What is Alex Bledsoe reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Alex Bledsoe, author of He Drank, and Saw the Spider.

His entry begins:

Since my Tufa novels (The Hum and the Shiver, Wisp of a Thing and the forthcoming Long Black Curl) involve the deep South both culturally and musically, I tend to always be reading books about both.

Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South by Patrick Huber was a brilliant, revelatory exploration of aspects of music I had never really explored: the birth of urban country, with sales driven by those former rural folks who migrated to the cities looking for work. Through this book, I learned about Fiddlin’ John Carson and his daughter Moonshine Kate, who will...[read on]

About He Drank, and Saw the Spider, from the publisher:

For fans of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and Glen Cook's Garrett PI novels, comes the newest installment in Alex Bledsoe’s Eddie LaCrosse series, He Drank and Saw the Spider.

After he fails to save a stranger from being mauled to death by a bear, a young mercenary is saddled with the baby girl the man died to protect. He leaves her with a kindly shepherd family and goes on with his violent life.

Now, sixteen years later, that young mercenary has grown up to become cynical sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse. When his vacation travels bring him back to that same part of the world, he can’t resist trying to discover what has become of the mysterious infant.

He finds that the child, now a lovely young teenager named Isadora, is at the center of complicated web of intrigue involving two feuding kings, a smitten prince, a powerful sorceress, an inhuman monster, and long-buried secrets too shocking to imagine. And once again she needs his help.

They say a spider in your cup will poison you, but only if you see it. Eddie, helped by his smart, resourceful girlfriend Liz, must look through the dregs of the past to find the truth about the present—and risk what might happen if he, too, sees the spider.

Learn more about the book and author at Alex Bledsoe's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Blood Groove.

The Page 69 Test: Burn Me Deadly.

The Page 69 Test: Wisp of a Thing.

Writers Read: Alex Bledsoe.

--Marshal Zeringue