Cathy Zane's Blog

Lately I’ve found myself with mixed emotions about psychological thrillers. It’s fun to read novels that have that “unputdownable” quality.  I love the tension and the impulse to read it in one sitting. But only to a point. I’m not sure if thrillers are becoming more intense, but more and more I feel the need to put them down and take a break.

Having said that, I do still get pulled in to reading them often. Here are a few — most of which I thoroughly enjoyed!

Trust Me by Hank Phillippi Ryan

I can’t imagine a more perfect title for this book. Ryan does a masterful job of portraying the vulnerabilities of the mind. Two women, one accused of murdering her child and the other grieving the loss of both her husband and child are brought together, and as the book description details (no spoiler here!)  — the game of cat and mouse begins. Who and what can we trust when we can’t even trust ourselves? Great psychological thriller. My first book from this author and it left me wanting more.

The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan

I knew from Ryan’s Trust Me to expect the unexpected in her writing. She is a master at cat and mouse and this book kept me guessing right up to the big reveal. It also left me unsettled for days! A must read for fans for psychological thrillers.

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

I liked this book and was also totally unsettled by it — so it wasn’t the most enjoyable of reads for me. But it was well done and I liked the writing style. It starts with the ending — you know a wife is digging a grave to bury her husband — and then goes back and tells the story. I wanted to race through to see how it all unfolded — and at the same time had to put it down and take a break because I was frustrated with the characters. So, a mixed bag for me, but a good thriller.

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Another great book by this dynamic duo. The protagonist participates in a psychological study where the lines between the study and her everyday life begin to blur. As a psychotherapist, I loved the unfolding suspense in this novel as well as the exploration of moral and ethical questions. It kept me guessing and wondering how it could possibly come to any satisfying ending. If you like psychological thrillers, definitely add this to your list!

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The was an entertaining psychological thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie. It’s told in multiple POV’s and involves a wedding party on a remote island, a body (of course) and plenty of motives. A fun, quick read.

Pretty Revenge  by Emily Liebert

I’ve enjoyed all of Emily Liebert’s books, but this is my new favorite. I read it in two evenings! A great, slow unveiling of two women, their current struggles and secret pasts. I felt empathy for both characters and felt the tension throughout the book of “there is no way for this to end well.” And yet Liebert weaves a realistic and ultimately satisfying ending.

The Other Woman by Sandie Jones

Emily has met the perfect man, if only his mother wasn’t part of the package. Lies abound and clues to the truth are sprinkled in and hard to miss – unless… I won’t say more to avoid spoilers – but definitely a fun, fast-paced psychological thriller.

The Night Before by Wendy Walker

Laura is staying with her sister Rosie after upheaval in her life. She goes on an internet date, but doesn’t come home. Told in alternating POVs over the course of a few days, this book kept me reading.  It wasn’t so stressful to keep me up at night – although maybe enough so to keep me away from online dating forever! There were numerous twists and turns that kept me guessing well into the second half of the book.

The Sanitorium by Sarah Pearse

I’ve talked about my love of gothic novels that steer clear of horror (Blog # 9 – Gothic “Light”?) and this was on the edge for me. It is set in an isolated former sanitorium turned five-star resort hotel in the Swedish Alps where a winter storm and avalanche isolate the guests and staff. The protagonist, an anxious UK detective, Elin, –on leave from her job after a case gone bad — is pulled into investigating when someone ends up dead. The suspense is tremendous and I knew it was possibly going to give me nightmares– but I couldn’t put it down and read it in a day.

I know there’s a plethora of novels in this genre to choose from, some more disturbing than others. Do you have any favorites?

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How many of us, when young, viewed older generations as “clueless,” only to grow older ourselves and realize how impactful those elders were in our lives? My paternal grandmother was central in my life as a child. My grandparents lived a block from my family and with two working parents, I spent most of my non-school hours at their home. Looking back, I consider it a wonderful gift and I am trying to be a strong presence now as a grandmother. So I love books that explore the impact that older and younger generations can have on one another. Following are a few that I’ve enjoyed.

The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany by Lori Nelson Spielman.  Emilia travels to Italy with her cousin and great-aunt presumably to break a centuries old curse on second daughters. She has been estranged from her quirky and unconventional great-aunt due to a longstanding feud with her grandmother. Risking her grandmother’s wrath, Emilia agrees to the trip. On the backdrop of wonderful descriptions of Italy, Emilia’s great-aunt slowly reveals secrets — imparting much wisdom in the process — that are both devastating and life affirming.

The Switch by Beth O’Leary had a fun storyline. Two women – a grandmother and her granddaughter — switch living situations as a way to shake up their lives a bit. Which they do in spades! It was wonderful to see them step into other than typical age-related roles – and to witness the understanding that grew from that.

