Hank Garner's Blog, page 31

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 580 | Maura Roosevelt Interview

Today my guest is Maura Roosevelt, author of the new novel Baby Of The Family.

[image error]A wry and addictive debut about a modern-day American dynasty and its unexpected upheaval when the patriarch wills his dwindling fortune to his youngest, adopted son—setting off a chain of events that unearth family secrets and test long-held definitions of love and family.

The money is old, the problems are new…

The Whitbys: a dynasty akin to the Astors, once enormously wealthy real-estate magnates who were considered “the landlords of New York.”

There was a time when the death of a Whitby would have made national news, but when the family patriarch, Roger, dies, he is alone. Word of his death travels from the longtime family lawyer to his clan of children (from four separate marriages) and the news isn’t good. Roger has left everything to his twenty-one-year-old son Nick, a Whitby only in name, including the houses currently occupied by Shelley and Brooke—two of Roger’s daughters from different marriages. And Nick is nowhere to be found.

Brooke, the oldest of the children, who is unexpectedly pregnant, leads the search for Nick, hoping to convince him to let her keep her Boston home and her fragile composure. Shelley hasn’t told anyone she’s dropped out of college just months before graduating, and is living in her childhood apartment while working as an amanuensis for a blind architect, with whom she develops a rather complicated relationship. And when Nick, on the run from the law after a misguided and dramatic act of political activism, finally shows up at Shelley’s New York home, worlds officially collide as Nick and the architect’s daughter fall in love. Soon, all three siblings are faced with the question they have been running from their whole lives: What do they want their future to look like, if they can finally escape their past?

Weaving together multiple perspectives to create a portrait of an American family, and an American dream gone awry, Baby of the Family is a book about family secrets—how they define us, bind us together, and threaten to blow us (and more) apart—as well as an amusing and heartwarming look at the various ways in which a family can be created.

Maura Roosevelt holds an MFA from NYU in fiction writing and a BA from Harvard. For the past four years, she has been a full-time lecturer in NYU’s essay writing program, and currently teaches writing at the University of Southern California. Her work has been published in places like The Nation and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Baby of the Family was developed from a short story with the same title, which was published in Joyland magazine and given an award for “Most Read Story of 2014.”

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 579 | Camille Di Maio Interview

Today’s guest is Camille Di Maio, author of the new book The Beautiful Strangers.

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[image error]A legendary hotel on the Pacific becomes a haven where dreams, love, and a beguiling mystery come alive.

Kate Morgan, tethered to her family’s failing San Francisco restaurant, is looking for an escape. She gets her chance by honoring a cryptic plea from her grandfather: find the beautiful stranger. The search takes her to Hotel del Coronado, the beachfront landmark on the Southern California coast where filming is underway on the movie Some Like It Hot.

For a movie lover like Kate, it’s a fantasy come true. So is the offer of a position at the glamorous hotel. And a new romance is making her heart beat just as fast. But as sure as she is that Coronado is her future, Kate discovers it’s also where the ghosts of the past have come to stay. Sixty years ago a guest died tragically, and she still haunts the hotel’s halls.

As the lives of two women—generations apart—intertwine, Kate’s courageous journey could change more than she ever imagined. And with Coronado wending its way through her soul, she must follow her dreams…wherever they may lead.

Camille Di Maio recently left an award-winning real estate career in San Antonio to become a full-time writer. Along with her husband of twenty-one years, she enjoys raising their four children. She has a bucket list that is never-ending, and uses her adventures to inspire her writing. She’s lived in Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California, and spends enough time in Hawai’i to feel like a local. She’s traveled to four continents (so far), and met Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II. She just about fainted when she had a chance to meet her musical idol, Paul McCartney, too. Camille studied political science in college, but found working on actual campaigns much more fun. She overdoses on goodies at farmers markets (justifying them by her support for local bakeries) and belts out Broadway tunes whenever the moment strikes. There’s almost nothing she wouldn’t try, so long as it doesn’t involve heights, roller skates, or anything illegal. Her books include:

THE MEMORY OF US – Amazon bestseller, finalist for the Holt Medallion Award for Literary Excellence. 

