What is Randee Dawn reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Randee Dawn, author of Leave No Trace.

Her entry begins:

I have several stacks or shelves of to-be-read material, all of which has good intentions behind it – but much of which gathers dust. I am often attracted by the latest shiny new acquisition, but I also derive great pleasure from finally getting to that thing I've been staring at longingly for so long. One of these days, N.K. Jemisin and your Broken Earth trilogy, one of these days!

All of which means there's rarely rhyme or reason to what I pick up – but here are the last several titles I've torn (not literally! Don't tear books!) through.

The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale

This legend of the horror genre had mostly passed me by until I attended a panel at ArmadilloCon (in Austin, TX) in which friends, fans and Lansdale's literary son talked about what made his stories so visceral, scary, and often funny. (Among many other things, Lansdale is the author of the short story "Bubba Ho Tep," about an old man who may just be Elvis battling a mummy.) The book is not for the squeamish; Lansdale goes there and a few steps beyond in ways that made me chuckle darkly, but might not be dinner reading for others. I picked up this book...[read on]

About Leave No Trace, from the publisher:

Seventeen-year-old Lexi has been living in a remote stretch of the Rocky Mountain woods since her father dragged her there ten years ago, after her mother and baby brother were afflicted with a magical sickness. Her paranoid father thinks they've escaped the magic, and that as long as they never leave the woods, they'll be safe.

So Lexi never tells him about her friend Gil, who turns up sometimes in a birch copse that travels with him, and who is definitely not human. She especially doesn't mention the magic he taught her, which can open a path to wherever she needs to go. After all, she's been in the woods for most of her life: she can find her way without magic.

But when pop star TJ Furey hires them to help him hunt down a bear, Lexi's secret is threatened. The bear he wants to kill is under Gil's protection, and if Lexi doesn't prevent its death, she'll never see Gil again. But she can't do so without risking her father's wrath – and when it turns out that TJ's manager is harboring a similar grudge of his own, Lexi feels trapped. If she wants her own life, she'll have to find a way to break all their expectations.

Leave No Trace plays the clash of worlds – magic and technology, future and past, rural and urban – against the backdrop of a bear hunt.

Visit Randee Dawn's website.

The Page 69 Test: Tune in Tomorrow.

Q&A with Randee Dawn.

My Book, The Movie: Tune in Tomorrow.

Writers Read: Randee Dawn.

--Marshal Zeringue