FEATURED AUTHOR: CARA PUTNAM

ABOUT THE BOOK

Savannah Daniels has worked hard to build her law practice, to surround herself with good friends, and to be the loyal aunt her troubled niece can always count on. But since her ex-husband’s betrayal, she has trouble trusting anyone.

Jett Glover’s father committed suicide over a false newspaper report that ruined his reputation. Now a fierce champion of truth, Jett is writing the story of his journalism career—an international sex-trafficking exposé that will bring down a celebrity baseball player and the men closest to him, including Savannah’s ex-husband.

When Jett’s story breaks, tragedy ensues. Then a commercial airline crashes, and one of Savannah’s clients is implicated in the crash. Men connected to the scandal, including her ex, begin to die amid mysterious circumstances, and Savannah’s niece becomes an unwitting target.
Against their better instincts, Jett and Savannah join ranks to sort the facts from fiction. But can Savannah trust the reporter who threw her life into chaos? And can Jett face the possibility that he’s made the biggest mistake of his life?

Book Details:


Title: Flight Risk


Author: Cara Putman


Genre: romantic suspense


Publisher: Thomas Nelson
 ( April 7, 2020
)

Print length: 336 pages


LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH CARA PUTNAM

A few of your favorite things:
    There are so many! But here are a few of my go-tos:
•    Nebraska football,
•    travel in Europe,
•    coffee,
•    books, books, and more books!
•    teaching my students at Purdue
•    writing (most days)

Things you need to throw out:
•    Paper. I love having real paper files. But it can get overwhelming.
•    Magazines. I really need to quit subscribing, but I love flipping through them.
•    Clothes I don’t wear. I do a decent job turning over my closet, but…

Things you need in order to write:
•    a little bit of noise in the background. Too much quiet is actually distracting to me. I need an odd balance of noise and focus. I’m listening to a webinar as I type this. I guess my minds needs a little bit of multi-tasking.
•    a computer…most days. I love writing on TheQuill.io because it allows me to write anywhere as long as I have a computer and WiFi. It means I don’t have to worry about having the right file with me because the book is stored on the cloud.
•    coffee, water, and almonds. Those are my go-to writing foods.

Things that hamper your writing:
•    OVERWHELM. I didn’t mean to capitalize the word, but it does work. I have a lot going on and many days they collide, but I love writing, so make it a priority.
•    research. I can take so many rabbit trails, because input is my strength. That means I’m always taking in information and categorizing it. I just do. So I find so much fascinating, I can easily get derailed. I’m also a perfectionist who wants to get it right. Even when it’s a novel. So for Flight Risk, I knew where I wanted the story to go, but also felt stymied until I found the right people to talk to. Fortunately, I kept asking, and I did, but sometimes not until ten days before the deadline.

Things you love about writing:
•    the community. Some of my best friends, and the ones I know will be there when I call, are from writing. That is an absolute gift.
•    the creativity. While I’m an attorney who also has a MBA, there is a very creative side to me as well. The right brain gets to play when I write.
•    the stories. There is no better feeling than getting to edits and thinking, “Wow, I really love these characters, this story.” And “I wrote that? It’s GOOD.”

Things you hate about writing:
•    the isolation. I am an extroverted people person, so I need my teaching job to help balance the hours in front of the keyboard.
•    sitting. I LOVE movement. It’s not unusual for me to get 2,000 steps in an hour of teaching. So the sitting…for hours…is draining.
•    writers block. It’s real. But after 35 books, I have strategies for dealing with it. The biggest is to walk away and do something else while my subconscious works on the issue.

Things you love about where you live:
•    the size of this town is awesome. About 150,000 it has all we need.
•    Indianapolis is only an hour away.
•    it’s the Midwest, sort of, so the people are amazing.
•    it’s a great place to raise a family.
•    Purdue gives it an amazing energy.
•    it gets all four seasons…most years.

Things that make you want to move:
•    I miss politics from DC.
•    I miss the endless options on how to spend your time on the weekend.


Things you never want to run out of:
•    coffee
•    fruit
•    toliet paper

Things you wish you’d never bought:
•    an instapot – I must not have the right recipes!
•    the third copy of Toy Story 3 – long story!
•    that suede pair of heels. Too many days I can’t wear them in the winter in Indiana.


Words that describe you:
•    kind
•    compassionate
•    loyal
•    dedicated
•    high energy
•    communicator

Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t:
•    overwhelmed
•    guarded
•    intense

Favorite foods:
•    runzas
•    berries
•    coffee

Things that make you want to throw up: 
•    fish: it’s a texture and smell issue for me.
•    too much of anything: I’m all about moderation
•    sacchrine

Favorite music:
•    worship music. I love turning it on and turning my thoughts to the One who really matters. It’s a great way to reset when I’m off.

