What is Stephanie Gayle reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Stephanie Gayle, author of Idyll Threats.

Her entry begins:

The last book I read was Pointe by Brandy Colbert.

Pointe will be inextricably linked in my mind to staying in the hospital, by my mother’s bedside. She was recovering from heart surgery. I’d volunteered to relieve my dad from nurse duty. My mother has Alzheimer’s and she kept trying to get out of bed. So from 3:00 pm to 11:00 a.m. the next day, I read Pointe. I slept only one hour in ten-minute naps. By novel’s end my eyes felt like they’d been filled with sand, but I kept reading (and convincing my mother she was in the hospital, not home) during the long, terrible night. I’m not sure most books would’ve held my interest in that situation.

I wanted to read Pointe because it’s about an African-American teen pursing ballet while finishing high school - and there aren’t many books like that. The protagonist, Theo, is recovering from anorexia and a broken heart. Theo discovers the man who abducted her best friend Donovan, missing for four years and now returned, was...[read on]

About Idyll Threats, from the publisher:

In the summer of 1997, Thomas Lynch arrives as the new chief of police in Idyll, Connecticut—a town where serious crimes can be counted on one hand. So no one is prepared when Cecilia North is found murdered on a golf course. By chance, Chief Lynch met her mere hours before she was killed. With that lead, the case should be a slam dunk. But there’s a problem. If Lynch tells his detectives about meeting the victim, he’ll reveal his greatest secret—he’s gay.

So Lynch works angles of the case on his own. Meanwhile, he must contend with pressure from the mayor to solve the crime before the town’s biggest tourist event begins, all while coping with the suspicions of his men, casual homophobia, and difficult memories of his former NYPD partner’s recent death.

As the case unfolds, Lynch realizes that small-town Idyll isn’t safe, especially for a man with secrets that threaten the thing he loves most—his job.

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My Book, The Movie: Idyll Threats.

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--Marshal Zeringue