Karla Huebner's Blog, page 6

The Fortunes of Jaded Women

Carolyn Huynh's The Fortunes of Jaded Women is a 2022 Debut launching September 6th. Following a family of estranged Vietnamese women—cursed to never know love or happiness—we see them reunite when a psychic makes a startling prediction. Although everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed, these women emerge victorious, even if the world is against them.

A Wonderful Launch for LOVING THE DEAD AND GONE

I had the privilege last night of attending Judith Turner-Yamamoto's book launch at the Joseph-Beth bookstore in Cincinnati. There aren't exactly a lot of book events to attend where I live, but Cincinnati isn't dreadfully far, so I jumped at the chance to attend Judith's reading and discussion there, especially as I had already read and enjoyed Loving the Dead and Gone (review yet to be written... I'm behind on writing reviews).

The Joseph-Beth bookstore is large and hosts quite a few author events (I'm doing a signing there on September 17th!). The space is welcoming and there is also an adjoining cafe that offers full meals, so I tried their portabello burger before Judith's event began.

The crowd was every debut author's dream--more friends than the store expected to seat! I'm sure it helped that Judith is a Cincinnati-based author, but it is always gratifying to see people turn out to support local authors (or authors, period!).

Loving the Dead and Gone is getting a lot of positive attention in the press and from early readers. You can get signed copies at Joseph-Beth, ask your local bookstore to order you a copy, or get the special-edition hardback direct from Regal House.

Other People's Secrets

Canadian author Meredith Hambrock's Debut 2022 thriller Other People's Secrets launches September 6th. Baby’s got problems—namely, a fierce taste for booze and an on-again, off-again boyfriend. She’s living and working at a crumbling lakeside resort with her friends, Crystal Nugget and DJ Overalls, reeling since her step-mom died of a stroke. And now, the return of the local drug kingpin, Bad Mike, is about to throw her already unstable summer into full-blown chaos. But that's just the beginning of her troubles...

Loving the Dead and Gone

Judith Turner-Yamamoto's novel Loving the Dead and Gone launches September 6 from Regal House.

From the Regal House website:

For forty years Aurilla Cutter has tended a clutch of secrets that have turned her mean, and imprinted the lives of her daughter Berta Mae, son-in-law Clayton, and others in her small world. A freak car accident becomes the catalyst for the release of the passions, needs, and hurts in everyone touched by Aurilla’s hidden past. Clayton’s discovery of dead Donald Ray upends his longtime emotional numbness. Darlene, the seventeen-year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her late husband while proving herself still alive. Soon Clayton and Darlene’s bond of loss and death works its magic, drawing them into an affair that brings the loneliness in Clayton and Berta Mae’s marriage to crisis. When Aurilla learns about the affair, her own memories of longing and infidelity are set loose. Like Darlene’s–unappeased and clung to—they possess an intensity that denies life to the present. As Aurilla’s forbidden and tragic story of love, death, and repeated loss alternates with Darlene’s, the divide of generations and time narrows and collapses, building to the unlikely collision of the two women’s yearnings, which free them both from the past. Loving the Dead and Gone is a lyrical novel about the transformative power of death and how tragedy binds people even more lastingly than passion.

A Very Typical Family

Sierra Godfrey's A Very Typical Family is a 2022 Debut about family--a very troubled family--launching September 1st. Natalie Walker is the reason her older brother and sister went to prison over 15 years ago, and she hasn’t spoken to anyone in her family since. Then, years later, Natalie receives a letter from a lawyer saying her estranged mother has died and left the family’s historic Santa Cruz house to her. Except that the only way for Natalie and her siblings to inherit is for all three adult children to come back and claim it—together! As a former Santa Cruz resident, I have to read this one...

The Unlocked Path

The Unlocked Path, by Janis Robinson Daly, debuted August 25th. In 1897 Philadelphia, educated, career-minded, independent “New Woman” Eliza Pearson Edwards witnesses her aunt's suicide and rejects her mother’s wishes for a society debut and instead enters a woman’s medical college. With determination and the support of a circle of women, Eliza charts a life path that combines science and sympathy to heal others and herself.

Andrea Hoffman Goes All In

Launching August 30th, Diane Cohen Schneider's Andrea Hoffman Goes All In is a 2022 Debut about Andrea, who's an overeducated, underemployed, and unmotivated recent college graduate until a robbery suddenly blasts her out of her funk and into a job in the finance world of early-1980s Chicago. Andrea's strong work ethic brings her success, but she also adopts a new, fast life of cocktails, cocaine, and casual sex. At some point, she gradually realizes, she’s going to have to decide what success really means to her...

Out Stealing Water

Roxanne Doty's novel Out Stealing Water launches August 30th from Regal House.

From the Regal House website:

When the city turns off her family’s water, seventeen-year-old Emily begins to understand why her uncle Dwight thinks the government should keep its hands off people’s lives, property, and the things they have a right to—such as water. Set in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area in the summer of 2010, Out Stealing Water tells the story of Emily’s increasingly bold schemes to get enough money to leave Phoenix for good. She and her cousin, Paula, begin stealing. At first, it’s T-shirts and gym shorts from the university gym, but it soon escalates to stealing cell phones and IDs. When they accept an offer from the shady friend of her uncle Jay to steal suitcases from Sky Harbor Airport, they may have crossed a point of no return. Meanwhile, Dwight struggles to hang on to the family’s ramshackle two-acre property located in the heart of a rapidly growing university town by accepting help from an armed anti-government group. In the wake of a tragic shootout, Emily has to choose: stay in the place she calls home or find a new life for herself?

Interviewed by Joy E. Held

I'm delighted to report that another author interview with me is posted--this time with Joy E. Held as part of her interview series Books By My Friends. Check it out here!

Joy has an M.F.A. in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. She has published in newspapers, literary magazines, and specialty journals that includeg Yoga Journal, Dancer Magazine, Dance Teacher Now, and Juggler's World. She's also a yoga teacher and a journal facilitator for Journal to the Self/Center for Journal Therapy. Joy resides in West Virginia.
Joy's book Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2020) provides an award-winning, customizable approach for writers of all genres at any stage of development. The book is designed to help writers cultivate a healthy lifestyle and a satisfying career.

(Not) Your Basic Love Story

Not Your Basic Love Story, by Lindsay Maple, is a 2022 Debut rom-com launching August 23rd. Independent city girl Becky doesn't expect that her vacation fling will turn serious, but when she and Dev return to Vancouver, they begin to realize how different they really are. Can a wine-drinking urban carnivore find happiness with a teetotal vegetarian Sikh who lives with his extended family in the suburbs?