BEFORE THE RAIN FALLS – Holt Medallion finalist, GDRWA finalist

THE WAY OF BEAUTY – Amazon bestseller in the UK and Australia

THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS- Out Now

She appreciates you stopping by, and welcomes you to reach out and share a love of books!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/camilledimaio.author

Twitter: www.twitter.com/camilledimaio

Instagram: www.instagram.com/camilledimaio

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 578 | Jillian Cantor Interview

My guest today is Jillian Cantor, author of In Another Time.

[image error]A sweeping historical novel that spans Germany, England, and the US and follows a young couple torn apart by circumstance leading up to World War II – and the family secret that may prove to be the means for survival.

Love brought them together. But only time can save them….

Germany, 1931. Bookshop owner Max Beissinger meets Hanna Ginsberg, a budding concert violinist, and immediately, he feels a powerful chemistry between them. It isn’t long before they fall in love and begin making plans for the future. As their love affair unfolds over the next five years, the climate drastically changes in Germany as Hitler comes to power. Their love is tested with the new landscape and the realities of war, not the least of which is that Hanna is Jewish and Max is not. But unbeknownst to Hanna is the fact that Max has a secret that causes him to leave for months at a time – a secret that Max is convinced will help him save Hanna if Germany becomes too dangerous for her because of her religion.

In 1946, Hanna Ginsberg awakens in a field outside of Berlin. Disoriented and afraid, she has no memory of the past 10 years and no idea what has happened to Max. With no information as to Max’s whereabouts – or if he is even still alive – she decides to move to London to live with her sister while she gets her bearings. Even without an orchestra to play in, she throws herself completely into her music to keep alive her lifelong dream of becoming a concert violinist. But the music also serves as a balm to heal her deeply wounded heart, and she eventually gets the opening for which she long hoped. Even so, as the days, months, and years pass, taking her from London to Paris to Vienna to America, she continues to be haunted by her forgotten past and the fate of the only man she has ever loved and cannot forget.

Told in alternating viewpoints – Max in the years leading up to WWII and Hanna in the 10 years after – In Another Time is a beautiful novel about love and survival, passion and music, across time and continents.

Jillian Cantor has a B.A. in English from Penn State University and an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona, where she was also a recipient of the national Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. The author of several books for teens and adults, she grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia. She currently lives in Arizona with her husband and two sons.

Visit her online at www.jilliancantor.com

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 577 | Peter Swanson Interview

Today Peter Swanson returns to talk about his new book Before She Knew Him.

[image error]When Hen and Lloyd move into their new house in West Dartford, Mass., they’re relieved to meet, at their first block party, the only other seemingly-childless couple in their neighborhood, Matthew and Mira Dolamore. Turns out they live in the Dutch Colonial immediately next door.

When they’re invited over for dinner, however, things take a sinister turn when Hen thinks she sees something suspicious in Matthew’s study. Could this charming, mild-mannered College Professor really be hiding a dark secret, one that only Hen, whose been battling her own problems with depression and medication, could know about? Lloyd certainly doesn’t seem to believe her, and so, forced together, Hen and Matthew start to form an unlikely bond. But who, if anyone, is really in danger?

From its deeply unsettling opening, Peter Swanson, the master of contemporary domestic thrillers, fashions a novel as brilliant, dark, coruscating and surprising as Patricia Highsmith and Ira Levin at their very best.

Peter Swanson is the author of five novels, including The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, Her Every Fear, an NPR book of the year; and his most recent, Before She Knew Him. His books have been translated into over 30 languages, and his stories, poetry, and features have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Atlantic Monthly, Measure, The Guardian, The Strand Magazine, and Yankee Magazine.

A graduate of Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College, he lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with his wife and cat.

