Hank Garner's Blog, page 2
May 1, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 868 | Linda Howard And Linda Jones Interview
Today’s author interview guests are Linda Howard and Linda Jones, authors of After Sundown.
[image error] USA Today Bestseller
Danger brings together two guarded hearts in a battle for survival in this irresistible story from New York Times bestselling authors Linda Howard and Linda Jones.
Sela Gordon, the shy owner of a Tennessee general store, finds safety in solitude. But if anyone can pierce her protective shell it’s the handsome, mysterious ex-military man living alone in the wilds of Cove Mountain. For two years, he’s kept his distance—until the day he appears to warn her that a catastrophic solar storm capable of taking down the power grid is coming. Now, Sela must find the courage to become the leader Wears Valley needs.
Bitter experience has taught Ben Jernigan it’s best to look out for number one. For two years the former soldier has lived in a self-imposed exile, using a top-notch security system to keep people away. But he had to let Sela know about the impending threat—and now the quiet and undeniably sexy woman is making it too easy for him to lower his guard.
As panic spreads, Sela and Ben discover that in the dark, cut off from the outside world, there’s no more playing it safe—in life or in love.
Linda Howard is the award-winning author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Up Close and Dangerous, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Cover of Night, Killing Time, To Die For, Kiss Me While I Sleep, Cry No More, and Dying to Please. She lives in Gadsden, Alabama with her husband and a Golden Retriever.
Linda Jones is the acclaimed USA Today bestselling author of more than seventy novels, including Untouchable, 22 Nights, and Bride by Command. She lives in Huntsville, Alabama.
April 29, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 867 | Benjamin Oliver Interview
Today’s author interview guest is Benjamin Oliver, author of The Loop.
[image error]It’s Luka Kane’s 16th birthday and he’s been inside The Loop for over two years. Every inmate is serving a death sentence with the option to push back their execution date by six months if they opt into “Delays,” scientific and medical experiments for the benefit of the elite in the outside world.
But rumors of a war on the outside are spreading amongst the inmates, and before they know it, their tortuous routine becomes disrupted. The government-issued rain stops falling. Strange things are happening to the guards. And it’s not long until the inmates are left alone inside the prison.
Were the chains that shackled Luka to his cell the only instruments left to keep him safe? In a thrilling shift, he must overcome fellow prisoners hell-bent on killing him, the warden losing her mind, the rabid rats in the train tunnels, and a population turned into murderous monsters to try and break out of The Loop, save his family, and discover who is responsible for the chaos that has been inflicted upon the world.
Benjamin Oliver grew up in Scotland and began writing long before he could spell. He attended the University of Stirling where he studied English but spent most of his time trying to write a novel. Benjamin’s first short story was published when he was eighteen, and since then he’s been published in over a dozen literary magazines and anthologies. Fueled by astounding amounts of coffee, Benjamin completed The Loop — his first full-length YA manuscript — in Edinburgh, where he currently lives and teaches English at secondary school.
April 28, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 866 | Sheena Kamal Returns With No Going Back
Today’s author interview guest is Sheena Kamal. Sheena returns to the show to talk about her new book No Going Back: A Novel (Nora Watts Book 3).
[image error] From Strand Critics Award winner Sheena Kamal, comes the third novel featuring the brilliant, fearless, deeply flawed Nora Watts whose vendetta against a triad enforcer escalates when he places a target on her daughter’s back.
Find your enemy. Before he finds you.
Nora Watts has a talent for seeing what lies beneath strangers’ surfaces, and for knowing what they’re working hard to keep hidden. Somehow, it’s the people closest to her she has trouble truly connecting with. In the case of Bonnie, the teenage daughter Nora gave up for adoption, she has to keep trying. For Bonnie has a target on her back—and it’s all because of Nora.
Two years ago, Bonnie was kidnapped by the wealthy Zhang family. Though Nora rescued her, she made a powerful enemy in Dao, a mysterious triad enforcer and former head of the Zhangs’ private security. Now Dao is out for revenge, and she needs to track him down in order to keep herself—and Bonnie—safe.
On Dao’s trail, Nora forms an unlikely partnership with Bernard Lam, an eccentric playboy billionaire with his own mysterious grudge to bear, and reunites with Jon Brazuca, ex-cop turned private investigator and Nora’s occasional ally. From Canada to southeast Asia they pursue Dao, uncovering a shadowy criminal cabal. But soon, the trail will lead full circle to Vancouver, the only home Nora’s ever known, and right to the heart of her brutal past.
