Elizabeth H. Winthrop

Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop was born and raised in New York City. She earned her B.A. from Harvard University and her M.F.A. in fiction from the UC Irvine, where she was the recipient of the Schaeffer Writing Fellowship. She is the author of the novels Fireworks, December, The Why of Things, and The Mercy Seat. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and daughter and is Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing at Endicott College.

Winthrop's new novel is Conviction.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I always have two books going at one, one of which I read, and one of which I listen to while running or driving. Right now I am listening to John of John, by Douglas Stuart, although I plan to get a hard copy as soon as can; it is one of those books that I know I will come back to over and over again in an attempt to savor and understand the artistry and architecture. If I were reading it in hardcover, I can imagine making all sorts of notes in the margins, marking gorgeous or strikingly original turns of phrase, noting the lengthy passages of dialogue Stuart is able to sustain, tracing the trajectories of characters and relationships. The novel is a quiet, intimate, and ultimately stunning study of personality and place, driven propulsively forward by the inner conflict of its characters. I haven’t been this blown away by a book in some time.

At the same time, I am reading The Singer’s Gun, by Emily St. John Mandel. I came to Mandel’s work by way of her 2014 novel Station Eleven, which I deeply admire and have taught several times at the college where I teach. What I love most about Mandel’s writing is the wild imagination and the confidence it exudes. Mandel is not tentative; what she says, goes. She is willing to take risks, to bounce around in time, to make connections between characters (and books) that might, in another writer’s hands, seem far-fetched, but which Mandel can pull off perfectly. Unlike Stuart, Mandel’s books are driven by mystery and action (though her characters are also fully realized!)- but mystery that is subtle enough to require the reader’s participation in unravelling, which this reader finds deeply satisfying.

Visit Elizabeth H. Winthrop's website.

My Book, The Movie: Conviction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathleen Barber

Kathleen Barber is the author of Truth Be Told, which was adapted by Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine as a series on AppleTV+, Follow Me, and Both Things Are True. A certified book coach and former attorney, she lives in Washington, DC, with her family.

Amayah Shaienne is a lifestyle content creator and student at the University of Alabama who quickly grew a following during Bama Rush. To date, she has garnered a following of nearly 200K across TikTok and Instagram and has her audience obsessed with all parts of her college life. She is excited to continue bringing her loyal followers along as she attends key college moments such as sorority rush, football games, and more.

Barber and Shaienne's new novel is Sisterhood Above All.

Recently I asked Barber about what she was reading. The author's reply:

I am anxiously awaiting my copy of two books I cannot wait to read:

You First by Caroline Kepnes, which is a prequel to You, one of my favorite books of all-time. Joe Goldberg is my favorite fictional psychopath and I love Caroline’s sharp writing style, so I’m eager to read this one!

Man of My Dreams by Olivia Worley, which is about a romance writer who encounters her fictional hero … but things go dark. I recently read Olivia’s So Happy Together—about a woman who will do anything to secure the man she thinks is perfect for her—in one sitting, and it was so delightfully unhinged that I can’t wait for Man of My Dreams.

Additionally, I recently finished Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, which was as good as everyone says it is—I’m eagerly awaiting my book club meeting about it to chat it out with my friends!

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

Q&A with Kathleen Barber.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (September 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Sisterhood Above All.

The Page 69 Test: Sisterhood Above All.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jackie McMahon

Jackie McMahon writes murder mysteries with history, twists, and perhaps a romance (or two). She currently resides in Florida with her two cats, and in her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and sharing obscure historical facts she has recently learned.

McMahon's new novel is The Cloak and Dagger Club, the first in a new historical mystery series.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. McMahon's reply:

I recently read An Ordinary Sort of Evil by Kelley Armstrong, the latest installment in the Rip Through Time mystery series. This series follows Mallory Atkinson, a modern-day homicide detective, who finds herself transported back in time to Victorian-era Edinburgh. In the body of a housemaid, she helps her employer, medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray, solve murders. Mallory’s evolution in the series has been interesting as she finds her footing in the 1800s. What I particularly love about these books is the vibrant cast of side characters. (Major Hugh and Isla fan here!) The series has two very lovable, will-they-won't-they romances at its heart as well.