Music that make your ears bleed:
•    heavy metal

Favorite beverage:
•    water
•    coffee
•    lightly sweetened tea

Something that gives you a pickle face:
•    straight lemons
•    pickle brine




EXCERPT

The conversation flowed over the antipasti course and into the pasta della casa. Every bite of Savannah’s manicotti alla fiorentina was wonderful, the ricotta and spinach blending perfectly. Just when she knew she couldn’t take another bite and get anything done afterward, thanks to the food coma, a waiter came out with a slice of cheesecake. Her mouth watered as she took in the raspberries atop the homemade delight. She put a hand on her stomach and then smiled. “I hope you brought fresh forks for everyone.”
The handsome waiter flashed a bright smile. “Whatever the birthday donna wishes is my command.” He gave a slight bow and turned away. A moment later when he returned, a fist of forks at the ready, his demeanor had changed.
Emilie watched him a moment. “What’s wrong, Antonio?”
“There has been a horrible accident. It is on the TV in the office.”
“What kind of accident?” Savannah leaned toward him. “Does it involve someone you know?”
“No.” The man shook his head, and not one of his dark hairs moved. Yet his eyes were weighted with sadness and the shadow of something more. “It is a plane. It looks bad.”
“Oh no.” The memory of a plane careening by as she looked out a courtroom window in downtown Washington, DC, years earlier flashed through her mind. Savannah fought a shudder as she withdrew a credit card from her phone case and placed it on the bill, only for Hayden to slide it back to her and replace it with her own.
“Thank you.”
Please let this be a terrible accident and not the beginning of another 9/11.
Jaime’s head was bowed over her phone as she clicked the screen. “Looks like an isolated crash.”
All Savannah could think was that Jaime should add so far to her sentence. “That’s what we all thought on 9/11 too.”
Then a second plane careened into the Twin Towers. She saw the plane that hit the Pentagon, and a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania, killing one of her fellow law students. She cleared her throat and stood, motioning the gals to join her.
“Let’s get back to work and see what we can learn.”
As they left her favorite restaurant, her phone buzzed and she paused to pull it out of her pocket. She glanced at the text message on the screen and her blood froze.
911. From Addy. Their emergency code.
***
Excerpt from Flight Risk by Cara Putman. Copyright 2020 by Cara Putman. Reproduced with permission from Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cara Putman is the author of more than twenty-five legal thrillers, historical romances, and romantic suspense novels. She has won or been a finalist for honors including the ACFW Book of the Year and the Christian Retailing’s BEST Award. Cara graduated high school at sixteen, college at twenty, completed her law degree at twenty-seven, and recently received her MBA. She is a practicing attorney, teaches undergraduate and graduate law courses at a Big Ten business school, and is a homeschooling mom of four. She lives with her husband and children in Indiana. 



Connect with Cara:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads  |  Instagram
Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble 

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FEATURED AUTHOR: ELENA TAYLOR

ABOUT THE BOOK


Interim sheriff Elizabeth "Bet" Rivers has always had one repeat nightmare: a shadowy figure throwing a suspicious object into her hometown lake in Collier, Washington. For the longest time, she chalked it up to an overactive imagination as a kid. Then the report arrives. In the woods of the Cascade mountain range, right in her jurisdiction, a body floats to the surface of Lake Collier. When the body is extricated and revealed, no one can identify Jane Doe. But someone must know the woman, so why aren't they coming forward?

Bet has been sitting as the interim sheriff of this tiny town in the ill-fitting shoes of her late father and predecessor. With the nightmare on her heels, Bet decided to build a life for herself in Los Angeles, but now it's time to confront the tragic history of Collier. The more she learns, the more Bet realizes she doesn't know the townspeople of Collier as well as she thought, and nothing can prepare her for what she is about to discover.


Book Details:

Title: All We Buried

Author: Elena Taylor

Genre: mystery


Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (April 7, 2020)


Print length: 304 pages
On tour with: Great Escapes Book Tours




IFs ANDs OR WHATs INTERVIEW WITH ELENA TAYLOR

Ifs

If you could talk to someone (dead), who would it be and what would you ask them?
My father - how’s it going?

If you could live in any time period which would it be?
1800s. I would be a cowgirl and own a big ranch.

If you could be anything besides a writer, what would it be?
Horse trainer.

If you had to do community service, what would you choose?
Animal rescue.