Sheena Kamal was born in the Caribbean and immigrated to Canada as a child. She holds an HBA in political science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. Kamal has also worked as a crime and investigative journalism researcher for the film and television industry– academic knowledge and experience that inspired this debut novel. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Praise for Eyes Like Mine (U.K) /The Lost Ones (U.S.):
“Utterly compelling, rich with voice and psychological insight, populated with heartbreakingly real characters, The Lost Ones will stay with you for a long, long time after you finish the last page. Perhaps forever.”
–Jeffery Deaver, #1 International Bestselling Author
“A brave, unflinching heroine and brave, unflinching writing add up to an extraordinary debut – highly recommended.”
–Lee Child, #1 International Bestselling Author
“Suspenseful, atmospheric and often deeply moving, THE LOST ONES features one of the most complicated and fascinating protagonists I’ve come across in a long time. I’d follow Nora Watts (and her dog Whisper) anywhere.”
–Alison Gaylin, USA Today Bestselling Author
April 27, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 865 | Roshani Chokshi Interview
Today’s author interview guest is Roshani Chokshi, author of Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes (Pandava Series Book 3).
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[image error]The third in four books about a 12-year-old girl named Aru Shah and her journey to find her Pandava sisters in order to restore order to the world and save the mother she loves.
War between the devas and the demons is imminent, and the Otherworld is on high alert. When intelligence from the human world reveals that the Sleeper is holding a powerful clairvoyant and her sister captive, 14-year-old Aru and her friends launch a search-and-rescue mission. The captives, a pair of twins, turn out to be the newest Pandava sisters, though, according to a prophecy, one sister is not true. During the celebration of Holi, the heavenly attendants stage a massage PR rebranding campaign to convince everyone that the Pandavas are to be trusted. As much as Aru relishes the attention, she fears that she is destined to bring destruction to her sisters, as the Sleeper has predicted. Aru believes that the only way to prove her reputation is to find the Kalpavriksha, the wish-granting tree that came out of the Ocean of Milk when it was churned. If she can reach it before the Sleeper, perhaps she can turn everything around with one wish. Careful what you wish for, Aru . . .
Roshani Chokshi is the author of commercial and critically acclaimed books for middle grade and young adult readers that draws on world mythology and folklore. Her work has been nominated for the Locus and Nebula awards, and has frequently appeared on Best of The Year lists from Barnes and Noble, Forbes, Buzzfeed and more. Her New York Times bestselling series includes The Star-Touched Queen duology, The Gilded Wolves, and Aru Shah and The End of Time, which was recently optioned for film by Paramount Pictures.
April 24, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 864 | Ann Druyan Interview
Today’s author interview guest is Ann Druyan, author of the sequel to Carl Sagan’s blockbuster Cosmos, Cosmos: Possible Worlds.
[image error] This sequel to Carl Sagan’s blockbuster continues the electrifying journey through space and time, connecting with worlds billions of miles away and envisioning a future of science tempered with wisdom.
Based on National Geographic’s internationally-renowned television series, this groundbreaking and visually stunning book explores how science and civilization grew up together. From the emergence of life at deep-sea vents to solar-powered starships sailing through the galaxy, from the Big Bang to the intricacies of intelligence in many life forms, acclaimed author Ann Druyan documents where humanity has been and where it is going, using her unique gift of bringing complex scientific concepts to life. With evocative photographs and vivid illustrations, she recounts momentous discoveries, from the Voyager missions in which she and her husband, Carl Sagan, participated to Cassini-Huygens’s recent insights into Saturn’s moons. This breathtaking sequel to Sagan’s masterpiece explains how we humans can glean a new understanding of consciousness here on Earth and out in the cosmos–again reminding us that our planet is a pale blue dot in an immense universe of possibility.
Award winning writer/producer/director Ann Druyan was the Creative Director of NASA’s Voyager Interstellar Message. With her late husband, Carl Sagan, Druyan was co-writer of six New York Times best-sellers, including “Comet,” “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,” “The Demon Haunted World,” “Billions & Billions” and “The Varieties of Scientific Experience.” She was co-writer of the 1980 television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.” Druyan was co-creator and co-producer of the feature film “Contact,” starring Jodie Foster and directed by Bob Zemeckis. She was the lead executive producer (for which she won the Producer’s Guild and Peabody Awards), co-writer (for which she won the 2014 Emmy) as well as one of three directors of Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, which was the largest global roll out of a series in television history and has now been seen in 181 countries.
