Contact mystery author and recipe creator, G. P. Gottlieb and follow her on social media. NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Eco-Fiction July 1, 2025 Port Anna Libby Buck Port Anna tells the story of a quiet town on the Maine coast that has attracted the attention of wealthy investors seeking a picturesque, windswept summer cottage overlooking the ocean. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 29, 2024 The Waters Bonnie Jo Campbell Hermine “Herself” Zook is a healer who rules over an island in a swampy area of Michigan known as “The Waters.” People, including her three grown daughters, fear her, but her powerful herbal and plant-based medicines have cured the townspeople for decades of viruses, pains, and unwanted pregnancies. Listen to Episode Buy Book March 19, 2024 The Stark Beauty of Last Things Céline Keating The Stark Beauty of Last Things (She Writes Press, 2023) is set in Montauk, the far reaches of the famed Hamptons, an area under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment. Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected legacy: the power to decide the fate of Montauk’s last parcel of undeveloped land. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 3, 2023 Dry Land B. Platek It's 1917 during WWI, and Rand Brandt is living with two dangerous secrets, either of which could destroy him: 1) he can grow any plant or tree, but everything he grows will die within days, and 2) he is gay during a time when the army does not accept homosexuality. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 24, 2023 The Kudzu Queen Mimi Herman Kudzu salesman James T. Cullowee arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina in the spring of 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu. It can apparently feed cattle, improve soil, grow with no effort, be turned into jam, and cure headaches. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 20, 2022 Starling Sarah Jane Butler "Starling is 19 and was raised in a camper van by a strong-willed mother who cut them off from their community of fellow travelers. Starling, who has never gone to school or to the dentist, knows the nomadic life of trapping rabbits, foraging for food, and getting kicked out by local police." Listen to Episode Buy Book October 31, 2019 Pigs Johanna Stoberock In her new novel Pigs, Johanna Stoberock has written a lyrical fable about an island that receives all the world’s garbage. That garbage, both physical and psychological in the forms of dreams and memories, is consumed by six enormous, voracious pigs. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 30, 2019 Kickdown Rebecca Clarren Two sisters are struggling to save their land when a gas well explodes on a neighboring ranch in western Colorado, setting off a disturbing chain of events. This is a moving debut novel about family, land, and the preservation of both in rural America. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 15, 2020 Watershed Mark Barr It’s 1937 and rural Tennessee is still recovering from the Great Depression. The construction of a huge dam brings job seekers, fortune hunters, and the promise of electricity to the area. Claire, a young mother of two, realizes her marriage is over when she wakes up with a sexually transmitted disease brought home by her husband. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 8, 2020 No Entry Gila Green Yael’s parents originally emigrated to Canada from South Africa years before and have returned while mourning the tragic death of Yael’s brother. Yael, also in mourning, but busy learning everything from medic training to driving on the left side of the road, uncovers a deadly elephant poaching ring. After witnessing some horrible violence, she just isn’t sure what to do about it. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 29, 2020 Dreaming the Marsh Elizabeth McCulloch A giant sinkhole begins swallowing an enormous swath of a marsh-like ecosystem that has been slated for development, along with parts of a highway and a large lake. The citizens of Opakulla, Florida struggle to understand what is happening as the land is sucked under. They’re also perplexed by un-erasable writing that appears on their new town hall. The sinkhole starts wreaking havoc with their lives and nobody knows what to do about it. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 23, 2021 Just River Sara B. Fraser The Otis River flows through the once bustling city of Wattsville, a few hours north of NYC, reminding the remaining residents of better days. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 18, 2022 What Storm, What Thunder Myriam J. A. Chancy At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 5, 2022 Speed of Dark Patricia Ricketts Mosely Albright works in a Mission house helping drug addicts, alcoholics and those who are down on their luck. The reverend has asked him to search for one of the men who isn’t capable of surviving in the freezing cold. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 19, 2022 The Displacements Bruce Holsinger Bruce Holsinger’s novel The Displacements is a gripping saga about what might happen in a world in which climate change can wreak havoc on life, even for those who have everything. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Explore insightful African American author interviews with G. P. Gottlieb. Dive into engaging African American author interviews now! NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb African American Fiction December 3, 2024 Mirror Me Lisa Williamson Rosenberg Today I talked to Lisa Williamson Rosenberg about Mirror Me (Little a, 2024) Listen to Episode Buy Book November 26, 2024 Dazzling Chikodili Emelumadu Today I talked to Chikodili Emelumadu about Dazzling (Harry N. Abrams, 2023). Listen to Episode Buy Book October 8, 2024 Blood on the Brain Esinam Bediako Today I talked to Esinam Bediako about here novel Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024). Listen to Episode Buy Book October 24, 2023 Indigo Field Marjorie Hudson A sweeping picture of family trauma, Native American and Black history, and the earth’s vengeance on human pettiness. A retired colonel’s wife dies, leaving him alone in a snooty North Carolina senior community. Reba, an elderly Black woman who speaks to the ghosts of her family, takes in the white child whose father killed her beloved niece. The colonel mistakenly causes damage to Reba’s old car and unleashes a torrent of spirits, while his son guards the bones that have been unearthed in what was once “Indian Field.” This is a stunning debut about race relations, land use, history, and memory. