published while I was still working full time. I gained a Creative Writing Masters (hons), and have been a novel-writing tutor since lessons were sent by snail mail and the nearest thing to a mobile phone beamed Captain Kirk onto the Enterprise. I live in rural South West Ireland, play Irish music in pubs for tourists, drive a camper the same age as me, and self-publish standalone novels with multiple viewpoints and complex characters.
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SunHi Mistwalker
Author of dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction. Mistwalker enjoys writing books about how societal collapse can change individuals and families. She specifically explores class, economics, environmentalism and state sponsored oppression within post-apocalyptic and dystopian futures.
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Tara J. Stone
Tara started writing fiction when she was in first grade, but she did not discover the thrill of screenwriting until she studied Communications Media at John Paul the Great Catholic University. Screenplays are her favorite way to tell stories, but novels are quickly gaining. She hopes her writing will contribute to a revival of Catholic fiction.
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After successfully self-publishing two screenplays as paperbacks and ebooks, she partnered with two of her former film professors to create Story Masters Film Academy, which offers online courses in screenwriting and directing.
Tara resides in Colorado, and in 2016, she became a Consecrated Virgin Living in the World in the Diocese of Colorado Springs. In addition to making things up and writing them -
K. Stephens
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K. Stephens is an award-winning Maine journalist whose debut lobstering novel, The Ghost Trap, (Leapfrog Press, 2009) was adapted into an independent feature film in 2024. The book was re-released with a new film cover in 2024 and the film won three awards for "Best Feature."
Of Irish descent, Stephens traveled throughout Ireland, Scotland, and England to collect selkie folklore from libraries, shops, and storytellers—taking ten years to write her latest novel, By the Dark o' the Moon. The novel launched on September 1, 2025. She resides in Midcoast Maine. -
Michael Parker
MICHAEL PARKER is the author of five novels – Hello Down There, Towns Without Rivers, Virginia Lovers, If You Want Me To Stay, The Watery Part of the World and two collections of stories, The Geographical Cure and Don’t Make Me Stop Now. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various journals including Five Points, the Georgia Review, The Idaho Review, the Washington Post, the New York Times Magazine, Oxford American, Shenandoah, The Black Warrior Review, Trail Runner and Runner’s World. He has received fellowships in fiction from the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Hobson Award for Arts and Letters, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His work has been anthologized in the Pu
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Gina Marie Barlean
G. M. Barlean is a Nebraska author who calls both Omaha and David City her home; city mouse and country mouse, in turn. She is a member of The Nebraska Writers Guild since 2009. She is also a member of The Nebraska Pen Women. The author of cozy mysteries, suspense fiction, collections of essays and even a love story, her latest book is non-fiction and about the people of her heritage and the land from which they came: Czech & Slavic Epic History.
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Barlean has a website at ginambarlean.com, and a Facebook page where she shares her life stories with friends and readers. -
Hollis Brady
I BELIEVE in the power of story. As a developmental editor and former director of the Stanford Publishing Courses, I’ve spent a lifetime digging out, poring over, and working with stories—the best of which have profoundly touched me and changed my worldview. Such stories—powerful, evocative and absorbing—have been instrumental in motivating me to finish my own novel Pescadero.
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Pescadero is a work of fiction. The characters and story arc are imagined, but the descriptions of what today’s migrants experience as they attempt to cross America’s southern border are largely true.
The details in this novel have been shared with me personally during my experiences with undocumented migrants and those who support them at the border in Juarez, Nogales -
Del Pratt
Del Pratt is a semi-retired cattle rancher. He and his wife Sheila live on the family ranch that his great-grandfather homesteaded in 1910, northeast of Oyen, Alberta. Along the way, he has trained horses, driven a school bus, spent a winter chaining seismic lines (back before GPS), ran a custom fencing business, and worked as a seed specialist for a forage seed company - all to raise a family, and support his ranching habit.
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Janis Cooke Newman
Janis Cooke Newman is the author of A Master Plan for Rescue , a magical novel about the surprising acts of heroism that can be inspired by love. She is also the author of Mary , a historical novel about Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary was chosen by USA Today as the best historical fiction of 2006 and was a finalist for the LA Times First Fiction award. She is also the author of The Russian Word for Snow, a memoir about adopting her son from a Moscow orphanage. Both books are available in paperback. Newman is the founder of the Lit Camp writers conference.
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Author photo copyright Ian Tuttle. -
K.A. Kirtland
K.A. Kirtland is the debut author of Bleeding Sea, an eco-thriller inspired by research expeditions she participated in across the Gulf of Mexico and the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic. Kirtland’s graduate studies focused on the intricate balance of ecosystems, which heavily influenced the novel’s gripping narrative about a toxic dinoflagellate bloom. She is a public health professional and epidemiologist based in Atlanta, Georgia, where she continues to advocate for environmental sustainability. When she's not writing or working, Kirtland enjoys time with her family.
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