Erin Bowman

Erin Bowman grew up in rural Connecticut, where she spent most of her childhood penning tales. She studied web design (and minored in Creative Writing because she couldn’t stay away from stories) at the Rochester Institute of Technology. After several years working in advertising and designing websites for various brands, she moved from Boston to New Hampshire, where she now lives with her family and writes full-time.

When not writing, Bowman can often be found hiking, geeking out over good typography, and obsessing over all things Harry Potter. She drinks a lot of coffee, buys far too many books, and is not terribly skilled at writing about herself in the third person.

Bowman is the author of the Taken trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, and the newly released Contagion.

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

With launch approaching and a new baby in the house, I'm not reading something at the moment. But I recently finished and adored Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough. This is a verse novel about the life of Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who was raped by her teacher and endured a lengthy trial prosecuting him in which she was tortured to verify her testimony. Blood Water Paint was a powerful, haunting read, and in the heat of the MeToo movement, it resonated with me strongly. Gae Polisner, one of the authors who blurbed the book, said it is “a grave reminder of how little has changed and a hopeful testament to how much more we might achieve." I can't agree more. Women have so much to lose from speaking their truth—in the 1600s and even still today. The subject matter was tough, but the writing was beautiful. This is a book everyone should read.

Visit Erin Bowman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Contagion.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sibel Hodge

Sibel Hodge is the author of the number-one bestsellers Look Behind You, Untouchable and Duplicity. Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK, USA, Australia, France, Canada and Germany.

Hodge's new novel is Into the Darkness.

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

You Don't Know Me by Imran Mahmood. The topic of UK gangs is so timely right now and I just love books that tell a story in an unusual way. It's masterfully narrated by a young man on trial for murder, giving his final closing speech to the jury. It tackles many very real social issues that are often glossed over or ignored, because if it's not happening to you, why should you care? It delves into gang culture in a realistic and relatable way (kudos to the author for his research!). And shows how you can never really know or judge a person unless you've walked in their shoes. Did he do it? Only you can decide!

The Hanged Man by Simon Kernick. Another high-octane thrilling ride in the Bone Field series. Typically brilliant Simon Kernick and I love everything he does!

Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land. Because it's just wow! A taut psychological thriller that will get under your skin and won't let go!

Visit Sibel Hodge's website.

My Book, The Movie: Into the Darkness.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carola Dunn

Carola Dunn is the author of many mysteries featuring Daisy Dalrymple, as well as numerous historical novels. Born and raised in England, she lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Dunn's latest novel is The Corpse at the Crystal Palace, the 23rd Daisy Dalrymple mystery.

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

The Prague Sonata, by Bradford Morrow

Many aspects of The Prague Sonata appealed to me. The theme is classical music. It's a mystery, the genre I write, though a murderless one: Who wrote the brilliant sonata, and where are the two missing movements, if they still exist? Can the young female musicologist outwit the old men who are trying to steal her discovery? The setting, Prague, is a city I've visited all too briefly and would love to revisit. The history, from WWI through the Nazi occupation of Prague and flight of the Jews, the Prague Spring and the resistance to the Soviet reoccupation, all is familiar but from new perspectives. There's even an understated romance, between the musicologist and an American reporter stationed in Prague. Though I rarely pick up books this long, The Prague Sonata is so well written it kept me fascinated from beginning to end. And it's plausible—the Haydn C major cello concerto was rediscovered after a couple of hundred years.

The Trick, by Emanuel Bergmann

A Jewish boy in Europe runs away to join a circus, becomes a brilliant conjurer, escapes the Nazis, and moves on after the war to a great career in Los Angeles. A young boy in present day LA believes the magician has a love spell that could bring his divorcing parents back together, could he but find the now aged and cantankerous man and persuade him to use his powers. The long and twisted road that ends in their meeting is intriguing, thought the outcome seems pretty well assured. Less certain is what the outcome of the meeting will be, and a final twist caps the story.