If you were on the Amazon bestseller list, who would you choose to be one before and one below you?
This is the best question! Before me, Karen Slaughter, after me, Lee Child.

If you could choose a fictional town to live in what would it be and from what book?
I’d live in Three Pines from Louise Penny’s Gamache series. It’s so lovely and quiet, if you ignore all the killing.




Ands


5 favorite possessions:  
    •    My mazda CX5
    •    flannel pajamas
    •    coffee cups with my animals photos on them
    •    my wedding ring
and   
    •    my laptop

5 things you need in order to write: 
    •    time
    •    coffee
    •    quiet
    •    images in my head
and  
    •    focus

5 things you love about writing: 
    •    creativity
    •    independence
    •    solitude
    •    my characters
and
    •    making sh*t up

5 things you never want to run out of:   
    •    coffee
    •    dog food
    •    horse food
    •    cat food
and 
    •    computer memory

5 favorite things to do:  
    •    read
    •    spend time with my  dog
    •    work with my horses
    •    travel
and   
    •    rewrite - it’s so much better than writing the first draft

Whats

What’s your all-time favorite place?
My bed when it’s raining—the stables when it’s not.

What’s your all-time favorite author?
C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia.

What’s your all-time favorite city?
Edinburgh, Scotland. I took a show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival one year as a director. I’d love to go back as a playwright and/or performer. Such a great city and the festival is an incredible experience.

What’s your all-time favorite library?
I don’t know that it’s “all-time” but I always loved the library in Port Townsend, Washington, where I lived for a year. 


What’s your biggest pet peeve?
Mean people.

What’s the loveliest sight you’ve ever seen?
My horses waiting for me at the gate.

What’s the most beautiful sound you’ve heard?
Boys choir practicing at St. Paul’s Cathedral.


What’s your all-time favorite place in your town?
My backyard.

What’s your favorite time of day?
Early morning when I can stay in bed and read.

What’s your favorite meal?
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

What’s your favorite snack?
Popcorn.

What’s your favorite beverage?
Cappuccino.

What’s your favorite hobby or past-time?
I love to paint. I would say, work with my horses, but I’ve written a lot about them! 

What’s your favorite thing to do when there’s nothing to do?
Nap.

What’s your favorite quote?
Don’t confront me with my failures. I had not forgotten them. Jackson Browne.

What’s your all-time favorite picture of yourself?
Photo with Radar.

What’s your favorite candy bar?
Heath.

What’s your favorite movie snack?
Popcorn—butter AND salt.


What’s one thing you never leave the house without?
Contact lenses.

What drives you crazy?
Running out of time.


What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
Things are rarely as important as they seem—except the things that are more important than you expect.


What movie genre do you prefer?
Drama.

What are your idiosyncrasies?
I can’t talk about a book I’m writing until I finish a first draft.

What do you collect?
Musical instruments. I’m not a musician, but I LOVE having them around.


What smells remind you of your childhood?
Sunlight on dirt with pine needles mixed in.


What author would you most like to review one of your books?
William Kent Kreuger
.

What book are you currently working on?
Second one in the new series.


What’s your latest recommendation for:
Food: I just discovered sipping vinegar. It’s a real thing. I have one made with rosemary and brown sugar. It’s to die for.
Music: Zumba playlists!
Movie: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was a nice piece of escapism.
Book: F*ckface and Other Stories by Leah Hampton
Audiobook: Red Metal by Mark Greaney.
TV: I’m digging Stumptown. Not just because it’s set in the Pacific Northwest (Portland) but also because it feels fresh—like it’s not a story or characters I’ve seen before.
Netflix/Amazon Prime: I just finished Happy Valley—I loved the protagonist. She’s so incredibly real as a complex human being.
Miscellaneous: Physical Therapy and massage—because you have to take care of the body. Don’t wait until you’re in a lot of pain. Catch it early!
Pololu Valley, Hawaii - it’s a black sand beach, accessible from a trail that starts at a tiny parking lot at the east end of 270 on the north end of the big island. Remote, isolated, stunning.






ABOUT THE AUTHOR 


Elena Taylor lives on the banks of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River in a town made famous by Twin Peaks. When she's not writing or working one-on-one with writers as a developmental editor, she can be found hanging out with her husband, dog, and two cats. Her favorite place to be (besides home) is the stables down the road, with her two horses Radar and Jasper.