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 18, 2023 Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi’s novel Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories (Amistad 2022), is a moving and unforgettable collection of stories that span a lifetime. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 22, 2020 What You Don't See Tracy Clark Cass Raines left the Chicago Police force after a morally bankrupt cop nearly got her killed. Now she runs her own Private Detective agency. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 8, 2020 Saving Ruby King Catherine Adel West Two south side Chicago families are bound together by a violence-infused past. Ruby’s mother, Alice King, has been murdered. Her father, Lebanon King, is an abusive man who endured a terrible childhood. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 31, 2020 Pale Edward A. Farmer It’s 1966, and Bernice’s husband has either died or abandoned her. Her brother Floyd invites her to join him as a servant working for white owners of an old plantation house in Mississippi. Floyd warns Bernice about the housekeeper, Silva, who lives there with her two young sons. The owner and his wife don’t speak much and there seem to be secrets hidden in every corner. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 27, 2020 The Gone Dead Chanelle Benz A decrepit house in Greendale, Mississippi once belonged to Billie James’s father, a renowned black poet who died unexpectedly when she was four years old. Her mother dies of cancer. Then years later, her paternal grandmother dies and leaves Billie the old Mississippi Delta house. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 30, 2020 Tea by the Sea Donna Hemans A new father walks out of the hospital with his day-old baby while the mother recuperates from giving birth. He tells a series of lies and moves houses or countries whenever the truth gets too close. The young, broken-hearted mother devotes herself to searching for her missing daughter. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 8, 2020 Everywhere You Don’t Belong Gabriel Bump In Everywhere You Don’t Belong (Algonquin Books, 2020), Gabriel Bump has created an unforgettable debut novel that will sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes pull at your gut. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 31, 2021 What Passes as Love Trisha R. Thomas In 1850, at age six, Dahlia Holt is taken from the only home she knows and moved into the big house to serve her two older sisters. They share a father, who owns the house and its slaves. On her sixteenth birthday, Dahlia gets to dress up in one of the sister’s discarded dresses for a trip to the city. There, she gets separated from her family, and meets a young Englishman who thinks she’s white. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 27, 2022 Cora's Kitchen Kimberly Garrett Brown Cora, who works at Harlem’s 135th Street library, reads a powerful poem by the young Langston Hughes, who begins to offer advice about her own writing. She’s awakened to thoughts about society and the role of women, prejudice, and the plight of Black women. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 7, 2021 Gone Missing in Harlem Karla FC Holloway The Mosbys leave their life in Sedalia within hours after six-year-old Percy loudly notes that his father’s boss has made a mistake in calculating what is owed. Percy’s parents know what would happen if they stayed. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 18, 2022 What Storm, What Thunder Myriam J. A. Chancy At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Dive into NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb for engaging dystopian author interviews. Discover unique insights from dystopian author interviews. NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Dystopian Fiction November 12, 2024 Next Stop Benjamin Resnick Today I talked to Benjamin Resnick about his novel Next Stop (Simon and Schuster, 2024) Listen to Episode Buy Book May 14, 2024 The Truth Against the World David Corbett The Truth Against the World (Square Tire Books, 2023) is a brilliant literary fantasy about a divided, dystopian America on the verge of war. Shane, a former Irish combat soldier with a murky past, wants to save his young friend Georgie O’Halloran, who turned his stories of Celtic history and folklore into a beautifully illustrated book. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 31, 2019 Pigs Johanna Stoberock In her new novel Pigs, Johanna Stoberock has written a lyrical fable about an island that receives all the world’s garbage. That garbage, both physical and psychological in the forms of dreams and memories, is consumed by six enormous, voracious pigs. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 19, 2022 This Place That Place Nandita Dinesh A nameless young woman from This Place, and a nameless young man from That Place are stuck together when That Place, the occupying force, imposes another curfew on This Place. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Dive into the world of paranormal fiction with G. P. Gottlieb. Enjoy engaging paranormal fiction author interviews in each NBN Podcast episode. NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Paranormal Fiction June 8, 2021 One Kind Favor Kevin McIlvoy (1953-2022) Based loosely on a tragic real-life incident in 2014, One Kind Favor (WTAW Press 2021) explores the consequences of the lynching of a young black man in rural North Carolina. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 28, 2022 Proof of Life Sheila Lowe Proof of Life (Write Choice Ink 2021) is the second book in author Sheila Lowe’s Beyond the Veil paranormal suspense series. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Explore engaging author interviews with G. P. Gottlieb. Discover diverse author interviews in NBN Podcast Episodes. Tune in now! NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb November 19, 2025 If the Owl Calls Sharon White As the Sami community (Norway) struggles to protect ancestral lands from the building of a damn in 1979, Oslo detective Hans Sorensen arrives in the north of the country to investigate sabotage on a damn. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 11, 2025 Happy New Years Maya Arad After finishing her teaching degree in Israel, Leah emigrates to the U.S. for a teaching position that she thinks of as temporary. She ends up staying for 5 decades. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 4, 2025 Simone in Pieces Janet Burroway Simone Lerrante is a Belgian orphan whose memory is damaged by the trauma of her father being shot by Nazis and her subsequent escape to England. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 14, 2025 Violent Seed Mary Price Birk Lady Anne is in the Cotswolds with her 8-month-old son, there to restore a famous walled garden. The magnificent home has been hosting a television cooking special over the summer, and Anne’s husband, Lord Terrence Reid, is there to enjoy a “Summer of Chefs” week with his wife and baby son. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 30, 2025 Isabella's Way Barbara Stark Nemon In early-seventeenth-century Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany, dangers are plentiful—especially for those of Jewish heritage. Non-Catholics have been expelled from Spain, and the Inquisition has come to Portugal to impose its prohibitions. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 9, 2025 Mona's Eyes Thomas Schlesser Mona’s Eyes (Europa Editions, 2025) is an enchanting debut novel written by art historian Thomas Schlesser. It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl living in Paris who briefly loses her vision. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 2, 2025 The Beauty and The Hell of It and Other Stories Lynda Williams The Beauty and the Hell of It and Other Stories (Guernica, 2025) conjures up images of women who struggle through difficult transitions, unpleasant encounters, or ghastly boyfriends and husbands. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 26, 2025 Go On Pretending Alina Adams Rose Janowitz is surprised to get a production job with a radio soap opera and stunned to fall in love with the show’s African American leading man. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 12, 2025 The Dime Museum Joyce Hinnefeld The Dime Museum is a novel told in stories that span from the 1920s, when Dime Museums were a way for people to gawk at human differences, through 2020, during the ravages of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 8, 2025 Yankeeland Lacy Fewer Lacy Fewer inherited sacks of letters from a great aunt who emigrated from Ireland to America in 1908 and turned the letters into a novel. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 1, 2025 Port Anna Libby Buck Port Anna tells the story of a quiet town on the Maine coast that has attracted the attention of wealthy investors seeking a picturesque, windswept summer cottage overlooking the ocean. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 24, 2025 The Palace at the End of the Sea Simon Tolkien Theo Sterling is eleven when his grandfather kidnaps him, just for the afternoon. He learns that his father had shed his Jewish identity, married a very Catholic woman from Mexico, and stopped talking to either of his parents. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 17, 2025 Not From Here: the Song of America Leah Lax When Leah Lax was asked to write an opera to celebrate local immigrants, she began by spending a year listening to accounts of upheaval, migration, and arrival told her in confidence by people from around the globe. She felt she had discovered America, found its great beating heart. Listen to Episode Buy Book May 29, 2025 River Gold Jeff Nania In River Gold (Feet Wet Writing, 2025) Sheriff John Cabrelli is pulled into a murder investigation after a nationally known Great Lakes historian is robbed of his briefcase and shot in the leg. Listen to Episode Buy Book May 20, 2025 The Murmur of Everything Moving Maureen Stanton Maureen Stanton’s new memoir, The Murmur of Everything Moving (Columbus State University 2025) opens when she was in her early twenties, working at a bar saving for a backpacking trip through Europe. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Murder, suspense, and recipes: anything but cozy. G. P. Gottlieb is a Chicago-based author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery series and a host for New Books in Literature, a podcast of the New Books Network. New Edition! Battered A Whipped and Sipped Mystery: Book 1 Available from these sellers Click on the icon below to purchase a copy today When Whipped and Sipped Café proprietor Alene Baron finds a dead body next door, she calls the police and dashes home — to make soup for her family. Alene is 38 and divorced, living in a Chicago high rise with her father and children. She wonders if the murderer is an ex-spouse, a neighbor, or one of her employees. Then someone batters two more people who are connected to the café. There’s another mystery, closer to Alene’s heart: Is the lead detective going to take her seriously? Latest News and Essays There are a lot of exciting changes coming. New Cover Designs Coming Soon I can't wait to share them with you! Read More September 23, 2025 Battered Is Back On the Shelves! My books have found a new home at Anamcara Press. Read More September 11, 2025 "Alene's a wonderful, credible character - flawed and nurturing