Why am I passionate about this?

I am the ultimate dilettante. I consume huge amounts of history, literature, and current events. I am not interested in dumbing down what I write. I am endlessly curious and assume my readers are also. I started writing during the pandemic and have not quit. I have completed three novels and have been an avid reader my entire life. Join me!


I wrote...

Imagining Monticello

By Heidi Matonis,

Book cover of Imagining Monticello

What is my book about?

Sara Stevens, wife, mother, and history professor, is kidnapped by a group of right-wing extremists who call themselves the Constitutionalists.…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Gone Girl

Heidi Matonis Why did I love this book?

This book is a smart pop culture thriller. I’ve read it twice to examine how Gillian Flynn crafts her suspenseful-filled sequences.

What I enjoyed most about this book was how unpredictable it was. I find it very rare for a thriller to be so well-written and believable. Amy, the protagonist, is so incredibly cunning, always one step ahead of Nick and the reader

By Gillian Flynn,

Why should I read it?

29 authors picked Gone Girl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE ADDICTIVE No.1 BESTSELLER AND INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON
OVER 20 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
THE BOOK THAT DEFINES PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

Who are you?
What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on…


Book cover of The Woman in White

Heidi Matonis Why did I love this book?

I really enjoyed this historical mystery novel. It is an early example of a narrative being told from multiple perspectives, some unreliable; beware!

The novel is a classic with beautiful language and sentence construction. I feel there is an elegance and craft given to this narrative rarely found in today’s commercial mystery genre. Sit back and enjoy being seduced by Wilkie Collins.

By Wilkie Collins,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Woman in White as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.

'The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.'

One of the earliest works of 'detective' fiction with a narrative woven together from multiple characters, Wilkie Collins partly based his infamous novel on a real-life eighteenth century case of abduction and wrongful imprisonment. In 1859, the story caused a sensation with its readers, hooking their attention with the ghostly first scene where the mysterious 'Woman in White'…


Book cover of Tinkers

Heidi Matonis Why did I love this book?

I loved the imagination and inner thoughts of the dying protagonist.

I believe the central question Harding wants the reader to contemplate is: what is our reality–our past and memories we carry, or is it just the physical place at that one moment in time? I think the author makes a convincing case that we are so much more than we appear.

By Paul Harding,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Tinkers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure.

A methodical repairer…


Book cover of The Da Vinci Code

Heidi Matonis Why did I love this book?

I enjoyed learning about religion from Dan Brown. I am not a religious person, so presenting so much research in a tightly bound thriller was an excellent way to keep me engaged and reading.

I came away from this book with a deeper psychological understanding of God and the devil.

By Dan Brown,

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked The Da Vinci Code as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes.

As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history.

Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the…


Book cover of The Day of the Jackal

Heidi Matonis Why did I love this book?

I loved this book for its attention to detail and meticulous plotting of the assassin, the Jackal. I also thought the police detective determined to stop him was wonderfully written.

My favorite scenes were set in Algeria, which was hot and exotic. It is a shame all thrillers can’t be this masterful.

By Frederick Forsyth,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked The Day of the Jackal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late.

It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General De Gaulle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent.

Known only as The Jackal, this remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped, but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?


Don't forget about my book 😀

Imagining Monticello

By Heidi Matonis,

Book cover of Imagining Monticello

What is my book about?

Sara Stevens, wife, mother, and history professor, is kidnapped by a group of right-wing extremists who call themselves the Constitutionalists. Eighteen months earlier, her 17-year-old son, Johnny, was killed in a random bombing attack by the same group.

Terrified, sensory deprived (blindfolded and ears plugged), and confined, Sara copes by imagining herself as a different woman throughout history, giving her suffering a meaningful context. For thirty-three days, Sara lives a primitive, 18th-century life, which includes physical labor and hardship as a captive in an abandoned country house. It’s only when she realizes her captor and his brethren are planning another historic attack and that he was responsible for the bomb that killed Johnny that she devises a diabolical plan to stop them.

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The Last Whaler

By Cynthia Reeves,

Book cover of The Last Whaler

Cynthia Reeves Author Of The Last Whaler

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Arctic adventurer Eternal optimist Unrealistic realist Foodie Teacher

Cynthia's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to rendezvous with the ship meant to carry them back to their home in southern Norway. 

Beyond enduring the Arctic winter’s twenty-four-hour night, the couple must cope with the dangers of polar bears, violent storms, and bitter cold, as well as Astrid’s unexpected pregnancy.

The Last Whaler concerns the impact of…

The Last Whaler

By Cynthia Reeves,

What is this book about?

The Last Whaler is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive under extreme conditions. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to rendezvous with the ship meant to carry them back to their home in southern Norway. Beyond enduring the Arctic winter's twenty-four-hour night, the couple must cope with the dangers of polar bears, violent storms, and bitter cold as well as Astrid's unexpected pregnancy. The Last Whaler concerns the impact of…


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