Connect with Elena:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads  |  Instagram

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Indiebound  |  Books-a-million 

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FEATURED AUTHOR: CHARLOTTE STUART

ABOUT THE BOOK

In ancient Greece, the chimera was a bad omen. In Why Me?, it's a motive for murder. Bryn Baczek, a Seattle consultant, is vacationing in Scotland, hiking alone in a downpour, surrounded by midges, when she sees a body at the bottom of a ravine. Before she can return to the scene with the mountain rescue team, the body disappears. She learns that he was a scientist and that his laptop containing his cutting-edge research has disappeared. Rumors that Bryn has the laptop make her a target.


Book Details: 


Title: Why Me? Chimeras, Conundrums and Dead Goldfish


Author: Charlotte Stuart


Genre: mystery/modern cozy


Publisher: Taylor and Seale (November 2019)


Print length: 247 pages


LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH CHARLOTTE STUART

A few of your favorite things: watching the patience of herons, waiting for their breakfast, to swim by. Laughing with friends. Swimming in a lake.
Things you need to throw out: corporate wardrobe, ancient spices that I used once for recipes I never made twice, moldy smelling children’s books from my childhood.


Things you need in order to write: a computer and a cup of coffee. And a good night’s sleep.
Things that hamper your writing: the captivating view from my office window. Guilt over not doing the “should do’s” of daily living from my lengthy “to do” list.


Things you love about writing: getting lost in another world in which anything’s possible.
Things you hate about writing: trying to keep all the online file folders organized so I can retrieve information easily and remember which “update” is the most recent!

Things you love about where you live: living on the water is always interesting – birds, boats, kayakers, seals, otters, orcas . . . there’s always something to look at and, at the same time, there’s always that moment when you realize you’ve missed an opportunity to take the perfect picture.
Things that make you want to move: fear of rising water due to climate change and living a ferry ride away from friends and family.


Things you never want to run out of: popcorn, coffee and the ability to find humor in everyday life.
Things you wish you’d never bought: cleaning supplies – they make me feel guilty for not cleaning more often.


Words that describe you: short, stubborn, competitive.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: short, stubborn, competitive.

Favorite foods: prawns, wild blackberry pie, apples picked fresh from the tree, homemade bread (if someone else makes it).
Things that make you want to throw up: oysters, head cheese, and anything the color and texture of oysters and head cheese.

Favorite smell: coffee when the container is first opened and the beach at low tide.
Something that makes you hold your nose: some political pundits, especially those I disagree with.

Something you like to do: read outdoors on a warm sunny day, while sitting in a comfortable chair in the shade.

Something you wish you’d never done: I set an unofficial Guinness Record by spending five hours on Queen Charlotte Sound in a sailboat while holding a bag of vomit because I was too sick to get up and dispose of it.

Things you always put in your books: family foibles, friendships, animals, and humor.

Things you never put in your books: graphic depictions of violence and sociopathic serial killers. Those are worlds I don’t want to spend time in.

Things that make you happy: feeling productive, being around upbeat people, a walk in the woods, quirky Facebook and Twitter posts, a good detective TV series.

Things that drive you crazy: sensational and misleading headlines, people who don’t pick up after their dogs, the ragwort invasion of my front yard, some relatives who shall remain nameless, long “to do” lists.

Proudest moment: when I walked out of my orals for my PhD and knew I’d aced it.

Most embarrassing moment: I’ve had several. One was falling down on the stage after playing a solo at my high school graduation and having to walk back to my seat in the last row in the auditorium listening to “Oh, poor Charlotte” as well as hearing snickers and giggles.

Best thing you’ve ever done: marry my husband. He’s a risk taker and embraces change. Without him I never would have left a tenured teaching position to spend a year bumming around in a sailboat. I wouldn’t have spent another year helping him build a sailing/fishing boat. And I wouldn’t have traveled to Alaska by boat to go commercial salmon fishing.
Biggest mistake: not focusing on mystery writing full time until recently. When I think of all the fun I’ve missed!

The last thing you did for the first time: went to a wine and paint party. 

Something you’ll never do again: go to a wine and paint party. (Even though I did manage not to dip my paint brush in my glass of wine.)


ABOUT THE AUTHOR 


In a world filled with uncertainty and too little chocolate, Charlotte Stuart, PhD, has taught college courses in communication, gone commercial fishing in Alaska, spent time as a management consultant, and was a VP of HR and Training for a large credit union. Her current passion is for writing lighthearted mysteries with a pinch of adventure and a dollop of humor. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys watching herons, eagles, seals, and other sea life from her Vashon Island home office.


Connect with Charlotte:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads 

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble







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FEATURED AUTHOR: MAB SEGREST

ABOUT THE BOOK

A scathing and original look at the racist origins of psychiatry, through the story of the largest mental institution in the world.