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, by Vaseem Khan

The day Inspector Chopra retires, forced out unwillingly by a heart attack, his unexpected inheritance arrives—in the form of a very sad baby elephant. Chopra is equally sad—he loved his job and doesn't know what to do with himself, or the elephant. Written by an Englishman of Indian heritage, who spent several years working in India, this mystery is enchanting despite no glossing over the corruption, poverty, cruelty, and filth of modern Mumbai.

Pay It Forward, by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Suppose one child took seriously a promise to “pay it forward,” and thus changed the world? Utopian, in spite of a tragedy en route, but one must dream....

Visit Carola Dunn's website and blog.

Coffee with a Canine: Carola Dunn and Trillian.

The Page 69 Test: The Corpse at the Crystal Palace.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ruthanna Emrys

Ruthanna Emrys lives in a mysterious manor house in the outskirts of Washington DC with her wife and their large, strange family. She makes home-made vanilla, obsesses about game design, gives unsolicited advice, and occasionally attempts to save the world.

Emrys's new novel is Deep Roots.

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

I’ve just started Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars, in which a dinosaur-level asteroid impact on Washington DC in 1952 kicks off a no-holds-barred program to colonize space. The opening made me cry about five times—it probably didn’t help that I was reading it on the DC metro. It perfectly captures the weirdness of how people respond to crises. The protagonist is Jewish, and about the same level of observant that I am; there’s this point where she’s finally made it to safety, and found a place to stay, and her generous, well-meaning hosts offer her eggs cooked in bacon grease and of course you can’t say anything… Kowal gets the way trivial things push you over the edge in the middle of world-shaking events. The rest of the book is all alternate space program, and still brilliant and but probably less heart-breaking—someone is probably pitching this as Hidden Figures meets Deep Impact, but structurally and emotionally so far it reminds me more of Up.

In between longer and more intense reading, I’ve been going through the first season of Tremontaine, a multi-author serial set in the world of Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint. The authors include Kushner herself, Malinda Lo, Racheline Maltese, Joel Derfner, Paul Witcover, Patty Bryant, and Alaya Dawn Johnson. It’s fantasy of manners with occasional duels. It’s queer as hell, and full of fraught romances that are fraught for reasons other than being queer. Major plot points include celestial navigation, the economics of the chocolate trade, and a possibly-hallucinatory possessed opossum. It’s fun, which is something I desperately need these days.

I’m also slowly savoring Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy. It’s a “self-help/planet-help” book about the practical and philosophical aspects of social justice organization, based in the Earthseed movement from Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. It’s a thought-provoking mix of essays and poetry and relevant quotes, and discussions of how to mediate and meditate and work for change in the face of immanent dystopia. It uses flocks of starlings as a metaphor for how we can move together towards change—and the book itself is like that, different pieces all moving together, with the relationships between them coming clear at the edges.

Visit Ruthanna Emrys's website.

The Page 69 Test: Deep Roots.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rob Hart

Rob Hart is the author of the Ash McKenna series which wraps up this month with Potter’s Field. Other entries include: New Yorked, which was nominated for an Anthony Award for Best First Novel, as well as City of Rose, South Village, and The Woman from Prague. He also co-wrote Scott Free with James Patterson.

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

I recently finished There There by Tommy Orange, which is about a dozen Native Americans living in Oakland and converging on a powwow. Some of them are planning to rob it but it’s not a heist novel—it’s more about the Native American experience in this country, and it’s really thoughtful and beautifully-written and just slams you right in the heart.

I just started The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay. I read the first 150 pages before bed last night and then woke up at 2 in the morning after having a nightmare, so it’s pretty much exactly what you would expect from Tremblay. Tense, harrowing stuff.

I’ll go for the hat trick and tell you what I’m reading next, too: Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett. It’s won a bunch of awards and I met Kellye and she was super cool so I’ve been meaning to get to it. I will never say no to a good PI novel.

Visit Rob Hart's website.