The Author Stories Podcast Episode 576 | Greg Iles Interview

My guest today is Greg Iles, fellow Mississippian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Natchez Burning Trilogy, and the new book Cemetery Road.

Sometimes the price of justice is a good man’s soul.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Natchez Burning trilogy returns with an electrifying tale of friendship, betrayal, and shattering secrets that threaten to destroy a small Mississippi town.

“An ambitious stand-alone thriller that is both an absorbing crime story and an in-depth exploration of grief, betrayal and corruption… Iles’s latest calls to mind the late, great Southern novelist Pat Conroy. Like Conroy, Iles writes with passion, intensity and absolute commitment.”

   — Washington Post

When Marshall McEwan left his Mississippi hometown at eighteen, he vowed never to return. The trauma that drove him away spurred him to become one of the most successful journalists in Washington, DC. But as the ascendancy of a chaotic administration lifts him from print fame to television stardom, Marshall discovers that his father is terminally ill, and he must return home to face the unfinished business of his past.

On arrival, he finds Bienville, Mississippi very much changed.  His family’s 150-year-old newspaper is failing; and Jet Turner, the love of his youth, has married into the family of Max Matheson, one of a dozen powerful patriarchs who rule the town through the exclusive Bienville Poker Club.  To Marshall’s surprise, the Poker Club has taken a town on the brink of extinction and offered it salvation, in the form of a billion-dollar Chinese paper mill.  But on the verge of the deal being consummated, two murders rock Bienville to its core, threatening far more than the city’s economic future.

An experienced journalist, Marshall has seen firsthand how the corrosive power of money and politics can sabotage investigations. Joining forces with his former lover—who through her husband has access to the secrets of the Poker Club—Marshall begins digging for the truth behind those murders.  But he and Jet soon discover that the soil of Mississippi is a minefield where explosive secrets can destroy far more than injustice.  The South is a land where everyone hides truths: of blood and children, of love and shame, of hate and murder—of damnation and redemption.  The Poker Club’s secret reaches all the way to Washington, D.C., and could shake the foundations of the U.S. Senate.  But by the time Marshall grasps the long-buried truth about his own history, he would give almost anything not to have to face it.

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Greg Iles was born in 1960 in Germany where his father ran the US Embassy medical clinic during the height of the Cold War. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1983 he performed for several years with the rock band Frankly Scarlet and is currently member of the band The Rock Bottom Remainders. His first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about war criminal Rudolf Hess, was published in 1993 and became a New York Times bestseller. Iles went on to write ten bestselling novels, including Third Degree, True Evil, Turning Angel, Blood Memory, The Footprints of God, and 24 Hours (released by Sony Pictures as Trapped, with full screenwriting credit for Iles). He lives in Natchez, Mississippi.

Greg Iles was born in Germany in 1960, where his father ran the US Embassy Medical Clinic during the height of the Cold War.  Iles spent his youth in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983.  While attending Ole Miss, Greg lived in the cabin where William Faulkner and his brothers listened to countless stories told by “Mammy Callie,” their beloved nanny, who had been born a slave.

Iles wrote his first novel in 1993, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess, which became the first of twelve New York Times bestsellers.  His novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide.  His new epic trilogy continues the story of Penn Cage, protagonist of The Quiet Game,Turning Angel, and New York Times #1 bestseller The Devil’s Punchbowl. 

Iles is a member of the legendary lit-rock group “The Rock Bottom Remainders.”  Like bandmate Stephen King, Greg returned to the musical stage after recovering from his injuries, and joined the band for their final two shows in Los Angeles in 2012.  A nonfiction memoir by the band, titled Hard Listening, was published this past summer.  Hard Listening also contains a short story Greg wrote as an homage to King.

Iles lives in Natchez, Mississippi, with his wife and has three children.

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The Author Stories Podcast Episode 575 | Elaine Shannon Interview

On today’s show we have a fascinating chat with Elaine Shannon, author of the white knuckle story Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire.