Today, 90 percent of psychiatric beds are located in jails and prisons across the United States, institutions that confine disproportionate numbers of African Americans. After more than a decade of research, the celebrated scholar and activist Mab Segrest locates the deep historical roots of this startling fact, turning her sights on a long-forgotten cauldron of racial ideology: the state mental asylum system in which psychiatry was born and whose influences extend into our troubled present.

In December 1841, the Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum was founded. A hundred years later, it had become the largest insane asylum in the world with over ten thousand patients. Administrations of Lunacy tells the story of this iconic and infamous southern institution, a history that was all but erased from popular memory and within the psychiatric profession.

Through riveting accounts of historical characters, Segrest reveals how modern psychiatric practice was forged in the traumas of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow. Deftly connecting this history to the modern era, Segrest then shows how a single asylum helped set the stage for the eugenics theories of the twentieth century and the persistent racial ideologies of our own times. She also traces the connections to today’s dissident psychiatric practices that offer sanity and create justice.

A landmark of scholarship, Administrations of Lunacy restores a vital thread between past and present, revealing the tangled racial roots of psychiatry in America.

Book Details:


Title: Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum


Author: Mab Segrest

Genre: psychology/social science


Publisher: New Press, (April 14, 2020)

Print length: 375 pages

INTERVIEW WITH MAB SEGREST

Q: Mab, what’s the story behind the title of your book?

A:  Administrations of Lunacy is a compelling and monumental story of Georgia’s state mental hospital—the largest in the world at some periods and one of the worst.  It’s an often wild, often scathing story of the people committed there over 170 years, what happened to them, who their doctors were, and how other Georgians and the state legislature shaped their fates. Unlike most asylum stories that involve mostly psychiatric and state history, I pull back the story’s frame to show how a particular asylum’s history was shaped by larger forces of southern and U.S. history (slavery, the Trail of Tears, lynching, eugenics) in a profound way that haunts psychiatry still. That 90% of US psychiatric beds today are in jails and prisons, I argue, is a direct result of this infamous history. My hope was to tell this story in such a convincing way that we will not be able to talk about psychiatry in the same way again. I am happy to hear that it is a very readable book—“gripping, compelling.”  That makes me happy.

Q: Do you have another job outside of writing?

A: I am currently a retired college professor—I was a Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Connecticut College from 2002 to 2014 and chaired the department.  Before that, I was a community organizer and writer.  My book Memoir of a Race Traitor: Fighting Racism in the American South is also out now in its 25th Anniversary Edition.  It tells another exciting story—of how we organized against Klan and neo-Nazi movements in North Carolina in the 1980s, against the backdrop of my conservative white southern family’s 19th and 20th century histories. In semi-retirement, I am speaking and teaching on the subjects of my research and writing. 

Q: Where’s home for you? 

A: I live in Durham, North Carolina, where I lived from 1972 to 2002. I moved to New London Connecticut when I went to work at Connecticut College, and I lived in Brooklyn, New York after I retired. I returned to Durham in 2017.

Q: Where did you grow up?

A: I grew up in Tuskegee, Alabama, where my family on both sides had lived for over a century. I was born in 1949 and experienced the height of the civil rights movement in my childhood and adolescence.  It had a profound impact on my work and my writing.

Q: What’s your favorite line from a book? 

A: I wrote my dissertation on W.B. Yeats, the great Irish poet, largely because I loved about ten of his poems. “Crazy Jane Talks to the Bishop” was one: “Nothing can be sole or whole/ That has not been rent.” Tennessee Williams gives Blanche DuBois this last line, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Or Morrison from Beloved:  “You are your own best thing, Sethe.  You are.”  All three works seem to wind up to these great last lines.

Q: Who are your favorite authors?

A: Most of my favorite authors are southern writers or writers who write about the South. I got into the southern asylum story through Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and Tennessee Williams. Toni Morrison is one of the all-time greats: along with W.E.B. DuBois, she reshaped the narrative of America forever. The writing of Dorothy Allison, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Natasha Trethewey, Joy Harjo: all are powerful. 


Q: What book are you currently reading and in what format? 

A: Having finished a 127,000 word book that took over fifteen years from start to finish and almost four years to write, I am taking a break from serious reading. My favorite mystery writer is Jacqueline Winspear, and I love her Maisie Dobbs series. I can listen to one of her books on Audible multiple times. I am not an e-book person right now. I prefer paperbacks and really like being read to on Audible.

Q: Do you have a routine for writing?

