Her entry begins:Growing up, I devoured books like candy, emerging from the library obscured behind a precarious tower of them and returning a week later for more. I still haunt bookstores like an intractable ghost, but have had to cut back on my habit (unless you count all the hours I spend reading my own work!) Still, one can always find a few books lying around the house in various stages of consumption. Oddly enough, my reading seems to follow the wedding adage of “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue…”Among the early praise for In Malice, Quite Close:
Currently, the “old” is a volume of erotica by Anäis Nin, called Delta of Venus, which I happened upon while searching through a closet for something mundane (candles or light bulbs, potpourri or an old CD). I can’t recall now, because I opened the book and fell immediately under the spell of Nin’s voice again. It is her voice that stands out most in these stories for me— lyrical, sensuous, quintessentially feminine. Along with...[read on]
"[Ryder's] prose is confident and fashions a credible world, peopled by intellectually sophisticated artists and art connoisseurs... To read the book is to move through a maze that delivers twists, turns, revelations, and surprises."Learn more about the book and author at Brandi Lynn Ryder's website.
--Sue Monk Kidd, bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees
"In Malice, Quite Close is a triumph. Ryder's writing is as gorgeous as the many works of art she describes, and her characters- especially the twisted Tristan and tortured Gisele- seem to leap right off the page. The novel's many mysteries unfold carefully and beautifully, and readers will be trying to connect the dots until the very last page."
--BookPage
"Sophisticates of the contemporary art scene show a lethally sordid side in this superbly crafted murder mystery... Lucid prose, snappy dialogue, and sharp characterization combine to limn a credibly realized world where life imitates art,facades are deceiving, and forgeries cast doubt on seemingly certain truths. The unraveling of the mysteries turns on perfectly prepared surprises, unexpected twists, and well-orchestrated plotlines that will have readers guessing, like the characters themselves, until the final paragraphs."
--Publishers Weekly
"In her stunning debut, Ryder delivers an assured blend of eros, suspense, abduction, and art. Like a finely aged wine, In Malice, Quite Close lingers on the palette with flavors of Fowles, Nabokov, and Ian McEwan, yet it is entirely unique. Ryder sweeps the reader back and forth over two decades and across the continent, from San Francisco to New York and to a remote art colony in the Pacific Northwest in this compulsively readable novel of ideas, intrigue, and mystery."
--J. Sydney Jones, author of The Empty Mirror and Requiem in Vienna
"A mesmerizing read, Ryder's first novel is assured and elegant."
--Booklist
Writers Read: Brandi Lynn Ryder.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
