Flora, an art conservator, is working to clean Sondro Botticelli’s world-famous Birth of Venus. She realizes that there are no notes from the previous cleaning and begins to get suspicious as she removes the frame and looks at the paint’s sheen. Then she sees a smiley-face. < Back The Botticelli Caper Sarah Wisseman November 10, 2020 The Botticelli Caper (Wings ePress, 2019) is set at the Uffizi Galleries during a period, not long ago, when workmen were constantly coming in and out during massive amounts of reconstruction. Flora, an art conservator, is working to clean Sondro Botticelli’s world-famous Birth of Venus. She realizes that there are no notes from the previous cleaning and begins to get suspicious as she removes the frame and looks at the paint’s sheen. Then she sees a smiley-face. She’d seen it before in a forgery of another famous painting. In this light-hearted caper, Wisseman asks how some very skilled painter could make a nearly perfect copy of one of the world’s great paintings. But, how would the original have been removed from the museum with guards all around, night and day? Now a few more forgeries are discovered along with two bodies. Against the advice of all, Flora continues to meander through the beautiful old building, wondering where the original copies might be stored. What about all the doors, the unused corridors, the bridge and tunnel that lead to other palaces? Sadly, the real-life incidents of art forgery and theft have sometimes been even stranger, but there was no Flora Garibaldi to solve those crimes. Retired archaeologist Sarah Wisseman (aka Sally Underhill) completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and her M.A. and Ph. D in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College. During her years working as an Archaeological scientist at the University of Illinois, she wrote non-fiction books and numerous articles on mummies, Greek vases, and archaeological science. Nowadays, Sarah splits her time between writing and painting. Starting in 2004, when she was a finalist for Best First Traditional Mystery Novel in the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Contest, she has based her fiction on thirty years of working in academia, museums, and on excavations in Italy, Israel, and the U.S. She writes two series, the Lisa Donahue Archaeological Mysteries (set in Boston and the Middle East) and the Flora Garibaldi Art Conservation Mysteries (set in Italy). Her paintings include mixed media landscapes, starscapes, and still lifes. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

It’s the summer of 1943 and an unexploded mortar shell kills 9-year-old Salvatore’s twin brothers. His faith is destroyed, and his family unravels, fueling fear that the Vassallo name is cursed. Salvatore and his sister, Nella, accept the help of a fascist Italian soldier, Vincenzo, who accompanies them to a new life in America. < Back How Fires End Marco Rafalà May 12, 2020 In a sad but loving tribute to his Sicilian-Italian heritage, Marco Rafala ’s debut novel How Fires End (Little A, 2019) centers on the haunting legacy of WWII on the people of a small Sicilian village. It’s the summer of 1943 and an unexploded mortar shell kills 9-year-old Salvatore’s twin brothers. His faith is destroyed, and his family unravels, fueling fear that the Vassallo name is cursed. Salvatore and his sister, Nella, accept the help of a fascist Italian soldier, Vincenzo, who accompanies them to a new life in America. But the three of them make the choice to keep their secrets hidden, and years later in America, Salvatore’s son, David, is swept up in the chaotic aftermath of their hidden pasts. This is a story about loyalty, family, and forgiveness. Marco Rafalà is a first-generation Sicilian American, novelist, musician, and writer for award-winning tabletop role-playing games (e.g. The One Ring). He earned his MFA in fiction from The New School and is a co-curator of the Guerrilla Lit Reading Series in New York City. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review and LitHub. Born in Middletown, Connecticut, he now lives in Brooklyn, New York. And when not working, reading or writing, Rafalà loves walking in the cemetery with his partner. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