April 23, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 863 | Donna Everhart Returns With The Moonshiner’s Daughter
Today’s author interview guest is Donna Everhart who returns to the show to talk about her new novel The Moonshiner’s Daughter.
[image error] Set in North Carolina in 1960 and brimming with authenticity and grit, The Moonshiner’s Daughter evokes the singular life of sixteen-year-old Jessie Sasser, a young woman determined to escape her family’s past . . .
Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser’s daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she’s concerned, moonshine caused her mother’s death a dozen years ago.
Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth—one that compels her to seek comfort in food. Yet all her self-destructive behavior seems to do is feed what her school’s gruff but compassionate nurse describes as the “monster” inside Jessie.
Resenting her father’s insistence that moonshining runs in her veins, Jessie makes a plan to destroy the stills, using their neighbors as scapegoats. Instead, her scheme escalates an old rivalry and reveals
long-held grudges. As she endeavors to right wrongs old and new, Jessie’s loyalties will bring her to unexpected revelations about her family, her strengths—and a legacy that may provide her with the answers she has been longing for.
Donna Everhart is a USA Today best selling author of THE EDUCATION OF DIXIE DUPREE, (October 2016) THE ROAD TO BITTERSWEET, (December, 2017) THE FORGIVING KIND. (January 2019) and THE MOONSHINER’S DAUGHTER, coming January 2020.
She writes stories of family hardship and troubled times in a bygone south. A native of North Carolina, she resides in her home state with her husband and their tiny heart stealing Yorkshire terrier, Mister.She is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, and Women’s Fiction Writers Association.
Author Stories Podcast Episode 862 | Joy Cho Interview
Today’s author interview guest is Joy Cho, author of Be Curious (An Oh Joy! Story).
[image error] Are you curious? Find out in this whimsical, stylish lift-the-flap adventure from noted design and lifestyle brand, Oh Joy!
The world is full of wonder — so much to touch, hear, smell, taste, and see.
Each day is another chance for colorful curiosity . . .
Follow one happy cat as she goes on a sensory adventure full of animal friends, joy, and of course — curiosity! This book’s simple, rhyming text fosters parent-child interactions and read-aloud fun. Detailed and adorable illustrations with exploratory interactive lift-the-flaps and peek-through holes ensure that little ones stay engaged and curious as they laugh, explore, and read this story!
Oh Joy! books: Little stories that surprise, delight, and nurture confidence and curiosity.
Launched in 2005 as a graphic design studio, Oh Joy! is now a lifestyle brand and design studio that includes various licensed product lines and a daily editorial content with a focus on design, fashion, food, and joyful moments from everyday life. Oh Joy! creates a wide range of licensed products including home décor, kids, pet, and furniture collections with brands such as Target, Band-Aid, Calpak, Petco, and more.
Founder and Creative Director, Joy Cho, has authored three books and consulted for hundreds of creative businesses around the world. Joy has given keynote speeches on entrepreneurship, leadership, and business at many conferences and companies including Watermark, Alt Summit, Pinterest HQ, Target HQ, and Hallmark HQ. For two years in a row, Joy was named one of Time’s 30 Most Influential People on the Internet and has the most followed account on Pinterest with almost 13 million followers.
Joy and her team work out of the Oh Joy! studio located in Los Angeles.
April 22, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 861 | Kristin Miller Interview
Today’s author interview guest is Kristin Miller, author of In Her Shadow.
A pregnant young woman becomes obsessed with the disappearance of her lover’s wife, only to discover that she may be headed for the same fate, in this novel from New York Times bestselling author Kristin Miller
When secretary Colleen Roper becomes pregnant by her boss, Michael, he whisks her away to Ravenwood, his opulent estate. Abruptly thrust into a life of luxury she’s never known, Colleen finds the immense house suffused with the memory of Michael’s wife, Joanna, who left months ago and haunts her imagination. With rooms she’s prohibited from entering and a staff that greets her with hostility, there is little room for a new mistress of Ravenwood.