One of my favorite reads of the year so far was a NetGalley ARC, The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies by Kate Westbury. It is the first in a new historical mystery series set at 1950s Oxford University. I love a good romantically involved sleuthing duo (as anyone who has read my book can probably tell), and I'm eager to see more of the slow-burn between students-turned-spying-partners Ginevra and Sidney. This book follows Gin and Sidney when they're recruited by MI5 to investigate a murder at Oxford and a potential connection to a Soviet spy. I was left guessing until the very end and am eager to see what will happen in the second installment!

Finally, I have to shout out Death Was Not on the Guest List by Jenni L. Walsh. This is a stand-alone historical mystery set in Jazz Age Chicago. I instantly knew I wanted to read this when I discovered it was about Ginevra King and Edith Cummings, two real-life socialites who allegedly inspired the characters of Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker, respectively, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. I loved Gatsby in high school, but had no idea it was partially inspired by two real women. Combine that with a closed circle Christie-style mystery, and I was hooked.

Visit Jackie McMahon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rachel León

Rachel León is a writer, editor, and social worker, who has worked in child welfare for nearly two decades. She serves as Managing Director for Chicago Review of Books, and is the author of the novel, How We See the Gray.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. León's reply:

I’m always reading multiple books, often in different genres. Right now, my fiction pick is Yasmin Zaher’s novel, The Coin, about a young Palestinian woman living in New York who gets involved in a scheme selling Birkin bags. Everyone in my writing group is working on novels, and we realized a while back that it would be more helpful to read each other’s entire manuscripts rather than just a chapter or two here and there. But novel writing takes a long time, so we began the practice of reading published novels together and discussing them. We don't exactly have a set reason for picking the books, though typically it’s something one of us has wanted to read. The Coin was my suggestion, as it had been recommended in a writing class I took a year or so ago.

My nonfiction book right now is Guest Privileges: Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East by Gaar Adams, which recently won a Lambda Literary Award. This book was actually a gift from the author at an event I did for How We See the Gray. Gaar Adams lives in London, but was in the States to receive his award, and is from Wisconsin, and stopped in Madison where I was doing a reading. We had a lovely conversation after the event, and he gifted me the book. I’m not far, but let’s just say it’s clear why it won an award, which it certainly deserves.

Visit Rachel León's website.

Q&A with Rachel León.

--Marshal Zeringue

D.W. Buffa

The Dark Backward is among D.W. Buffa's more recent novels to be released. The story revolves around not just the strangest case William Darnell had ever tried;

it was the strangest case ever tried by any lawyer anywhere. It was impossible to explain; or rather, impossible to believe. The defendant, who did not speak English or any other language anyone could identify, had been found on an island no one knew existed, and charged with murder, rape and incest. He was given the name Adam, and Adam, as Darnell comes to learn, is more intelligent, quicker to learn, than anyone he has ever met. Adam, he learns to his astonishment, is a member of an ancient civilization that has remained undiscovered for more than three thousand years.

Buffa is also the author of ten legal thrillers involving the defense attorney Joseph Antonelli. He has also published a series that attempts to trace the movement of western thought from ancient Athens, in Helen; the end of the Roman Empire, in Julian's Laughter; the Renaissance, in The Autobiography of Niccolo Machiavelli; and America in the twentieth century, in Neumann's Last Concert.

Here is Buffa's take on The Life of George Washington by Washington Irving:

When George Washington died, just weeks before the end of the l8th century, an eminent British statesman, Lord Brougham, wrote: “The fame of Washington stands apart from every other in history.” He then added: “It will be the duty of the historian and the sage of all nations, to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man, and until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue, be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington.”

This is the last sentence written in Washington Irving’s biography of George Washington, the first volume of which was published in l855. The fifth, and last volume, was published four years later in l859, sixty years after Washington’s death, and a year before the American Civil War. It was then still possible to entertain the hope that veneration for Washington would remain the measure for the progress made in the wisdom and virtue of Americans. The example of Abraham Lincoln, with his invocation of “our fathers,” seemed to prove the possibility.