[image error]With a foreword by four-time Oscar nominated filmmaker Michael Mann.

The story of Paul LeRoux, the twisted-genius entrepreneur and cold-blooded killer who brought revolutionary innovation to international crime, and the exclusive inside story of how the DEA’s elite, secretive 960 Group brought him down.

Paul LeRoux was born in Zimbabwe and raised in South Africa. After a first career as a pioneering cyber-security entrepreneur, he plunged hellbent into the dark side, using his extraordinary talents to develop a disruptive new business model for transnational organized crime. Along the way he created a mercenary force of ex-U.S. and NATO sharpshooters to carry out contract murders for his own pleasure and profit. The criminal empire he built was Cartel 4.0, utilizing the gig economy and the tools of the Digital Age: encrypted mobile devices, cloud sharing and novel money-laundering techniques. LeRoux’s businesses, cyber-linked by his own dark worldwide web, stretched from Southeast Asia across the Middle East and Africa to Brazil; they generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of arms, drugs, chemicals, bombs, missile technology and murder. He dealt with rogue nations—Iran and North Korea—as well as the Chinese Triads, Somali pirates, Serb mafia, outlaw bikers, militants, corrupt African and Asian officials and coup-plotters.

Initially, LeRoux appeared as a ghost image on law enforcement and intelligence radar, an inexplicable presence in the middle of a variety of criminal endeavors. He was Netflix to Blockbuster, Spotify to Tower Records. A bold disruptor, his methods brought international crime into the age of innovation, making his operations barely detectable and LeRoux nearly invisible. But he gained the attention of a small band of bold, unorthodox DEA agents, whose brief was tracking down drugs-and-arms trafficking kingpins who contributed to war and global instability. The 960 Group, an element of the DEA’s Special Operations Division, had launched some of the most complex, coordinated and dangerous operations in the agency’s history. They used unorthodox methods and undercover informants to penetrate LeRoux’s inner circle and bring him down.

For five years Elaine Shannon immersed herself in LeRoux’s shadowy world. She gained exclusive access to the agents and players, including undercover operatives who looked LeRoux in the eye on a daily basis. Shannon takes us on a shocking tour of this dark frontier, going deep into the operations and the mind of a singularly visionary and frightening figure—Escobar and Victor Bout along with the innovative vision of Steve Jobs rolled into one. She puts you in the room with these people and their moment-to-moment encounters, jeopardy, frustration, anger and small victories, creating a narrative with a breath-taking edge, immediacy and a stranger-than-fiction reality.

Remarkable, disturbing, and utterly engrossing, Hunting LeRoux introduces a new breed of criminal spawned by the savage, greed-exalting underside of the Age of Innovation—and a new kind of true crime story. It is a look into the future—a future that is dark.

Elaine Shannon is a best-selling author and veteran journalist specializing in national security, organized crime and terrorism. Hunting LeRoux, her latest book, tells the exclusive story of transnational organized crime’s premier innovator, Paul Calder LeRoux, a twisted genius who created the world’s biggest Internet pharmacy, with $300 million in sales during its initial years, then diversified into arms, hard drugs, and murder. She uses her unparalleled sources and access to closely held documents to tell the riveting story of a tech titan who broke bad and did high-dollar deals with Iran, North Korea, the Chinese Triads, Somali pirates, Serb mafia, Colombian cartels, Islamist terrorists in the Philippines and mercenaries of many nations, Shannon takes the reader deep inside the 21st Century criminal underground that supports war, terrorism and chaos.

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The Author Stories Podcast Episode 574 | Rodrigo Rey Rosa Interview

My guest today is Rodrigo Rey Rosa, author of Chaos,  A Fable.

[image error]A breathtaking novella about faith and anarchy by the acclaimed and prizewinning Latin American writer Rodrigo Rey Rosa.

Mexican author Rubirosa is attending a book fair in Tangier when he reconnects with an old acquaintance, a Moroccan artist who asks one favor of his visiting friend: to access the puzzling files on a memory card. It could help fulfill the destiny of his son Abdelkrim. It could also unwittingly draw both men into irreversible events already in motion on distant shores.

