Judith Starkston has spent too much time exploring the remains of the ancient worlds of the Greeks and Hittites. Their myths and clashes inspire her fiction and open gates to magical realms. She has degrees in Classics from the University of California, Santa Cruz and Cornell. She loves myths and telling stories, and her novels imbue fantasy with the richness of ancient worlds. The first book in her Trojan Threads Series, Hand of Fire was a semi-finalist for the M.M. Bennett’s Award for Historical Fiction. Priestess of Ishana, the first in her historical fantasy Tesha series, won the San Diego State University Conference Choice Award. Judith is represented by Richard Curtis.
Women who have lost their freedom to act according to their own choices—that’s the theme of Delany’s More Than Sorrow. Delany has interwoven the stories of Hannah, Hila and Maggie, moving from contemporary Canada, to Afghanistan to the Revolutionary period in North America to show three quite different ways in which women lose their autonomy.
Set in 17th century England, the intricacies of food preparation in a great English castle are on detailed display while we follow John’s life story from village childhood with a mother accused of witchcraft through Cromwell’s civil war and an unlikely love affair.
Book Giveaway. Set in Florence in 1963. Inspector Bordelli uncovers the killer of a wealthy signora, all while consuming delicious food and pondering philosophically.
Book Giveaway! Rubies of the Viper is a genuine gem of a mystery set in Rome during the reigns of the Emperors Claudius and Nero. The heroine is a fictional woman named Theodosia Varro, who at the opening of the novel has inherited a vast fortune–which seems to draw both suitors and killers to her doorstep.
Charles Todd’s A Bitter Truth interweaves the vices of war with the failings of families into a psychologically and historically compelling mystery set in England in 1917. Bess Crawford, an intelligent and fearless nurse working on the front lines in France, comes home on leave to discover a frightened young woman with a bruised face hiding on the doorstep of her London flat.
Fast-paced with a sense of humor and a shiver of terror, Shunning Sarah uncovers layers of mire in the Amish community of Harmony, Minnesota and among the TV broadcast staff of Spartz’s Channel 3.
The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall: from the New York Review of Books, insights into the central role of “story” in humanity.
Join the Desert Sleuths Sisters in Crime for a fantastic conference for writers (and readers) at the gorgeous Millennium Resort on August 11. To register right now go to the DesertSleuths.com website.
SoWest: Desert Justice, an anthology of 20 mystery stories including Judith Starkston’s story “A Season for Death,” is now available on Amazon.
Obituaries aren’t usually quite this exciting. I held my lunch partner spellbound reading this one of James Mellaart, a groundbreaking archaeologist in ancient Anatolia/Turkey.