For a long time Washington and Lincoln were seen as the models of what American greatness and nobility meant. More than what they had done, the kind of men they had been, was thought to be the standard by which to judge our own best efforts. Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s birthday were both made national holidays, the only American statesmen to be so honored. Then, when our own early history became ancient, when the American Founding and the American Civil War began to recede further back in time and became part of a largely unremembered past, their example no longer seemed quite so relevant, and nothing like so urgent. The twentieth century, which some called the century of the common man, was less interested in the unique achievements of uniquely gifted human beings, and more concerned with what normal, average, people might be able to do. The two national holidays, now become archaic, were eliminated, replaced with just one, Presidents' Day, which celebrated everyone who had ever held the office, all of them treated with equal regard. Washington and Lincoln were no better, and no worse, than Warren Harding or Donald Trump.

Among the important documents Washington Irving included in the appendix to his biography is the statement issued by President John Adams on the death of George Washington. Remarkably close to what Lord Brougham had written, it carried an implicit warning about the future: “His example is now complete; and it will teach wisdom and virtue to magistrates, citizens, and men, not only in the present age, but in future generations, as long as our history shall be read.”

Yes, precisely; as long as our history shall be read. Adams might have added, so long as the history that is written tells the story as it was meant to be told. The history that Washington Irving writes is not the history written now. The story of Washington’s formative years, the history of the American Revolution, the history of Washington’s presidency, are told with all the detail anyone could want; but the details - the events, the decisions Washington made or did not make - are secondary, as it were, to the character of the man. Irving wants to tell us what there was about Washington that invariably led him to put the interests of his country over any of his own. He writes about the “wisdom and virtue” that marked the life of Washington in ways which, to eyes grown used to the small ambitions and tawdry corruptions of self-serving politicians, seem at times almost unbelievable.

Washington had at his birth in 1732 a background few others could claim: a family that traced itself back through six centuries of English history. “Hereditary rank may be an illusion; but hereditary virtue gives a patent of innate nobleness beyond all blazoners of Herald’s College.” Despite being part of Virginia’s landed aristocracy, Washington never attempted the “learned languages.” He studied mathematics and became an expert surveyor; so good that, when he was only sixteen, he made a survey of the Fairfax estate, the largest estate in Virginia, a property so large it took weeks to cross it on horseback. His knowledge of the territory was so extensive that, a few years later, he was attached to the British forces under General Braddock in the French and Indian war. Ignoring Washington’s advice about what the Indians were likely to do, Braddock led his men into a lethal ambush in which twenty-six of his eighty-six officers were killed and thirty-six wounded; two hundred of the rank and file lost their lives. Washington should have been killed. Two horses were shot out from under him, and four bullets passed through his coat without any harm. Years later, the Indian chief who led the attack, told Washington that, watching what happened, he and the other chieftains had decided that he must be the favorite of the Great Spirit who ruled over all of them.

Washington’s name was known everywhere. Elected to the legislature, his installation was greeted “by a singular testament of respect.” The Speaker “returned thanks for his distinguished military service.” Washington was so moved he could not speak. “Sit down, Mr. Washington,” he was told, “your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the powers of any language I possess.” When the discontent of the colonies with England required concerted action, Washington was sent, along with Patrick Henry and Edmund Randolph, to Philadelphia to meet with representatives from the other colonies. The fifty one delegates were, in the judgement of John Adams,“such an assembly as never before came together on a sudden, in any part of the world.” Out of that assembly, Patrick Henry thought Rutledge of South Carolina the best orator, but “if you speak of solid information and sound judgement,” Washington had been the greatest man there.

When peaceful efforts failed and the war began, Washington knew what he would do. “It is my full intention, if needful, to devote my life and fortune to the cause.” No one doubted he would do what he said, or that he should be put in command of the American forces. It is curious, the way Washington was seen by others, the remarkable first impression he made. When the wife of John Adams saw him for the first time, she wrote to her husband, describing what she had seen: “Dignity, ease, and complacency, the gentleman and the soldier look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face. The lines of Dryden instantly occurred to me:

“‘Mark his majestic fabric! He’s a temple
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine;
His soul’s the deity that lodges there:
Nor is the pile unworthy of the God.’”

The lines of Dryden! And we talk about all the progress we have made! We ought to be talking about how it is possible that the men and women who led this country at the beginning knew so much more than we do now what makes someone worthy of admiration.

