When I started writing mysteries, beginning with St. Martin’s Malice Award-winning Southern Fried,I wanted to get the medical, investigative, and courtroom details right. What better resource than good first-hand accounts from professionals who do those things every day? I love traditional, play-fair mysteries and the puzzles they present. But I also love writers who get the technical details right while also writing engaging novels I can get lost in. Nothing better than curling up with a good mystery.
Those who think of Agatha Christie as a “soft” crime writer need to look at her books again. She qualified as a pharmacist during WWI, and she made good use of her knowledge of poisons in her novels. Cyanide was her most often used poison choice, but I like The Pale Horsebecause it’s one of the rare—and accurate—appearances of thallium in a mystery novel. Christie’s writing made my discoveries about North Carolina’s serial female serial poisoners even more intriguing.
A priest's death leads to sinister goings-on in an old country pub...
To understand the strange goings on at The Pale Horse Inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning?
Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman's head? Or was it when the priest's assailant searched him so roughly he tore the clergyman's cassock? Or could it have been the priest's visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her death bed?
Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble which Mark Easterbrook had himself…
I wanted to write crime fiction from a young age. I took a Biomedical Science degree, hoping to follow this with a PhD in Forensics but soon realised I didn’t want to spend the rest of my working life in a lab. So I took a Master’s degree in Science Communication and became a health journalist and editor instead. I knew my own crime novel needed to feature a journalist. My main character, Shanna Regan, has spent her life travelling, whereas my own job has always been desk-based in the UK. Maybe this is why I love reading crime novels that whisk me off to other countries (in my head)!
Scrublands is another crime novel that took me to faraway places, this time to a remote Australian town during a relentless drought.
The desolate landscape was so well described that I could feel the intense heat of the Australian sunshine and the harshness of the outback surroundings. While battling inner demons from traumatic experiences, journalist Martin Scarsden is desperate to rekindle his career, whatever the cost, while investigating a tragic shooting incident a year earlier.
Journalists tend to be outsiders in a small town, prompting suspicion from the locals, but are also well-placed to drag up secrets from the past due to their persistent natures. Author Chris Hammer is a former journalist and his portrayal of Martin and the media feels authentic.
Winner of the 2019 CWA Dagger New Blood Award for Best First Crime Novel
In an isolated country town brought to its knees by endless drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners before being shot dead himself.
A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don't fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation.…
I’ve always been fascinated by our creative urges and ambitions, and by what makes us who we are and why we make the choices we do. While I’m interested in many aspects of human experience and psychology, from the mundane to the murderous, I’m especially drawn to narratives that probe our deeper psyches and look, particularly with a grain of humor, at our efforts to expand our understanding and create great works—or simply to become wiser and more enlightened beings. What is our place in the universe? Why are we here? Who are we? The books I’ve listed explore some of these matters in ways both heartfelt and humorous.
Pastoralis one of my favorite recent discoveries. It’s one of a quincunx of novels linked by exploration of five classic literary genres—in this case the currently unfashionable pastoral. Newly ordained priest Christopher Pennant isn’t greatly pleased that his first parish assignment is to a rural town where sheep are numerous. He assumes he’ll be a suitable shepherd to the humans, people he expects to be simple and straightforward. Of course, they aren’t. They’re not only as complex as people anywhere else, but very unexpected. Father Pennant not only finds he has a self-appointed cello-playing chef as rectory caretaker, but he witnesses three possible miracles. Or are they trickery? I love the depth and gentle humor in the priest’s attempts to understand his parishioners and himself. And nature, too.
There were plans for an official welcome. It was to take place the following Sunday. But those who came to the rectory on Father Pennant's second day were the ones who could not resist seeing him sooner. Here was the man to whom they would confess the darkest things. It was important to feel him out. Mrs Young, for instance, after she had seen him eat a piece of her macaroni pie, quietly asked what he thought of adultery. Andre Alexis brings a modern sensibility and a new liveliness to an age-old genre, the pastoral. For his very first parish,…
KC Carmine has a certain European flair to all of her stories, a quality I appreciate as a reader. I also love how she pushed boundaries and elegantly mixes love and attraction with a heady dose of light-hearted kink.
