Hank Garner's Blog, page 19

Author Stories Podcast Episode 699 | Edgar Award Winner Alison Gaylin Warns Us To Never Look Back

Today’s author interview guest is Alison Gaylin, author of Never Look Back.

[image error]From the Edgar Award-winning author of If I Die Tonight

Reminiscent of the bestsellers of Laura Lippman and Harlan Coben—with a  Serial -esque podcast twist—an absorbing, addictive tale of psychological suspense from the author of the highly acclaimed and Edgar Award-nominated  What Remains of Me  and the  USA Today  bestselling and Shamus Award-winning Brenna Spector series.

For thirteen days in 1976, teenage murderers April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy terrorized Southern California’s Inland Empire, killing a dozen victims before perishing themselves in a fire… or did they? More than 40 years later, twentysomething podcast producer Quentin Garrison blames his troubled upbringing on the murders. And after a shocking message from a source, he has reason to believe April Cooper may still be alive. Meanwhile, New York City film columnist Robin Diamond is coping with rising doubts about her husband and terrifying threats from internet trolls. But that’s nothing compared to the outrageous phone call she gets from Quentin… and a brutal home invasion that makes her question everything she ever believed in. Is Robin’s beloved mother a mass murderer? Is there anyone she can trust?

Told through the eyes of those destroyed by the Inland Empire Killings—including Robin, Quentin, and a fifteen-year-old April Cooper—Never Look Back asks the question:

How well do we really know our parents, our partners—and ourselves?

Alison Gaylin is the Edgar award-winning author of 11 books. A USA Today and international bestseller, she worked, very long ago, as a reporter for a supermarket tabloid, where she developed a lifelong fascination with writing about people doing despicable things.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 698 | J. R. Finch Brings The Historical Thriller The Darwin Strain

Today’s author interview guest is J. R. Finch, co-author of The R. J. MacCready series and the new thriller The Darwin Strain.

[image error]The authors of Hell’s Gate and The Himalayan Codex deliver their third high-octane thriller—a page-turning blend of science, history, and suspense featuring zoologist and adventurer Captain R. J. MacCready.

“Looks like Schutt and Finch are filling the void left by the passing of Michael Crichton.”—James Cameron, director/writer/explorer

Though the fighting has stopped and Hitler is vanquished, a dangerous new war between America and the Soviet Union has begun. Invaluable in defeating the Nazis, accidental crypto-zoologist R. J. MacCready and Yanni Thorne, an indigenous Brazilian and expert in animal behavior, are working for the Pentagon once again. Sent to a mysterious Greek island in a remote corner of the Mediterranean, they are investigating rumors about a volcanic spring with “miraculous” healing properties that the locals say is guarded by sea monsters from ancient legends.

The islanders believe that, like Fatima, the spring is a gift from God. To the Greek Orthodox Church, it is a sign of a deadly evil foretold in apocalyptic texts. Alongside French and Chinese researchers—men who share their strange, blood-stained past—Mac and Yanni discover that the volcanic spring’s undersea plumes release an exotic microbe that can transform life with astonishing speed.

To find the source of the Volcanic spring, Mac and Yanni must find a way to neutralize “the Dragons of Revelation”—a fearsome aquatic species also known as “Kraken,” which are preventing the scientists from exploring deep beneath the sea’s surface. Mutating at an astonishing pace, the Kraken have evolved into a chillingly high alien intelligence. As the race to possess the “miracle” microbe heats up, tensions between geopolitics, religion, and ordinary scientists confronted with the unknown escalate into chaos. Mac and Yanni know all too well that one wrong choice can easily set in motion a biological chain reaction that will reach across the decades to enhance—or destroy—everything that lives.

J. R. Finch is a painter, history buff, and cave explorer. He lives in New York City with three cats.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 697 | Steve Turnbull Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Steve Turnbull, author of The Dragons Of Esterness.

[image error] What value is freedom when you can’t even ride a dragon? The Complete Story…

As the life of a slave goes, Kantees doesn’t have it too bad. Being responsible for a racing dragon means her existence is more than just drudgery and fear, even if her life is at the whim of her masters and their rules.

But when her dragon wakes her in the middle of the night Kantees is forced to make a life-or-death decision that breaks her masters’ rules and means her own life is forfeit.

