Catch and Release - Review

Idgie Says:
An angsty novel about a man fighting the fact that a reality TV show may be the only thing to save his family's fishing camp.  There are dark secrets involving both the mother and father of the family and the scars, mentally and physically, that were left.  

When a TV crew shows up and Ronan finds himself falling for Hope, a rating catcher of a surprise may signal the end of whatever love was being created.
 ____________________________________________________

Catch and Release

A Fishing for Trouble Novel
by Laura Drewry
Random House Publishing Group - Loveswept

Loveswept

Romance

Pub Date 28 Feb 2017 


Description
The irresistible O’Donnell brothers return in a charming novel from the bestselling author of Off the Hook (“The perfect balance of sweet, sexy, and wonderfully romantic.”—Lauren Layne).

Hope Seaver is an up-and-coming TV producer tackling the hardest gig of her career: a reality show set at the Buoys, a scenic fishing destination owned by three handsome, stubborn brothers. Liam and Finn O’Donnell are willing to tolerate her crew for the sake of the business, but Ronan would rather chew off a limb than open up on camera. Somehow Hope has to convince him of her good intentions—and stop herself from swooning every time Ronan walks into the frame.

Ronan knows that he’s the reason his brothers gave up their old lives to run the Buoys, and he needs to make it worth their while. So if this out-of-towner with the kind eyes and dazzling smile wants to give them the free publicity they desperately need, Ronan can’t say no. He just won’t let himself get burned again by a double-dealing woman. But what if Hope’s good-girl routine isn’t an act? When Ronan lets his guard down long enough to catch a glimpse of the real Hope, he likes what he sees—enough to give love another shot.

A Million Little Things - Review

Idgie Says:
This is the story of several different characters, all intertwined into one novel.  The main character is supposed to be Zoe, but the way the chapters hop back and forth between a trio of characters makes them all main in a way.  It's definitely a novel about finding your way through life, and sometimes making your own family units simply by being there for your friends. 

________________________________________________

A Mischief Bay Novel - Book 3
March 2017
MIRA

From the bestselling author of The Girls of Mischief Bay and The Friends We Keep comes a twisty tale of family dynamics that explores what can go terribly, hysterically wrong when the line between friendship and family blurs… 

Zoe Saldivar is more than just single—she's ALONE. She recently broke up with her longtime boyfriend, she works from home and her best friend Jen is so obsessed with her baby that she has practically abandoned their friendship. The day Zoe accidentally traps herself in her attic with her hungry-looking cat, she realizes that it's up to her to stop living in isolation.

Her seemingly empty life takes a sudden turn for the complicated—her first new friend is Jen's widowed mom, Pam. The only guy to give her butterflies in a very long time is Jen's brother. And meanwhile, Pam is being very deliberately seduced by Zoe's own smooth-as-tequila father. Pam's flustered, Jen's annoyed and Zoe is beginning to think "alone" doesn't sound so bad, after all.

Friendship isn't just one thing—it's a million little things, and no one writes them with more heart and humor than book club sensation Susan Mallery!

The Odds of You and Me

Idgie Says:
Bird is an overly young mother who made  desperate and poor choices to keep her small child fed.  She's been paying for those choices for 2 years now, but her probation is almost over and she's ready to move out of her overbearing mother's house and take her son to their own home. To start fresh.

But 2 weeks shy of probation ending she runs into a man that helped her in her time of need and now seems to be running from his own poor decisions.  Does she keep her nose clean or try to help someone that might pull her down again?

This is not a light book, it's mired in dark moments and the story takes it's time coming into itself. You understand Bird, her decisions and her overwhelming need to simply be loved by someone. 

__________________________________

William Morrow
January 27, 2017

Click HERE for an excerpt

About the Book

In the vein of Meg Donohue and Sarah Jio, Cecilia Galante’s second novel delivers the powerful story of one young woman who’s faced with an impossible choice—one that could have her making the biggest mistake of her life.

Thirteen days. That’s all Bernadette, “Bird,” Sincavage has left to go until she’s done with her probation and can be free again. Free from making payments to the supermarket she wrote bad checks to. Free from living at home with her overzealous mother who’s constantly nagging her about attending church again. Free to give her four-year-old son, Angus, the normal life he deserves. Her impending freedom and move to Moon Lake, where she’s plunked down a deposit on a brand new apartment, is so close she can almost taste it. What trouble could she possibly get into in just thirteen days?

