Hank Garner's Blog, page 24

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 649 | Holly Peterson Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Holly Peterson, author of It’s Hot In The Hamptons.

[image error] From the author of the summer hit It Happens in The Hamptons comes an unforgettable new novel about the women who live and love in the Hamptons.

In the Hamptons, no rules apply, especially in matters of money—and the heart…

Raised in East Hampton, Caroline never thought she’d be one of the “city people” who spent summers and weekends at the beach. But, once her husband’s business takes off, a job stint transplants the couple permanently into Manhattan life—where the phrase When you marry for money, you work for it every day, reflects her neighbors’ lives. And where entitled husbands, like hers, embark on affair after affair with little consequence.

Time for the wives to get even.

When Caroline’s friend Annabelle suggests they experiment as their wayward mates have, Caroline resists at first. That is, until a scroll through an iPad makes her reconsider…and a pact between two friends is made.

The agreement quickly turns serious when Caroline begins to confront the man her husband has become, or perhaps always has been. Will a summer affair give Caroline clarity or make her lose hold on the reins of her life? And, when an old lover returns, is she ready to risk all for a chance at happiness…

Holly Peterson is the author of six books, most recently the May 2019 social satire fiction release, It’s Hot in the Hamptons. Her previous novel, It Happens in the Hamptons, came out in May of 2017. In 2019, she released Assouline’s Wellington: The World of Horses, and In 2016, she curated an outdoor cooking book, Assouline’s Smoke and Fire: Recipes and Menus for Outdoor Entertaining. In 2014, she published The Idea of Him and of the New York Times bestseller The Manny in 2007. She was a Contributing Editor for Newsweek, an Editor-at-Large for Talk magazine and an Emmy Award-winning Producer for ABC News, where she spent more than a decade covering everything from trials of the century to global politics. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, Town and Country, The Daily Beast, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle Decor, Departures, and numerous other publications.

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 648 | W. M. Akers Interview

Today’s author interview guest is W. M. Akers, author of the new book Westside.

[image error] “Bracing, quite possibly hallucination-inducing, and unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before…The illegitimate love child of Algernon Blackwood and Raymond Chandler.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“The Alienist meets The City & The City in this brilliant debut that mixes fantasy and mystery. Gilda Carr’s ‘tiny mysteries’ pack a giant punch.”  –David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder As a Fine Art

New York is dying, and the one woman who can save it has smaller things on her mind.

A young detective who specializes in “tiny mysteries” finds herself at the center of a massive conspiracy in this beguiling historical fantasy set on Manhattan’s Westside—a peculiar and dangerous neighborhood home to strange magic and stranger residents—that blends the vivid atmosphere of Caleb Carr with the imaginative power of Neil Gaiman.

It’s 1921, and a thirteen-mile fence running the length of Broadway splits the island of Manhattan, separating the prosperous Eastside from the Westside—an overgrown wasteland whose hostility to modern technology gives it the flavor of old New York. Thousands have disappeared here, and the respectable have fled, leaving behind the killers, thieves, poets, painters, drunks, and those too poor or desperate to leave.

It is a hellish landscape, and Gilda Carr proudly calls it home.

Slightly built, but with a will of iron, Gilda follows in the footsteps of her late father, a police detective turned private eye. Unlike that larger-than-life man, Gilda solves tiny mysteries: the impossible puzzles that keep us awake at night; the small riddles that destroy us; the questions that spoil marriages, ruin friendships, and curdle joy. Those tiny cases distract her from her grief, and the one impossible question she knows she can’t answer: “How did my father die?”

Yet on Gilda’s Westside, tiny mysteries end in blood—even the case of a missing white leather glove. Mrs. Copeland, a well-to-do Eastside housewife, hires Gilda to find it before her irascible merchant husband learns it is gone. When Gilda witnesses Mr. Copeland’s murder at a Westside pier, she finds herself sinking into a mire of bootlegging, smuggling, corruption—and an evil too dark to face.

All she wants is to find one dainty ladies’ glove. She doesn’t want to know why this merchant was on the wrong side of town—or why he was murdered in cold blood. But as she begins to see the connection between his murder, her father’s death, and the darkness plaguing the Westside, she faces the hard truth: she must save her city or die with it.

Introducing a truly remarkable female detective, Westside is a mystery steeped in the supernatural and shot through with gunfights, rotgut whiskey, and sizzling Dixieland jazz. Full of dazzling color, delightful twists, and truly thrilling action, it announces the arrival of a wonderful new talent.

