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Sally S. Wright

Goodreads author profile

gender

female

website

http://www.sallywright.net/index.html

genre

Mystery & Thrillers, Historical Fiction

member since

April 2009

About this author

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Sally Wright is the author of six Ben Reese mysteries: Publish And Perish, Pride And Predator, Pursuit And Persuasion (a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist in 2001), Out Of The Ruins, Watches Of The Night (published in June 2008) and Code Of Silence, a prequel to the series (published in December 2008).

Wright was born obsessed with books, and started pecking-out florid adventure stories with obvious endings by the time she turned seven. She wrote and performed music in high school and college, earned a degree in oral interpretation of literature at Northwestern University, and then completed graduate work at the University of Washington. She published many biographical articles, including pieces on Malcolm...moreSally Wright is the author of six Ben Reese mysteries: Publish And Perish, Pride And Predator, Pursuit And Persuasion (a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist in 2001), Out Of The Ruins, Watches Of The Night (published in June 2008) and Code Of Silence, a prequel to the series (published in December 2008).

Wright was born obsessed with books, and started pecking-out florid adventure stories with obvious endings by the time she turned seven. She wrote and performed music in high school and college, earned a degree in oral interpretation of literature at Northwestern University, and then completed graduate work at the University of Washington. She published many biographical articles, including pieces on Malcolm Muggeridge and Nikolai Tolstoy, Leo's grandnephew, before she wrote her Ben Reese books.

Reviewers repeatedly compare Wright's work to that of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Josephine Tey, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh. Wright herself says that her literary influences range from all of those to Tolstoy and Jane Austen, from P.D. James to Dick Francis.

And yet it's C.S. Lewis who's probably influenced me most, through the whole body of his work, as a thinker, a person, and a writer," says Wright. "In his Chronicles of Narnia and his metaphysical novels, The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters, he uses popular fiction to talk about what T.S. Eliot called 'the permanent things'— consideration of morality, of origin, and spiritual meaning. It was those books that started me thinking about writing mysteries to begin with."

Many reviewers consider Ben Reese an unusually believable and intriguing character, and Wright says she works really hard to try to create fictional people like that. "I want to make real, compelling characters and let them get caught in complex tangles of good and evil that could actually happen in real life. I want to create settings too that readers can see and experience. Settings are very important to me. They're almost like characters in the books."

In order to attempt to do any of that, Wright does substantial research—traveling, interviewing, sometimes even trying to "live" the lives of her characters, which reviewers say give Wright's books a strong sense of accuracy and authenticity. Wright says the research makes her own life more interesting too.

Sally Wright moved with her husband many years ago from Cape Cod to the country near Bowling Green, Ohio, but they think they'd like to someday live outside Lexington, Kentucky. Their daughter is an opera singer (a la Out of the Ruins), and their son works for a industrial manufacturing company. The Wrights have a young boxer dog, a young mare (who’s a lot less reliable than the old one-eyed gelding), and too many gardens to take care of the way Sally would like. She loves to cook, and wants to play with painting again, if she ever stops trying to learn dressage.(less)

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Books by Sally S. Wright

Average rating: 3.47 · 129 ratings · 34 reviews · 6 distinct works

	Publish and Perish 3.31 avg rating — 51 ratings — published 1997 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Pride and Predator by Sally S. Wright (Goodreads Author), Joe Blades (Editor) 3.68 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 1997 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Pursuit and Persuasion by Sally S. Wright (Goodreads Author), Sally Wrigh 3.48 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2000 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Watches of the Night 3.54 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2008	My rating:
	Out of the Ruins 3.67 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2003 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Code of Silence 3.29 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2008	My rating:

More books by Sally S. Wright…

Series by Sally S. Wright

Ben Reese (6 books)
by Sally S. Wright (Goodreads Author)

3.47 avg rating — 129 ratings

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Sally Wright joined the Ecclesiastical Thrillers group.
Mar 10, 2010 01:26pm · see group
Sally Wright gave to: Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:44pm
Sally Wright gave to: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:43pm
Sally Wright gave to: A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:43pm
Sally Wright gave to: Body of Evidence (Kay Scarpetta, #2) by Patricia Cornwell	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:43pm
Sally Wright gave to: Stuart Little by E.B. White	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:43pm
Sally Wright gave to: Black Beauty by Anna Sewell	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:42pm
Sally Wright gave to: Many Waters (Time, #4) by Madeleine L'Engle	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:42pm
Sally Wright gave to: Shōgun by James Clavell	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:42pm
Sally Wright gave to: Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco	My rating:
May 13, 2009 02:42pm