But trouble does follow in the form of James Rittenhouse—someone she worked with a few years ago. At first, Bird is stunned to see James make the evening news when he’s arrested for assaulting someone in a local bar. But that’s nothing compared to the shock she gets when she discovers James hiding out in an abandoned church choir loft. Somehow he escaped police custody, broke his leg, and got his hand on a gun, which he’s now pointing at her.

Although Bird doesn’t tell anyone she saw James, there’s no way she’s helping him. She can’t screw up her probation or her second chance for a new future. And she has her son’s welfare to think about. Still. If only she could stop thinking about the terrified look in James’ eyes and the fact that he’s hurt. If only she could forget that once, long ago, James helped her out, and she owes him a debt like no other.

Will Bird jeopardize her future for someone who helped her out in the past? A past that holds secrets she’s not quite sure she’s ready to face? Or will she turn a blind eye and learn to live with the consequences?

#SV2017 Coming Up!!!

Just a reminder folks - next weekend I will be at Hoover's Southern Voices - a FANTASTIC festival for authors and readers. Will you be there? Follow this link for this year's line-up. http://todaysdeepsouth.blogspot.com/…/southern-voices-festi…

Here's my write-up of last year's event. http://todaysdeepsouth.blogspot.com/…/southern-voices-festi…

To show you just how fantastic it is - click on this link to watch a few videos from last year's festival. http://todaysdeepsouth.blogspot.com/…/hoovers-southern-voic…

The Weight of Him - Spotlight and Excerpt

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (February 14, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250092124
ISBN-13: 978-1250092120

In this uplifting book, Rohan writes in the distinct voice of Big Billy Brennan—an overweight father who has an emotional dependency on food. When he tragically loses his son to suicide, however, the solace he once found in eating disappears. He decides to embark on a public weight loss campaign to raise money for suicide prevention, setting out to redeem himself and save his family by losing half of his 400 lbs.

THE WEIGHT OF HIM is the perfect feel-good novel to curl up with this winter. It’s about people putting themselves back together and becoming their best selves, whole and at peace. Ethel says: “So many people suffer, in ways small and in ways crushing…Ultimately, I wrote THE WEIGHT OF HIM as a call for love—love of others, love of ourselves.”

At four hundred pounds, Billy Brennan can always count on food. From his earliest memories, he has loved food’s colors, textures and tastes. The way flavors go off in his mouth. How food keeps his mind still and his bad feelings quiet. Food has always made everything better, until the day Billy’s beloved son Michael takes his own life.

Billy determines to make a difference in Michael’s memory and undertakes a public weight-loss campaign, to raise money for suicide prevention—his first step in an ambitious plan to save himself, and to save others. However, Billy’s dramatic crusade appalls his family, who want to simply try to go on.

Despite his crushing detractors, Billy gains welcome allies: his community-at-large; a co-worker who lost his father to suicide; a filmmaker with his own dubious agenda; and a secret, miniature kingdom that Billy populates with the sub-quality dolls and soldiers he rescues from disposal at the local toy factory where he works. But it is only if Billy can confront the truth of his pain, suffering, and the brokenness around him, that he and others will be able to realize the full rescue and change they need.

Set in rural, contemporary Ireland, The Weight of Him is an unforgettable, big-hearted novel about loss and reliance that moves from tragedy to recrimination to what can be achieved when we take the stand of our lives.

_________________________________________________

Ethel Rohan is the author of two story collections, Goodnight Nobody and Cut Through the Bone, the former longlisted for The Edge Hill Prize and the latter longlisted for The Story Prize. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, World Literature Today, GUERNICA Magazine, Tin House Online,The Rumpus, and many more. Born and raised in Ireland, she lives in San Francisco.

_____________________________________________________________________________
 
Read a Chapter Excerpt Below:

 

Red Platoon - Spotlight

Red Platoon

A True Story of American Valor
by Clinton Romesha
PENGUIN GROUP Dutton

Dutton

Biographies & Memoirs, History

Pub Date 03 May 2016

Description

The only comprehensive, firsthand account of the thirteen hour firefight at the Battle of Keating by Medal of Honor recipient Clinton Romesha, for readers of Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden and Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell

"'It doesn't get better.' To us, that phrase nailed one of the essential truths, maybe even the essential truth, about being stuck at an outpost whose strategic and tactical vulnerabilities were so glaringly obvious to every soldier who had ever set foot in that place that the name itself -- Keating -- had become a kind of backhanded joke."