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. < Back Dreaming the Marsh Elizabeth McCulloch December 29, 2020 Elizabeth McCulloch was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and lived in New England, the Midwest, Canada, and the South, before putting down roots in Gainesville, Florida, almost forty years ago. Previously a lawyer, then a teacher, she has had children of various stripes: one born, two foster, one step, and the granddaughter she is now raising with her husband. Elizabeth has always loved to read and always wanted to write. She began seriously pursuing her dream over 30 years ago, with pauses in the pursuit for various events and catastrophes. She has completed three novels and is working on a fourth. At her blog, The Feminist Grandma, she writes illustrated personal essays about family, friends, aging, social justice issues, and whatever takes her fancy. At Big Books from Small Presses, she posts illustrated reviews and other essays about books. Both blogs are at her website, elizabethmccullochauthor.com. When Elizabeth isn’t reading or writing, she sings at a nursing home, swims, gardens, dances, cooks, and has mastered baking pie crusts. In Dreaming the Marsh (Twisted Road, 2019), 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. A lovesick geologist wants to study it, the real estate developers relish its wild beauty, the mayor and members of the town commission want something done to stop it, and the owner of a local café, who speaks with the Ancients, understands it. But she isn’t telling. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood has created a swiftly mutating story about a woman who is either a loving mother, a famous artist, or a teacher. < Back Constellations of Eve Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood May 3, 2022 Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood has created a swiftly mutating story about a woman who is either a loving mother, a famous artist, or a teacher. Constellations of Eve (Texas Tech University Press 2022) portrays deviations from an initial story that revolves around Eve, Pari, Liam, and a child named Blue. Eve meets Liam, a tall, gentle man who is either philandering husband, a kind partner, or a scheming benefactor. Eve’s best friend is Pari, who is either her best friend and college roommate, a stunning model, or mentally fragile and suicidal. Eve loves, obsesses over Pari, or encourages her to hang herself. Liam is good or not, loving or not, solid, or not. We don’t know if Eve is kind-hearted or crazy, loving or obsessive. We watch these three people weaving around each other, and the child, Blue, has something to say in each iteration of Eve’s life. Eve needs to figure out which part of herself is going to dominate, and who or what is going to control her destiny – will it be love, motherhood, or art? Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood is a Vietnamese and American author who earned an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. After having spent 20 years in the U.S, she is now a reverse immigrant living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Her short fiction and essays can be found at TIME Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Salon, Cosmopolitan, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, Catapult, Pen America, BOMB, among others. In 2019, her hybrid writing was featured in a multimedia art and poetry exhibit at Eccles Gallery. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best American Short Story 2020. Her debut novel If I Had Two Lives won first place in the Writers Workshop of Asheville Literary Fiction contest. Excerpts from Constellations of Eve were finalists in the 49th New Millennium Writing Award, and the Sunspot Culmination Award. She currently serves on the graduating thesis committee at Columbia University. She is the founder of Neon Door , an immersive literary exhibit. When she isn’t reading or writing, Abbigail spends time with her pets, listens to crime podcasts, lifts weights, and enjoys unstructured free days when she can binge watch reality TV with her husband. She also loves a good snowstorm and staring into a burning fire. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In Sara Johnson Allen's novel Down Here We Come Up (Black Lawrence Press 2023), Kate Jessup’s mother lures her back home to North Carolina. < Back Down Here We Come Up Sara Johnson Allen September 24, 2024 In Sara Johnson Allen's novel Down Here We Come Up (Black Lawrence Press 2023), Kate Jessup’s mother lures her back home to North Carolina. Jackie Jessup is a con-artist, always working a scheme, always taking what she wanted, and she taught Kate to do the same. Now she’s dying, and Kate is estranged and living far away in Boston. Kate, her mother, and a third woman, Maribel, have either alienated, given away, or otherwise lost their children. It’s 2006, and Jackie has hatched a dubious plan for Kat to drive down to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, pretend she’s the mother of Maribel’s children, and sneak them back over the border into the states. Kate needs to figure out what’s in it for her mother, because with Jackie Jessup, there’s always a price to pay. This is a novel about class, inheritance, and flawed people making mistakes, taking risks, or trying to survive. Sara Johnson Allen was raised (mostly) in North Carolina. A recipient of the Marianne Russo Award for Emerging Writers by the Key West Literary Seminar, the Stockholm Writers Festival First Pages Prize, an artistic grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, and MacDowell fellowships, her work has appeared in PANK Magazine , SmokeLong Quarterly , and Reckon Review, among others. She is finishing a second novel and starting a work of creative nonfiction, which is an exploration of cultural and political history through personal narrative, centering on her 17th century home in coastal Massachusetts. When she is not teaching or shuttling her three kids around, she writes about place and how it shapes us. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

