Nancy Stancill's Blog: Saving Texas blog , page 2

Kirkus reviews Winning Texas

June 15, 2016

Kirkus Reviews finds a “fascinating storyline” in Winning Texas – the blow-by-blow at “a slowly dying newspaper,” Read the review here. Cached here.

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Virginian-Pilot reviews Winning Texas

June 13, 2016

James Thomas reviewed Winning Texas for the Virginian-Pilot, remarking that the books has enough “murder, suspense and enough bizarre politics that in light of today’s political climate might leave readers pondering, ‘What if?’ ”

Read Thomas’ review here. Cached here.

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N&O reviews Winning Texas, a ‘fast-paced thriller’

June 4, 2016

Mary Cornatzer reviewed Winning Texas for the News & Observer.

Read the review here (cached here.)

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Old KGB agent knows what’s best for Texas?

June 1, 2016

I had no idea that Vladimir Putin had an opinion on Texas secession until I saw this editorial comment in Sunday’s London Times. Could I somehow get a copy of Winning Texas to him?

From the Times:

“As we debate Brexit, isit time for Texit? Pravda, once the official organ of the Soviet communist party, has suggested that the US would be better off without Texas.

“Texas has been a particular cancer on the people of the United States,” says the paper, which blames the state for, among other things, unleashing George W. Bush on the White House. Texans should now follow the British example and plunge into weeks and weeks of angry debate followed by a referendum. Nothing quite so bracing, is there?”

Thanks to my London friend Sylvia Wallach Squires for sharing this bit of British commentary.

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Reading and Q&A at Park Road Books Charlotte

Nancy Stancill

May 25, 2016

Nancy Stancill’s friends packed the back of Park Road Books tonight to hear the author read from her new suspense thriller, Winning Texas.

There was a gray hair or two in this audience of wellwishers – and also a real live teen whose name is a character in the book.

Stancill read a couple of excerpts, then answered questions. She talked about her love of Houston, and West Texas; her visit (with her husband) to a strip club – for research; and what she reads. Video excerpts from the readings and Q&A will be posted below as they are available.

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Virginia novelist Matthew Paust reviews Winning Texas

Illustration from Paust’s blog.

May 25, 2016

Matthew Paust, the Hampton Roads, Va., novelist and “intranational man of irony,” reviewed Winning Texas in his “Crime Time” blog. His blog is here, cached here.

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Dannye Romine Powell writes about Winning Texas

May 20, 2016

The Charlotte Observer’s Dannye Romine Powell wrote about Winning Texas today in her “Reading Matters” column. The piece is here (cached here).

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Winning Texas available at Kindle store

May 10, 2016

The Kindle version of Winning Texas is available for pre-order at Amazon, with delivery May 19. Soon, it will be on Smashwords and Nook and over the next few weeks should show up at Sony, Apple, Kobo, Diesel, and more.

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Winning Texas is published

May 5, 2016

“Sex traffickers and guns-for-hire meet in a nefarious plot to see Texas secede and America shaken to its core. Witty, gritty and filled with brilliantly realized characters, this book is a pure delight for lovers of suspense as the ever-dogged Annie Price risks life and limb to uncover the truth.”

– Tony D’Souza,

author of Mule

“When a female body is found floating in the Houston Ship Channel, Annie Price, an investigative journalist for a struggling Houston newspaper, is propelled into a dangerous web of intrigue. She must solve a complex mystery that includes a corrupt strip club empire, a ruthless human trafficking scheme, and deadly competition between two separatist groups seeking to impose their twisted visions on the Lone Star State. As two murders hit close to home, Annie and a fellow reporter risk death to expose the hidden secrets of a Texas ranch.”

– Black Rose Writing

“Winning Texas is a moody thriller, an ode to people with outsized dreams and the ones they prey on; to those who populate the city by day, and those who rule the night. In the wake of L.A.-noir and Florida glare, Nancy Stancill gives us Bayou City grime. In her pages, Houston seduces and leaves us breathless, begging for more.”

– Stefan Kiesbye, author of The Staked Plains

Buy the book here.

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You write alone, but it’s grand not to feel alone

May 5, 2016

Writing my first book was a lonely struggle, but I got lucky the second time around.

I started writing Winning Texas, my second suspense novel, as I entered the University of Tampa’s master’s program in creative writing in June 2013. When I graduated last summer, I ended up with a working draft of my second book – and so much more.

For two years, I had the privilege and pleasure of being part of a creative community of writers who nurtured my work in a tender, caring way. My mentors were experienced novelists who helped me see the flaws in my writing without crushing my spirit. My fellow students read my chapters carefully, finding plenty to praise in the small critique groups that can quickly turn negative in academia. Or so I’ve heard. My groups never did. I hope that I was as gentle and helpful with my fellow students’ work as they were with my writing.

Today, as Winning Texas, my journalism-and-politics thriller is released by Black Rose Writing, I am grateful to the writers who helped me get there. It doesn’t quite take a village to produce a book, but a few dozen kindred spirits can make a novel so much better.

When I wrote Saving Texas, my first book, I was living in London as an expat while my husband worked for a Charlotte-based bank. Especially at first, when I knew no one, it could get horribly lonely. The weather was cold and dreary and I needed distraction and hope. Starting a novel based on a lifetime of reporter’s adventures was my answer. I’d sit at my kitchen table dressed in layers and write while the wind rattled the windows in our third-floor flat. Eventually I got the job done, but it was pretty much like solitary confinement with a thesaurus.

Grad school was gloriously different. I was still writing alone, but I knew that my fellow students were sweating through first drafts in steamy Miami, or snowy New York or cold Connecticut. Then we’d all come together and talk about our work in Tampa.

I will read from and sign copies of Winning Texas on Wednesday, May 25 at 7 p.m. at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Rd., in Charlotte.

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