Escaping on the back of dragons, with a hodgepodge of unwelcome associates, she attempts to right a wrong that can never be fixed. Until, ultimately, she must put her own life on the line to keep the freedom she has stolen for herself.

When he’s not sitting at his computer building websites for national institutions and international companies, USA Today bestselling author Steve Turnbull can be found sitting at his computer building new worlds of steampunk, science fiction and fantasy.

Technically Steve was born a cockney but after five years he was moved out from London to the suburbs where he grew up and he talks posh now. He’s been a voracious reader of science fiction and fantasy since his early years, but it was poet Laurie Lee’s autobiography “Cider with Rosie” (picked up because he was bored in Maths) that taught him the beauty of language and spurred him into becoming a writer, aged 15. He spent twenty years editing and writing for computer magazines while writing poetry on the side.

Nowadays he writes screenplays (TV and features), prose and computer programs.

 

Author Stories Podcast Episode 696 | Wendy Corsi Staub Returns With Dead Silence

On today’s show Wendy Corsi Staub, author of more than 80 novels and most recently The Foundlings Trilogy, returns to the show to talk about her newest book Dead Silence.

[image error]

In New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub’s riveting thriller, uncovering secrets in the past draws one woman into a killer’s web. . .

No Such Thing as Coincidence . . .

Staring into his frightened blue eyes, investigative genealogist Amelia Crenshaw Haines vows to help this silent little boy who is unable—or unwilling—to communicate his past. Though her own roots remain shrouded in mystery, she relies on tangible DNA evidence to help fellow foundlings uncover theirs . . . until a remarkable twist of fate presents a stranger bearing an eerily familiar childhood souvenir.

NYPD Missing Persons Detective Stockton Barnes has spent his career searching for other people’s lost loved ones and outrunning a youthful misstep. Now a chance encounter with a key player from that fateful night leads him on a desperate quest to locate the one woman he’s ever regretted leaving—unless a savage killer finds her first.

As Amelia and Barnes uncover intertwining truths—and lies—the real horror emerges not in crimes already committed, but in evil yet to come . . .

New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than ninety novels, best known for the single title psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. Those books and the women’s fiction she writes under the pseudonym Wendy Markham have also appeared on the USA Today, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookscan bestseller lists.

LITTLE GIRL LOST (July, William Morrow) launches Wendy’s fifth suspense trilogy for HarperCollins. In 2017, she concluded her Mundy’s Landing trilogy with BONE WHITE (April, William Morrow), and released DEAD OF WINTER (November, Crooked Lane), the third title in her Lily Dale traditional mystery series.

Her novel HELLO, IT’S ME was a recent Hallmark television movie starring Kellie Martin. Her short story “Cat Got Your Tongue” will appear in R.L. Stine’s upcoming MWA middle grade anthology SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (HarperCollins, 2018).

A three-time finalist for the Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award, she’s won an RWA Rita Award, an RT Award for Career Achievement in Suspense, the 2007 RWA-NYC Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement, and five WLA Washington Irving Prizes for Fiction.

She previously published a dozen adult suspense novels with Kensington Books and the critically-acclaimed young adult paranormal series “Lily Dale” (Walker/Bloomsbury). Earlier in her career, she published a broad range of genres under her own name and pseudonyms, and was a co-author/ghostwriter for several celebrities.

Raised in Dunkirk, NY, Wendy graduated from SUNY Fredonia and launched a publishing career in New York City. She was Associate Editor at Silhouette Books before selling her first novel in 1992. Married with two sons, she lives in the NYC suburbs. An active supporter of the American Cancer Society, she was a featured speaker at Northern Westchester’s 2015 Relay for Life and 2012 National Spokesperson for the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation. She has has fostered for various animal rescue organizations.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 695 | Louisa Treger Talks The Dragon Lady

Today’s author interview guest is Louisa Treger, author of The Dragon Lady.

[image error]‘A daring blend of romance, crime and history, and an intelligent exposé of the inherent injustice and consequences of all forms of oppression’ Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions



Opening with the shooting of Lady Virginia ‘Ginie’ Courtauld in her tranquil garden in 1950s Rhodesia, The Dragon Lady tells Ginie’s extraordinary story, so called for the exotic tattoo snaking up her leg. From the glamorous Italian Riviera before the Great War to the Art Deco glory of Eltham Palace in the thirties, and from the secluded Scottish Highlands to segregated Rhodesia in the fifties, the narrative spans enormous cultural and social change. Lady Virginia Courtauld was a boundary-breaking, colourful and unconventional person who rejected the submissive role women were expected to play.

