What is Mariah Stewart reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Mariah Stewart, author of The Goodbye Café (The Hudson Sisters Series).

Her entry begins:

I love thrillers – suspense – police procedurals – mysteries. I thought I’d read just about everyone but then I stumbled over John Sandford and slapped myself on the forehead. How had I missed John Sandford? I’d picked up one book in the supermarket – we live in the country and there is no such thing as a local bookstore – on a day I had nothing to read and snow was in the forecast. I wasn’t aware the book was part of a series, but by the time I’d finished it – the following day, by the way, time off for eating and sleeping only – I wanted all the books in the Prey series and I wanted them right then and there. Accepting the sad fact that even I could read only one book at a time (I do read really really fast!), I started ordering them three at a time. My plan was to read three books/week. That’s worked out pretty well, actually.

So I’ve gone from the first book in the series (Rules of Prey) straight on through to Twisted Prey (and yes, I’ve preordered Neon Prey, which goes on sale on April 23). So what, you ask, is the big deal? Sandford...[read on]

About The Goodbye Café, from the publisher:

California girl Allie Hudson Monroe can’t wait for the day when the renovations on the Sugarhouse Theater are complete so she can finally collect the inheritance from her father and leave Pennsylvania. After all, her life and her fourteen-year-old daughter are in Los Angeles.

But Allie’s divorce left her tottering on the edge of bankruptcy, so to keep up on payments for her house and her daughter’s private school tuition, Allie packed up and flew out east. But fate has a curve-ball or two to toss in Allie’s direction—she just doesn’t know it yet.

She hadn’t anticipated how her life would change after reuniting with her estranged sister, Des, or meeting her previously unknown half-sister, Cara. And she’d certainly never expected to find small-town living charming. But the biggest surprise was that her long-forgotten artistry would save the day when the theater’s renovation fund dried up.

With opening day upon the sisters, Allie’s free to go. But for the first time in her life, she feels like the woman she was always meant to be. Will she return to the West Coast and resume her previous life, or will the love of “this amazing, endearing family of women” (Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author) be enough to draw her back to the place where the Hudson roots grow so deep?

Visit Mariah Stewart's website.

Writers Read: Mariah Stewart.

--Marshal Zeringue