In 2009, Clinton Romesha of Red Platoon and the rest of the Black Knight Troop were preparing to shut down Command Outpost Keating, the most remote and inaccessible in a string of bases built by the U.S. military in Nuristan and Kunar in the hope of preventing Taliban insurgents from moving freely back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three years after its construction, the army was finally ready to concede what the men on the ground had known immediately: it was simply too isolated and too dangerous to defend.

On October 3, 2009, after years of constant smaller attacks, the Taliban finally decided to throw everything they had at Keating. The ensuing 14-hour battle-- and eventual victory-- cost 8 men their lives.

Red Platoon is the riveting first-hand account of the Battle of Keating, told by Romesha, who spearheaded both the defense of the outpost and the counter-attack that drove the Taliban back beyond the wire, and received the Medal of Honor for his actions.

The King of Bourbon Street - Review

Idgie Says:
This book is a bit on the crude/in your face side, but in general is a story of two very, very wealthy people who are looking for do-overs in their lives.  Sol has led a wild existence and starting to wonder if this is all he'll ever have, and Arianna is running away from her over-controlling mother after purposely creating a sex tape to get out of a forced family marriage/merger.  

_______________________________________
 
Savor a LOVEL-E treat for Valentine’s Day, The King of Bourbon Street by Thea de Salle (Pocket Star EBook; February 13, 2017; 9781501156076; Romance)!

About the book:

Thirty-seven-year-old Sol DuMont is a divorcee and the owner of a mid-sized hotel chain in New Orleans. Since Hurricane Katrina, his father’s death, and the decision that he and his ex-wife Maddy are far better off friends than lovers, he’s lost interest in almost everything he held dear—parties, people, and pushing limits. All his limits.

Then Arianna Barrington checks into his hotel. Twenty-four-year-old Arianna “Rain” Barrington could have been society’s sweetheart. Her family is moneyed, connected press darlings, and make sweeping headlines from coast to coast for reasons both good and bad. But when her mother shoves her at Charles Harwood—the obnoxious, entitled heir of Harwood Corp—to cement a billion-dollar business merger, Rain does the only thing she can think of to escape: she creates a scandal so big Harwood doesn’t want her anymore before fleeing to New Orleans for much-needed rest and relaxation.

All she wants is jazz piano, beignets, and to sail the Mississippi. What she gets is Sol DuMont, a whirlwind affair, and a hands-on education in sex, power play, and pushing limits. All her limits.

About the author:

Thea de Salle is the pseudonym of a New York Times bestselling author spinning sweet, naughty, funny kissing stories with her best friend. Thea’s handlers live in South Shore Massachusetts with a small army of furry, short-legged creatures. Their collective interests are books, jewelry, makeup, travel, and oodles of inappropriate humor. You can find Thea on Twitter and Tumblr.

Note: Look for Book 2, The Queen of Dauphine Street (5/15) and Book 3, The Lady of Royale Street (7/3)!

 

Seeking Mr. Wrong - Review and Excerpt

Idgie Says:
This is a meet cute story about a somewhat frazzled, rumpled and distracted teacher who happens to write educational children's books for extra income.  When she discovers she needs to spice it up, the new hot Vice Principal of her school - who has already met in a less than best moment after she lost her nephew in a store - offers to come to her rescue.  Misunderstandings, lust, confusion, more lust and the usual occur.

SEEKING MR. WRONG

Natalie Charles

February 13, 2017

Pocket Star EBook

9781501164545

$1.99

Romance

“Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Charles (The Coffee Girl) offers up a delightful and entertaining romance with some spice on the side.”

—Library Journal

About the book:

Lettie Osbourne has lived her whole life by the book. Sweet, predictable, and certainly not living life on the edge, she’s always been content to make a living as a kindergarten teacher who writes adorable children’s books on the side. After her fiancé leaves her, Lettie decides she is perfectly content to accept her fate as mother to her beloved dog Odin and favorite auntie to her niece and nephew. But then everything changes.