Ostracised by society for being a foreign divorcée at the time of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, Ginie and her second husband ,Stephen Courtauld, leave the confines of post-war Britain to forge a new life in Rhodesia, only to find that being progressive liberals during segregation proves mortally dangerous. Many people had reason to dislike Ginie, but who had reason enough to pull the trigger?

Deeply evocative of time and place, The Dragon Lady subtly blends fact and fiction to paint the portrait of an extraordinary woman in an era of great social and cultural change.

Born in London, Louisa Treger began her career as a classical violinist. She studied at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music, and worked as a freelance orchestral player and teacher.

Louisa subsequently turned to literature, gaining a First Class degree and a PhD in English at University College London, where she focused on early twentieth century women’s writing.

Married with three children, she lives in London.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 694 | Melissa de la Cruz Brings Us A Suspense Classic With The Birthday Girl

Today’s author interview guest is Melissa de la Cruz, #1 New York Times, #1 Publisher’s Weekly and #1 IndieBound bestselling author of The Isle of the Lost and the new suspense thriller The Birthday Girl.

[image error] In the thrilling, suspenseful new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz, all of Ellie de Florent-Stinson’s secrets come to light in one eventful evening full of twists, turns, and surprises.  

Before she became a glamorous fashion designer, Ellie de Florent-Stinson was a trailer-park teen about to turn sixteen. But a night of birthday celebration doesn’t go exactly as planned and descends into a night she’ll never be able to forget.

Now, on the cusp of her fortieth birthday, it appears Ellie has everything she ever wanted: a handsome husband; an accomplished, college-age stepdaughter; a beautiful ten-year-old girl; adorable and rambunctious six-year-old twin boys; lush, well-appointed homes in Los Angeles, Park City, and Palm Springs; a thriving career; and a dazzling circle of friends.

Except everything is not quite as perfect as it looks on the outside—Ellie is keeping many secrets. And hiding those skeletons has a cost, and it all comes to a head the night of her fabulous birthday party in the desert—where everyone who matters in her life shows up, invited or not. Old and new friends and frenemies, stepdaughters and business partners, ex-wives and ex-husbands congregate, and the glittering facade of Ellie’s life begins to crumble.

Beautifully paced and full of surprises, The Birthday Girl is an enthralling tale of a life lived in shadow and its unavoidable consequences.

Melissa de la Cruz is the #1 New York Times, #1 Publisher’s Weekly and #1 IndieBound bestselling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for readers of all ages. Her more than thirty books have also topped the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists and have been published in over twenty countries.

The Isle of the Lost, the prequel to the Disney Channel Original Movie The Descendants, has spent more than fifty weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, fifteen at #1, and has over a million copies in print. The Descendants starring Kristen Chenoweth and Dove Cameron is the #1 cable TV movie of 2015, and #5 of all time, and its soundtrack is the #1 bestselling album on iTunes. The Isle of the Lost’s sequel, Return to the Isle of the Lost, is also a #1 New York Times bestseller and spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times List. The third Isle of the Lost book will be published in May 2017.

De la Cruz is the author of the Blue Bloods series (with three million copies in print), among many others. Her first series for adults launched with Witches of East End, which People magazine called a “bubbling cauldron of mystery and romance.” The bestseller was followed by Serpent’s Kiss and Winds of Salem.  Lifetime Television aired a two-season drama series based on Witches of East End,starring Julia Ormond, Jenna Dewan-Tatum, Rachel Boston and Mädchen Amick. De la Cruz’s young adult spin-off of the series, Summer on East End has also been optioned for television.

Her recent books include Something in Between, a YA contemporary novel inspired by de la Cruz’s own immigrant experience coming from the Philippines which launched the Seventeen imprint at Harlequin Teen, as well as Alex and Eliza, a historical novel about the romance between Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler, forthcoming from Penguin Teen in April 2017.

Angel Falls, a television movie she wrote for the Hallmark Channel, will premiere this December as part of the network’s Countdown to Christmas and will star Rachel Boston from Witches of East End. Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe, her latest novel for adults will be published by St. Martin’s and Melissa has also written the script for the television movie.