at the same time. The narrative propels itself forward, while pausing just enough to give the characters context and nuance. What I liked best was the sort of ordinary chaos of fractured families and improvised relationships - how much depends on patience and good will, and a sort of faith that human beings can redeem themselves even with small acts and gestures. And how remarkable to find a sort of suburban neighborhood flourishing in the upper reaches of a condo!" Esther Schor , author of Emma Lazarus and Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language Latest New Books Network Podcasts Click on the Book Cover to listen to the episode. November 19, 2025 As the Sami community (Norway) struggles to protect ancestral lands from the building of a damn in 1979, Oslo detective Hans Sorensen arrives in the north of the country to investigate sabotage on a d . . . November 11, 2025 After finishing her teaching degree in Israel, Leah emigrates to the U.S. for a teaching position that she thinks of as temporary. She ends up staying for 5 decades. . . . November 4, 2025 Simone Lerrante is a Belgian orphan whose memory is damaged by the trauma of her father being shot by Nazis and her subsequent escape to England. . . . October 14, 2025 Lady Anne is in the Cotswolds with her 8-month-old son, there to restore a famous walled garden. The magnificent home has been hosting a television cooking special over the summer, and Anne’s husband, . . . About G. P. Gottlieb Chicago-based author of The Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series I earned music degrees during the last century and over the years, have performed, taught, composed and administrated while writing stories, songs, and several unwieldy manuscripts. After recovering from breast cancer in 2015, I turned to writing in earnest, melding my two passions; nourishment for mind and body and recipe-laced murder mysteries. I host New Books in Literature, a podcast channel on the New Books Network, and have interviewed over 250 authors. I've been on the board of Sisters in Crime Chicagoland since 2020, and also belong to SinC Colorado, SinC Wisconsin, and MWA. Battered was re-launched September 2025 by Anamcara Press . Smothered and Charred , Books 2 and 3 in the series will show up in the coming months, and POUNDED: A Whipped & Sipped Mystery will be released in the spring of 2026! Follow me on Instagram #wix @whippedsipped Load more Get Monthly Updates Be the first to find out about new recipes, podcast updates, and my latest writing! Email Sign Up Thanks for submitting!

Discover engaging literary fiction author interviews with G. P. Gottlieb. Dive into literary fiction author interviews for inspiring insights. NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Literary Fiction November 19, 2025 If the Owl Calls Sharon White As the Sami community (Norway) struggles to protect ancestral lands from the building of a damn in 1979, Oslo detective Hans Sorensen arrives in the north of the country to investigate sabotage on a damn. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 11, 2025 Happy New Years Maya Arad After finishing her teaching degree in Israel, Leah emigrates to the U.S. for a teaching position that she thinks of as temporary. She ends up staying for 5 decades. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 4, 2025 Simone in Pieces Janet Burroway Simone Lerrante is a Belgian orphan whose memory is damaged by the trauma of her father being shot by Nazis and her subsequent escape to England. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 9, 2025 Mona's Eyes Thomas Schlesser Mona’s Eyes (Europa Editions, 2025) is an enchanting debut novel written by art historian Thomas Schlesser. It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl living in Paris who briefly loses her vision. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 2, 2025 The Beauty and The Hell of It and Other Stories Lynda Williams The Beauty and the Hell of It and Other Stories (Guernica, 2025) conjures up images of women who struggle through difficult transitions, unpleasant encounters, or ghastly boyfriends and husbands. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 26, 2025 Go On Pretending Alina Adams Rose Janowitz is surprised to get a production job with a radio soap opera and stunned to fall in love with the show’s African American leading man. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 12, 2025 The Dime Museum Joyce Hinnefeld The Dime Museum is a novel told in stories that span from the 1920s, when Dime Museums were a way for people to gawk at human differences, through 2020, during the ravages of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 1, 2025 Port Anna Libby Buck Port Anna tells the story of a quiet town on the Maine coast that has attracted the attention of wealthy investors seeking a picturesque, windswept summer cottage overlooking the ocean. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 24, 2025 The Palace at the End of the Sea Simon Tolkien Theo Sterling is eleven when his grandfather kidnaps him, just for the afternoon. He learns that his father had shed his Jewish identity, married a very Catholic woman from Mexico, and stopped talking to either of his parents. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 15, 2025 Discipline Debra Spark Debra Spark’s latest novel was inspired by the life of Walt Kuhn, who introduced Americans to modern art, and also by an infamous east coast boarding school that was forcibly shut down in 2014. The novel twists and turns through the lives of an artist and his wife, a teenager forced to attend a horrifying boarding school, the artist and his wife’s lonely daughter after their deaths, and a divorced art appraiser studying the works of the dead artist. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 1, 2025 Beautiful Dreamers Minrose Gwin Memory Feather, who was born with a misshapen hand and was able to communicate with animals, looks back to when she was a child living with her newly divorced mother in a dilapidated hotel far from home. Listen to Episode Buy Book March 11, 2025 The Immortal Woman Su Chang Lemai never forgets the humiliation of her teachers and the burning of books during the Cultural Revolution. Listen to Episode Buy Book February 18, 2025 Naked Girl Janna Brooke Wallack After their mother dies, Jackson Jones is too busy selling drugs and bedding young women to pay attention to his two motherless children. Listen to Episode Buy Book February 11, 2025 We Would Never Tova Mirvis Hailey Gelman just learned that her soon-to-be ex-husband was murdered in his home. Listen to Episode Buy Book February 4, 2025 Isola Allegra Goodman Based on the true story of a 16th century heiress who is left to die on a deserted island off the coast of what was then called New France (now Canada). Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Dive into thrilling and suspenseful tales with NBN Podcast Episodes. Enjoy thriller and suspense author interviews hosted by G. P. Gottlieb. NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Thriller and Suspense October 14, 2025 Violent Seed Mary Price Birk Lady Anne is in the Cotswolds with her 8-month-old son, there to restore a famous walled garden. The magnificent home has been hosting a television cooking special over the summer, and Anne’s husband, Lord Terrence Reid, is there to enjoy a “Summer of Chefs” week with his wife and baby son. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 29, 2025 Hall of Mirrors John Copenhaver Hall of Mirrors (Pegasus Crime 2025) was selected as a New York Times Crime Novel of the Year. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 1, 2025 The Drowning Game Barbara Nickless Sisters Nadia and Cass are heirs to a company that builds yachts for the super wealthy, and both are excited about a commission that will introduce them to the huge Asian market. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 28, 2020 The Black Cage Jack Fredrickson In this well-written mystery, The Black Cage: A Milo Rigg Mystery (Severn House Publishers), it’s bitter winter in Chicago, and disgraced crime reporter Milo Rigg wakes up every night dreaming that his wife is calling to him from a black cage. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 24, 2020 Hour of the Assassin Matthew Quirk After a decade spent protecting public officials, Nick Averose has the unique ability to think like an assassin. Now he works as a red-teamer, who tests security systems to find vulnerabilities. His latest assignment, to assess the security of a former CIA director’s home, goes horribly wrong, and Nick gets entangled in a vicious crime that rocks Washington D.C. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 29, 2022 Iconoclast: A Sean McPherson Novel Laurie Buchanan Burdened by the pressing weight of survivor's guilt, Sean McPherson, an ex-cop, is desperate for redemption. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Explore engaging author interviews with G. P. Gottlieb. Dive into NBN Podcast Episodes for queer fiction author interviews today! NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Queer Fiction April 29, 2025 Hall of Mirrors John Copenhaver Hall of Mirrors (Pegasus Crime 2025) was selected as a New York Times Crime Novel of the Year. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 1, 2025 Beautiful Dreamers Minrose Gwin Memory Feather, who was born with a misshapen hand and was able to communicate with animals, looks back to when she was a child living with her newly divorced mother in a dilapidated hotel far from home. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 24, 2024 The Case of the Missing Maid Rob Osler Set in 1898, Harriet Morrow is 21, supports her 16-year-old brother, and has been accepted as the first female detective at the Prescott Agency. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 30, 2024 The Half-White Album Cynthia Sylvester Cynthia Sylvester's The Half-White Album (University of New Mexico Press 2023) is a collection of stories, flash fiction, and poems revolving around the journey of a travelling band, The Covers. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 23, 2024 Nadiia Christine Evans Nadia is a young Bosnian refugee who has lost everyone she’s loved. In 1997 she gets into England on a fake passport and finds temp work in a shady office that might be doing something illegal. A new temp shows up and Nadia knows he’s from her country even though he says he’s Armenian. She can tell that he’s Serbian, perhaps the kind that hunted down Bosnians like her. Nadia sees danger everywhere. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 3, 2023 Dry Land B. Platek It's 1917 during WWI, and Rand Brandt is living with two dangerous secrets, either of which could destroy him: 1) he can grow any plant or tree, but everything he grows will die within days, and 2) he is gay during a time when the army does not accept homosexuality. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 12, 2023 American Scholar Patrick E. Horrigan American Scholar is about memory, queer love, first love, and being gay during the onslaught of AIDS in the 1980s. It’s also the story of a famous Harvard historian and literary critic who had to hide his love affair with a man, and who ultimately took his own life. James Fitzgerald is in a happy, open marriage to a wonderful man, has a beautiful young boyfriend, and his first novel just launched, but a letter written by his first boyfriend, who took his own life, sends him into a tailspin. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 22, 2023 The Orphans of Mersea House Marty Wingate Olive Kersey is both penniless and alone at 37 – her brother and her boyfriend both died during WWII, her father not long after, and Olive spent all the years taking care of her ailing mother. Listen to Episode Buy Book February 7, 2023 Tell Me One Thing Kerri Schlottman Quinn and a friend are driving from New York City to Pennsylvania when she sees 9-year-old Lulu sitting on a trucker’s lap, smoking a cigarette. At the truck stop for her friend to score drugs, Quinn takes an astounding picture and then leaves, disappointing Lulu, who thinks maybe people will see the picture and help her. Quinn goes on to live the heady life of a successful photographer while Lulu is confronted with various kinds of abuse and dysfunction. Despite the differences in their lives, both women experience moments of great joy, and significant amounts of despair This is a novel about haves and have-nots, those who find love and those who don’t, how the AIDS epidemic fractured New York’s gay community, and the confusing world of art. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 21, 2019 Degrees of Difficulty Julie Justicz Ben Novotny was born with a rare chromosomal abnormality that caused profound mental retardation and seizures. He is severely limited but forms a tight bond with his older brother Hugo, who invents fun distractions and games that become dangerous as Ben gets older and bigger. Degrees of Difficulty follows the family over several decades as they each come to an understanding of how Ben affected their lives. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 5, 2020 The Red Shirt Corey Sobel Nobody knows why he chose King, but Reshawn, who is assigned as Miles’s roommate, refuses to talk about it. Turns out he’s also struggling to be something he’s not and focuses on his research about the school’s slave-owning founders. The decisions they make will change both their lives. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 18, 2020 The World Doesn't Work that Way, But it Could Yxta Maya Murray These compelling stories are based on recent headlines from before the pandemic crisis, when environmental regulations were overturned at breakneck speed and society had already started to become numb in the face of moral depravity and a lack of objective truth. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 10, 2018 This is How it Always Is Laurie Frankel In her new novel This is How it Always Is (Flatiron Books, 2017), Laurie Frankel tells the story of the Walsh-Adams family and how they grapple with the youngest child, the fifth son, who announces at age three that he wants to be a girl. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 5, 2021 Art Is Everything Yxta Maya Murray Written as a series of web posts, Instagram essays, Snapchat posts, rejected Yelp reviews, Facebook screeds, and streams-of-consciousness that merge volcanic confession with eagle-eyed art criticism, Art Is Everything is about a woman who has to grapple with being derailed. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Discover fascinating magical realism author interviews with G. P. Gottlieb. Dive into NBN Podcast Episodes for magical realism insights today! NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Magical Realism December 3, 2024 Mirror Me Lisa Williamson Rosenberg Today I talked to Lisa Williamson Rosenberg about Mirror Me (Little a, 2024) Listen to Episode Buy Book November 26, 2024 Dazzling Chikodili Emelumadu Today I talked to Chikodili Emelumadu about Dazzling (Harry N. Abrams, 2023). Listen to Episode Buy Book October 24, 2023 Indigo Field Marjorie Hudson A sweeping picture of family trauma, Native American and Black history, and the earth’s vengeance on human pettiness. A retired colonel’s wife dies, leaving him alone in a snooty North Carolina senior community. Reba, an elderly Black woman who speaks to the ghosts of her family, takes in the white child whose father killed her beloved niece. The colonel mistakenly causes damage to Reba’s old car and unleashes a torrent of spirits, while his son guards the bones that have been unearthed in what was once “Indian Field.” This is a stunning debut about race relations, land use, history, and memory. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 3, 2023 Dry Land B. Platek It's 1917 during WWI, and Rand Brandt is living with two dangerous secrets, either of which could destroy him: 1) he can grow any plant or tree, but everything he grows will die within days, and 2) he is gay during a time when the army does not accept homosexuality. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 15, 2019 The Forgetting Flower Karen Hugg Renia has built a secret nook to store an unusual plant whose blossoms make people forget just about everything. The plant belonged to her twin sister, still in Crakow, and it turns out that there are lots of people interested in getting their hands on it - questionable people with guns, and drugs to sell. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 26, 2020 The Rocky Orchard Barbara Monier Sitting on the porch swing at her family’s vacation house, Mazie sees an old woman cutting through the orchard across the way and offers her a glass of water. Before long, they are playing cards every morning, and Mazie, triggered by the place that holds many childhood memories, begins sharing stories with her new friend, Lula. Listen to Episode Buy Book May 29, 2020 The Moon Always Rising Alice C. Early At the dawn of the new millennium, Els Gordon finds herself adrift – she’s in mourning for her fiancé and her father, she’s lost the inheritance of her Scottish Highlands estate, her mother left when she was two-years-old but it her only living relative... Listen to Episode Buy Book May 22, 2020 Arroyo Chip Jacobs Two guys named Nick Chance, both with clairvoyant dogs named Royo, both inventors living in Pasadena, California – in 1913 and 1993. There’s some magical realism, lots of fascinating historical detail about Pasadena and southern California, and lots of eating. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 8, 2020 Timeless Sisters Shelly Hoover Janene, Cora, and Amadahy live on the banks of the river in a small North Carolina town, but they live centuries apart. Janene, a modern-day high school teacher, loses her career and identity in the face of a devastating disease. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 1, 2020 Reinhardt's Garden Mark Haber Ten men have already died while searching the jungles of Uruguay for a reclusive writer, Emiliano Gomez Carrasquilla, who Jacov Reinhardt believes knows the key to understanding melancholy. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 19, 2018 The Promise of Pierson Orchard Kate Brandes How do families decide when financial relief outweighs the risks of drilling for natural gas on their land? In Kate Brandes' novel Promise of Pierson Orchard, a big energy company comes to Minden, Pennsylvania and hires the long-estranged brother of orchard owner Jack Pierson. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 15, 2020 Zahara and the Lost Books of Light Joyce Ruth Yarrow Seattle journalist Alienor Crespo flies to Spain to apply for citizenship as a descendant of Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula during the Inquisition, in 1492. She meets a long-lost cousin and begins to discover her family’s history. A strong and self-aware woman, Alienor is also invited into the hidden tunnels of a fantastic library, which for half a century has been preserving medieval Jewish and Muslim scholarly books that were saved from the Inquisition’s fires. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 29, 2020 Dreaming the Marsh Elizabeth McCulloch A giant sinkhole begins swallowing an enormous swath of a marsh-like ecosystem that has been slated for development, along with parts of a highway and a large lake. The citizens of Opakulla, Florida struggle to understand what is happening as the land is sucked under. They’re also perplexed by un-erasable writing that appears on their new town hall. The sinkhole starts wreaking havoc with their lives and nobody knows what to do about it. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 7, 2021 Harvesting the Sky Karen Hugg Botonist Andre Damazy undertakes a perilous exploration into the mountains of Kazakhstan to retrieve a sapling from a rare apple tree in the mountains of Kazakhstan. At great cost, he manages to retrieve a sapling, and brings it to his hidden greenhouse in Paris. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 28, 2021 Jillian in the Borderlands Beth Alvarado Jillian can see ghosts – in the first story a dead child-bride saves her from the clutches of a predatory neighbor. These dark stories introduce faith healers, talking animals, and spirits of the dead. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Discover memoir author interviews with G. P. Gottlieb. Dive into engaging memoir author interviews on our NBN Podcast Episodes page today! NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Memoir June 17, 2025 Not From Here: the Song of America Leah Lax When Leah Lax was asked to write an opera to celebrate local immigrants, she began by spending a year listening to accounts of upheaval, migration, and arrival told her in confidence by people from around the globe. She felt she had discovered America, found its great beating heart. Listen to Episode Buy Book May 20, 2025 The Murmur of Everything Moving Maureen Stanton Maureen Stanton’s new memoir, The Murmur of Everything Moving (Columbus State University 2025) opens when she was in her early twenties, working at a bar saving for a backpacking trip through Europe. Listen to Episode Buy Book March 4, 2025 Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell Paul Lisicky Paul Lisicky remembers when he first heard Joni Mitchell on the radio, and when he found one of her records in a bin at Korvettes. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 22, 2024 The Adventures of Cancer Bitch S.L. Wisenberg It’s 2006, and S. L. Wisenberg is teaching writing at one of Chicago’s great universities and living a busy life when she’s gobsmacked by a sudden cancer diagnosis. In small but powerful journal entries, she bemoans friends who’ve died, expresses disdain for her body, worries about her future, recalls previous adventures, and jokes about the seriousness of her illness. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 25, 2024 Life Span Molly Giles Molly Giles looks back at moments of her childhood, her mistakes and missteps, getting pregnant at eighteen, marrying her boyfriend and having a second child, divorcing, marrying a second time but failing to find the happiness she knows she deserves. As the decades passed, she edited many well-known novels and popped out four story collections, two novels, and this brutally honest memoir. Listen to Episode Buy Book February 20, 2024 Secrets of the Sun Mako Yoshikawa Mako Yoshikawa's Secrets of the Sun: A Memoir (Mad Creek Books 2024) contains a host of essays about her difficult, brilliant father. Shoichi Yoshikawa grew up in a wealthy family in 1930s Japan, but his mother died when he was five, and he died alone on the eve of Mako’s wedding. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 5, 2023 I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile's Dictatorship, 1975 Kathleen M. Osberger In 1975, Kathleen Osberger, who’d just graduated from Notre Dame University, flew to Chile to teach in a Catholic school in Santiago. She was assigned to live with several religious women, and when she arrived, was told that they would sometimes shelter dissidents who were wanted by the secret police. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 27, 2023 Set Adrift: A Mystery and A Memoir Sarah Conover When racing yacht “The Revonoc” went down in the Bermuda Triangle’s Sargasso Sea during a freakish storm in January of 1958, the sailing world was dumbfounded. The boat and five people on board, all well-known in the sailing world, completely vanished. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 6, 2023 Dreaming in Spanish Sara Alvarado Sara Alvarado tells the story of growing up in Madison, studying Spanish, and escaping alcoholism, substance abuse, men, and sexual assault by moving to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. Listen to Episode Buy Book March 21, 2023 The Field Victoria Garza Victoria Garza begins her poetic memoir with her ten-year-old self learning that her little sister and cousin have died in a car accident. She painstakingly recalls lovely moments with her sister as they faced their parents’ divorce, their new lives surrounded by family members, their Mexican American culture and celebrations. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 4, 2023 The Wandering Womb: Essays in Search of Home S.L. Wisenberg As a child, S. L. Wisenberg worried about being outside, not being able to breathe, and Nazis coming through the window of her Houston home. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 22, 2022 Hysterical Elissa Bassist For two years author Elissa Bassist saw over twenty medical specialists for pain that none of them managed to diagnose or resolve. Some of their treatments led to other medical problems but never relief. Then an acupuncturist suggested that she simply needed to take control of her voice, and Bassist was shocked when it worked. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 1, 2022 Maybe It's Me: On Being the Wrong Kind of Woman Eileen Pollack Eileen Pollack covers her life in snippets or by delving into history, but the overall picture is of an extremely talented writer, a brilliant woman with a degree in physics and a long list of respected publications who is still somewhat bewildered to find herself alone. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 27, 2021 The Thin Ledge Daniel Shapiro Daniel Shapiro was a successful attorney in his early forties when his wife, Susan, suffered a brain bleed and a diagnosis that her future was uncertain. Stunned, and with three young children, the couple made the most of the few years that followed, before a massive second hemorrhage changed everything. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

Explore captivating global fiction author interviews with G. P. Gottlieb. Discover diverse stories in our global fiction author interviews podcast. NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb Global Fiction November 19, 2025 If the Owl Calls Sharon White As the Sami community (Norway) struggles to protect ancestral lands from the building of a damn in 1979, Oslo detective Hans Sorensen arrives in the north of the country to investigate sabotage on a damn. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 11, 2025 Happy New Years Maya Arad After finishing her teaching degree in Israel, Leah emigrates to the U.S. for a teaching position that she thinks of as temporary. She ends up staying for 5 decades. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 4, 2025 Simone in Pieces Janet Burroway Simone Lerrante is a Belgian orphan whose memory is damaged by the trauma of her father being shot by Nazis and her subsequent escape to England. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 30, 2025 Isabella's Way Barbara Stark Nemon In early-seventeenth-century Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany, dangers are plentiful—especially for those of Jewish heritage. Non-Catholics have been expelled from Spain, and the Inquisition has come to Portugal to impose its prohibitions. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 9, 2025 Mona's Eyes Thomas Schlesser Mona’s Eyes (Europa Editions, 2025) is an enchanting debut novel written by art historian Thomas Schlesser. It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl living in Paris who briefly loses her vision. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 26, 2025 Go On Pretending Alina Adams Rose Janowitz is surprised to get a production job with a radio soap opera and stunned to fall in love with the show’s African American leading man. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 12, 2025 The Dime Museum Joyce Hinnefeld The Dime Museum is a novel told in stories that span from the 1920s, when Dime Museums were a way for people to gawk at human differences, through 2020, during the ravages of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 24, 2025 The Palace at the End of the Sea Simon Tolkien Theo Sterling is eleven when his grandfather kidnaps him, just for the afternoon. He learns that his father had shed his Jewish identity, married a very Catholic woman from Mexico, and stopped talking to either of his parents. Listen to Episode Buy Book March 11, 2025 The Immortal Woman Su Chang Lemai never forgets the humiliation of her teachers and the burning of books during the Cultural Revolution. Listen to Episode Buy Book February 25, 2025 Fine, I'm a Terrible Person Lisa F. Rosenberg The pain of 73-year-old Aurora’s divorce over thirty years before continues to reverberate – she’s eccentric, filled with schemes, and only able to function with help from her daughter. Listen to Episode Buy Book February 4, 2025 Isola Allegra Goodman Based on the true story of a 16th century heiress who is left to die on a deserted island off the coast of what was then called New France (now Canada). Listen to Episode Buy Book January 14, 2025 The Anatomy of Exile Zeeva Bukai The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai (Delphinium Books 2025) opens in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, when Tamar Abadi’s sister-in-law is killed by what looks like a terrorist attack but turns out to be the tragic end of Hadas’s love affair with a Palestinian poet. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 1, 2025 The Drowning Game Barbara Nickless Sisters Nadia and Cass are heirs to a company that builds yachts for the super wealthy, and both are excited about a commission that will introduce them to the huge Asian market. Listen to Episode Buy Book November 26, 2024 Dazzling Chikodili Emelumadu Today I talked to Chikodili Emelumadu about Dazzling (Harry N. Abrams, 2023). Listen to Episode Buy Book October 15, 2024 The Last Whaler Cynthia Reeves After losing their young son in a tragic accident, Astrid, a Norwegian botanist specializing in Arctic flora, decides to join her husband, Tor, at a remote whaling station in the Arctic, where he spends every whaling season hunting belugas. In heartfelt journal entries, Astrid describes being stranded in a whaling hut through the dark season of 1937-38. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More