Told in dual POVs between a mother and daughter — Jessica and Emily — on a college road trip tour, the “elder” protagonist in Abbi Waxman’s I Was Told It Would Get Easier isn’t yet “elderly,” but feels a gulf has emerged in their relationship that she doesn’t know how to bridge. Wisdom can come at any age, and different generations aren’t always as different as they seem. But first, they need to talk – really talk – to each other. A funny, witty and thoughtful story in which both mother and daughter change and grow.

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Anne Lyons was a very sweet, charming book. Eudora Honeysett is 85 years old, without family or friends, and feels she is done with life. She applies to a clinic in Switzerland to have a “good death on her own terms.” While the clinic reviews her application, a new family, with a 10-year-old daughter Rose move in next door. Rose is an irrepressible, quirky and positive ball of energy who befriends Eudora and another neighbor, recently widowed Stanley, as they engage in a series of life affirming adventures. With themes of living and dying, joy and sorrow, and connection and loneliness, this novel was sad at times but ultimately uplifting and hopeful.

In Boop and Eve’s Road Trip by Mary Helen Sheriff, three generations of secrets are revealed as a grandmother and granddaughter take a road trip to help a cousin in crisis. Eve is at a breaking point, no longer able to put her own dreams aside to fulfill her mother’s wishes for her. And Boop, understanding Eve’s distress intimately, knows finally telling her story may be the only way to help her. A wonderful heartwarming story about love, forgiveness and redemption.

Intergenerational stories serve to bridge differences and create understanding. They open our hearts and foster compassion. Do you have any favorites you’ve read?

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Traveling to different periods in time — the descriptions of the physical environs, the windows into the thoughts, desires and concerns of the characters, and the culture of a time in history – all pull me in when I read Historical Fiction. I’ve described my love of this genre in previous blogs (Blog # 8 – Back in Time and Blog # 53 -Time Travel) so I have several more to share with you in this blog.

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton is a beautiful book told in two narratives, one of present-day Marisol who travels to Cuba to fulfill her late grandmother Elisa’s wish to have her ashes scattered in her homeland and the other of Elisa’s youth in Cuba before her wealthy family was exiled to Florida after Batista’s fall. The vivid descriptions of Cuba made me want to visit, the historical truths broke my heart, and the parallel love stories were engaging. I was completely captivated for the entirety of a long cross-country flight.

After enjoying my first Cleeton novel so much, I followed with two of her subsequent books. When We Left Cuba was both a thriller and a love story in which the protagonist, Beatriz, is recruited by the CIA to infiltrate Castro’s inner circle.  The Last Train to Key West was set during the devastating 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys and follows three women’s experiences. I was captivated by all their stories and intrigued by the history of this Cat 5 hurricane. Both were very enjoyable and engaging.

In The Editor by Steven Rowley, a struggling author finally sells a book and the editor is Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis. I was hooked before I ever started the book. I was a child during Kennedy’s presidency and enjoyed revisiting that time in history, as did the protagonist, James. As he develops a relationship with “Mrs. Onassis,” she pushes him to dig deeper into his relationship with his mother to write a more authentic conclusion to his book. A fun and poignant read.

The Lions of Fifth Avenue was another enjoyable historical fiction from Fiona Davis. Traversing two timelines, from the early 1900’s to eighty years later, the book tells the stories of two related woman. Laura Lyons was an essayist who lived with her family in an apartment in the New York Public Library. Sadie Donovan, her granddaughter, is a curator at the library and in search of clues to the mystery surrounding her grandmother’s family and their connection to missing books while they lived on site. When valuable books begin missing in the present, Sadie herself comes under suspicion.

The Key was another great albeit heart wrenching book by Kathryn Hughes. She takes us inside the “asylums” of the not too distant past when women were often committed unjustly. Wonderful characters and story with a great twist.

I was late in coming to Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, but glad I finally made it. The protagonist’s circumstances are heartbreaking, but her resilience and connection to the natural world, as well as the few human connections she is able to form, help her to rise above and not only survive but thrive. Great characters who will definitely stay with me for a while!

I have several Historical Fiction books on my TBR list, so I’m sure another blog will be coming at some point. Do you have any favorites? Let me know and I’ll add them to my ever-growing pile!

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I have to admit, I’ve always had some amount of fascination with Hollywood, especially the Golden Age when movie stars seemed untouchable and otherworldly. Social media has made current day performers more accessible, but there is still the intrigue of a lifestyle so removed from the everyday lives that most of us live. So, I love when I come across a book that involves actors and the film industry. Here are a few that I’ve enjoyed:

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid was so much fun to read. Old Hollywood with scandal, deception, manipulation, success, failure, love, loss and unexpected twists. It’s hard to write much more without spoilers but I can say the characters were colorful and the story was both heartbreaking and uplifting. It was raw, human experience in a delightful, entertaining, unputdownable package.

Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren (pen name for authors Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings) follows eighteen-year-old Tate as she falls in love with Sam on a trip to London. She entrusts him with the secret she’s never revealed — she is the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars – only to be crushed when he disappears and her story is released in The Guardian. Fourteen years later, Tate, now an actress, arrives at a remote location for a film shoot for a story she’s fallen in love with, only to find Sam on the set. There were no surprises here in that the events and reasons for them were easily deduced. But the fun was that the protagonist Tate didn’t know, and I didn’t want to put the book down, eager to see how she would respond. This was my second book by these authors and I’ll definitely be reading more.

What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw by Leah Stewart is told in alternating POVs between an actor Charlie and his (recently) ex-girlfriend actress Josie. This book is humorous, suspenseful and poignant. It’s a rom-com and a suspense thriller. But even more than that, it’s an inside look into the world of acting and the impact of fame. (“Fame insists that vulnerability be armored in wariness…” Pg. 8.”) Through Josie and Charlie’s eyes we see realistic depictions of casting calls, auditions, and working on set, as well as the emotional toll it all can often take.

In James Patterson’s Mary Mary, FBI agent and psychologist, Dr. Alex Cross tracks a serial killer who is targeting Hollywood elite. It’s less about Hollywood and more about the investigation in which the killer sends emails describing the murders. Things are not all as they seem and the killer’s psychology is challenging to unravel. The twists and suspense make for a fast and enjoyable read.

The Hollywood Daughter by Kate Alcott is on my list of favorite books. I loved and wanted to savor this delicious novel. Set in 1950’s Hollywood, the protagonist, Jessica, attends a Catholic girl’s school and is the daughter of Ingrid Bergman’s publicist. Bergman is Jessica’s hero and Hollywood’s current darling. But in the era of McCarthyism and the National Legion of Decency, Bergman’s affair with Roberto Rossellini not only shocks the world, but sends shockwaves through Jessica’s family, forcing her to question her beliefs about religion, love, family and morality.

My most recent Hollywood read, The Siren by Katherine St. John, was clearly written by someone who’s been on the inside – with all the good, the bad and the ugly of the film industry. I loved the use of the news flashes along with the alternating POVs of the three female protagonists.  Secrets and scandals are revealed – along with clues and red herrings — and the tension rises to a thrilling climax. It checked a lot of boxes for me and I completely enjoyed it. I’m adding St. John’s The Lion’s Den to my TBR shelf!

Do you share my fascination with Hollywood? Is there an era in particular to which you are drawn? And what books have you loved that featured a Hollywood setting?

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Guest post by Carole Bumpus

As an author, I have often been considered a ‘genre-straddler.’ I suppose that’s not a positive thing, but, silly me, I took it as a badge of honor. You see, when I began to write, I had never taken a writing course and the thought of writing in only one category or genre never appeared on my radar. Then, after I retired as a family therapist, I began to travel abroad, and everything fascinated me. World history, family stories, favorite foods, regional traditions . . . Oh, my!

I hadn’t considered the idea of writing before, but I jotted down notes along with recipes as I went along. Only after my observations were submitted to an editor and landed in the hands of a publisher, did that pesky word ‘genre’ crop up.

“Why was this a problem,” I asked? Well, it seems this befuddling ‘genre tangle’ would fall into the hands of those sent into the world to sell my books. Or upon librarians or bookstore employees whose job it was to shelve my books. “Is this a memoir?” they would ask. “Or travel? Should it be placed in the cookbook section? Or how about historical fiction? Ah, with the pandemic, how about putting it in the Armchair Travel with a Culinary Twist section?”

You see, my first book, A Cup of Redemption, is an historical novel based on the life of an elderly French woman, Marcelle, and her daughter, Josiane, who were kind enough to teach me French peasant cooking, or cuisine pauvre, in my own kitchen. It was at my table that Marcelle’s story, which spanned from World War I to 9/11, began to spill out over the tarte Tatin and into the cups of coffee.

“What dishes did you serve as a young wife?” I had asked, glibly. “What were your favorite recipes?” Simple questions, I thought. But her answers completely changed my life and propelled me into a second career—yes, writing.

“Well,” she answered somberly, “it was during World War II, we were in hiding, and were lucky to find a potato or two!” She peered into her cup. “To have a real cup of coffee was a treat we were forced to set aside until the war was over.”