A former fashion and beauty editor, Melissa has written for The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl! and Seventeen. She has also appeared as an expert on fashion, trends and fame for CNN, E! and FoxNews.

In addition to her literary work, Melissa is the co-founder of YALLWEST, and the co-director of YALLFEST, two of the largest teen book festivals in the country. She is also on the Advisory Board of Facing History, which reaches five million school children nationwide with a curriculum devoted to teaching empathy and social justice.

She grew up in Manila and moved to San Francisco with her family, where she graduated high school salutatorian from The Convent of the Sacred Heart. At Columbia University, she majored in art history and English.

Melissa de la Cruz lives in West Hollywood, California with her husband and daughter.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 693 | Kristan Higgins Investigates Life And Other Inconveniences

Today’s author interview guest is Kristan Higgins, author of Life And Other Inconveniences.

[image error] From the New York Times bestselling author of Good Luck with That comes a new novel about a blue-blood grandmother and her black-sheep granddaughter who discover they are truly two sides of the same coin.

Emma London never thought she had anything in common with her grandmother Genevieve London. The regal old woman came from wealthy and bluest-blood New England stock, but that didn’t protect her from life’s cruelest blows: the disappearance of Genevieve’s young son, followed by the premature death of her husband. But Genevieve rose from those ashes of grief and built a fashion empire that was respected the world over, even when it meant neglecting her other son.

When Emma’s own mother died, her father abandoned her on his mother’s doorstep. Genevieve took Emma in and reluctantly raised her–until Emma got pregnant her senior year of high school. Genevieve kicked her out with nothing but the clothes on her back…but Emma took with her the most important London possession: the strength not just to survive but to thrive. And indeed, Emma has built a wonderful life for herself and her teenage daughter, Riley.

So what is Emma to do when Genevieve does the one thing Emma never expected of her and, after not speaking to her for nearly two decades, calls and asks for help?

Kristan Higgins is the New York Times, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of 18 novels, which have been translated into more than two dozen languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books have received dozens of awards and accolades, including starred reviews from Kirkus, The New York Journal of Books, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Booklist. Her books regularly appear on the lists for best novels of the year. Kristan is also a cohost of the Crappy Friends podcast, which discusses the often complex dynamics of female friendships, with her friend and fellow writer, Joss Dey.

The proud descendant of a butcher and a laundress, Kristan lives in Connecticut with her heroic firefighter husband. They own several badly behaved pets and are often visited by their entertaining and long-lashed children.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 692 | Robert Crais Talks A Dangerous Man

Today’s author interview guest is Robert Crais, author of the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series, who joins me to talk about his new thriller A Dangerous Man.

[image error] A brilliant new crime novel from the beloved, bestselling, and award-winning master of the genre–and Joe Pike’s most perilous case to date.

Joe Pike didn’t expect to rescue a woman that day. He went to the bank same as anyone goes to the bank, and returned to his Jeep. So when Isabel Roland, the lonely young teller who helped him, steps out of the bank on her way to lunch, Joe is on hand when two men abduct her. Joe chases them down, and the two men are arrested. But instead of putting the drama to bed, the arrests are only the beginning of the trouble for Joe and Izzy.

After posting bail, the two abductors are murdered and Izzy disappears. Pike calls on his friend, Elvis Cole, to help learn the truth. What Elvis uncovers is a twisted family story that involves corporate whistleblowing, huge amounts of cash, the Witness Relocation Program, and a long line of lies. But what of all that did Izzy know? Is she a perpetrator or a victim? And how far will Joe go to find out?

Robert Crais is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. A native of Louisiana, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a blue collar family of oil refinery workers and police officers. He purchased a secondhand paperback of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister when he was fifteen, which inspired his lifelong love of writing, Los Angeles, and the literature of crime fiction. Other literary influences include Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck.

After years of amateur film-making and writing short fiction, he journeyed to Hollywood in 1976 where he quickly found work writing scripts for such major television series as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, and Miami Vice, as well as numerous series pilots and Movies-of-the-Week for the major networks. He received an Emmy nomination for his work on Hill Street Blues, but is most proud of his 4-hour NBC miniseries, Cross of Fire, which the New York Times declared: “A searing and powerful documentation of the Ku Klux Klan’s rise to national prominence in the 20s.”