When the war was over and independence had been won, Congress wanted “to produce some national reward for his imminent services.” Washington respectfully declined the offer, “jealously maintaining the satisfaction of having served his country at the sacrifice of his private interests.” That sacrifice was just beginning. Independence had been won; the question now was whether the Americans could govern themselves. In the summer of 1787, the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, and for three months, under the watchful supervision of George Washington, the unanimous choice to preside over their deliberations, engaged in an exhaustive examination of how to create a government to protect, instead of destroy, the rights of its citizens. The Constitution was written; it had to be ratified by the states. It was approved, but in some of the states only “by a mere majority,” and only then because it was generally understood that the executive office - the presidency - would be held by Washington himself. By the unanimous vote of the new electoral college, George Washington became the first president of the United States. The country felt safe; Washington felt like a “culprit, who is going to his place of execution.”

Two things were needed immediately: someone who could put the country’s finances on a solid basis, and someone who could deal effectively with England, France, and Spain, the three countries which still retained a presence in North America. Washington chose Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, two men with widely different views of the kind of government the country should have. Hamilton had made no secret of his belief that the “idea of a perfect equality of political rights among the citizens, exclusive of a permanent or hereditary distinction,” was a proposition open to serious doubt. The new Constitution, however, deserved “the good wishes of every good man, whatever might be his theoretic doubts….” He meant what he said. He was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, the greatest single defense of the Constitution ever put in print.

Jefferson had not been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention; he had been in Paris, awaiting what he hoped would be the end of both the French monarchy and the French aristocracy. He was alarmed to discover there was no limit to how often the president could be re-elected. Perpetual re-eligibility meant, in his mind, the inevitability of perpetual rule. It was only a matter of time before the president became a monarch, and, he was convinced, no one was more interested in having this happen than Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, for his part, thought Jefferson more than a little insane. “The idea of introducing monarchy or aristocracy in this country…is one of those visionary things that none but madmen could meditate, and that no wise man will believe.”

What began as a disagreement over political principles soon devolved into a personal hatred made all the more intense by the French Revolution. Jefferson did not just favor the French Revolution, he hoped, according to Irving, that “revolution would be established and spread all over the world.” It did not matter the cost. When thousands were put to death during the Jacobin reign of terror, Jefferson thought it unfortunate, but rather than the revolution “should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated; were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it now is.” For all his hatred of monarchy, however, Jefferson never included in his condemnations the one man who, had he wanted to, might have become an American monarch. When Washington seemed to have decided against a second term, Jefferson begged him to reconsider. No one else could stop the country from tearing itself apart; only Washington in the presidency guaranteed against the fear of a monarchy he believed Hamilton was plotting to bring about.

Washington agreed to serve a second term and was, for the second time, elected by the unanimous vote of the electoral college. The country would stay united, and the war between Hamilton and Jefferson would only get worse. Jefferson might believe that the French Revolution was only a continuation of the fight for the rights of man that had started with the American Revolution; Hamilton thought only a fool could fail to see the differences.

“Would to Heaven we could discern, in the mirror of the French affairs, the same decorum, the same gravity, the same virtue, the same dignity, the same solemnity, which distinguished the cause of the American Revolution!” The difference between them was “no less than that between liberty and license.”

Hamilton might write about the evils of the French Revolution, but when France declared war on England, the country followed Jefferson in support of France, and turned not just on Hamilton, but on Washington. The President’s insistence on a policy of strict neutrality was treated with contempt. It was nothing less than “a daring assumption of power; an open manifestation of partiality for England and hostility to France.” Washington had known what would happen; he had understood that “in withstanding the public infatuation with France,” he might lose all his popularity; “but he put it at hazard without hesitation; and in so doing set a magnanimous example for his successors in office to endeavor to follow.” An endeavor, it is perhaps needless to remark, few of his successors have thought advisable to attempt themselves.

After eight years in the presidency, Washington was finally able to retire to his beloved Mount Vernon. A few months later, war with France suddenly a real possibility, John Adams insisted that only Washington could lead the army. His answer was as simple as it was direct: “As my whole life as been dedicated to my country in one shape or another, for the poor remains of it, it is not an object to control for quiet and ease, when all that is valuable is at stake, further than to be satisfied that the sacrifice I should make of these, is acceptable and desired by my country.”

It will no doubt be objected by some that Washington owned slaves and does not deserve our full respect. This is to be expected from those who learn their history without bothering to read a page of what was written at the time. Washington, and Jefferson as well, inherited vast plantations, which had for generations been worked by slaves, but both thought slavery an abomination that needed, somehow, to be ended. In September of 1786, Washington wrote to John F. Mercer that it was “among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.” Eleven years later, in August of 1797, he wrote to his nephew, Lawrence Lewis, “I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual abolition of slavery. It might prevent much future mischief.”