When Lettie’s publisher decides to sell only erotica, her editor convinces her to turn up the heat and throw some spice into her vanilla life. Lettie sets out to find the perfect man to inspire her writing...and finds him in her school’s vice principal, Eric Clayman. As Lettie and Eric grow closer and her writing gets steamier, she’s left wondering: is Eric Mr. Wrong? Or Mr. Right?

_____________________________________________

Excerpt:

“I’m going to have cherry-chocolate-chip ice cream with rainbow sprinkles,” Portia said as I unfastened her car seat harness.

                “That sounds yummy. What if they don’t have cherry-chocolate-chip?”

                “They do. Wanna know how I know that?” She didn’t wait for me to reply. “My vagina told me.”

                Faye had warned me that Portia was going through what she called “an exploratory phase.”

                “It’s perfectly normal, of course,” she’d said. “But just be aware. These days, she’s all about private parts. It’s important that we allow the exploration and not shame her.”

                Fine. But no one had told me that my niece was actually talking to her bits. “Huh. Is that right?”

                “Yes,” Portia replied. She looked at me earnestly. “Does your vagina talk to you, Aunt Lettie?”

                I was about to inform Portia that vagina wasn’t a nice word, but then, what was the alternative? Va-jay-jay? Then she’d just sound foolish. I’ve always pitied kids in my class who referred to their private parts by cutesy names, like “winkie” and “cha-cha.” I inevitably wonder whether they will continue to use those terms into adulthood, and if so, how many relationships it will end.

                “Actually, no, my vagina doesn’t talk to me.” I lifted her out of her car seat and walked her over to the sidewalk so I could get Blaise out of the car. Sweet Blaise, who didn’t ask me about such things. “Stand over here, honey, away from the cars.”

                I hoped that would end the discussion, but Portia wasn’t easily deterred. “Why doesn’t your vagina talk to you? Did you get into a fight?”

                I shot her a quick look over my shoulder. Was she screwing with me? But no, her eyes were wide and curious. I wondered how Faye would want me to answer her daughter’s question so as not to cause shame. I came up empty.

                “My vagina used to talk to me, but she’s been in a coma for some time. It’s very sad,” I added gently, sorry to break the bad news.

                “Oh.” Portia frowned and glanced down at the cement. “Why’s she in a coma?”

                Another excellent question. My niece was just chockfull of them, bless her heart. “It’s a little complicated.” I searched for an explanation that wouldn’t win a lecture from my big sister. “Basically it was medically induced.”

                “What’s that mean?” Blaise asked as I lifted him onto the sidewalk.

                “Sometimes when there’s a lot of swelling or someone gets very sick, doctors will put them into a coma so they can rest.” I thought that was mostly true, and they wouldn’t be able to run Internet fact checks for a few years yet. “Do you remember Uncle James?”

                “Yes,” they both said in unison.

                “You wanted to marry him,” Portia added.

                “It’s because of him.” I grabbed the twins’ hands. “All right, let’s go get some ice cream!”

_____________________________________________

About the author:

Natalie Charles believes she writes warm-hearted contemporary romance and women's fiction. Her mother believes she writes pornography. When she's not writing, Natalie can be found avoiding housework, baking, or engaging in eccentric do-it-yourself projects. She lives in a tiny town in Connecticut with her husband, their two young children, and a disobedient dog. Natalie loves connecting with readers! Visit her at www.nataliecharlesromance.com.

Jimmy and Fay - Spotlight

About Jimmy and Fay (Mysterious Press/Open Road; paperback, digital and audio editions; October 4, 2016)

In the midst of Prohibition, Jimmy Quinn joins forces with screen siren Fay Wray to take on a King Kong–size case of extortion.

It’s March 2, 1933. King Kong is premiering at Radio City Music Hall, and Fay Wray is about to become the most famous actress on earth. So what's she doing hanging around a rundown Manhattan speakeasy? This Hollywood scream queen has come to see Jimmy Quinn, a limping tough guy who knows every gangster in New York—and does his best to steer clear of them all.

A blackmailer has pictures of a Fay Wray lookalike engaged in conduct that would make King Kong blush, and Fay's movie studio—with the cooperation of a slightly corrupt NYPD detective—wants the threat eliminated. Jimmy tries to settle the matter quietly, but stopping the extortion will cut just as deeply as Fay's famous scream, ringing from Broadway all the way to Chinatown.