W.M. Akers is a novelist, playwright, editor, game designer, copywriter and, well, just about any other kind of writer you might require. He is the author of Westside, the creator of Deadball: Baseball With Dice and Comrades: A Revolution RPG, and too many plays to mention here. He is also responsible for Strange Times, a weekly newsletter that investigates the weirdest news 1921 has to offer. His contact information is below. If you wish to receive occasional updates on his work, you may subscribe to his informational newsletter here.

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 647 | Rachel Renee Russell Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Rachel Renee Russell, author of The Dork Diaries and the Misadventures of Max Crumbly.

From #1 New York Times bestselling Dork Diaries author Rachel Renée Russell comes the third book in a series about Max Crumbly and his daily ups and downs in middle school.

When we last left our courageous hero, Max Crumbly, and his trusty sidekick Erin, they had just finished foiling the plans of some bumbling thieves. But Max and Erin were trapped in a smelly, dangerous dumpster of doom and about to be discovered by the last people they wanted to find them.

Now in this latest installment of Max’s journals, Max and Erin face foes both new and old as their misadventures continue. Can the two friends avoid detection—and detention!—while keeping South Ridge Middle School safe from bullies and criminals?

Rachel Renée Russell is the author of the #1 New York Times Best Selling book series, Dork Diaries. She’s an attorney who prefers writing tween books to legal briefs. Mainly because books are a lot more fun and pajamas and bunny slippers aren’t allowed in court.

Rachel first introduced us to Nikki Maxwell in 2009 and since that time she has written 13 books in the series which have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. For a cool peek at some of the Dorky books that have been translated into over 36 different languages, check out the Dorks Around The World links at the bottom of this page!

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 646 | Lauren Willig Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Lauren Willig, author of The Summer Country.

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A brilliant, multi-generational saga in the tradition of THE THORN BIRDS and NORTH AND SOUTH,  New York Times bestselling historical novelist Lauren Willig delivers her biggest, boldest, and most ambitious novel yet—a sweeping Victorian epic of lost love, lies, jealousy, and rebellion set in colonial Barbados.

Barbados, 1854: Emily Dawson has always been the poor cousin in a prosperous English merchant clan– merely a vicar’s daughter, and a reform-minded vicar’s daughter, at that. Everyone knows that the family’s lucrative shipping business will go to her cousin, Adam, one day.  But when her grandfather dies, Emily receives an unexpected inheritance: Peverills, a sugar plantation in Barbados—a plantation her grandfather never told anyone he owned.

When Emily accompanies her cousin and his new wife to Barbados, she finds Peverills a burnt-out shell, reduced to ruins in 1816, when a rising of enslaved people sent the island up in flames. Rumors swirl around the derelict plantation; people whisper of ghosts.

Why would her practical-minded grandfather leave her a property in ruins?  Why are the neighboring plantation owners, the Davenants, so eager to acquire Peverills? The answer lies in the past— a tangled history of lies, greed, clandestine love, heartbreaking betrayal, and a bold bid for freedom.

THE SUMMER COUNTRY will beguile readers with its rendering of families, heartbreak, and the endurance of hope against all odds.

Lauren Willig is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Pink Carnation series and several stand alone works of historical fiction, including “The Ashford Affair”, “That Summer”, “The Other Daughter”, and “The Forgotten Room” (co-written with Karen White and Beatriz Williams). Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages, awarded the RITA, Booksellers Best and Golden Leaf awards, and chosen for the American Library Association’s annual list of the best genre fiction. After graduating from Yale University, she embarked on a PhD in English History at Harvard before leaving academia to acquire a JD at Harvard Law while authoring her “Pink Carnation” series of Napoleonic-set novels. She lives in New York City, where she now writes full time.

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 645 | Amy Mason Doan Returns With Summer Hours

Today’s author interview guest is Amy Mason Doan, returning to talk about her new book Summer Hours.

[image error] Commencement  meets  The Graduate  in this sparkling novel about a secret affair, the summer it all unravels, and the reunion a decade later that will be one woman’s happy ending or her biggest mistake.

Becc was the good girl. A dedicated student. Aspiring reporter. Always where she was supposed to be. Until a secret affair with the charming Cal one summer in college cost her everything she held dear: her journalism dreams; her relationship with her best friend, Eric; and her carefully imagined future.

