author

Please welcome Tracy Chevalier to On the Bookcase! This Q&A reveals the secrets behind her novel, The Last Runaway.

Your previous novels were all set in Europe. What made you decide to choose America, and more specifically, Ohio, as the setting of The Last Runaway?

Advice, confessions, reflections, fantasies, delights and flashes of brilliance from Emily Colin, author of The Memory Thief.

Is it possible to be a good writer without being a good reader?

AUTHOR SQUARED
Jenny Gardiner
Wade Rouse

Two Authors chat about their dogs, other pets, and fond memories...

I am pleased to welcome I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship's editor, Wade Rouse, and one of its contributing writers, Jenny Gardiner.

Take it away Jenny and Wade!

One of Reading Group Choices' Featured Books for the month of September is The Legacy by Katherine Webb. Here we get a peek at Katherine’s story of her first novel, favorite authors, and loves and qualms about being a writer! 

For book club members, using an interview of an author during a meeting can bring interesting points to your discussion that you may not have thought of with just the novel as a reference. For example discuss the setting of The Legacy after reading why Katherine chose it!

1. When and why did you begin writing?

Author On the Bookcase
Mara Purl 

I'm excited to welcome Mara Purl, author of The Milford-Haven Novels, to On the Bookcase. Milford-Haven is a fictitious town on California's Central Coast. Pre-9/11, housing is on the rise, the stock market is booming, and Milford-Haven is full of the upwardly mobile pouring out of Los Angeles in search of a fresh start or a weekend getaway. The novels are based on Purl's BBC Radio drama Milford-Haven U.S.A. 

The first in the Milford-Haven series, What the Heart Knows, features Miranda Jones. Artist Miranda begins to trust her heart enough to escape from her life of privilege and start over in Milford-Haven. Now that she's moved, deeper questions surface: What is her life purpose? What's missing?

AUTHOR SQUARED
Michele Young-Stone
Cara Hoffman

Two Authors chat about writing, books, and everything in between

I'm excited to welcome Michele Young-Stone (The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors) and Cara Hoffman (So Much Pretty) to Author Squared.

Take it away, Michele and Cara!

Michele: I have some questions I’m dying to ask you.

Author On the Bookcase
Jael McHenry

I'm thrilled to welcome Jael McHenry, author of The Kitchen Daughter, to On the Bookcase. Reading and recipes -- perfect for reading groups! After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes. (Midnight Cry Brownies -- yummy!) She learns her cooking will lure family ghosts and these ghosts leave clues to some family secrets. As Ginny deals with her loss, she faces another challenge  -- her sister wants to sell the house Ginny has ever known.

Author on the Bookcase
Karen Essex

Vampires Fly On the Bookcase!

Author On the Bookcase
Gabrielle Burton

I'm so excited to welcome Gabrielle Burton, author of Impatient With Desire, to On the Bookcase. Gabrielle's novel tells the story of Tamsen Donner, a real-life pioneer woman. In 1846, after months of research and preparation, she and her husband George, along with their five daughters and eighty other pioneers, headed west on the California-Oregon Trail in eager anticipation of new lives in California. But everything that could go wrong did... and an American legend was born.

The Donner Party.

Author On the Bookcase
Kate Kerrigan

Thrilled to welcome Kate Kerrigan, author of Ellis Island, to On the Bookcase. In Ellis Island, Ellie Hogan and her husband John were childhood sweethearts, destined to live together on his farm in Ireland. But when John, a soldier for the Irish Republican Army, becomes too injured to work, Ellie must take drastic measures in order for them to survive. Like many other young Irish women in the 1920s, she immigrates to New York City, to work as a maid for a wealthy socialite.

In New York, Ellie is introduced to a sophisticated lifestyle, tempted by this glittering new world of fine clothes and parties, money and mansions.