At that moment, my search for traditional French recipes collided with the reality of the life this dear woman had lived—and survived. How had she coped? How had she, as young single mother, manage during a time of war? Her story compelled me to search for better understanding of those who had experienced war on their doorsteps.

Unfortunately, by the time I was able to travel to France with her, Marcelle passed away. But, with the help of her daughter, Josiane, we began traveling all to unravel the threads of Marcelle’s life. And, oh the secrets that began to pour out at our feet. And to think those stories began with a simple request for a favorite family recipe.

The second book is a cookbook including the French dishes described in the novel. It is entitled, Recipes for Redemption: A Companion Cookbook to A Cup of Redemption. This cookbook, which I had never intended to write, opened Pandora’s Box.

The next book began my official culinary travel series, Savoring the Olde Ways. Books One and Two of Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table, are an expansion of the novel but with many more families. The third book breaks away from France with a dalliance in Italy called, A September to Remember: Searching for Culinary Pleasures at the Italian Table. More books are to follow.

All of my books begin with stories about food or favorite recipes or traditions but, I found, that was the door into the heart of family. “What favorite foods bring your family to the table?” I would ask. “How do you celebrate traditional holidays? And what impact does World War II have on your lives—seventy years later?”

But the question remains: Where would you find my books in a bookstore? Travel? Cookbooks? Memoir? Historical Fiction? And what about these books:  Bowing to Elephants: Tales of a Travel Junkie by Mag Diamond? This memoir is a travel guide with a special interest in familial foods, but also a search for self through world religions. Or, Gap Year Girl: A Baby Boomer Adventure Across 21 Countries. A travel guide, yes. But this is Marianne C. Bohr’s memoir about taking a year off with her husband to travel to their ‘dream’ countries while still young.  Then, there’s Barbara Ridley’s book, When It’s Over. She shared her own family’s story of living with war in England, but because this story is based on her mother’s story, would you find this book in history or historical fiction? That was the problem I faced with my novel, A Cup of Redemption. Remaining true to Marcelle’s story, I found I had to choose different ways, or genres, to tell my stories well.

A retired family therapist, Carole Bumpus commenced writing about food and travel after she first began traveling through Italy and France. She has published an historical novel, A Cup of Redemption (2014) and Recipes for Redemption: A Companion Cookbook to A Cup of Redemption (2015). Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table, Book One (2019), Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table, Book Two (2020), and A September to Remember: Searching for Culinary Pleasures at the Italian Table (2021) are all part of her multi-award-winning Savoring the Olde Ways series. Visit her at www.carolebumpus.com

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Guest Blog by Carolyn Lee Arnold

What does it mean for women to be brave?

In her song, Brave, Sara Bareilles sings, “I wonder what would happen if you say what you wanna say. And let the words fall out. Honestly, I wanna see you be brave!”

Memoirists know what it means to be brave. To publish a memoir, we have to “let the words fall out” about our own lives and then stand behind them, embrace and sometimes defend them.  We can be praised or attacked, not just for our writing, but for what we actually did in our lives.  We must bravely face the judgement of others. For women, being brave often means going against the standard societal expectations for women and against those people, whether strangers or family, who are upholding those expectations.

In each of these recent memoirs or biographies, women challenged how they were expected to behave, and in some cases, took a lot of flack for it. They had to be brave.

In Anarchy in High Heels, Denise Larsen tells the tale of starting a feminist comedy theatre troupe from scratch in the 1970s and not only bravely challenging traditional resistance to women in comedy, but flying in the face of the feminist approved sense of humor at the time. Running on pure chutzpah, the scrappy, irreverent group of eight persevered for 13 years despite a lack of mainstream success, illuminating what women and feminists were up against.

In Butterfly Awakening: A Memoir of Transformation Through Grief, Meg Nocero writes about leaving a lucrative legal career to pursue one of speaking and inspiring women, even though she was still developing her own bravery to do that for others in the midst of grief about losing her mother. She invoked her mentors – Elizabeth Gilbert and Oprah – and literally willed herself onto the stage with them to get their support for her journey and show herself that she could do anything she tried. Her bravery was one of changing the expectations for herself, and stepping fully into her dream, even before she had realized it.

In Crash: How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver, Rachel Michelberg finds bravery she didn’t know she had after her husband was severely disabled in a plane crash. She was able to not just carry on, which she likened to Dorey’s “Just keep swimming” advice in Finding Nemo, but to make a brave but unpopular choice for her husband’s long-term care needs so that she and their children could live complete lives. Such decisions are never easy, and Michelberg had to bravely face the backlash to her decision from friends and foes with courage and resolve.