“July 25, 1969 12:41am Hunts Landing. Acrid sulfur from the fireworks faded with the nighttime breeze. Dr. Theodore Wexler held up his glass-red flashes from the police cars on the Quad pulsed chestnut in the bourbon. Pulse. Pulse. The cadence matched his heartbeat, steadier now, settled after this disrupted day of jubilee.“ < Back The Dead Won't Tell S.K. Waters (aka Sue Arroyo 1966-2024) December 6, 2022 In The Dead Won't Tell (Camcat Books, 2022), Abbie Adams is hired to write an article about an unsolved murder that took place in a small southern college town on the evening of the Moon Landing in 1969. She’d almost completed her doctorate but was derailed at the end, and instead became a journalist. She’s widowed with two teenagers, and the faculty advisor who’d refused to pass her dissertation seems to be connected to the crime. She’s forced to speak to him for the first time since he derailed her career, but he refuses to tell her anything. So, in addition to hosting an old college friend with his own journalistic quest, Abbie seeks out the few living witnesses in order to piece together the events of that evening. When two of those witnesses are murdered and another is pushed down the stairs, it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want the truth coming out. Abbie’s friends rally to protect her as she rushes to meet either her deadline or her downfall. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

"We can't all be heroes. Some try and succeed. Others posture and pretend. And a few--just a few--set off on their hero's quest only to discover that failure was within them all along." < Back Compass Murray Lee December 13, 2022 We can't all be heroes. Some try and succeed. Others posture and pretend. And a few--just a few--set off on their hero's quest only to discover that failure was within them all along. Murray Lee's Compass (Publerati, 2022) recounts the adventures of a man who, after traveling the world shilling stories for a major geographic magazine about historic expeditions and explorers, sets out on an adventure of his own--an ill-advised and poorly planned trip to the Arctic floe edge under the disorienting twenty-four-hour summer sun. When the ice breaks and his guide disappears, the narrator ends up alone and adrift in the hostile northern sea. He draws on his knowledge of historic expeditions to craft his own, inept, attempt at survival. As time passes and he becomes increasingly disoriented, his obsession with Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea, becomes terrifyingly real. Part Life of Pi, part Into the Wild, Compass draws heavily on true historical adventures, Inuit mythology, and its Arctic setting. The narrator, a self-aware buffoon who remains nameless throughout, is both remarkably well-informed and entirely useless. He knows just enough to steer himself into the path of disaster--repeatedly, often comically, and ultimately tragically. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

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. < Back The Kudzu Queen Mimi Herman January 24, 2023 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. Mattie Lee Watson is struck from the moment she sees Mr. Cullowee, and dreams of both becoming Cooper County Kudzu Queen and strolling on the Kudzu King’s arm. But Mattie’s best friend is faced with calamity, Mr. Cullowee seems to be as sneaky and destructive as kudzu, and Mattie realizes that she’s the only one who can fix the mess. Mimi Herman's The Kudzu Queen (Regal House, 2023) is a gripping coming-of-age story about family, trust, race relations, and friendship in the face of divisiveness, alcoholism, mean girls, prejudice, and evil. Mimi Herman is a Kennedy Center teaching artist and director of the United Arts Council Arts Integration Institute . She has taught in the Master of Education programs at Lesley University, served as the 2017 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate, and been an associate editor for Teaching Artist Journal. Since 1990, she has engaged over 25,000 students and teachers with her warm and intuitive teaching style. Mimi