A: When I was writing Administrations of Lunacy I would write in the morning from 8 or 9 am up until 2 or 3 pm. I could get in four to five really good hours of writing time—which meant revising prior writing and then drafting new pages. I interspersed that routine with periods of reading, note-taking, and synthesizing. Then I had huge periods of responding to my editor, rewriting, and pulling themes and structures into place.

Q: Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?

A:  I need for my desk to be by a window with a clear sight line to the natural world. The last year of Administrations of Lunacy, I put a plastic bird feeder on the picture windows right above my desk and looked up frequently as birds visited and fed. It really helped my eyes and my brain to have those respites, those celestial visitors.

Q: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?

A: “. . . Brilliant, compelling, and almost finished!” from my New Press editor Marc Faveau. From Dorothy Allison as she read it, she said she was “dumbstruck” and “Lord, girl, you have made a great book.” I really liked it when my favorite southern historian Glenda Gilmore said it was “astonishing” how I had told southern history from a lunatic asylum. 

Q: Where is your favorite library, and what do you love about it?

A: When I was at the National Humanities Center, I had the best support from their two research librarians, Brooke Andrade and Sarah Harris. They could get me articles or books in an afternoon to two days and dug up lots of arcane material I needed to see. So Interlibrary Loan with great librarians was my best library experience.

Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on getting Administrations of Lunacy into the world and in the middle of a pandemic, it seems. I feel that the next material will emerge from that.  I do feel drawn back to Alabama story lines.

OTHER BOOKS BY MAB SEGREST

Memoir of a Race Traitor

Born to Belonging

My Mama’s Dead Squirrel

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 


Mab Segrest was born in 1949 in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up in Tuskegee, Alabama during the civil rights movement. Her early experience in this apartheid culture shaped her future work as a public intellectual, organizer and scholar. Segrest’s “coming out” as a lesbian into a dynamic, multiracial feminist movement also shaped her life and work. My Mama’s Dead Squirrel: Lesbian Essays on Southern Culture (Firebrand, 1984) located lesbian and queer work in the southern literary canon and in movements for social justice. Memoir of a Race Traitor (South End, 1994) reflected on her white Alabama childhood and her work in the 1980s countering Klan and neo-Nazi movements in North Carolina. It rapidly became a landmark work of white anti-racist activism. It was the Editor’s Choice for the Lambda Literary Awards, was named Outstanding Book on Human Rights in North America by the Gustavus Myers Center on Human Rights, and was nominee for Non-Fiction Book of the Year by the Southern Regional Council. The New Press published a 25th Anniversary edition in September 2019. In addition to organizing against Klan and neo-Nazi movements, Segrest worked for the World Council of Churches helping to map transformative justice movements across the globe, taught ESL in Haitian migrant camps, and taught in both men’s and women’s prisons. Segrest earned a PhD from Duke University in 1979. She chaired the Gender and Women’s Studies Department at Connecticut College from 2002-2014 and is now Fuller-Maathai Professor Emeritus. She lives in Durham, North Carolina and has just published Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum (New Press).

Connect with the author:
Website

Buy the book:
Amazon

FEATURED AUTHOR: KELSEY CLIFTON

ABOUT THE BOOK 


Jaelin and Aldwin have heard legends of the Grey Princess their entire lives. When it comes time for his first heroic quest, Jaelin naturally chooses her rescue - but the princess from Aldwin’s stories is a pale imitation of the sorceress that they find at the top of a lonely mountain tower. 


Known across the realms as the Grey Princess, Liana has been the subject of stories and songs for over two centuries. Every bard and historian thinks they know the truth, but the reality of Liana's power - and the secrets she has hidden under layers of stone - is something that no one is prepared for. And Liana herself is hardly prepared for two adventurers to show up on her doorstep with a doozy of a quest . . . and the key to undoing a choice she made many years ago.


Can a bratty lordling, a witty librarian, and an irritable sorceress bumble their way through an enchanted forest, survive the ruins of a haunted city, and defeat a centuries-old dragon with only a few hours of planning?

The better question is, can anyone stop them?

Book Details:


Title: Fire and Lightning, Ash and Stone


Author: Kelsey Clifton


Genre: fantasy


Published: February 8, 2020


Print length: 413 pages

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH KELSEY CLIFTON

Things you need in order to write: music, a cup of coffee, and a window to stare moodily out of.
Things that hamper your writing: Netflix and social media mostly. 


Things you love about writing: revelations are the best. I love making a decision late in a story only to realize that it either fits perfectly, or was something that I was secretly building towards all along.
Things you hate about writing: the middle bits, the connective tissue between fun scenes.

Easiest thing about being a writer: for me, editing is the easiest part. Things hit your ear differently on subsequent reads, and I think it’s a lot easier to fix things that are already there.