As the title suggests here, this book features a man disguised as a priest, a besotted parishioner in need of a good seeing to, and no romance would be complete without a mafia backstory and some villains to throw in the mix.
I really, really enjoyed this steamy romp of a M/M romance, and it’s one of the books that stood out the most for me this year because it was different, quirky, and kept me on my toes.
Megan is a long-time resident of queer fantasy romance and keeps herself busy reading and writing it. She has been doing so for nearly twenty years, and hopes to do it at least another twenty. She is asexual, biromantic, and married to a wonderful woman. When she’s not busy writing, she likes to cook, harass her wife and cats, or watch movies and play video games.
This is one of the best books of redemption I've ever read, about a man who did some truly horrible, some would say unforgivable things, and has been working hard the past several years to make amends for his wrongs, a journey he continues even as he meets the man who just might be the love of his life. All this in a beautifully built fantasy world, and while it is book two in the series it stands on its own just fine. When it comes to tales of redemption and forgiveness, though, of facing a sordid past and working to overcome it, this book continues to set the bar for me.
On the outside, Mayr seems to have it all: a successful career as Head of the Guard for a prominent politician, family and friends who rely on him, and the attention of beautiful lovers. But appearances are a good way to bury secrets, including mistakes he can never fix and a broken heart that never seems to heal, forever searching for the one person to share his life with.When his last girlfriend takes him back and suggests an intimate night together with Tash, one of her lovers, Mayr reluctantly agrees. The last thing he expects is to fall hard for…
Although I currently write romantic women’s fiction, because I came up in the Literary Fiction community, I frequently have writer friends ask me to recommend well-written Romance. Leaving aside the subjectivity of well-written and the snobbery inherent in the suggestion that Romance—a category they’ve admitted to never having read—isn’t generally well-written, I first have to explain that Romance has rules: While we often associate Romance with sex on the page, technically, it’s not a requirement. There are only two requirements, according to the Romance Writers of America: the love story has to be the central storyline of the book; and there has to be a happily ever after (HEA).
Look. I could tell you it’s a modern-day gothic. I could tell you it wields its heresy to illuminate the true meaning of God. I could tell you she writes with the clarity of an imprisoned martyr watching the pyre being assembled outside her window. But, really, I just want you to know that I read Sierra Simone with a goofy smile on my face, marveling at how she makes the bonkers believable. She’s a surreal realist. There’s an energy here that’s simply unmatched. The book vibrates. And if you make it through Priest, might I suggest her New Camelot trilogy, which tackles the only thing more sacred than the Catholic church: the American presidency.
There are many rules a priest can't break. A priest cannot marry. A priest cannot abandon his flock. A priest cannot forsake his God.
I've always been good at following rules.
Until she came. Then I learned new rules.
My name is Tyler Anselm Bell. I'm twenty-nine years old. Six months ago, I broke my vow of celibacy on the altar of my own church, and God help me, I would do it again.
I was bowled over with how novelist O’Neill skillfully transmutes a raw and desperate tale into a haunting and unforgettable fable of faith and sacrifice.
The stories of Aitor and Jacob, two priests selected to help rebuild the world following a nuclear apocalypse, are interwoven with those of Talik and Ziek, friends exiled from a city of mutants after Ziek exhibits symptoms of the dreaded Burdening disease.
The two tragic storylines eventually converge as the sets of characters must confront daunting odds, constantly questioning whether God cares at all for mankind, or if He has finally turned His face away from a hopeless, murderous species. While it’s certainly a dark tale, I absolutely loved the achingly beautiful writing in this work.