It’s not long before bones are unearthed in the grove across the street and Michael falls under the suspicion of detectives. The soon-to-be mother of his child finds herself hurled deeper into her lover’s dark past, a past filled with unfaithfulness and deception. Making a claim to her new life is harder than it seems—especially since she’s walking in the shadow of the hauntingly beautiful Joanna. As Colleen untangles truth from lies, she discovers that nothing is what it seems, and that some people will kill to keep their secrets as quiet as the dead.
Inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, In Her Shadow is the chilling story of one woman’s desperate desire to be loved and the ghosts that threaten to get in her way.
Kristin Miller is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels. After writing dark and gritty versions of “happily ever after” for more than a decade, she turned her hand to psychological suspense, a genre she’s loved since childhood. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two children.
April 21, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 860 | David Baldacci Returns With Walk The Wire
Today I am happy to welcome David Baldacci back to Author Stories to talk about his latest Amos Decker thriller Walk The Wire, the sixth book in the Memory Man Series.
Listen to David’s other appearances on ASP Episode 581, Episode 617, Episode 684, Episode 762
[image error] Amos Decker — the FBI consultant with a perfect memory — returns to solve a gruesome murder in a booming North Dakota oil town in the newest thriller in David Baldacci’s #1 New York Times bestselling Memory Man series.
When Amos Decker and his FBI colleague Alex Jamison are called to London, North Dakota, they instantly sense that the thriving fracking town is ripe for trouble. The promise of a second gold rush has attracted an onslaught of newcomers all hoping for a windfall, and the community is growing faster than houses can be built. The sudden boom has also brought a slew of problems with it, including drugs, property crimes, prostitution — and now murder.
Decker and Jamison are ordered to investigate the death of a young woman named Irene Cramer, whose body was expertly autopsied and then dumped in the open — which is only the beginning of the oddities surrounding the case. As Decker and Jamison dig into Irene’s life, they are shocked to discover that the woman who walked the streets by night as a prostitute was a teacher for a local religious sect by day — a sect operating on land once owned by a mysterious government facility that looms over the entire community.
London is a town replete with ruthless business owners, shady government officials, and religious outsiders, all determined to keep their secrets from coming out. When other murders occur, Decker will need all of his extraordinary memory and detective skills, and the assistance of a surprising ally, to root out a killer and the forces behind Cramer’s death. . . before the boom town explodes.
David Baldacci has been writing since childhood, when his mother gave him a lined notebook in which to write down his stories. (Much later, when David thanked her for being the spark that ignited his writing career, she revealed that she’d given him the notebook to keep him quiet, “because every mom needs a break now and then.”)
David published his first novel, Absolute Power, in 1996. The feature film adaptation followed, with Clint Eastwood as its director and star. In total, David has published 40 novels for adults; all have been national and international bestsellers, and several have been adapted for film and television. His novels are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with over 130 million copies sold worldwide. David has also published seven novels for younger readers.
A lifelong Virginian, David received his Bachelor’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, after which he practiced law in Washington, D.C.
In addition to being a prolific writer, David is a devoted philanthropist, and his greatest efforts are dedicated to his family’s Wish You Well Foundation®. Established by David and his wife, Michelle, the Wish You Well Foundation supports family and adult literacy programs in the United States. In 2008 the Foundation partnered with Feeding America to launch Feeding Body & Mind, a program to address the connection between literacy, poverty and hunger. Through Feeding Body & Mind, more than 1 million new and gently used books have been collected and distributed through food banks to families in need.
David and his family live in Virginia.
April 20, 2020
Author Stories Podcast Episode 859 | Chip Walter Interview
Today’s author interview guest is Chip Walter, author of Immortality, Inc.: Renegade Science, Silicon Valley Billions, and the Quest to Live Forever.
[image error] This gripping narrative explores today’s scientific pursuit of immortality, with exclusive visits inside Silicon Valley labs and interviews with the visionaries who believe we will soon crack into the aging process and cure death.
We live in an age when billionaires are betting their fortunes on laboratory advances to prove aging unnecessary and death a disease that can be cured. Researchers are delving into the mysteries of stem cells and the human genome, discovering what it means to grow old and how to keep those processes from happening. This isn’t science fiction; it’s real, it’s serious, and it’s on track to revolutionize our definitions of life and mortality.
In Immortality, Inc., veteran science journalist Chip Walter gains exclusive access to the champions of this radical cause, delivering a book that brings together for the first time the visions of molecular biologist and Apple chairman Arthur Levinson, genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter, futurist Ray Kurzweil, rejuvenation trailblazer Aubrey de Grey, and stem cell expert Robert Hariri. Along the way, Walter weaves in fascinating conversations about life, death, aging, and the future of the human race.