My Book, The Movie: Potter's Field.

The Page 69 Test: Potter's Field.

--Marshal Zeringue

Randi Hutter Epstein

Randi Hutter Epstein is a medical writer, lecturer at Yale University, Writer in Residence at Yale Medical School, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is the author of Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank (2010) and the new book, Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything.

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

I have a stack of books on my night table that balloon until my husband complains when I flail my arm and they go flying off in a noisy avalanche in the middle of the night. Then I have to prune—weeding out the ones I’m not really reading at the moment and putting them back on the bookshelf. I read a mix of non-fiction and fiction, saving the novels for bedtime reading. That’s so I can drift off to sleep mulling over the lives of the imaginary characters rather than worry about the minutiae of my own forthcoming schedule.

I recently pulled out a weathered copy of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov [image, left] that I bought and read in 1981. Dostoyevsky is the perfect antidote whenever I feel that I overthink about overthinking. (Am I thinking too much? Worrying too much?) No, his characters overthink. But this time around, I had the pleasure of immersing myself in 19th century Russia and also reading my pseudo-intellectual notes in the margins along with the lines I underlined when I read the book as a sophomore in college.

I also just finished Allegra Huston’s Say My Name, which is called “erotic fiction,” but it’s just a grand love story with a self-assured female protagonist. Huston knows how to plant a mystery and then seduce you to keep turning those pages. Rather than doze off, I stayed up late reading this one.

Just the other day, I came across a Roald Dahl book that I’ve never seen before on a table of used books sold by a New York City neighbor. I was grabbed by the title, Esio Trot. That’s “tortoise” backwards. When my family purchased our Russian tortoise about 20 years ago, my son (then in kindergarten) told me that he remembers how to spell “tortoise” because, as he said: “it’s esiotrot backwards.” I’m not sure the logic, but apparently Dahl was on the same wavelength. The book is a delightful tale of a lonely old man and his love for his downstairs neighbor. And yes, there’s a tortoise in it too. No spoiler alerts here. You’ll have to find your own copy. And our tortoise is still doing well.

My recent non-fiction is Anthony Donoghue’s Statistics and the Media which is one of the few statistics books to explain the basics without all the hifalutin jargon. This should be used in college courses and kept by the side of all science writers. I’m glad I have my copy. Yes it’s statistics and yes it’s a fun read. He weaves in examples from the media.

Visit Randi Hutter Epstein's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Randi Hutter Epstein, Ellie and Dexter.

The Page 99 Test: Aroused.

--Marshal Zeringue

Zoje Stage

Zoje Stage lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Baby Teeth is her first novel.

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

I just finished reading Beartown by Fredrik Backman. I admit that even though I'd heard so many superlatives in regard to this book, it took a while before I was convinced to read it because the setting of a town that's obsessed with hockey didn't resonate with me. Once I started it though, I realized it was an effective device to explore some very timely issues. Perhaps because I grew up in Pittsburgh, where sports are an obsession, some aspects of the novel felt overdone and a bit stale – particularly the repetitive explanations of just how important hockey was to Beartown as a whole. However, I really enjoyed this book, and the thing I appreciated most was the breathing room. The story took its time, and along the way gave depth and detail to a breadth of different and uniquely sympathetic characters. As a writer of suspense, I often feel the pressure to give every part of my stories an urgency, and this novel was a reminder of the value of letting a story breathe and unfold in an unhurried way.

I'm currently reading The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir. I was interested in this book because of its intersection between a mega-religious family and reality TV. I'm familiar with some of these types of shows in real life, and always wonder to what degree the children are molded to behave a certain way – with extra pressure because of the cameras – when in fact they may hold different beliefs or life goals that contradict their parents and the footage that we're shown. This story very much taps into that, exploring how financial greed can be the true guiding compass, and how a teenage girl tries to salvage her own identity while living a life that's designed to be scripted.

