Hank Garner's Blog, page 16

Author Stories Podcast Episode 729 | Nancy Richardson Fischer Returns With The Speed Of Falling Objects

Today our author interview guest is Nancy Richardson Fischer. Nancy returns to the show to talk about her brand new book The Speed Of Falling Objects.

[image error]From the author of When Elephants Fly comes an exceptional new novel about falling down, risking everything and embracing what makes us unique. Don’t miss this compulsively readable novel about the most unlikely of heroes.

Danger “Danny” Danielle Warren is no stranger to falling. After losing an eye in a childhood accident, she had to relearn her perception of movement and space. Now Danny keeps her head down, studies hard, and works to fulfill everyone else’s needs. She’s certain that her mom’s bitterness and her TV star father’s absence are her fault. If only she were more―more athletic, charismatic, attractive―life would be perfect.

When her dad calls with an offer to join him to film the next episode of his popular survivalist show, Danny jumps at the chance to prove she’s not the disappointment he left behind. Being on set with the hottest teen movie idol of the moment, Gus Price, should be the cherry on top. But when their small plane crashes in the Amazon, and a terrible secret is revealed, Danny must face the truth about the parent she worships and falling for Gus, and find her own inner strength and worth to light the way home.

Nancy Richardson Fischer is the author of the young adult novel, When Elephants Fly (HarperCollins/Inkyard Press). Fischer has authored multiple sport autobiographies and Star Wars books for LucasFilm. Her new novel, The Speed of Falling Objects, was published by HarperCollins/Inkyard Press on October 1st, 2019.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 728 | Rene Denfeld Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Rene Denfeld, author of The Butterfly Girl: A Novel.

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“A heartbreaking, finger-gnawing, and yet ultimately hopeful novel by the amazing Rene Denfeld.” —Margaret Atwood, via Twitter

After captivating readers in The Child Finder, Naomi—the investigator with an uncanny ability for finding missing children—returns, trading snow-covered woods for dark, gritty streets on the search for her missing sister in a city where young, homeless girls have been going missing and turning up dead.

From the highly praised author of The Child Finder and The Enchanted comes The Butterfly Girl, a riveting novel that ripples with truth, exploring the depths of love and sacrifice in the face of a past that cannot be left dead and buried. A year ago, Naomi, the investigator with an uncanny ability for finding missing children, made a promise that she would not take another case until she finds the younger sister who has been missing for years. Naomi has no picture, not even a name. All she has is a vague memory of a strawberry field at night, black dirt under her bare feet as she ran for her life.

The search takes her to Portland, Oregon, where scores of homeless children wander the streets like ghosts, searching for money, food, and companionship. The sharp-eyed investigator soon discovers that young girls have been going missing for months, many later found in the dirty waters of the river. Though she does not want to get involved, Naomi is unable to resist the pull of children in need—and the fear she sees in the eyes of a twelve-year old girl named Celia. Running from an abusive stepfather and an addict mother, Celia has nothing but hope in the butterflies—her guides and guardians on the dangerous streets. She sees them all around her, tiny iridescent wisps of hope that soften the edges of this hard world and illuminate a cherished memory from her childhood—the Butterfly Museum, a place where everything is safe and nothing can hurt her.

As danger creeps closer, Naomi and Celia find echoes of themselves in one another, forcing them each to consider the question: Can you still be lost even when you’ve been found? But will they find the answer too late?

Rene Denfeld is the bestselling author of the acclaimed novels THE CHILD FINDER (2017), THE ENCHANTED (2014), and the forthcoming THE BUTTERFLY GIRL (October 2019) which Margaret Atwood raved on twitter is “a heartbreaking, finger-gnawing, yet ultimately hopeful novel.”

Rene’s novels explore themes of survival, resiliency and redemption. Landing as the #1 fiction bestseller at Powell’s within its first week, The Child Finder became a top #10 bestseller. The Child Finder received much acclaim, including a starred Library Journal review, glowing NYTBR review, and an Indie Next pick.

Rene was the Chief Investigator at a public defender’s office and has worked hundreds of cases helping others. In addition to her advocacy work, Rene has been a foster adoptive parent for twenty years. She was awarded the Break The Silence Award in Washington, DC in 2017 for her social justice work. She was also named a hero of the year by the New York Times.