In America, Abdelkrim, a brilliant aspiring astronaut deemed “too Muslim” for citizenship, has teamed up with an equally gifted young prodigy, a witness to the plight of Syrian refugees. Together, the foreign students share a vision of altering the world’s geopolitical landscape to end human suffering with a nearly inconceivable blueprint. And they can turn theory to reality. They can bring about change. But only through a technological apocalypse can there be redemption—by unleashing total chaos.

A provocative morality tale that moves with the visceral rhythms of a high-tech thriller, Chaos, A Fable is a spare and stunning triumph from one of the most celebrated Latin American authors of his generation.

Rodrigo Rey Rosa was born in Guatemala in 1958. He emigrated to New York in 1980, and in 1982 he moved to Morocco. American expatriate writer Paul Bowles, with whom Rey Rosa had been corresponding, translated his first three books into English. Rey Rosa has based many of his writings and stories on legends and myths that are indigenous to Latin America and North Africa. Out of all of his many works, seven have been translated into English: The Beggar’s Knife, Dust on her Tongue, The Pelcari Project, The Good Cripple, The African Shore,Severina, and now, Chaos, A Fable. In 2004, Rey Rosa was awarded the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature, from Guatemala, and in 2015 the Ibero-American José Donoso Prize. He lives in Guatemala City.

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The Author Stories Podcast Episode 573 | Lisa Gardner Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Lisa Gardner, author of Never Tell: A Novel (A D.D. Warren and Flora Dane Novel).

[image error]#1 New York Times bestseller Lisa Gardner returns with an unpredictable thriller that puts fan favorites D.D. Warren and Flora Dane on a shocking new case that begins with a vicious murder and gets darker from there.

A man is dead, shot three times in his home office. But his computer has been shot twelve times, and when the cops arrive, his pregnant wife is holding the gun.

D.D. Warren arrives on the scene and recognizes the woman–Evie Carter–from a case many years back. Evie’s father was killed in a shooting that was ruled an accident. But for D.D., two coincidental murders is too many.

Flora Dane sees the murder of Conrad Carter on the TV news and immediately knows his face. She remembers a night when she was still a victim–a hostage–and her captor knew this man. Overcome with guilt that she never tracked him down, Flora is now determined to learn the truth of Conrad’s murder.

But D.D. and Flora are about to discover that in this case the truth is a devilishly elusive thing. As layer by layer they peel away the half-truths and outright lies, they wonder: How many secrets can one family have?

New York Times #1 bestselling crime novelist Lisa Gardner began her career in food service, but after catching her hair on fire numerous times, she took the hint and focused on writing instead. A self-described research junkie, she has parlayed her interest in police procedure, criminal minds and twisted plots into a streak of bestselling suspense novels. Her 2010 novel, THE NEIGHBOR, won Best Thriller from the International Thriller Writers. Most recently, she was honored with the Silver Bullet Award for her work with at-risk kids and homeless animals. Lisa loves to hike, travel the world, and yes, read, read, read!

Readers are invited to enter the annual “Kill a Friend, Maim a Buddy” Sweepstakes, where they can nominate the person of their choice to die in Lisa’s latest novel. People have nominated themselves, spouses, bosses. It’s cheaper than therapy and twice as much fun! For more details, visit Lisa’s website.

Lisa lives in the mountains of New England with her family, as well as three highly spoiled dogs. Her latest novel (February 2019) is NEVER TELL, where Boston Detective D.D. Warren investigates a pregnant wife accused of killing her own husband. D.D. recognizes the wife from another “accidental” shooting sixteen years ago. More interesting, victim-turned-vigilante Flora Dane recognizes the dead husband as being a former associate of her kidnapper, Jacob Ness. What goes on behind closed doors? Someone is determined to never tell…

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The Author Stories Podcast Episode 572 | Vanessa McGrady Interview

Today’s author interview guest is Vanessa McGrady, author of Rock Needs River: A Memoir About a Very Open Adoption.