Two years later, the legislature still having done nothing to abolish slavery, Washington freed his own, and did it in a way that, once freed, his former slaves would be cared for. In his will he directed that those who were unable to support themselves because of infirmities or old age, “shall be comfortably clothed and fed by my heirs while they live.” Those still children were to be taught to read and write and “brought up to some useful occupation.” There was a specific provision for his “mulatto man, William.” He was free to do whatever he wished, but, because he was now incapable of walking or any “active employment,” he could also remain there, at Mount Vernon. Whatever he chose to do, he was to be given a fixed annuity during his natural life, “as testimony of my sense of his attachment to me, and for his faithful service during the revolutionary war.”

Who was George Washington? Washington Irving had an answer: “The character of Washington may want some of those poetical elements which dazzle and delight the multitude, but it possessed fewer irregularities, and a rarer union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the lot of one man.”

If we do not honor George Washington as much as we once did, it proves only that we have, ourselves, become incapable of honor. Washington Irving’s biography is the perfect place to start if we want to remember what greatness and honorable conduct really means.

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Buffa's previous third reading essays: The Great Gatsby; Brave New World; Lord Jim; Death in the Afternoon; Parade's End; The Idiot; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Scarlet Letter; Justine; Patriotic Gore; Anna Karenina; The Charterhouse of Parma; Emile; War and Peace; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Bread and Wine; “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities; Eugene Onegin; The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay; The Europeans; The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction; Doctor Faustus; the reading list of John F. Kennedy; Jorge Luis Borges; History of the Peloponnesian War; Mansfield Park; To Each His Own; A Passage To India; Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Letters of T.E. Lawrence; All The King’s Men; The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus; Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt; Main Street; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Fiction's Failure; Hermann Hesse's Demian; Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July; Caesar’s Ghost; The American Constitution; A Tale of Two Cities; The Leopard; Madame Bovary; The Sheltering Sky; Tocqueville’s America and Ours; American Statesmen; Ancient and Modern Writers Reconsidered; Père Goriot; The Remarkable Edmund Burke; The Novels of W.H. Hudson; America Revised; The City And Man; "The Use And Abuse Of History"; I, Claudius; The Closing of The American Mind; History of Rome; Before The Deluge; Herodotus's Histories; The Education of Henry Adams; Talleyrand; The Golden Bowl

--Marshal Zeringue

Bryan Gruley

Bryan Gruley is the Edgar-nominated author of seven novels and one award-winning work of nonfiction. A lifelong journalist, he shared in The Wall Street Journal's Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks. A longtime Chicago resident, he now lives in northern lower Michigan with his wife, Pamela.

Gruley's new novel is River Deep.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Gruley's reply:

I’m a judge for the Edgar Awards this year and my favorite book so far is—sorry, if I told you I’d have to kill you.

Best book I’ve read in the past few years: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, a book published many years ago that resonates even now. Moving, funny, suspenseful, heartbreaking, with a perfect first-person voice inhabited by an autistic boy. (Almost as effective voice-wise is the autistic boy in Ken Jaworowski’s What About the Bodies).

Another book I love is my fellow Michiganian Sara Maurer’s debut novel, A Good Animal. A gorgeous rendering of a romance on a sheep farm in the Upper Peninsula. I haven’t finished it because: contest reading.

Also, two books by guys named John:

Bear County, Michigan by John Counts. This short-story collection by my fellow journalist is funny and searing and written with clarity and simplicity that reveres attention to physical detail.

The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon. You think you know the story, but you don’t. You know the ending, but you will be on the proverbial edge of your seat. Great reporting + exhaustive research + propulsive writing = fantastic book.

And now, back to that contest and all those great books, the best of which so far is ?????????

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

Q&A with Bryan Gruley.

My Book, The Movie: Bitterfrost.

My Book, The Movie: River Deep.

The Page 69 Test: River Deep.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter Colt

Peter Colt is the author of Cold Island in the Detective Tommy Kelly series and the Andy Roark Mysteries. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1973 and is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island. Colt spent twenty-four years in the army reserve, with deployments to Kosovo in 2000 and Iraq in 2003 and 2008. He is currently a police officer in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lives with his family and two perpetually feuding cats. Colt’s hobbies include cooking, camping, and kayaking.