Visit Zoje Stage's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lisa Jensen

Lisa Jensen is the author of the novels Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge, Alias Hook, and The Witch From the Sea, proprietress of the entertainment blog, Lisa Jensen Online Express, and longtime film critic for the alt weekly, Good Times, in Santa Cruz, CA.

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

Right this minute, I'm in the thick of Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. It's the epic tales of Thor, Odin, Loki and the gang, streamlined to their essence, and retold in Gaiman's droll voice. He infuses each god and goddess with human foibles, and renders magical stories of gods, giants, and dwarves with life-sized precision. Great fun!

I also recently finished The Master of Verona, by David Blixt, which merges the historical realities of life in the Renaissance Italian city-states with what you might call the origin stories of some of Shakespeare's most famous plays in Italian settings. Since my next novel (the one after Beast) is set in the Italian Renaissance, and also has a Shakespearean element, I thought I could just skim through Blixt's book and pick up some period color. Ha! I got sucked into this wild ride with its non-stop action from beginning to end!

Visit Lisa Jensen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alex White

Alex White was born and raised in the American south. He takes photos, writes music, and spends hours on YouTube watching other people blacksmith. He values challenging and subversive writing, but he’ll settle for a good time.

White lives in the shadow of Huntsville, Alabama’s rockets with his wife, son, two dogs and a cat named Grim. Favored pastimes include Legos and racecars. He takes his whiskey neat and his espresso black.

White's new novel is A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:

At this moment, I'm re-reading Heather Kaczynski's Dare Mighty Things, the story of Cassandra Gupta, a young NASA intern that gets selected for humanity's first interstellar mission. They take her to a compound along with twenty-five other college-age kids and have them compete in a series of mysterious challenges. The administrators promptly begin playing mind games with the participants, eliminating them one by one, until only a few remain.

I enjoy this work for Kaczynski's lightning-quick prose and perfect readability. For a book about space travel, the writer could've gone into way too much detail or tried to lose the reader in a minefield of technicalities. Dare Mighty Things is accessible, and has no problem explaining some of its more abstract concepts. Pair that with a paranoia-inducing set of psychological and intellectual challenges, and the intensity is undeniable!

Visit Alex White's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.

The Page 69 Test: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Scott Reintgen

Scott Reintgen has spent his career as a teacher of English and creative writing in diverse urban communities in North Carolina. He strongly believes that every student who steps into his classroom has the right to see themselves, vibrant and victorious and on the page. It’s his hope to encourage a future full of diverse writers. As he’s fond of reminding his students, “You have a story to tell and you’re the only one who can tell it.”

Reintgen's new novel is Nyxia Unleashed.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:

I've actually just returned from the beach and thankfully I got a lot of reading done. The first book I tackled was The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin. It's a breathtaking and brutal world that centers around the concept of fifth seasons-- or regular apocalyptic events that threaten to wipe out humanity. Jemisin's world building is transcendent. I'm also reading Circe by Madeline Miller. I'm not sure I've ever encountered such beautiful prose. Miller reimagines the infamous Circe and tells the entire story from her godlike and lonely perspective. I'm also guilty of having a book open in every room of the house, which means I've started Genesis by Brendan Reichs, Bruja Born by Zoraida Cordova, Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, and The Last Sun by K.D. Edwards.

As an author, I fully believe that our best work is collaborative. So I do read for fun, but I'm also always looking for new tricks and tools to add to my own arsenal. In The Last Sun, Edwards uses a "home base" set up that I adopted for the first half of my sequel, Nyxia Unleashed. And the entire Broken Earth series is a playground for Jemisin to toy with narrative voice. Reading her stories was like permission for me to go try my own playful voice out, so I did. We always learn to write more honestly by reading the work of other authors, it's that simple. I know that Nyxia and Nyxia Unleashed would be nowhere near as strong in their storytelling without all of these open books around my house.

Visit Scott Reintgen's website.

The Page 69 Test: Nyxia.

--Marshal Zeringue