In the biography, Blooming in Winter: The Story of a Remarkable Twentieth-Century Woman, Pam Valois introduces us to Jacomena Maybeck, daughter in law of the famous architect. She attended UC Berkeley as one of few women in the 1920s, and then started a life of balancing the demands of being a wife and mother in a famous family that expected everyone to participate in the designing and inhabiting of their houses with her own need for a private life. Her ability to insist on living separately from her in-laws and even her husband as a young mother and devoting more time to her art as she grew older and ‘bloomed’ in old age, was a brave challenge to the status quo. As an early 20th century woman who defied the expectations for women in that era, Jacomena ended up with a rich and satisfying life.

In my memoir, Fifty First Dates after Fifty, I write not only about dating when I’m older—my dating journey was enjoyable and resulted in the perfect partner for me—but about being sexual while dating. In doing so, I had to be brave in several ways. First, it’s brave for older women to date at all—many societal messages discourage us from searching for the right partner. And still we date, because we want to be in a loving relationship with the right person. It’s also brave for women of any age, let alone women over fifty, to admit that we are sexual while we are dating. And many of us are, whether we talk about it or not. And finally, it is brave to write openly about dating and sexuality as an older woman—it challenges cultural stereotypes of the asexual older women, and invites direct criticism of not only the lifestyle, but the writing about it.

Being brave for me means standing behind my words that are now falling out into the world. It means leaning into what I’ve written and being proud to share it with the world, even if some people are not comfortable with it. I know that many women need to hear my words just like I needed to hear Sara Bareilles’s. Knowing that there are women like Sara who honestly want me to be brave, and that other women are brave, like the women mentioned here, makes me braver.

Carolyn Lee Arnold is a writer, hiker, relationship workshop assistant, and former educational researcher. She holds graduate degrees in women’s studies, statistics, and educational research and has studied creative nonfiction with many teachers. Fifty First Dates after Fifty is her first book. She is working on her second memoir, about her eighteen years identifying as a lesbian feminist in the 1970s and ’80s. Still a feminist, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner, one of her fifty dates. For more information, including dating resources, visit her at carolynleearnold.com.

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Guest blog by Valerie Taylor

Here’s a fun fact and opinion: A 2010 study of “professionally published novelists found the average age of first publication to be 36 years. Given that many novels take many years to perfect, it stands to reason that late twenties, early thirties are prime time for putting in those writing hours.”*

Because I was nearly twice that age when I published my debut novel, What’s Not Said (She Writes Press, 2020), I was naturally curious and decided to do my own research.

First, I asked Google for a list of authors who published “later in life.” As you can imagine, there’s quite a list, including George Eliot (40), Isak Dineson (49), Tony Morrison (40), Joseph Heller (39), Anna Sewell (51), to name just a few. Obviously “later in life” is mostly thought to be 40s and 50s.

I moved onward, conducting unscientific interviews with nine contemporary authors who published their first award-winning books after age 60. Their personal stories and perspectives are below.

Besides the usual suspects—careers, raising children, single parenting—why did they wait until their 60s to publish their first books?

OJ Simpson’s infamous slow speed chase and its impact on a fictional family formed the premise of Mary Camarillo’s novel, The Lockhart Women (She Writes Press, 2021), which she published at age 69. She admits that it took her six years to write mostly because she didn’t take her work seriously until she attended her first writing conference. “I went with great expectations of finding an agent, fame, and fortune…and came home with a sense of purpose and discipline.”

As a magazine journalist, Dianne Ebertt Beeaff found writing historical fiction “demanded far more depth, research, and commitment than the shorter non-fiction pieces,” she was accustomed to. Perhaps that’s why it took until Dianne was 61 to publish Power’s Garden (Five Star Publications, 2009), the story of how two families and two women—one Texan, the other Mormon—developed an “embattled and gripping relationship” while living through a drought in Arizona’s Gila Valley during World War I.

When Linda Stewart Henley at age 69 was conducting research for an entirely different project in New Orleans, where she’d attended college years earlier, she discovered Edgar Degas had lived there nearly 150 years ago with his Creole cousin and sister-in-law. Intrigued, Linda brought art and life together in Estelle (She Writes Press, 2020), a novel with two storylines that create an intersection between a journal written by a friend of Degas’s and one of his paintings.

Rita Dragonette published The Fourteenth of September (She Writes Press, 2018) when she was 68, seventeen years after she began writing it. Originally she planned it as “a series of linked stories” about a young woman who’s tracing her path of “self-discovery” at the peak of the Vietnam War. A writing instructor encouraged her to write a book instead saying, “It’s your life, your material.”

Pandemic was on Kate Szegda’s mind long before we ever heard of Covid-19. Growing up, Kate was inspired by her mother’s stories about the family pharmacy, especially during the early 1900s. Hoping to publish by the 100th anniversary of the 1918 pandemic, Kate began writing her book at age 57. Pharmacy Girl: The Great War, Spanish Influenza, and the Truth About Billy Detwiler (Independently Published, KDP), was published in 2019. She’s now 73.