*

Jimmy and Fay is the 3rd book in the Jimmy Quinn Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

 The author, Michael Mayo, has written about film for the Washington Post and the Roanoke Times. He was the host of the nationally syndicated radio programs Movie Show on Radio and Max and Mike on the Movies. He is the author of American Murder: Criminals, Crime, and the Media. Mayo lives in North Carolina. Website: http://mike-mayo.com.

Messenger from Mystery: A Novel (Story River Books) - Spotlight

Series: Story River Books
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press (February 7, 2017)

Deno Trakas’s novel Messenger from Mystery features English graduate student Jason “Jay” Nichols, a third-generation Greek American who claims to be named after the heroic Argonaut leader despite an introspective and self-absorbed nature. On the cusp of his transition into adulthood and from student to teacher, Jay still lives primarily in his own thoughts and studies. Having been an activist in college, he considers himself knowledgeable about local and global politics, but when the Iranian hostage crisis begins while he is teaching students from Iran, he realizes that his understanding of geopolitical conflict is naive and superficial. Jay becomes infatuated with one of his students, Azadeh “Azi” Ghotbzadeh, whose cousin is the foreign minister of Iran and wants to work with the United States to resolve the crisis, which makes Azi vulnerable to manipulation and other threats. Her family insists that she return to Iran at the end of the semester, but before she goes, she spends a week with Jay, and they fall in love. When Azi leaves, Jay is crushed.


When Hamilton Jordan, one of President Jimmy Carter’s closest aides, learns that his college friend Jay has a close relationship with a woman with access to the inner circles of the Ayatollah, Jordan enlists Jay’s help. At first Jay is a simple intermediary, but when his mission goes terribly wrong and Azi is put in mortal peril, Jay finds himself in the unlikely and uncomfortable role of rescuer. Aided by a CIA operative and Jay’s literary hero, he travels to Iran to free Azi from her captors.

Like the award-winning film Argo, Messenger from Mystery harks back to the difficult final years of the Carter administration and looks closely at the hostage crisis, which captured the attention of the world for 444 days, garnered its own news show, ensured the defeat of Carter and the victory of Reagan, and frayed any American confidence regained after Vietnam and Watergate. A story of love, politics, terrorism, and heroism, Messenger from Mystery mixes accurate, fascinating history with convincing, engaging imagination. Trakas’s novel depicts the human heart in conflict with itself as well as a subtle, thoughtfully rendered critique of U.S.–Middle East relations of the era, still relevant today.

One Good Mama Bone - Guest Review by Renea Winchester!

Renea Says,

I’ve had my eye on Bren McClain for a number of years. Many authors rush headlong into story with one eye on the keyboard, and another on their personal timeline. McClain knew deep in her bones that good stories take time. 

During this time, of watching, listening, learning from others McClain never rushed this story, not one bit. It is only in this lingering during the creative process from inception to birth that good stories are born and masterful storytellers created. 

One Good Mama Bone is worthy. 

It is worthy of the forward by Mary Alice Monroe, a New York Times best-selling author. It is worthy of acceptance by Story River Books, a leader among Southern Literary Presses. It is worthy of Pat Conroy’s approval.

It is worthy of your time. 

Keep your eye on Bren McClain, she’s the real-deal.

Guest Review Post by:

Renea Winchester,

Award-winning Author of A Hardscrabble Christmas

Farming, Friends & Fried Bologna Sandwiches, Mercer University Press

  _______________________________________

One Good Mama Bone
Story River Books
USC Press
February, 2017

About One Good Mama Bone:

When Sarah Creamer takes on the raising of Emerson Bridge, an orphaned boy her husband sired, Sarah’s mother’s words that she hasn’t “one good mama bone,” seemingly rings true. After Sarah’s husband drinks himself to death, Sarah’s already troubled life gets much more difficult.

One Good Mama Bone, set in rural South Carolina, tells of the struggles single mother’s faced in the 50s. With leaner times looming and a bare cupboard, Sara mortgages her future and buys a young steer from a cattleman for Emerson Bridge to enter in the Fat Cattle Show & Sale, a contest with a cash payout that will solve all of their financial problems.

But Luther Dobbins, “the most important cattleman in Anderson County,” will stop at nothing to win the Fat Cattle Show.

The steer Sarah purchased- weaned too young from its Mama- faces certain death at the Creamer farm. “The steers’ bellowing does not let up . . . the utterance was not one she (Sarah) recognized in her head, but in her bones.”