Colt's new novel is The Driftwood Bones, the second title featuring Detective Tommy Kelly.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Colt's reply:

The last several months have been a race against time with a deadline for my publisher. That really cut into my reading time. I don't read much fiction but have always liked military history, not odd given I was a commissioned Army Officer. I recently finished Christopher Goscha's outstanding, The Road to Dien Bien Phu . The book is an excellent look at the French Indochina war that spans from the end of the Japanese Occupation to the eponymous battle. What makes Goscha's book stand out is the level of detail he goes into. He provides a comprehensive view of the Vietminh's strengths and weakness in a way most historians wouldn't consider. I have been studying the Indochina war and the Vietnam war for forty years and his book offered genuine insights. I would submit that while not a first hand view of the war, Goscha's work could stand shoulder to shoulder with the works of the brilliant French writer/academic, Bernard Fall. I would recommend this book strongly to anyone with an interest in either war.

Visit Peter Colt's website.

My Book, The Movie: Back Bay Blues.

The Page 69 Test: Back Bay Blues.

Q&A with Peter Colt.

The Page 69 Test: Death at Fort Devens.

My Book, The Movie: Death at Fort Devens.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (June 2022).

My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Judge.

My Book, The Movie: The Judge.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (May 2024).

Writers Read: Peter Colt (March 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Island.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (September 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Cold Island.

My Book, The Movie: The Driftwood Bones.

The Page 69 Test: The Driftwood Bones.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eva Gates

Eva Gates, also known as Vicki Delany, is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty-five books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Catskill Summer Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.

Delany is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Delany is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

The latest Lighthouse Library mystery is Whose Body in the Library, the thirteenth title in the series.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Delany's reply:

It’s been a great spring so far for reading. Two of my favourite writers have new books out, one right after the other. And they did not disappoint.

Last One Out by Jane Harper:

Jane Harper’s books are set in different parts of Australia, and the sense of place is outstanding. This is not a thriller and it's certainly not a cozy. It's more about people and community and what happens when people lose that community than the details of the plot itself, although it is a good one.

The Keeper by Tana French:

You might be able to tell that I love setting and this book also has an extremely strong sense of place. In this case rural Ireland. It’s also a study of people and community. In The Keeper the community isn't in danger of falling apart, but perhaps of being all too close. A good mystery goes along with it, but again, don't read this for thrills and action.

The Pharaoh’s Curse Murders by Melodie Campbell:

For a total change of pace I picked up this one by a Canadian author. What would be more fun than a cruise to Egypt in the 1920s? If one is rich, of course and Lady Lucy Revelstoke, our intrepid sleuth, is. This is a fun, funny romp aboard said ship as it sails up the Nile, rival archeologists argue, and everyone wonders if the Pharaoh's Curse is on board.

Follow Eva Gates on Facebook, and visit Vicki Delany's website.

The Page 69 Test: Death By Beach Read.

Writers Read: Eva Gates (June 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Death Knells and Wedding Bells.

Writers Read: Eva Gates (June 2023).

Writers Read: Eva Gates (May 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Stranger in the Library.

The Page 69 Test: Shot Through the Book.

The Page 69 Test: Whose Body in the Library.

--Marshal Zeringue

Linda Kass

Linda Kass began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. Along with her forthcoming novel, World News from Waverley High (September 2026), she is the author of three previous works of historical fiction: Tasa’s Song (2016), A Ritchie Boy (2020), and Bessie (2023). A longtime civic leader, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Central Ohio. Kass lives in Columbus with her husband, Frank; they have four children, six grandchildren, and a labradoodle named Wally.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Kass's reply:

I recently picked up The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits after receiving an email invite from Al Filreis, a Faculty Director at UPenn’s Kelly Writers House, to join a small book group to discuss this novel in in the fall—I must have been on their mailing list. While I couldn’t participate, my interest to read the book, shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, was piqued. This is a tender story about a middle-aged man fighting illness and marital woe who heads on a road trip, east to west. Tom Layward, a 55-year-old academic, is at a crossroads in his life. When his wife had an affair twelve years earlier, he vowed to leave her as soon as his youngest child left the nest. The story takes place at the time when daughter Miri is headed for Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and Tom and wife Amy are not on good terms. His decision to keep driving after dropping Miri off at school is an impulsive act for Tom, a man of reason. As Tom keeps driving west, he visits people from his past—an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son. As he moves toward some unknown future during this extended road trip, he considers his life and his past choices with regret and irony. His thoughtful insights and observations leave you aching, and the ending surprises.