With age comes wisdom. So, what advice would they give or what would they have done differently?

Eileen Sanchez wishes she’d kept a journal over the years. If she had perhaps she would’ve written the memoir she’d intended to write when she retired at 63. Instead Eileen wrote Freedom Lessons — A Novel (She Writes Press, 2019), which fictionalizes her experiences as a teacher during the mandated school integration in the deep South. To “later in life” writers, she says: “Believe in yourself. If you don’t…why should anyone else?”

Esther Amini began writing her memoir CONCEALED (Greenpoint Press, 2020) in her mid 60s. It took her five years to complete, mainly because she “needed the right space and time to gain perspective” on all she’d experienced during 42 years in private practice as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Combine that with her memories of “growing up caught between two clashing cultures — American and Iranian,” Esther advises aspiring writers to “Fight your fears. The voices that say, ‘I can’t,’ lie.”

Three words rattled inside Judith Teitelman’s head for twenty years. After the death of an early love led her to a 1983 journal inscription with the same words, she knew the title, but not the substance, of the book she felt destined to write. Four years later, Judith immortalized the words in her novel Guesthouse for Ganesha (She Writes Press, 2019) in which Eastern beliefs and perspectives are interwoven with Western realities and pragmatism. Lesson? “Life will often take us in directions we can’t otherwise imagine but are exactly where we need to be.”

Sex, drugs, and the rock ‘n roll ‘60s are juxtaposed with the suburban life of the ‘80s in Deborah K. Shepherd’s novel So Happy Together (She Writes Press, 2021). Published when Deb was 74, this novel explores what happens when “the conundrum of love and sexual attraction, creativity and family responsibilities” are out of sync. To aspiring authors, she exclaims, “Just do it! Hopefully, you’re going to be in your 60’s, 70’s, 80’s anyway, so you might as well be an author in your 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, or even 90’s.”

Granted, the above stories provide merely a snapshot of the growing number of “later in life” authors publishing each year. And while I’m not suggesting it’s a trend, hybrid and self-publishing join the “traditional” path as viable options for writers of all ages. As such, when “life happens” to aspiring authors, they can be confident there really is a tomorrow, and the word “never” need not be spoken.

*First Novel Survey Results, Jim C. Hines, March 25, 2010. https://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/

Valerie Taylor  is the award-winning author of What’s Not Said (She Writes Press, 2020) and the sequel What’s Not True (She Writes Press, 2021). The third book in the What’s Not series will publish in 2023. Follow her at  valerietaylorauthor.com , facebook.com/ValerieTaylorAuthor, and subscribe to Behind and Ahead, a newsletter dedicated to readers.

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Guest blog by Rachel Michelberg

In the four months since my memoir Crash: How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver was published, I’ve lapped up its praise like a kitten slurping milk (while also cringing at every critique.) My favorite accolade? “It reads like a novel. I couldn’t put it down.” I smile and thank them, secretly thinking well that’s cool, but how did I do that?  I don’t have an MFA in creative writing or any kind of formal training. I certainly didn’t research or ponder how to craft a fiction-like story.  I’m tickled it turned out that way, since fiction – both historical and contemporary – has always been my favorite genre.

My lifelong love of fiction and the novelists to whom I gravitate: Ann Tyler, Anna Quindlen, Anita Shreve, Christina Baker Kline, and yes – Philippa Gregory (my Elizabethan royalty indulgence) were role models. But I wasn’t writing fiction, and I had no idea how to write down my story, my truth. So, I did what any self-respecting newbie does – I took a class. Our first task? Read great memoirs. And we did. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Farm City by Novella Carpenter, The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (a collection of linked short stories, each one reading like fiction.) I was enchanted. And inspired.

To clarify, I was familiar with the memoir genre. I’d just finished – and loved – Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (in fact Wild was likely the story that motivated me to write my memoir in the first place.) But I was now reading through a different lens. I was reading as a writer. And it became crystal clear that none of these fiction-like memoirs fell into the trap of what some agents and publishers call (and usually reject) the “me-moir,” too much about themselves and their own personal heroes’ journey, or that it’s too confessional. Instead, they felt – and read – like a novel.

So what are some of the elements that make a memoir fiction-like?

·         A universal theme. Inviting the reader to look outward, to ponder common human issues.  Some of my Crash readers have told me that although they didn’t always agree with my decision to reject the role of becoming a caregiver to my estranged husband, they asked themselves “What would I have done in her situation?” Caregiving, its sacrifices and challenges, is a relevant and universal theme faced by so many, especially women. Wild asks readers to ponder physical challenge as a way of coping with grief. Tara Westover’s Educated is a treatise on resilience and the quest for knowledge.