In the mid-eighties, feeling constrained by the collaborative working requirements of Hollywood, Crais resigned from a lucrative position as a contract writer and television producer in order to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a novelist. His first efforts proved unsuccessful, but upon the death of his father in 1985, Crais was inspired to create Elvis Cole, using elements of his own life as the basis of the story. The resulting novel, The Monkey’s Raincoat, won the Anthony and Macavity Awards and was nominated for the Edgar Award. It has since been selected as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

Crais conceived of the novel as a stand-alone, but realized that—in Elvis Cole—he had created an ideal and powerful character through which to comment upon his life and times. (See the WORKS section for additional titles.) Elvis Cole’s readership and fan base grew with each new book, then skyrocketed in 1999 upon the publication of L. A. Requiem, which was a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller and forever changed the way Crais conceived of and structured his novels. In this new way of telling his stories, Crais combined the classic ‘first person’ narrative of the American detective novel with flashbacks, multiple story lines, multiple points-of-view, and literary elements to better illuminate his themes. Larger and deeper in scope, Publishers Weekly wrote of L. A. Requiem, “Crais has stretched himself the way another Southern California writer—Ross Macdonald—always tried to do, to write a mystery novel with a solid literary base.” Booklist added, “This is an extraordinary crime novel that should not be pigeonholed by genre. The best books always land outside preset boundaries. A wonderful experience.”

Crais followed with his first non-series novel, Demolition Angel, which was published in 2000 and featured former Los Angeles Police Department Bomb Technician Carol Starkey. Starkey has since become a leading character in the Elvis Cole series. In 2001, Crais published his second non-series novel, Hostage, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and was a world-wide bestseller. Additionally, the editors of Amazon.com selected Hostage as the #1 thriller of the year. A film adaptation of Hostage was released in 2005, starring Bruce Willis as ex-LAPD SWAT negotiator Jeff Talley.

Elvis Cole returned in 2003 with the publication of The Last Detective, followed by the tenth Elvis Cole novel, The Forgotten Man, in 2005. Both novels explore with increasing depth the natures and characters of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. RC’s third stand-alone novel, The Two Minute Rule, was published in 2006, and was followed in 2007 by The Watchman, the first novel in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series to feature Joe Pike in the title role.

The novels of Robert Crais have been published in 62 countries and are bestsellers around the world. Robert Crais received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award in 2006 and was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 2014.

Currently, Robert Crais lives in the Santa Monica mountains with his wife, two cats, and many thousands of books.

 

Author Stories Podcast Episode 691 | Hallie Ephron Warns Us To Be Careful What We Wish For

Today’s author interview guest is Hallie Ephron, author of the brand new thriller Careful What You Wish For.

[image error]From the New York Times bestselling author of There Was an Old Woman comes a novel about a professional organizer with a deadly problem she may not be able to clean up.

Emily Harlow is a professional organizer who helps people declutter their lives; she’s married to man who can’t drive past a yard sale without stopping. He’s filled their basement, attic, and garage with his finds.

Like other professionals who make a living decluttering peoples’ lives, Emily has devised a set of ironclad rules. When working with couples, she makes clear that the client is only allowed to declutter his or her own stuff. That stipulation has kept Emily’s own marriage together these past few years. She’d love nothing better than to toss out all her husband’s crap. He says he’s a collector. Emily knows better—he’s a hoarder. The larger his “collection” becomes, the deeper the distance grows between Emily and the man she married.

Luckily, Emily’s got two new clients to distract herself: an elderly widow whose husband left behind a storage unit she didn’t know existed, and a young wife whose husband won’t allow her stuff into their house. Emily’s initial meeting with the young wife takes a detour when, after too much wine, the women end up fantasizing about how much more pleasant life would be without their collecting spouses.

But the next day Emily finds herself in a mess that might be too big for her to clean up. Careful what you wish for, the old adage says . . . now Emily might lose her freedom, her marriage . . . and possibly her life.

Writer, writing teacher Hallie Ephron…

New York Times bestselling author Hallie Ephron, Edgar Award finalist and five-time finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, writes books she hopes readers can’t put down.

Her forthcoming suspense novel, Careful What You Wish For (August, 2019), was inspired by the Marie Kondo life-changing decluttering tips. It explores the relationships built by professional organizers and their clients—showing just how easily the lines between professional and personal can be blurred. In it, Emily Harlow is a professional organizer who helps people declutter their lives; she’s married to man who can’t drive past a yard sale without stopping. Sometimes she find herself wondering if he sparks joy. In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly called it “outstanding.”