Now, Becc’s past is back front and center as she travels up the scenic California coast to a wedding—with a man she hasn’t seen in a decade. As each mile flies by, Becc can’t help but feel the thrilling push and pull of memories, from infinite nights at beach bonfires and lavish boat parties to secret movie sessions. But the man beside her is not so eager to re-create history. And as the events of that heartbreaking summer come into view, Becc must decide if those dazzling hours they once shared are worth fighting for or if they’re lost forever.

Set in the mid ’90s and 2008, Amy Mason Doan’s Summer Hours is a warmly told novel about the idealism of youth, the seductive power of nostalgia and what happens when you realize you haven’t become the person you’d always promised to be.

“Engaging and nostalgic. Doan’s writing sweeps you away to the high-speed, sun-soaked backdrop of nineties California.” —Helen Hoang, author of  The Kiss Quotient

“A beautifully crafted story of love, ambition, and friendship.” —Jamie Brenner, bestselling author of  The Forever Summer  and  Drawing Home

Amy Mason Doan lives in Portland, Oregon. She grew up in California, but as a girl she visited the Oregon Shakespeare Fest with her grandparents every year, and she now considers both states home.

As a writer for publications including The Oregonian, San Francisco Chronicle, Wired and Forbes, Amy has interviewed everyone from beer-brewing monks to nanotechnologists. Amy has an M.A. in Journalism from Stanford University and a B.A. in English from U.C. Berkeley.

THE SUMMER LIST is her first novel, and draws on her beloved summers in lakeside Pinecrest, California. SUMMER HOURS, set in coastal California, will be published on June 4, 2019.

More at amymasondoan.com.

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 644 | Helen Cullen Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Helen Cullen, author of The Lost Letters of William Woolf.

[image error] “Enchanting, intriguing, deeply moving.  The Lost Letters of William Woolf  concerns itself as much with lost love as it does with lost letters.”

—Irish Times

***

Lost letters have only one hope for survival…

Inside the walls of the Dead Letters Depot, letter detectives work to solve mysteries. They study missing zip codes, illegible handwriting, rain-smudged ink, lost address labels, torn packages, forgotten street names—all the many twists of fate behind missed birthdays, broken hearts, unheard confessions, pointless accusations, unpaid bills, unanswered prayers. Their mission is to unite lost mail with its intended recipients.

But when letters arrive addressed simply to “My Great Love,” longtime letter detective William Woolf faces his greatest mystery to date. Written by a woman to the soulmate she hasn’t met yet, the missives capture William’s heart in ways he didn’t know possible. Soon, he finds himself torn between the realities of his own marriage and his world of letters, and his quest to follow the clues becomes a life-changing journey of love, hope, and courage.

From Irish author Helen Cullen, The Lost Letters of William Woolf is an enchanting novel about the resilience of the human heart and the complex ideas we hold about love—and a passionate ode to the art of letter writing.

Helen Cullen is an Irish writer living in London. She worked at RTE (Ireland’s national broadcaster) for seven years before moving to London in 2010. In the UK, Helen established a career as an events and engagement specialist before joining the Google UK marketing team in 2015.

The first draft of her debut novel THE LOST LETTERS OF WILLIAM WOOLF was written while completing the Guardian/UEA novel writing programme under the mentorship of Michèle Roberts. Helen holds an M.A. Theatre Studies from UCD and is currently completing an M.A. English Literature at Brunel University.

‘The Lost Letters of William Woolf’ will be published this year in the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Italy, Greece and Israel.

Helen is now writing full-time and working on her second novel.

www.helencullen.ie

Twitter: @wordsofhelen

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 643 | David Kushner Returns With The Players Ball

Today my guest is David Kushner, the author of Masters of Doom and the brand new look at the early wild west days of the Internet The Players Ball.

[image error] Find David’s books on Amazon

“An engrossing microcosm of the internet’s Wild West years” (Kirkus Reviews), award-winning journalist David Kushner tells the incredible battle between the founder of Match.com and the con man who swindled him out of the website Sex.com, resulting in an all-out war for control for what still powers the internet today: love and sex.

In 1994, visionary entrepreneur Gary Kremen used a $2,500 loan to create the first online dating service, Match.com. Only 5 percent of Americans were using the internet at the time, and even fewer were looking online for love. He quickly bought the Sex.com domain too, betting the combination of love and sex would help propel the internet into the mainstream.