Chip Walter is an author, journalist, National Geographic Explorer, filmmaker and former CNN bureau chief. He has an unusually broad background that spans both science and entertainment. Chip’s fifth book, Immortality, Inc. — Renegade Science, Silicon Valley Billions and the Quest to Live Forever for National Geographic Books will be available in bookstores everywhere January 7, 2020. His previous four books include–Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived; Thumbs, Toes and Tears – And Other Traits That Make Us Human (Walker –– Bloomsbury Publishing); I’m Working on That with William Shatner (Simon and Schuster); and Space Age for Random House, the companion volume to the primetime PBS series Chip developed.
Each book reaches out to mainstream audiences to explore scientific topics that relate to the human condition, evolution, emotion, behavior and creativity. The New York Times Book Review, called Last Ape “a lively journey… that takes an antic delight in the triumphal adaptations and terrifying near misses of human evolution.” The New Yorker called it “engaging” and “fascinating.” Futurist Ray Kurzweil said, “Read it! You’ll never see yourself or anyone else the same way.” And Booklist called it, “captivating, informative, exceptionally well-written and accessible.” Thumbs, Toes and Tears also received rave reviews: Publisher’s Weekly hailed it as “fascinating and superbly written,” while Kirkus Reviews said, “Walter narrates with flair and enthusiasm.”
Chip’s articles have appeared in National Geographic, The Economist, Slate, the Wall Street Journal and Scientific American, among many other publications, and have covered subjects as diverse as the origins of kissing, laughter, human consciousness and art. He has been lucky enough to travel to six continents as a journalist and documentary filmmaker, from the Amazon Rain Forest and outback of Australia to the Serengeti and remote islands of the Pacific. His cover story The First Artists was National Geographic’s featured story in January 2015. His books have so far been translated into eight languages reaching readers from Kyoto to Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Hong Kong and Seoul.
Chip has also spoken at Harvard Law School, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Xerox PARC and the Chautauqua Institution on a wide range of topics and has twice moderated scientific panels at the United Nations on child brain development at the request of UNICEF Director Anthony Lake. He has often been a guest on radio stations and websites around the world including National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Michio Kaku’s Science Fantastic, Irish National Radio and The Wall Street Journal.
Chip is particularly fascinated with two seemingly unrelated subjects – human behavior, and the increasingly rapid advance of technology and its effect upon our lives and society. No technology, he believes, no matter how powerful, can succeed unless it connects positively and effectively on a human level. To smooth the immense and disruptive transitions that lie ahead, he feels it is crucial for us to not only understand the power of emerging technology, but also to better comprehend the core attributes that make humans human, and humane.
“It’s crucial to explore both sides of the equation,” he says. “We can’t hope to build a promising future if we don’t develop a better understanding of ourselves and the ways we are changing the world. The two are inseparable, though we don’t usually see it that way.”
Chip’s work as a filmmaker has included writing and directing several award-winning science documentaries for PBS, each produced in association with the National Academy of Sciences. He co-wrote and produced two episodes of the Emmy award winning PBS series Planet Earth, and Variety called his documentary on the evolution of human intelligence, Fires of the Mind, “Handsomely produced, beautifully written…a fascinating hour.” The Village Voice wrote that it delivered “a sense of human accomplishment, which is the true ambition of science on the air.”
Chip has also spent part of his career as a Hollywood screenwriter, and has sold screenplays to Columbia-Tri Star, Universal and Warner Bros. His neo-noir script for Sunset Grill became a major motion picture starring Peter Weller, Stacy Keach and Lori Singer in 1993.
Previously in his career, Chip has served as National Programming Executive at WQED-TV, CEO of Digital Alchemy Inc., Vice-President and Executive Producer of ENGAGE Games Online, Senior Strategic Communications Manager at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and Author in Residence at The Institute for Green Science at Carnegie Mellon University’s Mellon Institute. He is a member of the adjunct faculty at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, is a National Geographic Explorer and has been a faculty member at CMU at three separate schools: the Mellon Institute, the School of Computer Science and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He currently lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Cyndy where they both try to keep track of their four children – Molly, Steven, Hannah and Annie. (They are thinking of building a Harry Potter-Weasley Clock to help keep track of them.)