The child of a difficult history herself, Rene is an accomplished speaker who loves connecting with others. Rene lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is the happy mom of three kids adopted from foster care as well as other foster kids.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Winner of the prestigious French Prix award

#1 Book of the Year, the Oregonian

Finalist for the 2014 Flaherty First Novel Prize

Finalist for the Connecticut Book Prize

Top #5 Books of the Year, Powell’s Books

Indie Next Pick

Amazon Book of the Month

ALA Excellence in Fiction Award

Foyles Best of 2014

Harper Collins Canada #1 Fan Choice

Waterstones Book Club Pick

Longlist for the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

IMPAC longlist International Dublin Literary Award

A New York Times Hero of the Year for her social justice work

Recipient of the National Break The Silence Award

Author Stories Podcast Episode 727 | Jan Stocklassa Talks Stieg Larsson’s True Crime Story

Today’s author interview guest is Jan Stocklassa, author of The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson’s Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin.

[image error]The author of the Millennium novels laid out the clues. Now a journalist is following them.

When Stieg Larsson died, the author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been working on a true mystery that out-twisted his Millennium novels: the assassination on February 28, 1986, of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister. It was the first time in history that a head of state had been murdered without a clue who’d done it—and on a Stockholm street at point-blank range.

Internationally known for his fictional villains, Larsson was well acquainted with their real-life counterparts and documented extremist activities throughout the world. For years he’d been amassing evidence that linked their terrorist acts to what he called “one of the most astounding murder cases” he’d ever covered. Larsson’s archive was forgotten until journalist Jan Stocklassa was given exclusive access to the author’s secret project.

In The Man Who Played with Fire, Stocklassa collects the pieces of Larsson’s true-crime puzzle to follow the trail of intrigue, espionage, and conspiracy begun by one of the world’s most famous thriller writers. Together they set out to solve a mystery that no one else could.

Jan Stocklassa is a Swedish writer and journalist focusing on large-scale affairs in international politics. In his books, Stocklassa uses a narrative non-fiction style to unveil earlier unknown facts about important events in recent history.

His break-through came with critically acclaimed bestseller “Stieg Larsson’s Archive – the key to the Palme murder”, a narrative non-fiction book published in 2018 that has been sold to more than 50 countries and translated into 27 languages. Following the publication, Swedish police are actively pursuing the leads presented in the book in the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.

Jan Stocklassa first book “Caught by Prague” was published in 2007 and is based on real events that exposes corruption in connection with Saab and British Aerospace’s attempts to sell Saab’s supersonic jetfighters Gripen to the Czech Republic. In the aftermath of the book, police investigations were opened in seven countries.

His professional career comprises being a Swedish diplomat, launching the Metro newspaper in Prague, collaborating as a journalist with major media houses in Sweden and abroad as well as co-producing movies including the documentary “Stieg Larsson – The Man Who Played With Fire”.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 726 | Christopher Ingraham Talks Trading The Commuting Life

Today my guest is Christopher Ingraham, author of If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now: Why We Traded the Commuting Life for a Little House on the Prairie

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The hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham’s decision to uproot his life and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400—the community he made famous as “the worst place to live in America” in a story he wrote for the Washington Post.

Like so many young American couples, Chris Ingraham and his wife Briana were having a difficult time making ends meet as they tried to raise their twin boys in the East Coast suburbs.  One day, Chris – in his role as a “data guy” reporter at the Washington Post – stumbled on a study that would change his life.  It was a ranking of America’s 3,000+ counties from ugliest to most scenic. He quickly scrolled to the bottom of the list and gleefully wrote the words “The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) … Red Lake County, Minn.” The story went viral, to put it mildly.

Among the reactions were many from residents of Red Lake County.  While they were unflappably polite – it’s not called “Minnesota Nice” for nothing – they challenged him to look beyond the spreadsheet and actually visit their community. Ingraham, with slight trepidation, accepted.   Impressed by the locals’ warmth, humor and hospitality – and ever more aware of his financial situation and torturous commute – Chris and Briana eventually decided to relocate to the town he’d just dragged through the dirt on the Internet.

If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now is the story of making a decision that turns all your preconceptions – good and bad — on their heads.  In Red Lake County, Ingraham experiences the intensity and power of small-town gossip, struggles to find a decent cup of coffee, suffers through winters with temperatures dropping to forty below zero, and unearths some truths about small-town life that the coastal media usually miss. It’s a wry and charming tale – with data! — of what happened to one family brave enough to move waaaay beyond its comfort zone

Christopher Ingraham writes about all things data, with a particular interest in gun policy and drug policy. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 725 | Tracy Chevalier Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Tracy Chevalier, author of A Single Thread.