Hardest thing about being a writer: balancing the desire to write with the need to make a stable living.


Words that describe you: creative, supportive, hilarious, charming.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: lazy, stubborn, suspicious.

Favorite foods: Margherita pizza, apples, chicken fried rice, deviled eggs from Whiskey Cake.
Things that make you want to throw up: canned spinach, asparagus, bleu cheese.

Favorite music: acoustic songs hit me the hardest.
Music that makes your ears bleed: most metal/screamo and EDM.

Favorite smell: bright, citrusy smells or the open woods.

Something that makes you hold your nose: heavy floral smells.

Something you’re really good at: writing and singing.

Something you’re really bad at: pretty much any sport except for horseback riding.


Something you wish you could do: play guitar.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: kickboxing.


Last best thing you ate: breakfast tacos from La Calle in Houston.

Last thing you regret eating: a vegan muffin from a local coffee shop.

Things you’d walk a mile for: free books from my list, concert tickets, plane tickets.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: shitty things made by well-known artists or authors that would be laughed out of the room if they came from anyone else.

Things you always put in your books: angry blondes, although I swear it isn’t on purpose.

Things you never put in your books: rape scenes.

Things to say to an author: “I couldn’t put your book down!” “I’m going to write a review of your book right now.” “You made me cry, I hate you so much.” Hearing any of these things gives me heart eyes.

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “You know, I’ve always wanted to write a book. It seems so easy!” My response to this is always, “Do it, then.”

Favorite places you’ve been: Florence, Barcelona, the Grand Canyon, Calabria.

Places you never want to go to again: The House of Terror in Budapest. Originally it was where Nazi and then Communist prisoners were brought for interrogation and torture, and now it’s one of the most effective museums I’ve ever been to. As important and incredible as it is, it’s also an extremely emotional experience.

Favorite things to do: dancing bachata, listening to live music, exploring nature.

Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: cleaning of pretty much any kind.

Things that make you happy: singing along with a crowd, curling up with coffee and a book, being around animals, sitting on the beach.

Things that drive you crazy: groups of people who take up a whole sidewalk.

Best thing you’ve ever done: moving to Florence, Italy for 3.5 years.

Biggest mistake: investing time and money in an editing business when I should have just been writing.

OTHER BOOKS BY KELSEY CLIFTON:


A Day Out of Time

After/Effects

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kelsey Clifton is a science fiction and fantasy writer who hoards books the way dragons hoard gold (seriously, it’s becoming a problem). She lives in Houston, Texas with the bossy cat from her websites and too many succulents. Reports that she sold her soul in order to complete nine manuscripts in nine years have been exaggerated . . . but not by much. One thing is for certain: She is definitely human, and not an ancient being of inestimable power.


Kelsey is the author of Amazon bestselling series A Day Out of Time and standalone novel Fire and Lightning, Ash and Stone.



Connect with Kelsey:
 Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads


Buy the book:

Amazon

FEATURED AUTHOR: W.L. BROOKS

ABOUT THE BOOK

Charlie McKay couldn't be happier with her life. Taking care of her daughter and everyone else around her is a labor of love. But the truth she's buried lurks beneath the surface and letting the oh-so-tempting Craig Sutton into her world is the last thing she needs.



Purchasing the small-town bar is only one of the reasons Craig Sutton moved to Blue Creek. Despite having his own agenda, Craig is unable to resist getting involved with the McKays. And the closer he gets to Charlie, the more entangled he wants to become.


But secrets in this town run deep, and someone is dead set on exposing Charlie's. She isn't the only one with something to hide, and deception threatens their happily ever after. The danger increases, and Charlie must come to grips with the past that haunts her or lose everything.

Book Details

Title: Unearthing the Past    


Author: W. L. Brooks   

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press (March 11, 2020)

Print length: 282 pages

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH W.L. BROOKS

A few of your favorite things: coffee, cats, books, streaming, shopping, hiking, reading,
Things you need to throw out: old clothes, papers, and things I no longer need. 


Things you need in order to write: computer, coffee, and music.
Things that hamper your writing: sometimes my cats, often my phone, and the occasional squirrel. 


Things you love about writing: that feeling when it’s all flowing.
Things you hate about writing: edits.


Things you love about where you live: I’m lucky to live in the mountains, so the scenery is beautiful year-round.
Things that make you want to move: snow and ice in the winter.

Favorite foods: pizza, wings, cheeseburgers . . . all the bad stuff.
Things that make you want to throw up: green beans (they actually make me throw up).

Favorite beverage: coffee.