Imagine Kremen’s surprise when he learned that someone named Stephen Michael Cohen had stolen the rights to Sex.com and was already making millions that Kremen would never see. Thus follows the wild true story of Kremen’s and Cohen’s decade-long battle for control. In The Players Ball, author and journalist David Kushner provides a front seat to these must-read Wild West years online, when innovators and outlaws battled for power and money.

This cat-and-mouse game between a genius and a con man changed the way people connect forever, and is key to understanding the rise and future of the online world.

“Kushner delivers a fast-paced, raunchy tale of sex, drugs, and dial-up.” —Publishers Weekly

David Kushner is an award-winning journalist and author. His books include Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds, Stormed Las Vegas, Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America’s Legendary Suburb, Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, and Alligator Candy: A Memoir. 

Kushner is also author of the graphic novel Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D, illustrated by Koren Shadmi, and the ebook, The Bones of Marianna: A Reform School, a Terrible Secret, and a Hundred-Year Fight for Justice. Two collections of his magazine stories are available as audiobooks, The World’s Most Dangerous Geek: And More True Hacking Stories and Prepare to Meet Thy Doom: And More True Gaming Stories.

A contributing editor of Rolling Stone, Kushner has written for publications including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, New York Times Magazine, New York, and GQ, and has been an essayist for National Public Radio. His work is featured in several “best of” anthologies: The Best American Crime Reporting, The Columbia Journalism Review’s Best Business Writing,The Best Music Writing, and The Best American Travel Writing. He is the winner of the New York Press Club award for Best Feature Reporting. His ebook The Bones of Marianna was selected by Amazon as a Best Digital Single of 2013.  NPR named his memoir Alligator Candy one of the best books of 2016. He has taught as a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, and an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University.

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 642 | Chris Pourteau & David Bruns Interview

Today I am joined by Chris Pourteau and David Bruns, coauthors of the The SynCorp Saga: Empire Earth series. Chris and David are some of my oldest friends in the writer community and I absolutely love their new series The SynCorp Saga. We talk about tackling the second of three trilogies in the saga and much more. Find their last visit to the show below.

[image error]From Book 1: The Expanse meets The Godfather in this Space Opera/Sci-Fi Noir Thriller about corporate greed, rebellion, and mankind’s survival among the stars.

Revolution threatens a longstanding peace…

Thirty years after the Syndicate Corporation saved Earth from climate-change extinction, SynCorp’s Five Factions rule the solar system with an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove. Food, entertainment, safety, security—SynCorp provides it all. In return, the Company requires complete loyalty and obedience to corporate law.

The Soldiers of the Solar Revolution claim life under SynCorp is slavery cloaked in comfort. They launch their rebellion, targeting the pillars of corporate production: sabotaging refineries on Mars, shattering Callisto’s orbital ring. Meanwhile, brutal pirates siphon off Company resources in the Belt, and hackers tap into citizens’ implants, addicting them to fantasies shaped from their own dreams.

Besieged on all sides, SynCorp’s Five Factions are in retreat. The rebels aim to destroy the Company to free mankind. But does mankind really want to be freed?

About Chris:

Who I am, what I do

I’m a writer of Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, and Fantasy speculative fiction who loves a good character-centered story, whatever the genre. I also edit anthologies in my spare time…

Writing is a calling

I’ve written stories all my life but only began pursuing it seriously in the mid-20teens. Classic television (Twilight Zone, Star Trek) has impacted me as much favorite writers (King, Tolkien, Cornwell) in how I approach storytelling.

Other stuff

I’m a player and producer for the podcast Sci-Fi Writers Playing Old School D&D and a frequent guest on Hank Garner’s Author Stories Podcast, among other podcasts. I’m also co-founder of Sci-Fi Bridge, a free subscription site aimed at bringing the best SF writers and most enthusiastic SF readers together.

About David:

I always knew I’d be a writer—someday.

I grew up on a small farm in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. We didn’t have a TV, so my reading habit gradually turned into a reading obsession. After high school, I was accepted to the United States Naval Academy where I earned a Bachelors of Science in Honors English (That’s not a typo. I’m probably the only English major you’ll ever meet who had to take multiple semesters of calculus, physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, naval architecture and weapons systems design just so I could get to read some Shakespeare. It was totally worth it.)

I spent six years as a commissioned officer in the nuclear-powered submarine force chasing Russian submarines. Then the Cold War ended and I became a civilian. For the next two decades, I schlepped my way around the globe as an itinerant executive in the high-tech sector, and even did a stint with a Silicon Valley startup.