I own a bookstore and curate our author programs. So I’m always eager to attend author conversations hosted elsewhere. I was in Sag Harbor when The Church, a vibrant community arts center and exhibition space, hosted Gayle Feldman, veteran Publishers Weekly reporter and author of Nothing Random: Bennett Cerf and the Publishing House He Built, in conversation with Cathleen McGuigan, longtime cultural writer and arts editor at Newsweek. While I don’t often read biographies, rarely whopping 800+ pagers, this subject really appealed to me. Feldman’s book takes readers inside the world of the co-founder of Random House, a man who later became a celebrity on the game show, What’s My Line?. It is both a landmark cultural history and a personal detailed look at Cerf’s star-studded life when New York, Hollywood, and the literary life were at their most glamorous and privileged. Worth reading for anyone interested in American publishing in the 20th century and how Cerf, with other prominent entrepreneurs, remade the book business: what was published, and how.

My bookstore, Gramercy Books, is located in the Columbus area, in the home state of the legendary Toni Morrison. As part of a state-wide collaboration going on in Ohio this year, we agreed to dedicate three of our book club-formatted programs to Morrison novels. We held the second in our series featuring The Bluest Eye, her acclaimed first novel of eleven. The book is a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with the Novel Prize winner’s characteristic subtlety and grace. It’s the story of Pecola Breedlove—an 11- year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. Morrison delivers the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. There is a precision to the writing, restrained and yet charged with pain at its core. Haunting.

I’ve been in a book club that has met monthly for nearly three decades. By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult was our most recent selection. It takes its title from a famous line in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." The title leads the reader straight into a dual timeline novel split between the present and the sixteenth century, with interspersed snippets from the script of a play. In the present, a young woman, Melina Green, has written a play about her ancestress, Emilia Bassano, but Melina is unable to get her play produced because of misogyny in the theater world.  The historical timeline is the story of Emilia Bassano, a real-life woman, who Picoult suggests wrote the best of Shakespeare’s plays since Emilia could not publish them under her own name. The theory that Shakespeare was a woman, as Picoult acknowledges, was first put forward by the academic Elizabeth Winkler in a 2019 essay in the Atlantic, and then in a book published last year. While the historical sections are meticulously researched and the novel has vivid depictions of Elizabethan England, the modern-day timeline doesn’t feel as compelling or have the same depth as the historical arc.

Visit Linda Kass's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tracy Lynne Oliver

Tracy Lynne Oliver is a writer based in Los Angeles. She has been published online at a variety of places such as Medium, Fanzine, and Occulum. She co-authored the graphic novel, The Sacrifice of Darkness, with Roxane Gay. Her story, “This Weekend” was included in Best Microfiction 2019.

Her new book, Magician, is "dark magic debut novel featuring the Boy who becomes the Magician and the villainous Mother whose sadism might end it all."

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Oliver's reply:

A book about remote viewing. Have you ever heard the name Ingo Swann? He was a man that worked with a ‘deep black’ agency that handled UFO’s, aliens on the moon and telepathic mind control. Ingo Swann was an extraordinarily talented remote viewer which means he can be given ‘targets’ which he can access with his mind. These targets can be physically located here on earth or even other planets. The book is called, Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy. I love shit like this. And, after reading, well, let’s just say, what he saw on other planets may change your brain.

Joe Hill’s King Sorrow which follows a friend group over decades. Back in college, they summon a dragon and murder, sacrifice and destruction ensue. I quite enjoy Joe Hill’s work and throw in a dragon and I’m there. This was a thick gal, so it took me just over a month to devour, which is only a quarter-second in dragon time.

Because I wanted to relive her magic again, I re-read Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water. When this book came out in 2011 it proved to me how beautiful words can be no matter how ugly or distressing the subject matter. A memoir of a girl who becomes a woman who becomes a twice-mother and some ugly struggles in between. The way Lidia uses her words imprints all she wants to say into your soul.

Visit Tracy Lynne Oliver's website.

Q&A with Tracy Lynne Oliver.

--Marshal Zeringue