The following morning Sarah awoke to “pin-dropping quiet.” Fearing the steer had died during the night, Sarah rushed outside to find Mama Red, the steer’s mother, cut and bleeding, standing alongside her baby letting him nurse. During the night, Momma red had broken through the barbed-wire fence and ran four miles to reunite with her offspring.

Recognizing this deep bond between Mama Red and the steer, Sarah confides in Mama Red, “I’m six days into having to be his (Emerson’s) mama full on. I don’t know how to be a mama.” 

Mama Bone is a story of hardship, hope, love, loss and the bone of motherhood that reaches deep into the divine.

The Good Daughter - Review

Idgie Says:
You can tell from Page 1 that there are many secrets to Dahlia's life. Why does her mother refuse to allow any paperwork touch their life, requiring Dahlia and her mother to always have undocumented jobs with low pay and fairly low end housing?  Why doesn't Dahlia wonder a little harder about the fact that they seem to have been in hiding her entire life? She does indeed finally start to look into her history, but it certainly took a while. 

The books hops back and forth from the present to the past, and as the chapters are not dated, you have to pay attention until you grasp the flow.  

A definite suspense mystery, not a whodoneit, but a whodonewhat. 

__________________________________________



The Good Daughter
Alexandra Burt
Berkley
February 7, 2017

From the author of Remember Mia comes the tale of a young woman in search of her past, and the mother who will do anything to keep it hidden...
 
What if you were the worst crime your mother ever committed?
 
Dahlia Waller s childhood memories consist of stuffy cars, seedy motels, and a rootless existence traveling the country with her eccentric mother. Now grown, she desperately wants to distance herself from that life. Yet one thing is stopping her from moving forward: she has questions.

In order to understand her past, Dahlia must go back. Back to her mother in the stifling town of Aurora, Texas. Back into the past of a woman on the brink of madness. But after she discovers three grave-like mounds on a neighboring farm, she ll learn that in her mother s world of secrets, not all questions are meant to be answered... 

Caught in the Revolution - Review

Idgie Says:
This book is filled with detailed research and information.  Nearly the last 100 pages is listing the reference material used. 

First released in the UK in 2016, this book has made it to the US for publication.  

This is a must read for history lovers.  To be able to learn about people's real life events as they struggled...or thrived... during this time is a treat.

______________________________________

Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (February 7, 2017)

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters, Caught in the Revolution is Helen Rappaport's masterful telling of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold.

Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin’s Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd (the former St. Petersburg) was in turmoil – felt nowhere more keenly than on the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt.  

There, the foreign visitors who filled hotels, clubs, bars and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps and beneath their windows. Among this disparate group were journalists, diplomats, businessmen, bankers, governesses, volunteer nurses, and expatriate socialites.  

Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable Women’s Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareva.

Helen Rappaport draws upon this rich trove of material, much of it previously unpublished, to carry us right up to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened to a diverse group of individuals who suddenly felt themselves trapped in a ‘red madhouse.’

Southern Gothic - Review, Southern Quiz and Chance to win a Copy of the Book

Idgie Says:
 Wow!  This is a wild ride of a story involving Michael, a brilliant but very twisted author and Meredith, a lonely "wannabe" writer - who's just vulnerable enough to fall into Michael's bizarre mind games.  This was a quick read, I tore through the book in a day, eagerly turning the pages to see what happens next.  What an ending!

An interesting book, with a story within a story as Meredith's manuscript fills the pages also.  

A great read for those cold winter days.  I recommend it!

Updated: 

Take this Southern Pop Culture Quiz and then enter to win a hard cover signed copy(!) of Dale Wiley’s Southern Gothic.

Click HERE for quiz

________________________________________________________

Hardcover: 300 pages
Publisher: Vesuvian Books (January 24, 2017)

Aspiring author Meredith Harper owns the hottest bookstore in Savannah.

Michael Black is her favorite writer—long thought dead—until he mysteriously approaches Meredith with a new manuscript, and a most unusual offer. Meredith can keep the manuscript to herself, or publish it under her own name.

Her decision results in a bestseller, but the novel contains a coded secret; one that will put her on trial for murder and in hiding from “the blood stalker,” proving too late that making a deal with the devil comes at a heavy price.