Ten top sunny destination thrillers

Robyn Harding is the international bestselling author of several novels including The Haters, The Perfect Family, The Arrangement, and Her Pretty Face. Her novels The Party and The Drowning Woman were both finalists for the Crime Writers of Canada best crime novel award. Her novel The Swap debuted at #1 on the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star Canadian bestsellers lists. She is also the screenwriter and executive producer of the independent film, The Steps. She lives in Vancouver, BC, with her family and two cute but deadly rescue chihuahuas.

[Coffee with a Canine: Robyn Harding & Ozzie; The Page 69 Test: The Arrangement; My Book, The Movie: The Swap; The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Family]

Harding's new novel is Strangers in the Villa.

At People magazine the author tagged ten destination thrillers set in warm and sunny locales. One title on the list:

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack

Catherine’s Mack's Vacation Mystery series offers a side of humor with your scenic getaway. The first novel in the series follows bestselling author Eleanor Dash on her book tour through Italy. But life imitates art when her ex (inspiration for her sexy main character) tags along and someone tries to kill him. Can Eleanor solve the real-life crime? With hilarious footnotes and a cast of kooky characters, this is a clever, charming escape.

Read about another thriller on Harding's list.

The Page 69 Test: Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Ahmad Saber reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Ahmad Saber, author of Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions.

His entry begins:

I must admit I am a relatively new reader, and I know this is not typical for many writers. After all, we know that in order to be a writer, you have to be a reader first. However growing up, I never had the chance to explore the reader within me, so now I have a huge backlog of classics to catch up on! I am overjoyed to have discovered the world of books (and not so overjoyed that I’m a “slow” reader.)

Nevertheless, as I gradually form my reading tastes, I already know I like YA literature (Hello, John Green!) and horror (hello, Stephen King!) the best, so I will give examples from each for my recent/current reads.

For YA, I recently read Emiko Jean’s Tokyo Ever After and as a lover of all things Japan, I loved this book. It hit the spot between a feel-good coming-of-age with romance, and a fun exploration of Japanese culture from an “outsider’s” point of view.

I also read...[read on]

About Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions, from the publisher:

An intensely brave, beautifully honest, and wryly funny story about a gay Muslim teen who has to choose between being true to himself or his faith—and his realization that maybe they aren’t as separate as he thought.

Ramin Abbas has spent his whole life obeying his parents, his Imam, and, of course, Allah—no questions asked. But when he starts crushing on the ridiculously handsome captain of the soccer team, so many things he’d always been so sure about are becoming questions:

1. Music is haram. But what if the Wicked soundtrack is the only thing keeping you sane because you’re being forced to play on the soccer team? With Captain Handsome?!

2. A boy crush is double haram, and Ramin’s parents will never accept it. But can he really be the only Muslim on Earth who feels this way?

3. Allah is merciful and makes no mistakes. Then isn’t Ramin just the way Allah intended him to be?

And so why should living your truth but losing everything—or living a lie and losing yourself—have to be a choice?!

Visit Ahmad Saber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions.

My Book, The Movie: Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions.

Writers Read: Ahmad Saber.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with James Cahill

From my Q&A with James Cahill, author of The Violet Hour: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?  

The title threads into the story in all kinds of ways. Colour plays an important role – the main character, Thomas Haller, is a famous painter who is celebrated for his abstract canvases. At the beginning of the novel, he has just created a new series of pictures in violet. The phrase itself comes from T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Waste Land’ (“At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives / Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea …”). That timeless image of an evening sky is ironic, because what follows in Eliot’s poem is a bleakly realist episode: a young female typist comes home from work, bored and tired, before her boyfriend forces himself on her.

Like ‘The Waste Land’, this novel is about the fragmentary, cacophonous nature of experience. It is set in the high-end world of contemporary art, but its themes are universal – loss, longing, beauty and desire. Thomas, the painter, is caught between romantic ideals and the inescapable, haunting facts of his experience. More generally, the phrase captures the novel’s interest in endings. Another character, Leo Goffman, is a real-estate tycoon in his eighties – the twilight of his existence. He spends his days surrounded by his art treasures, looking back at his life with a mixture of regret and defiance. Lorna, the third main character, is a British art dealer in her forties who has arrived at a personal impasse. Her girlfriend is about to leave her, and she’s wondering what her life will now be like. Many scenes in the story take place at...[read on]

Follow James Cahill on Instagram.

Q&A with James Cahill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Eric C. Smith's "Between Worlds"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Between Worlds: John A. Broadus, the Southern Baptist Seminary, and the Prospects of the New South by Eric C. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

John A. Broadus (1827–95) was a highly influential Southern Baptist leader, preacher, scholar, and educator during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He cofounded the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which today is among the largest seminaries in the world. Broadus’s enduring impact on American preaching stems in part from his 1870 homiletics manual, a widely adopted textbook that ministers continue to use today. A prominent southerner before and after the Civil War, Broadus actively shaped his region during the shift from the Old South to the New. Eric C. Smith’s Between Worlds―the first scholarly biography of Broadus―joins recent historical scholarship in reevaluating Broadus’s legacy.

Learn more about Between Worlds at the LSU Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Between Worlds.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top Hamptons novels

Nicole Sellew is a writer and English teacher based in Connecticut and New York City. In 2022, she received an MLitt in fiction from the University of St Andrews, where she is currently studying for her PhD.

Sellew's new novel is Lover Girl. The publisher calls it a "picaresque debut of forbidden desire, in which a young woman escapes NYC to work on her novel in the Hamptons, falling into a downward spiral of lovers and other destructive behaviors."

At Lit Hub the author tagged seven Hamptons novels to read this winter. One title on the list:

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

A coming-of-age story set in Sag Harbor in the eighties, told through the perspective of a prep-school teen boy spending his summer at the beach and navigating the racial politics of the East End. Read it if you like cocaine or The Smiths.

Read about another novel on Sellew's list.

Sag Harbor is among Brittany K. Allen's five novels to read if you’re fascinated by the Black bourgeoisie, Benjamin Markovits's top ten stories of male friendship, Amanda Brainerd's eight books to take you back to the Eighties, and Jeff Somers's top ten books to take you someplace you’ve likely never been.

--Marshal Zeringue