holds a BA from the University of North Carolina and an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson. She is the author of A Field Guide to Human Emotions, Logophilia and The Art of Learning . Her writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review , The Carolina Quarterly , Shenandoah , Crab Orchard Review , The Hollins Critic , Main Street Rag , Prime Number Magazine and other journals. Mimi has performed her fiction and poetry at many venues including Why There Are Words in Sausalito, Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh and Symphony Space in New York City. When she's not writing, Mimi codirects Writeaways writing workshops at a chateau in France, a villa in Italy, an adobe in New Mexico and a manor house in Ireland--and does her own plumbing and carpentry work on her almost hundred-year-old house. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Today I talked to Benjamin Resnick about his novel Next Stop (Simon and Schuster, 2024) < Back Next Stop Benjamin Resnick November 12, 2024 A hole opens in the universe and suddenly consumes a building, then a neighborhood, and then the entire country of Israel. Conspiracies and antisemitic paranoia simmer, violence erupts, and life for Jews around the globe becomes even more hate filled. But Ethan and Ella, both Jewish, meet and fall in love in an unnamed American city. Their relationship has its challenges, including those involving Ella’s seven-year-old son, but their biggest struggle is trying to survive. Then thousands of airplanes disappear, borders close, and the world unravels more. Drones and robotic dogs patrol the streets and Jews are forced to live in a single neighborhood, slyly named after the historical Pale of Settlement. Some Jews escape to underground cities and others are join militias and resistance efforts, but Ella and Ethan are trying to find things to smile about in this thought-provoking, dystopian novel about cultural memory, societal crisis, and living in an upside-down world. Benjamin Resnick is a writer and the rabbi of the Pelham Jewish Center. Before joining the PJC in 2021, he served as Rav Beit HaSefer at Solomon Schechter Day School of Metropolitan Chicago and as Rabbi and Education Director at Congregation Ahavas Achim in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Resinick majored in Literary Arts at Brown University in 006 and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2014. He has written nonfiction for multiple publications, including the Washington Post, The Forward, Tablet, Modern Judaism and My Jewish Learning. Benjamin is married to journalist Philissa Cramer, who is currently editor-in-chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. They have two boys, Jonah and Gabriel. In his free time, he enjoys gardening, playing squash, and the Chicago Cubs. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

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. < Back Watershed Mark Barr January 15, 2020 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. Nathan is an engineer with a shameful secret who changes his name to get work at the dam. Everyone in this colorful cast of dog-fighting neighbors, beer-guzzling ex-husbands, and power-hungry employers is trying to survive in the mosquito-infested heat of a southern summer. Mark Barr has been awarded fellowships from Blue Mountain Center, I-Park Artists Enclave, Jentel Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Millay Colony, and Yaddo. Favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, his debut novel, Watershed (Hub City, 2019), was featured in the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance’s fall Okra list and Deep South Magazine's Fall/Winter Reading List, and named as one of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "12 Southern Books You'll Want to Read This Fall" and one of Nashville Lifestyles Magazine’s "Four Fall Reads." Mark holds undergraduate degrees from Hendrix College and University of Iowa, and an M.F.A. from Texas State University. He lives with his wife and sons in Arkansas, where he develops software and bakes bread. If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books Network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/join Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Mustafa was born with a twisted neck and treated with disdain throughout his life. He works long hours as a janitor on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Isaac is a religiously observant new immigrant from New York who stumbles into a position as assistant to a famous rabbi known for curing the uncurable. < Back In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist Ruchama Feuerman July 30, 2024 In Ruchama Feuerman's novel In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist (Open Road Media 