·         A clear, definable arc with a high point and “cooling off” period at the end. Leah Lax, in her brilliant memoir Uncovered, journeys from her attraction to – and joining – the Hasidic community. The story reaches a high point when (spoiler alert) she ultimately decides to leave and cools off as she settles into the truth of her new life.

·         A clear, believable voice. Notice I didn’t say relatable. I had a hard time relating to Tim O’Brien as a draft-dodger and ultimately as a soldier in Vietnam. But the originality and richness of his voice lured me into his head, his experience. I’m told by readers of Crash that they felt like I was just hanging out with them, inviting them into my emotional roller-coaster as it was happening.

·         Musing. Often a challenge for memoirists, who’ve been schooled to “show don’t tell.” But the retrospective voice can greatly enrich the narrative. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls muses on her friend’s negative reaction to the homeless (unbeknownst to her friend including Jeanette’s own parents):

I knew I should have stood up for Mom and Dad. I’d been pretty scrappy as a kid, and our family had always fought for one another, but back then we had no choice. The truth was, I was tired of taking on people who ridiculed us for the way we lived. I just didn’t have it in me to argue Mom and Dad’s case to the world.

The techniques I’ve listed are certainly not the only elements in what makes a memoir read like fiction. Add the effective use of scene, dialogue, lots of sensory and time-period appropriate details (I’m sure I’ve missed a few.)

Help me add to my list of must-read novel-like memoirs. What’s your favorite?

Rachel Micheberg grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and still enjoys living there with her husband, Richard, and their two dogs, Nala and Beenie. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from San Jose State University and has performed leading roles in musicals and opera from Carmen to My Fair Lady as well as the part of the Mother Abbess (three times!) in The Sound of Music. When Rachel isn’t working with one of her twenty voice and piano students, she loves gardening, hiking, and making her own bone broth. CRASH: How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver is her first book and winner of the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Award in Memoir, Personal Struggle/Health Issues. Find her online at rachelmichelbergauthor.com 

The post “Novel” memoirs appeared first on Cathy Zane.

Since beginning this blog in March 2018, I’ve often found there isn’t a clear way to classify many books. Some books cross genres. Others have multiple themes. If you’re a regular reader, you know I love books about books or bookstores or libraries and have included many in earlier columns with that theme (Blog #4 – Books about Books; Blog #18 – More Biblio-Books.) But these “books about books” may also fall into other categories such as historical fiction or mystery or women’s fiction – all additional favorites of mine.

And then there are books that are outliers and as a result haven’t found their way into this blog until now. Either I haven’t been able to classify them, or I haven’t wanted to because they stand out to me. So the idea of writing a post to highlight the uniqueness of these books seemed like an idea whose time was overdue!

The Last Equation of Issac Severy by Nova Jacobs is one such book. Is it a mystery? A family drama? A psychological study with some (mild) modern day gothic fantasy elements?  Books like Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, The Bookman’s Tale and even one of my all-time favorites, The Shadow of the Wind come to mind. Don’t expect a fast-paced mystery but be prepared for a fantastic ride! I thoroughly enjoyed this inventive, quirky, and unusual book.

Another mystery related book, The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi, was much more than your average whodunnit. Years ago, a mathematics professor self-published a book with seven short stories to demonstrate his theory that there is a formula for murder mysteries. He had since lived a very reclusive life, but agrees to break his isolation to meet with a book editor who wants to re-publish the book. As they review the short stories, a bigger mystery begins to unfold. This wonderful unique book is a must read for any mystery lover!

Following with the mystery theme is Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. This was such a fun book – and with a positive view of the elderly. Four septuagenarians living in a peaceful retirement community come together every week to discuss “cold” murder cases. But then a murder in the community pulls them into the hunt for the killer. The unfolding mystery takes many surprising turns and the wonderful characters and their relationships captured my heart.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman was one of my favorite books of the year. Initially it is hard to know just what is going on. There are mysterious events and many twists and turns. Some readers give up, but I encourage you to persevere. It’s a special book about a lot of things – with a lot of characters – but ultimately it is about being human with all of our imperfections. I highlighted passages to share with others. I bought copies for friends.  I felt broken open and I laughed out loud. I didn’t want to end.

The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle, while not mysterious, is magical. “At one point or another, we’ve all been asked to name five people, living or dead, with whom we’d like to have dinner.” That is the premise of this very original novel that was unlike anything I have read. It’s hard to find words to describe it. Total fantasy and yet so very real. Tragic but also uplifting, fun and hopeful. And having Audrey Hepburn, one of my favorites, was an added bonus.