[image error]From a story first told in the popular New York Times parenting blog comes a funny, touching memoir about a mother who welcomes more than a new daughter into her home.

After two years of waiting to adopt—slogging through paperwork and bouncing between hope and despair—a miracle finally happened for Vanessa McGrady. Her sweet baby, Grace, was a dream come true. Then Vanessa made a highly uncommon gesture: when Grace’s biological parents became homeless, Vanessa invited them to stay.

Without a blueprint for navigating the practical basics of an open adoption or any discussion of expectations or boundaries, the unusual living arrangement became a bottomless well of conflicting emotions and increasingly difficult decisions complicated by missed opportunities, regret, social chaos, and broken hearts.

Written with wit, candor, and compassion, Rock Needs River is, ultimately, Vanessa’s love letter to her daughter, one that illuminates the universal need for connection and the heroine’s journey to find her tribe.

Vanessa McGrady is a writer who spends a lot of time thinking about feminist parenting, food, and ways to do things better. She wonders why people aren’t more freaked out about all the plastic in the oceans.

She considers herself lucky to call several places home: New York, the Pacific Northwest, and since 2005, Glendale, Calif. She is immensely lucky to be a mom to a magical fairy sprite child named Grace and their weird little schnoodle, Manuka.

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The Author Stories Podcast Episode 571 | Karen Harper Interview

My guest today is Karen Harper, author of American Duchess: A Novel of Consuelo Vanderbilt

[image error]Before there was Meghan Markle, there was Consuelo Vanderbilt, the original American Duchess.  Perfect for readers of Jennifer Robson and lovers of Downton Abbey.

Karen Harper tells the tale of Consuelo Vanderbilt, her “The Wedding of the Century” to the Duke of Marlborough, and her quest to find meaning behind “the glitter and the gold.”

On a cold November day in 1895, a carriage approaches St Thomas Episcopal Church on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Massive crowds surge forward, awaiting their glimpse of heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. Just 18, the beautiful bride has not only arrived late, but in tears, yet her marriage to the aloof Duke of Marlborough proceeds. Bullied into the wedding by her indomitable mother, Alva, Consuelo loves another. But a deal was made, trading some of the vast Vanderbilt wealth for a title and prestige, and Consuelo, bred to obey, realizes she must make the best of things.

At Blenheim Palace, Consuelo is confronted with an overwhelming list of duties, including producing an “heir and a spare,” but her relationship with the duke quickly disintegrates. Consuelo finds an inner strength, charming everyone from debutantes to diplomats including Winston Churchill, as she fights for women’s suffrage. And when she takes a scandalous leap, can she hope to attain love at last…?

From the dawning of the opulent Gilded Age, to the battles of the Second World War, American Duchessis a riveting tale of one woman’s quest to attain independence—at any price.

Karen Harper is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of romantic suspense and historical novels. A native Ohioan, Karen is a former high school English teacher and English-and-writing instructor at the Ohio State University. (Go Bucks!) The Harpers are avid Ohio State football fans, but they have a serious side too. They were on the 10-year committee which revamped the main library on campus. The Ohio State Library houses her author collection in Rare Books and Manuscripts.

The Harpers love to travel, and Karen often uses her favorite places as settings for her novels. She’s recently written books set in Edwardian England and South Florida, the latter where she lived for 30 winters. Her latest trilogy is THE SOUTH SHORES NOVELS, with forensic psychologist Claire Britten and criminal lawyer Nick Markwood. Her most recent historical is THE IT GIRLS.

These bring her published books to over 70 in a 35-year writing career.

Karen belongs to several writer’s organizations, including International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, Sisters in Crime and The Historical Novel Society. She appreciates hearing from readers on her website at www.KarenHarperAuthor.com and www.facebook.com/KarenHarperAuthor–and she answers!

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