Her You’ll Never Know, Dear (June, 2017, Wm. Morrow) is set in South Carolina. It tells the story of a little girl’s disappearance and the porcelain doll that may hold the key to her fate. It was named a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, an Earphones Award winner, and one of the “Top 10 Mystery and Suspense” audiobooks of 2017 by Audiofile.

In Night Night, Sleep Tight, Hallie takes her experiences growing up in Beverly Hills in a family of writers and weaves them into a suspense novel with echoes of a scandalous true crime. The novel was InStyle Magazine’s #1 “Page-turning Pick.” In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly said, “Old Hollywood glamour, scandals, and lies infuse this captivating thriller.” Good Housekeeping (as “addictive” as Gone Girl) picked it as its top page turner for April. Bookreporter reviewer called it, “An extremely impressive work. The plotting and character development read as if they could have been transplanted from an unpublished Raymond Chandler novel.

Her first suspense standalone was Never Tell a Lie (Wm. Morrow, 2009). In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it “stunning” and a “deliciously creepy tale of obsession.” USA Today: “You can imagine Hitchcock curling up with this one.” It was adapted for film as “And Baby Will Fall” for the Lifetime Movie Network.

She followed up with Come and Find Me, the story of a reclusive former hacker who thinks she’s found safety on the Internet. When her sister disappears she has to brave the real world. Mystery Scene called it “Psychologically astute and emotionally gripping. ”

Set in the Bronx with a view of the Empire State Building, her next novel, There Was an Old Woman,tells a story of trust and betrayal, deception and madness. In it, a young woman and a very old woman connect across generations in spite of, or perhaps because, they are not related. It garnered rave reviews. Washington Post book reviewer Maureen Corrigan: “For those who love Gotham and abhor gore, There Was an Old Woman is the perfect thriller lite.” New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen calls it “an absolute must read. I devoured this in one ravenous gulp.”

Hallie teaches writing at workshops and writing conferences across the country and abroad. A REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION of her Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel (Writers Digest Books), is widely available. It was nominated for Edgar and Anthony awards. Lee Child called it “the best how-to guide I have ever seen — I just wish I could have read it twenty years ago.”

An award-winning crime fiction book reviewer, Hallie wrote an ON CRIME column for the Boston Globe for more than ten years.

Author Stories Podcast Episode 690 | Writing Suspense With Rea Frey

Today’s author interview guest is Rea Frey, author of Because You’re Mine.

[image error]An “insidious, suspenseful tale” (J.T. Ellison) with a “shocker of an ending you won’t see coming” (Michele Campbell), Because You’re Mine by Rea Frey, the author who “brings to mind Jodi Picoult” (Booklist) and “will appeal to readers of Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen” (Sally Hepworth)is a novel about how the truth will set you free.

But it’s the lies that keep you safe.

Single mother Lee has the daily routine down to a science: shower in six minutes. Cut food into perfect squares. Never leave her on-the-spectrum son Mason in someone else’s care. She’ll do anything—anything—to keep his carefully constructed world from falling apart. Do anything to keep him safe.

But when her best friend Grace convinces her she needs a small break from motherhood to recharge her batteries, Lee gives in to a weekend trip. Surely a long weekend away from home won’t hurt?

Noah, Mason’s handsome, bright, charismatic tutor—the first man in ages Lee’s even noticed—is more than happy to stay with him.

Forty-eight hours later, someone is dead.

But not all is as it seems. Noah may be more than who he claims to be. Grace has a secret—one that will destroy Lee. Lee has secrets of her own that she will do anything to keep hidden. And what will happen to Mason, as the dominoes begin to fall and the past comes to light?

Perhaps it’s no mystery someone is gone after all…

Because You’re Mine is a breathtaking novel of domestic drama and suspense.

Prepare to stay up all night.

Rea Frey is an award-winning author of four nonfiction books. She lives in Nashville with her husband and daughter. Her debut novel, NOT HER DAUGHTER, was released 8.21.18 and has been optioned for film. Her new novel, BECAUSE YOU’RE MINE, will be published 8.6.19. Read more at reafrey.com.