63 books like Beneath the Wide Silk Sky

My mother was one of the first women to do labor negotiations in the Steel Industry. My sisters and I were raised to believe we could do anything. I have one sister who does executive coaching, another who is a pilot, and I am a writer. I also have two girls of my own. One is an EMT and the other is getting her doctorate in Special Ed. They are both giving but strong-minded. I am proud of them both. I believe strongly that girls need role models in life to understand that with grit and hard work, they can make a world in which their dreams can be realized.

The defining event in my parents’ lives, World War II has always been in my blood. When I was growing up, it would surface now and again when old comrades came to visit or when we came across souvenirs from the war. My favorite was a carefully etched German map showing sea lanes in the Caribbean, exotic and somehow menacing at the same time. My curiosity piqued, I knew I wanted to be in the thick of history—which meant reading and writing about the war, getting my PhD in history, and becoming a Marine and an intelligence officer.  

The defining event in my parents’ lives, World War II has always been in my blood. When I was growing up, it would surface now and again when old comrades came to visit or when we came across souvenirs from the war. My favorite was a carefully etched German map showing sea lanes in the Caribbean, exotic and somehow menacing at the same time. My curiosity piqued, I knew I wanted to be in the thick of history—which meant reading and writing about the war, getting my PhD in history, and becoming a Marine and an intelligence officer.  

I'm a professor of modern U.S. history and have spent my career researching this list's fascinating era. This moment began our modern political history. The first Red Scare in the United States, erupting in the wake of World War I and the Russian Revolution, was a conflict over the definition and limits of radicalism in a modern democracy and the limits of its repression. It was also tied to other seismic questions of the era that remain relevant, including how far the fights of women and Blacks for opportunities and rights that other Americans took for granted could succeed, whether to end mass immigration, the meaning of ‘Americanism,’ the extent of civil liberties, the limits of capitalism, and the role of social movements in the republic.

In addition to being a writer, I’m also a wildlife researcher and therefore spend a lot of time in wild, remote areas. Using a variety of methods including bioacoustic studies, I undertake wildlife surveys to determine what species are present on lands that have been set aside for conservation. I ensure there are no signs of poaching and devise of ways to improve habitat. I have surveyed for the presence of grizzlies, wolves, spotted owls, wolverines, jaguars, endangered bats, and more. These remote settings inspired me to write my current thriller series about a wildlife biologist who encounters dangerous situations while working to protect endangered species.

The first twenty-five years of my life appeared to be atypical for an inner-city African American boy from a large family. Only a small number of children were bused to more “academically advanced” schools. I earned that honor by frequently running away from the local school. Overcoming the challenges of being a minority in a demanding, predominantly Jewish, school district eventually benefited me greatly. In the early 1970s, my parents did something unprecedented for a working-class African American family from Queens: They bought an old, dilapidated farmhouse in Upstate New York's dairy country as a summer home. What other unusual life experiences that impact people of color have taken place on the American tapestry? 

I’ve been an avid reader since I was a kid. Werewolf books have always called to me, and so has the moon—but that’s another story. Ha! In all honestly, I love the sense of loyalty and family that comes with werewolves and their packs. Family means a lot to me, and that bleeds over into the type of stories I write. I’ve been an Indie Author for over 10 years now with 50+ books under my belt. I have a passion for writing about shifters of all types (including werewolves), small towns, and romance. 

We are twin brothers that like climbing mountains and peakbagging around the world. Our goal is to climb the highest mountain in every country on earth, and we’ve so far gotten up the highpoints of 139 countries out of 196 total. We got started doing long bicycle tours in Europe climbing country highpoints on the cheap after graduate school at MIT. Recently we've climbed some of the most difficult country highpoints in the world like Pik Pobeda (24,406ft), the Kyrgyzstan highpoint, Noshaq (24,580ft), the Afghanistan highpoint, and K2 (28,261ft), the Pakistan highpoint.

Fantasy romance is a broad genre that simply captivates and enthralls me. The combination of romance, passion, action, humor, magic, mystery, and drama ignites this spark in my heart, filling my metaphorical cup of happiness. But what makes these books so amazing is the strong female perspective they are told from. It’s not making tough decisions or embodying their masculine energies that make them strong. It’s their ability to balance dealing with external conflicts while struggling with self-confidence and loving others so completely that makes them such incredible women to read. Those are the stories I want to read, and those are the stories I want to tell.

Dogs make great supporting characters, adding drama or humor or pathos, and revealing so much about the humans in the story. I discovered this in writing my first novel: The narrator’s dog keeps her grounded when things go wrong and makes it possible for her to keep going through difficult times. For the reader, he provides levity and depth without turning it into a book about a dog. I had a great model – I used my own dog Boris, even appropriating his name. I think of the fictional Boris as real-life Boris’s best self.