Sixteen hundred years ago, as the old world died, a ship carried thirty-three priests and one hundred pilgrims into orbit. One by one, the priests lived solitary lives, praying for salvation. At his vigil's end, Father Aitor wakes the final priest--Jacob, whom he loves--to lead the survivors as they rebuild civilization. Their mission is clear: bring Christ to the wilderness. But Aitor has never heard God's voice, and he is beginning to believe that Jacob hasn't either. And when they encounter strange, deformed creatures, doubt is not their only threat. In a nearby community, Talit has always believed in the…
As someone who grew up agnostic and somehow ended up an Episcopal Church lady, I’m intrigued by writers who deal with Christian belief respectfully without leaving their sense of humor behind. I don’t believe that faith is required to be moral—my nonreligious parents are more principled than many Christians I know—but I like to see characters work out that tension between what we’re taught in Scripture, what we believe or want to believe, and how we actually live it out in daily life (sins and all). I especially enjoy watching this happen in that peculiar petri dish of personalities that is any local church.
This novel traces the coming of age of the only child, a daughter, of a very traditional Episcopal priest. He struggles with depression, a failed marriage, and his work. She struggles to keep up her father’s spirits and tend to his household, as well as with the abandonment of them by her mother and with the question of who she shall be when she isn’t just tending to her dad. Ultimately, she arrives at a calling of her own. It’s a warm-hearted, leisurely novel that also can be quite comical about church people and human interaction of all kinds, but also treats faith seriously. (There’s also a good sequel that takes us into her ministry, Evensong.)
I lived and worked in South Korea for four years, where I first became fascinated with the country’s history, from shamans on Jeju island to the twentieth-century politics of Seoul. I’m the author of two novels and dozens of short stories and essays published in venues around the world, many of which feature some element of Korean history. I’m originally from Canada and now teach creative writing at the University of Adelaide in Australia.
I’m so impressed by the sense of closeness, the claustrophobic setting, and the relationships Endo evokes in this novel.
The intensely atmospheric language perfectly matches the storyline, which involves Portuguese Jesuit priests arriving in seventeenth-century Japan, where they are martyred in devastatingly cruel and grotesque ways. But that’s not to say there isn’t beauty in the novel, either.
I found joy in the historical details, setting, and the rendering of individual lives—the characters’ anguish and existential crises speaking to me through imagined centuries and deft translation.
Now a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Liam Neeson, Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield.
With an introduction by Martin Scorsese
'One of the finest historical novels written by anyone, anywhere . . . Flawless' - David Mitchell
Father Rodrigues is an idealistic Portuguese Jesuit priest who, in the 1640s, sets sail for Japan on a determined mission to help the brutally oppressed Japanese Christians and to discover the truth behind unthinkable rumours that his famous teacher Ferreira has renounced his faith. Once faced with the realities of religious persecution Rodrigues himself is forced to make an impossible…
I read this
series when it first came out and fell in love with the many quirky characters
and the small town of Mitford. So, I vowed to re-read the entire series this
year. A Light in the Window is one of my favorites. Although it is hard to
choose just one.
The main
character is an Episcopal priest, Father Tim. This life-long bachelor’s life
changes in many ways, especially when a lovely woman moves in next door to
the parsonage. First, his life turned a bit when he acquired a huge dog,
Barnabus, who, for some reason, calmed down when Father Tim recited Bible verses to
him.
So much wit,
wisdom, and warmth in each of these books in the series. Jan Karon is a fabulous
storyteller, bringing readers into the scenes and developing characters that
feel like old friends and some that remind me of my Aunt Ruth!…
In this beautifully crafted second novel in the Mitford series, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jan Karon delivers a love story that's both heartwarming and hilarious.
Father Tim-Mitford's rector and lifelong bachelor-is in need of divine intervention. His attractive neighbor is tugging at his heartstrings. A wealthy widow is pursuing him with hot casseroles. And his red-haired Cousin Meg has moved into the rectory, uninvited.
Only time will tell if the village parson can practice what he preaches. Filled with the miracles and mysteries of everyday life, A Light in the Window is an affirmation of what some of…