In 2013, I took a break from corporate life and wrote a book. I enjoyed it so much that I wrote another (better) book, the first in a series. For the writer in me, my “someday” is today.

My wife and I are self-confessed travel junkies. We’re proud of the fact that both our children had to get extra pages in their passports in order to fit all their visa stamps. Together, we’ve visited over two dozen different countries and almost all fifty states, but Minnesota is home.

If you’d like to chat, you can drop me an email at david@davidbruns.com.

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 641 | Kirsty Manning Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Kirsty Manning, author of The Song Of The Jade Lily.

“Kirsty Manning weaves together little-known threads of World War II history, family secrets, the past and the present into a page-turning, beautiful novel.”— Heather Morris, #1 New York Timesbestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz

A gripping historical novel that tells the little-known story of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai during WWII.

1939: Two young girls meet in Shanghai, also known as the “Paris of the East”. Beautiful local Li and Jewish refugee Romy form a fierce friendship, but the deepening shadows of World War II fall over the women as they slip between the city’s glamorous French Concession district and the teeming streets of the Shanghai Ghetto. Yet soon the realities of war prove to be too much for these close friends as they are torn apart.

2016: Fleeing London with a broken heart, Alexandra returns to Australia to be with her grandparents, Romy and Wilhelm. Her grandfather is dying, and over the coming weeks Romy and Wilhelm begin to reveal the family mysteries they have kept secret for more than half a century. As fragments of her mother’s history finally become clear, Alexandra struggles with what she learns while more is also revealed about her grandmother’s own past in Shanghai.

After Wilhelm dies, Alexandra flies to Shanghai, determined to trace her grandparents’ past. Peeling back the layers of their hidden lives, she is forced to question what she knows about her family—and herself.

The Song of the Jade Lily is a lush, provocative, and beautiful story of friendship, motherhood, the price of love, and the power of hardship and courage that can shape us all.

KIRSTY MANNING grew up in northern New South Wales. She has degrees in literature and communications and worked as an editor and publishing manager in book publishing for over a decade. A country girl with wanderlust,

her travels and studies have taken her through most of Europe, the east and west coasts of the United States and pockets of Asia. Kirsty’s journalism and photography specializing in lifestyle and travel regularly appear in magazines, newspapers and online

.

In 2005, Kirsty and her husband, with two toddlers and a baby in tow, built a house in an old chestnut grove in the Macedon Ranges. Together, they planted an orchard and veggie patch, created large herbal ‘walks’ brimming with sage and rosemary, wove borders from chestnuts branches and constructed far too many stone walls by hand.

Kirsty loves cooking with her kids and has several large heirloom copper pots that do not fit anywhere easily, but are perfect for making (and occasionally burning) jams, chutneys and soups.

With husband Alex Wilcox, Kirsty is a partner in the award-winning Melbourne wine bar Bellota, and the Prince Wine Store in Sydney and Melbourne.

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 640 | Stacey Tucker Interview

Today’s author interview is with Stacey L. Tucker. Stacey returns to the show to talk about her new book Alchemy’s Air: Book Two of the Equal Night Trilogy.

[image error]Skylar Southmartin is not the naïve girl she was a short year ago. She’s made some mistakes and learned a few secrets to life, all the while clinging to the faith her mother instilled in her as a child . . . in herself. And now that she has discovered her life’s purpose within the pages of the ancient Book of Sophia, she knows what she must do: restore a vital memory to the Akashic Library, located deep within the Underworld of Earth. This library is sought after by many who are aware of its existence, for they know the future of human potential rests at its core.

Meanwhile, Devlin Grayer has been elected as the 46th President of the United States and his wife, Milicent, is miserable in her new role as First Lady―especially because the Great Mothers have asked Milicent to use her new status to help their cause, and she has no interest in tackling that task.

With the help of friends in the unlikeliest of places, Skylar’s journey reveals the significance of the darkness within all of us, and its potential to save or destroy the most precious part of us all: our soul.

Stacey Tucker used her fifteen years of field research in women’s history, spirituality, and energy work to create her three book series, The Equal Night Trilogy. The romantic fantasy story combines science and spirituality in a relatable way for the modern reader. Tucker’s first book in the series, Ocean’s Fire, took Gold at the Living Now Book Awards, and she’s making magic again with Book 2, Alchemy’s Air. She has written for Women’s World, Working Mother, and Pop Sugar, and speaks to teen groups about self-empowerment and awareness in today’s saturated climate of social media.