[image error]“A buoyant tale about the path to acceptance and joy–beginning, like all journeys, with one brave step.”–People

An immersive, moving story of a woman coming into her own at the dawn of the Second World War, from internationally bestselling author Tracy Chevalier

Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2019 (TIME) | Best Books of Fall (PopSugar) | 5 Books Not To Miss (USA TODAY) | 50 Best Books of the Year (GOOD HOUSEKEEPING) | One of the New York Post‘s Fall Novels Everyone’s Talking About

After the Great War took both her beloved brother and her fiancé, Violet Speedwell has become a “surplus woman,” one of a generation doomed to a life of spinsterhood after the war killed so many young men. Yet Violet cannot reconcile herself to a life spent caring for her grieving, embittered mother. After countless meals of boiled eggs and dry toast, she saves enough to move out of her mother’s place and into the town of Winchester, home to one of England’s grandest cathedrals. There, Violet is drawn into a society of broderers–women who embroider kneelers for the Cathedral, carrying on a centuries-long tradition of bringing comfort to worshippers.

Violet finds support and community in the group, fulfillment in the work they create, and even a growing friendship with the vivacious Gilda. But when forces threaten her new independence and another war appears on the horizon, Violet must fight to put down roots in a place where women aren’t expected to grow. Told in Chevalier’s glorious prose, A Single Thread is a timeless story of friendship, love, and a woman crafting her own life.

Tracy Chevalier is the author of nine novels, including the international bestseller GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, which has sold over 5 million copies and been made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. American by birth, British by geography, she lives in London with her husband and son. Her latest novel, AT THE EDGE OF THE ORCHARD, is set among the apple trees in Ohio and the redwoods and sequoias of California. Her next book NEW BOY is a re-telling of Othello, set in a Washington DC playground in the 1970s. It’s part of the Hogarth Shakespeare Project in which various writers take a Shakespeare play and write what Jeanette Winterson described as a “cover version.” Tracy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has honorary doctorates from her alma maters Oberlin College and the University of East Anglia. Her website www.tchevalier.com will tell you more about her and her books.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 724 | Craig Johnson Returns With Land Of Wolves

On today’s show Craig Johnson returns for the fifth time to talk about the brand new Walt Longmire Mystery Land Of Wolves. Find Craig’s previous shows here, here, here, and here.

[image error]The new novel in Craig Johnson’s beloved New York Times bestselling Longmire series.

“It’s the scenery—and the big guy standing in front of the scenery—that keeps us coming back to Craig Johnson’s lean and leathery mysteries.”

—The New York Times Book Review

Recovering from his harrowing experiences in Mexico, Sheriff Walt Longmire returns to Absaroka County, Wyoming, to lick his wounds and try once again to maintain justice in a place with grudges that go back generations. When a shepherd is found dead, Longmire suspects it could be suicide. But the shepherd’s connection to the Extepares, a powerful family of Basque ranchers with a history of violence, leads the sheriff into an intricate investigation of a possible murder.

As Walt searches for information about the shepherd, he comes across strange carvings on trees, as well as play money coupons from inside Mallo Cup candies, which he interprets as messages from his spiritual guide, Virgil White Buffalo. Longmire doesn’t know how these little blue cards are appearing, but Virgil usually reaches out if a child is in danger. So when a young boy with ties to the Extepare clan arrives in town, the stakes grow even higher.

Even more complicating, a renegade wolf has been haunting the Bighorn Mountains, and the townspeople are out for blood. With both a wolf and a killer on the loose, Longmire follows a twisting trail of evidence, leading to dark and shocking conclusions.

Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of twelve Walt Longmire mystery novels, which are the basis for Longmire, the hit Netflix original drama. The Cold Dish won Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur/Bibliobs. Death Without Company, the Wyoming Historical Association’s Book of the Year, won France’s Le Prix 813, and Another Man’s Moccasins was the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award Winner and the Mountains & Plains Book of the Year. The Dark Horse, the fifth in the series, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and Junkyard Dogs won The Watson Award for a mystery novel with the best sidekick. Hell Is Empty, selected by Library Journal as the Best Mystery of the Year, was a New York Times best seller, as was As the Crow Flies, which won the Rocky for the best crime novel typifying the western United States. A Serpent’s Tooth opened as a New York Times bestseller as did Any Other Name and Wait for Signs, Johnson’s collection of short stories. Spirit of Steamboat was selected by the State Library as the inaugural One Book Wyoming and included visits to sixty-three libraries. Johnson lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population twenty-five.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 723 | Kendare Blake Returns With Five Dark Fates

Kendare Blake returns to the show today to talk about Five Dark Fates, the epic conclusion of The Three Dark Crowns Series.

[image error]In the final book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Three Dark Crowns series, an all-out war is brewing—one that will pit sister against sister and dead against undead.

After the grim confrontation with Queen Katharine, the rebellion lies in tatters. Jules’s legion curse has been unbound, and it is up to Arsinoe to find a cure, even as the responsibility of stopping the ravaging mist lies heavy on her shoulders, and her shoulders alone. Mirabella has disappeared.

Katharine’s reign remains intact—for now. When Mirabella arrives, seemingly under a banner of truce, Katharine begins to yearn for the closeness that Mirabella and Arsinoe share. But as the two circle each other, the dead queens hiss caution—Mirabella is not to be trusted.

