Why am I passionate about this?

My second novel, Snakes of St. Augustine, describes an unconventional love story served up with a large side of Florida weirdness. My first novel, City in a Forest, received a Gold Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association in 2020. My short fiction and essays have appeared in Pangyrus, Eckerd Review, Northern Virginia Review, Atticus Review, and elsewhere. I earned my bachelor’s degree in English from Eckerd College and the M.F.A. in Fiction from Queens University of Charlotte. Currently, I’m a writer for a university in Daytona Beach, Florida. A resident of Ponce Inlet, I began volunteering with the Volusia-Flagler Sea Turtle Patrol in 2018.


I wrote

Snakes of St. Augustine

By Ginger Pinholster,

Book cover of Snakes of St. Augustine

What is my book about?

The theft of Trina Leigh Dean’s beloved snakes—including a rare Eastern indigo named Unicorn, Banana Splits the yellow ball python,…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Nickel Boys

Ginger Pinholster Why did I love this book?

The devastating story of two boys unjustly sentenced to serve time in a nightmarish juvenile reform school, The Nickel Boys won a Pulitzer Prize and became a New York Times bestseller.

It is a must-read for anyone sampling literary works featuring Florida. The boys in the story, Elwood and Turner, endure and witness hellish abuse at the Nickel Academy. The boys’ haunting story, exquisitely told by Colson Whitehead, is based on Florida’s real-life Dozier school where thousands of children were tortured, raped, and murdered for more than a century.

Whitehead’s unflinching descriptions of terror and abuse can be tough to take, but they serve an important purpose, by forcing the reader to confront the hellish reality that was America under Jim Crow laws. Long after the last page is turned, if ever, this novel won’t leave you.

By Colson Whitehead,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Nickel Boys as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this Pulitzer Prize-winning follow-up to The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
 
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way…


Book cover of A Million Fragile Bones

Ginger Pinholster Why did I love this book?

Award-winning Florida author Connie May Fowler writes vividly and with intense emotion.

Best known for her six novels, including Before Women Had Wings, which became a film featuring Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Barkin, Fowler’s memoir, A Million Fragile Bones, describes the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Fowler was living a peaceful, luminous existence on Alligator Point, enjoying all the natural wonders that Florida has to offer, when a BP-operated oil rig exploded.

The disaster killed 11 men and spewed an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the sea. Her detailed and deeply personal account of the resulting catastrophic environmental damage is riveting, heartbreaking, and informative.

By Connie May Fowler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Million Fragile Bones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Environmental Studies. On April 20th, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, a BP operated oil rig, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven men died in the explosion. Before the well was capped, it spewed an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the gulf. The spill directly impacted 68,000 miles of ocean, and oil washed ashore along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Connie May Fowler began that day as she had begun most days for the previous sixteen years, immersed in the natural world that was her home on Alligator Point on Florida's gulf coast,…


Book cover of Swamplandia!

Ginger Pinholster Why did I love this book?

On a remote island off Florida’s southwest coast, the Bigtree family survives by wrestling alligators for tourists at Swamplandia!, but a brand new amusement park threatens their livelihood.

Southern Gothic at its most extreme, with elements of magical realism, Swamplandia! features a teen sister who courts ghosts following the death of her mother, a predator named Bird Man, a restless brother named Kiwi, and vulnerable thirteen-year-old Ava. Stephen King, whose work influenced Russell’s style, praised Swamplandia! as “brilliant, funny, [and] original.” 

By Karen Russell,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Swamplandia! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times Bestseller | Pulitzer Prize Finalist

"Ms. Russell is one in a million. . . . A suspensfuly, deeply haunted book."--The New York Times

Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness.

As Ava sets out…


Book cover of Florida Woman

Ginger Pinholster Why did I love this book?

Deb Rogers turns the classic “Florida Woman” meme on its head through her protagonist Jamie, a lost and desperate soul who winds up working at the bizarre Atlas Wildlife Refuge for macaques.

Three women in charge of the sanctuary soon seem to be creepy; they perform strange rituals and caution Jamie to avoid the medical lab. The novel’s setting, at the edge of the Ocala National Forest, immerses the reader in a tactile way into Jamie’s dark and ominous world. The plot races along at a fast clip and it avoids predictable twists, offering a fresh take on the story of a Florida woman whose mistake turned her into a viral punchline.

Readers will be rooting for Jamie to transform into a more empowered young woman. Think Carl Hiaasen meets Karen Russell.

By Deb Rogers,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Florida Woman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Razor-sharp... Deb Rogers writes with such verve and honesty about all the ways we stumble through life, and, like all great storytellers, gives us something wondrous when we reach the end of the journey.”—Kevin Wilson, bestselling author of Nothing to See Here

An Indie Next Selection • A Fantastic Strangelings Book Club Pick • Recommended by: Harper's Bazaar • Shondaland • New York Post • Goodreads • Lambda Literary • Book Riot • Reader’s Digest • LGBTQReads • Medium • Debutiful • She Reads • Autostraddle •and more!

A gleefully dark and entertaining debut for fans of Kevin Wilson and…


Book cover of Their Eyes Were Watching God

Ginger Pinholster Why did I love this book?

Anyone interested in literature featuring Florida must read Hurston’s enduring master work.

The novel describes Janie Crawford’s coming-of-age journey, especially in Eatonville, Florida, which became one of the nation’s first all-black cities, incorporated in 1887. Janie, a child of slavery and rape, flees an oppressive arranged marriage, and later, she survives abusive lovers. Originally published in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God challenged gender stereotypes and presented a strong black female protagonist.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the novel is Hurston’s use of the Florida setting to both set the mood and drive plot choices. When protagonist Janie escapes violence, she flees the Panhandle for the more secluded, dense wilderness of Central Florida. There, complex waterways follow the characters’ various movements.

By Zora Neale Hurston,

Why should I read it?

17 authors picked Their Eyes Were Watching God as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Cover design by Harlem renaissance artist Lois Mailou Jones

When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds ...

'For me, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece…


Explore my book 😀

Snakes of St. Augustine

By Ginger Pinholster,

Book cover of Snakes of St. Augustine

What is my book about?

The theft of Trina Leigh Dean’s beloved snakes—including a rare Eastern indigo named Unicorn, Banana Splits the yellow ball python, and Bandit the banded king snake—coincides with the disappearance of a troubled young man named Gethin Jacobs. While his sister, Serena, searches for him, she gains an unlikely accomplice—Jazz, a homeless community college student. Meanwhile, Trina’s friend Fletch, a burned-out cop, scours St. Augustine, Florida, for the stolen snakes. His quest puts Fletch on a dangerous collision course with Gethin, raising questions about the importance of community and the power of compassion.

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Book cover of Girl of Light

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Why am I passionate about this?

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What is my book about?

A girl of Light in a world of darkness.

In Svetlana's country, it’s a felony to break a mirror. Mirrors are conduits of the Voice, the deity worshiped by all who follow Light. The Voice protects humans of MotherLand from the dangers that beset them on all sides: an invading army of wolf-headed men on their borders and the infectious, ever-evolving, zombie-like Enemy that plagues them at home. When Svetlana meets Andrei, a traumatized and amnesiac soldier from another war, she embarks on a harrowing journey of adventure and self-discovery that leads her to question everything she was taught to…

Girl of Light

By Elana Gomel,

What is this book about?

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Girl of Light is a dark fantasy with a Slavic…


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