2024), Isaac, a lonely, heartbroken New York haberdasher, moves to Jerusalem after he’s jilted by his bride-to-be and his mother dies. He stumbles into a job as the assistant to a famous kabbalist and spends his days helping the elderly man and his wife dispense wisdom and soup to the troubled souls who come into their courtyard. Isaac crosses paths with Tamar, a newly religious young American woman desperate to find a spiritually connected husband, and Mustafa, a physically deformed Arab janitor who works on the Temple Mount. Isaac doesn’t realize that simply being kind to the janitor will change both their lives. Because of that kindness, Mustafa gifts Isaac with an ancient, discarded piece of pottery that he found in the garbage pile on the Temple Mount. His gift lands Isaac in jail and puts Mustafa in danger. Tamar is the only person Isaac knows who can help avert a disaster. First published in 2014, In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist has just been reissued with an intriguing afterward. Ruchama Feuerman is the author of Seven Blessings (St. Martin's Press), and several books for children and young adults. She is grateful to the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Christopher Isherwood Fellowship which allowed her the time and means to devote herself entirely to her writing. Her prize-winning stories have appeared in Narrative Magazine , the Michigan Quarterly Review, Lilith, Tablet , and other publications. She has written and ghostwritten books for children, young adults, and adults, and helps people create their own novels, memoirs, stories and books of non-fiction. Her dream is to return to Israel, the setting for both her novels, where she lived and taught Torah for ten years. It's a place, she finds, where extraordinary stories are handed to you daily. Researching her latest novel led Ruchama to kabbalists, Israeli ex-convicts, Arab laborers, archeologists, Temple Mount police men, connoisseurs of Israeli prison slang, and soup kitchens, among other places. One of the most transformative experiences was her time spent at a Jewish funeral home in New Jersey where she observed a ritual purification for a scene she was writing. Afterward, she volunteered at the Hevra Kadisha burial society for three years and wrote about the experience for the New York Times. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

n Karen Odden’s latest mystery it’s 1878 in London, and Scotland Yard inspector Michael Corravan, a former thief and bare-knuckles boxer, is battling demons, including his urge to drown his troubles in drink. < Back Down a Dark River Karen Odden January 11, 2022 In Karen Odden’s latest mystery (Down a Dark River , Crooked Lane Books 2021) it’s 1878 in London, and Scotland Yard inspector Michael Corravan, a former thief and bare-knuckles boxer, is battling demons, including his urge to drown his troubles in drink. In the wake of a police corruption scandal that threatens to shut down Scotland Yard, Corravan is assigned the case of a young, wealthy woman whose corpse has been set adrift in a small boat on the Thames River. At first, the murder seems to be linked to a stolen heirloom necklace, but then a second dead woman appears and then a third. As the press riles up London and blames Scotland Yard, Corravan’s search for clues takes him from insane asylums to jewelry stores and from brothels to wealthy Mayfair homes. Then his lady friend is threatened, and Inspector Corravan must confront the darkness in his own past to understand the killer and prevent yet another murder from taking place. KAREN ODDEN received her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University, writing her dissertation on Victorian railway disasters and the origins of PTSD. She has taught at UW-Milwaukee, written essays for numerous books and journals, and edited for the journal Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge UP). She freely admits she might be more at home in Victorian London than today, especially when she tries to do anything complicated on her iPhone. All of her mysteries are set in 1870s London. Her first novel, A LADY IN THE SMOKE, about a young woman in a 1874 railway crash, was a USA Today bestseller. In A DANGEROUS DUET, Nell Hallam, an ambitious young pianist stumbles on a notorious crime ring while playing in a Soho music hall. In A TRACE OF DECEIT, Annabel Rowe, a young painter at the Slade School of Art, must delve below the glitter of the art and auction world to uncover the truth about her brother's murder. DOWN A DARK RIVER is Karen's fourth novel and the first in the Inspector Corravan series; the sequel, UNDER A VEILED MOON, will be released in November 2022. An avid desert hiker, Karen lives in Arizona with her family and her rescue beagle muse, Rosy. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next