Another poignant and unusual novel, Love is a Rebellious Bird by Elayne Klasson, was a gratifying, thought provoking book. Reading like a memoir, this story is a long love letter to Elliot, the man Judith has loved for 60 years. She questions why we love who we do and looks at the loss and sacrifice she has endured in this unequal love. Anyone who has loved someone devotedly throughout their life will find themselves in these pages. A beautiful and gently unfolding story.

Finally, Nine Women, One Dress by Jane L. Rosen, was a classic “feel good” book. The fashion industry’s “Dress of the Year” weaves through the stories of nine women – and a few men – of all ages, with wonderfully heartwarming effects. I haven’t enjoyed a book as much as this one in a while. As much as I wanted to know the outcomes of the stories, I didn’t want to say goodbye to all the characters. A very sweet engaging read.

I found all of these novels to be distinctive or original and thoroughly enjoyable. What books have you read that stand out for you as unique or special in some way?

The post Uniquely Their Own appeared first on Cathy Zane.

Guest blog by Rebecca D’Harlingue 

Historical fiction authors are often asked whether the events in their book really happened. The answer to that question can range from, a lot of it did happen, to, I have imagined what might happen within that time and place. Readers will usually accept either answer, but they often want to know. When I recently read Maggie O’Farrell’s wonderful Hamnet, which upended much of what I thought I knew of Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, I wondered how much of O’Farrell’s version was based on historical fact. In brief historical notes at the beginning and an author’s note at the end, O’Farrell mentions a few facts that allow the reader to believe in her portrayal. In transforming the often-maligned Hathaway (in the novel she is called Agnes, the name used by her father in his will) into a sympathetic and intriguing character, the author presents us with a reality that might have been. That is the power of historical fiction.

While novels such as Hamnet focus on people who did actually live, much of historical fiction contains just that, fictitious characters. Yet, if the author has done the job well, the characters are placed within a context that makes their lives believable. This ability is especially useful when presenting members of groups who were so often left out of the historical record. Here I will focus on a few novelists who have suggested the lives of women who could have been.

This ability to invent those who might have lived is not limited to any particular historical fiction genre. Mystery writers seem particularly adept at portraying women striving to solve a crime that has occurred within their sphere. For example, there is more than one series about medieval nuns who solve mysteries, including Priscilla Royal’s Prioress Eleanor and Margaret Frazer’s Dame Frevisse. Can this have been possible? The authors give the details of historical fact to make what happens in the novel seem completely natural.

Although one might not immediately think of the romance genre as providing alternative views of women in history, author Edie Cay’s Regency-era novels, A Lady’s Revenge and The Boxer and the Blacksmith feature a woman pugilist. Her character is not just a product of Cay’s imagination, however, but is based on an actual female prize-fighter from a previous period, Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes. Stokes had virtually disappeared from the history books for a time, but books like Cay’s can bring to life an aspect of women’s history that very few know about.

In my novel, The Lines Between Us, a seventeenth-century girl’s life is threatened by her father because she has been raped and has thus become a symbol of his dishonor. In the “honor plays” of that period, female characters may throw themselves on their father’s or husband’s mercy. One character even encourages her father to kill her, and thus cleanse the stain. In my novel, Juliana takes her fate into her own hands. Although her options as a woman at that time are very limited, she is able to flee and make a life for herself. Her choice is believable because I placed her in a setting based on historical fact.

My favorite example of this ability to create a believable female character doing something surprising is The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish. In the novel a Portuguese Jewish woman in seventeenth-century London experiences a rigorous life of the mind by using a man’s name to correspond with famous philosophers of the time. Did such a woman exist? Not that we know of, but just because something was forbidden, or is not known to have occurred, does not mean that it did not occur. We do know of women who disguised themselves as men in order to participate in activities and careers allowed only to men. We know of women artists and writers who used the names of men in order for their work to be made available to the public.

In a 2018 article in The Paris Review, titled “Writing the Lives of Forgotten Women,” Kadish talks about historical fiction as an opportunity to repair the historical record, which excluded the lives of so many. She explains that setting the character in a story that is factually plausible allows the reader to imagine that such a character not only could have existed, but must have existed. Referring to a quote in which author Hilary Mantel said that the historical record is “what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it,” Kadish says that, “Lives have run through the sieve, but we can catch them in our hands.”

Rebecca D’Harlingue has studied Spanish literature, worked as a hospital administrator, and taught English as a Second Language to adults from all over the world. In her award-winning dual timeline novel, The Lines Between Us, she highlights the resilience of women, and explores the repercussions of family secrets. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, Arthur, where they are fortunate to frequently spend time with their children and grandchildren. Visit her at rebeccadharlingue.com

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