Something that gives you a pickle face: lemons.

Favorite smell: laundry. 

Something that makes you hold your nose: the litter box- ick.


Something you wish you could do: speak different languages.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: crack my knuckles.

Things to say to an author: I can’t wait to read your book. 

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: reading romance novels doesn’t really count as reading, does it?

Favorite places you’ve been: the Biltmore Estate is one of my most favorite places. 

Places you never want to go to again: Las Vegas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 


W.L. Brooks was born with an active imagination.  When characters come into her mind, she has to give them a life- a chance to tell their stories. With a coffee cup in her hand and a cat by her side, she spends her days letting the ideas flow onto paper.  A voracious reader, she draws her inspiration from mystery, romance, suspense and a dash of the paranormal.


Connect with the author:

Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Goodreads


Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble

FEATURED AUTHOR: MARYANN KEMPHER

ABOUT THE BOOK

One night, 28-year-old, Katherine O’Brian, decides to walk to an all-night diner. The only problem? It’s midnight, but Katherine lives in Reno Nevada, a city that never sleeps; she can clearly see the diner’s lights in the distance. It’s no big deal, until she passes someone’s garage where a man is loading a dead body into the trunk of his car. 

And now, she’s in trouble. She outran the man that night, and while she has no idea who he is, he knows who she is. And he wants her dead.

As if attempts on her life weren’t stressful enough, Katherine has gone back to college. She’s determined to finally finish her degree, but her lab partner is driving her crazy. He’s hot, but annoying. And she’s not sure which she wants more—a night of mad, passionate sex or a new lab partner. It varies from day to day.

Will Katherine give in to her lust for her partner or will she give in to her desire to throttle him? If she’s in the ground before graduation, it won’t matter.

Not your typical romance, not your typical mystery.

Book Details:


Title: Mocha, Moonlight, and Murder

Author: MaryAnn Kempher

Genre: romantic suspense


Published: This is a re-release. Originally published in April 2013

Print length: 344 pages

On tour with: Pump Up Your Book

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH MARYANN KEMPHER

Things you love about where you live: I live in Florida, so I love our winters. While it’s ten below zero and three feet of snow somewhere else, I’m walking my dog in capris and a short sleeve shirt.
Things that make you want to move: my winters. I know, I know, but even though it’s great that it’s so nice, it has its downside. The downside? The holidays. Really hard to even remember it’s the holiday season when it’s eighty degrees outside in November.


Things you never want to run out of: coffee and creamora.
Things you wish you’d never bought: an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner. It was the same kind owned by my parents and a huge waste of money.

Words that describe you: I hope these words describe me: generous, empathetic, funny, truthful, calm
Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: impatient, short-tempered (when I’m driving), self-indulgent.

Favorite foods: steak, anything from a bakery, sushi.
Things that make you want to throw up: cabbage or peas.

Favorite music: soft rock.
Music that make your ears bleed: rap, hard rock.

Favorite beverage: coffee
.
Something that gives you a pickle face: anything sour.

Favorite smell: lavender
.
Something that makes you hold your nose: cabbage cooking.

Something you’re really good at: writing
.
Something you’re really bad at: math.

Something you wish you could do: speak a different language.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: crack my knuckles.

Last best thing you ate: chicken Egg Foo Young
.
Last thing you regret eating: potato chips.

Things you’d walk a mile for: Starbucks.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: the smell of cabbage.

Things you always put in your books: references to Starbucks. It’s one of my main characters known weaknesses, and mine.

Things you never put in your books: never say never, but rarely do I put sex in my books, other than my first—Mocha, Moonlight, and Murder—which is a romance/mystery.

Things to say to an author: I write mysteries, so the best thing you can say to me is you loved the ending and didn’t see it coming.

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: so, how many books have you sold? That’s not very many, is it? (Off with your head.)

Favorite places you’ve been: New York city.

Places you never want to go to again: Qatar.

Favorite books: books written by Agatha Christie, especially those with Hercule Poirot
.
Books you would ban: books that glorify incest, child abuse, or rape.

Favorite things to do: shop, watch television, travel and sight-see
.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: fold and put away laundry.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: sky diving, 3500 feet in the air
.
Something you chickened out from doing: sky diving. Which is funny because it was virtual reality at the Space Needle. My only defense is that the two events were 23 years apart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For many years, MaryAnn Kempher lived in Reno Nevada where most of her stories are set. Her books are an entertaining mix of mystery and humor. She lives in the Tampa Florida area with her husband, two children, and a very snooty Chorkie.

Connect with MaryAnn:
Website  |  Facebook

Buy the book:
Amazon