In this conclusion to the Three Dark Crowns series, three sisters will rise to fight as the secrets of Fennbirn’s history are laid bare. Allegiances will shift. Bonds will be tested. But the fate of the island lies in the hands of its queens. It always has.

Kendare Blake is the author of several novels and short stories, most of which you can find information about via the links above. Her work is sort of dark, always violent, and features passages describing food from when she writes while hungry. She was born in July (for those of you doing book reports) in Seoul, South Korea, but doesn’t speak a lick of Korean, as she was packed off at a very early age to her adoptive parents in the United States. That might be just an excuse, though, as she is pretty bad at learning foreign languages. She enjoys the work of Milan Kundera, Caitlin R Kiernan, Bret Easton Ellis, and Richard Linklater.

She lives and writes in Gig Harbor, Washington, with her husband, their cat son Tyrion Cattister, red Doberman dog son Obi-Dog Kenobi, rottie mix dog daughter Agent Scully, and naked Sphynx cat son Armpit McGee.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 722 | Andrea Luhman Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Andrea Luhman, author of Missing Wings: Chronicles of the Aranysargas.

[image error]Born with an ability the Veilede people of Madar believe make her, ‘one of the first to be blessed by God’, Katrina’s destiny unravels when her father is poisoned and her mother steals her into the human world to hide among those who hate her kind.

In a near fatal attempt to return home, Katrina’s stripped of her wings. The poison meant to kill her father leaves him in a degenerative state. When her eldest brother discovers she has survived, he orders her to stay in hiding. She must wait, concealed in the human world, until the danger of their father’s uncontrolled rages is contained.

Grown and adapted to the human world, Katrina encounters one of her kind. The promise of home and first love leads her into a situation capable of starting war among the Veilede. Will a human upbringing, mistakes, and the loss of her abilities bar her from reclaiming her heritage? Will unraveling the mystery of her mother’s betrayal lead her family into even greater danger?

Andrea Luhman is from St.Paul, Minnesota. She attended the University of Minnesota, where she studied playwriting and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre Arts. She served over ten years in the United States Army, and did a lot of non-fiction report writing as a Military Intelligence Officer. Now a civilian, wife, and mother of four she works full time writing fantasy fiction novels. Her interests include reading, scrapbooking, and photography.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 721 | Heli Kennedy Brings Orphan Black The Next Chapter

Today’s guest is Heli Kennedy, writer on the new Serial Box production Orphan Black The Next Chapter.

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Orphan Black: The Next Chapter

Narrated by Tatiana Maslany. Written by Malka Older, Madeline Ashby, Mishell Baker, Heli Kennedy, E.C. Myers, and Lindsay Smith.

The official ebook and audiobook continuation, narrated by Emmy Award winner Tatiana Maslany. New episodes every Thursday.

“[A] wildly fun, sexy sci-fi thriller about a cloning experiment gone awry.” —Chicago Sun-Times

Serial Box’s ORPHAN BLACK: THE NEXT CHAPTER and IDW Publishing’s ORPHAN BLACK GRAPHIC NOVELS.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 720 | Michael Mammay Returns With Spaceside

On today’s show Michael Mammay returns to talk about his followup to last year’s Planetside with Spaceside.

[image error]From the author of Planetside, a Best Book of 2018 (Library Journal)

A military legend is caught in the web between alien intrigue and human subterfuge…

Following his mission on Cappa, Colonel Carl Butler returns to a mixed reception. To some he is a do-or-die war hero. To the other half of the galaxy he’s a pariah. Forced into retirement, he has resettled on Talca Four where he’s now Deputy VP of Corporate Security, protecting a high-tech military company on the corporate battlefield—at least, that’s what the job description says. Really, he’s just there to impress clients and investors. It’s all relatively low risk—until he’s entrusted with new orders. A breach of a competitor’s computer network has Butler’s superiors feeling every bit as vulnerable. They need Butler to find who did it, how, and why no one’s taken credit for the ingenious attack.

As accustomed as Butler is to the reality of wargames—virtual and otherwise—this one screams something louder than a simple hack. Because no sooner does he start digging when his first contact is murdered, the death somehow kept secret from the media. As a prime suspect, he can’t shake the sensation he’s being watched…or finally succumbing to the stress of his past. Paranoid delusion or dangerous reality, Butler might be onto something much deeper than anyone imagined. But that’s where Butler thrives.

If he hasn’t signed his own death warrant.

Michael Mammay is a retired army officer and a graduate of the United States Military Academy. He has a masters degree in military history, and he is a veteran of Desert Storm, Somalia, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He lives with his family in Georgia.