Filtering Tag: Books/Authors

Rich Curtin (Moab, Utah)

Location – Moab, Utah

Rich Curtin writes a mystery series, featuring Deputy Sheriff, Manny Rivera. He is everything you would want in a hero. and more. Rich Curtin is one of a few fine authors who take the big city police procedurial into the back country setting.

With each mystery comes a travelogue of southeastern Utah featuring Moab and the surrounding majestic landscape. Along with strengh of character, Curtin delivers stories steeped in the history and culture of the area. Now, Moab has grown in popularity as a destination not to be missed the in southwest. Spend some time there with Manny Rivera before you go. And, once you read one of the books in the series and look at some pictures, you will want to go.

 

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Hello, Bookstore

Hello, Bookstore – Lenox, Massachusetts

As Roaming the Arts reflects on the last year or so, the most heartwarming story about books and the people who love them is the story of a small New England bookstore, on the verge of closing due to the pandemic, and the documentary film made to tell the story of survival.

In 2020, on the verge of closing down, a GoFundMe was started and the owner’s friends, the town, and many others stepped up to save this independent bookstore. It’s a great story, and for this website, at the heart of why our passion for authors and books is a sharing experience.

Check out some of what was said in Print:

In the Local paper.

What Variety said.

(also find stories in the NY Times, the Boston Globe, and many others.)

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Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Read: The Golden Couple

GREER HENDRICKS 

is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Wife Between Us. Prior to becoming a novelist, she spent two decades as an editor at Simon & Schuster. She obtained her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Allure, and Publishers Weekly. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.

SARAH PEKKANEN 

is the internationally and USA Today bestselling author of eight previous solo novels and the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Wife Between Us. A former investigative journalist and award-winning feature writer, she has published work in The Washington Post, USA Today, and many others. She is the mother of three sons and lives just outside Washington, D.C.

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Don Winslow

Don Winslow

An author with an impact and a message – see Don Winslow Films

April 2022 – The start of a new trilogy – City on Fire

“Epic, ambitious, majestic, City on Fire is The Godfather for our generation.” – Adrian McKinty, New York Times bestselling author of The Chain

Two criminal empires together control all of New England.

Until a beautiful woman comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance, and set a city on fire.

Danny Ryan yearns for a more “legit” life and a place in the sun. But as the bloody conflict stacks body on body and brother turns against brother, Danny has to rise above himself. To save the friends he loves like family and the family he has sworn to protect, he becomes a leader, a ruthless strategist, and a master of a treacherous game in which the winners live and the losers die.

From the gritty streets of Providence to the glittering screens of Hollywood to the golden casinos of Las Vegas, two rival crime families ignite a war that will leave only one standing. The winner will forge a dynasty.

Exploring the classic themes of loyalty, betrayal, and honor, City on Fire is a contemporary masterpiece in the tradition of The GodfatherCasino, and Goodfellas—a thrilling saga from Don Winslow, “America’s greatest living crime writer” (Jon Land, Providence Journal).

A most unusual review – #BooksWithWallace

2020 release, “Broken.”

In six intense short novels connected by the themes of crime, corruption, vengeance, justice, loss, betrayal, guilt and redemption, Broken is #1 international bestseller Don Winslow at his nerve-shattering, heart-stopping, heartbreaking best. In Broken, he creates a world of high-level thieves and low-life crooks, obsessed cops struggling with life on and off the job, private detectives, dope dealers, bounty hunters and fugitives, the lost souls driving without headlights through the dark night on the American criminal highway.

With his trademark blend of insight, humanity, humor, action and the highest level of literary craftsmanship, Winslow delivers a collection of tales that will become classics of crime fiction.

The Trilogy

Of all the blows delivered by Don Winslow’s Cartel trilogy, none may be as devastating as the timing of “The Border,” its stunner of a conclusion. Though Winslow cannot have engineered all of this 14 years ago when he started this series, his sweeping new novel concerns subjects that put it right on the culture’s front burner: the Mexican-American border, the handling of migrant children, the opioid crisis and some barely fictionalized claims about how foreign money has bought influence at the highest level of the U.S. government.

The book’s title, “The Border,” refers to both physical and moral barriers. Winslow is well aware that both that and its cover image, which depicts a razor-wire-topped wall spreading across a desert landscape, are politically loaded. “Loaded phrases, like loaded guns, are more interesting, aren’t they?” Winslow said to Entertainment Weekly in September. As for the book’s depiction of fiercely partisan American politics, including its treatment of characters who are unmistakable versions of the current president and his son-in-law: “I know this book is going to make some people angry. I can live with that.”

Even though the first installment of this trilogy was named “The Power of the Dog,” after a biblical intimation of evil (“Deliver my soul from the sword; my love from the power of the dog,” Psalms 22:20), it only hinted at the magnitude and ferocity of what was to come. That opening novel now looks like the series’ relatively innocent prologue — and it is as blade-sharp, violent, pulse-quickening and reportorially shocking as the pinnacle of some lesser series might be.

“The Power of the Dog” is, in brief, about the first decades that bind the destinies of Art Keller, a Vietnam veteran and later D.E.A. agent, and Adán Barrera, a young Mexican who will go on to achieve the most dizzying heights of power. The book begins in a burning Mexican poppy field in 1975 (“Only in hell, Art Keller thinks, do flowers bloom fire”) and leaves Keller among more poppies in 2004. Many unspeakable acts happen in between, melding the personal with the political (Iran-contra). It is all rendered unputdownable by Winslow’s unrivaled skill at his game.

Joe Rothstein

Joe Rothstein – Author and Political Strategist

“Must read political thriller of 2022”

In his words:

Can democratic government provide the answers? That’s the question at the core of “Menace.”
Three decades ago, a meeting at Kyoto, Japan confirmed the threat of a warming planet and produced a plan for dealing with it. Three decades later, with unprecedented heat, fire, storm, flood, drought, and climate-related migration accelerating even beyond the Kyoto forecasts, governments still have not responded in a manner equal to the threat.

Eight decades ago, atomic bombs were used in warfare. The danger of their use again has not receded. More nations have them stockpiled. Delivery systems remain trigger-ready, and with delivery speeds now approaching hypersonic levels.

Even a technology seemingly as benign as the Internet has been transformed into the beating heart of political turmoil and repression.

I wrote The Moment of Menace and its prequel, The Salvation Project to imagine these threats in the context of fiction. But the question addressed is our reality. How does democracy survive in this age of advanced science?

The irony is that aside from nuclear weapons, much of what is being created can contribute to a golden age—a better life for all who come after us. Far from being bleak, the future can be glorious. Can it be both glorious and remain the democratic system most of us cherish? That’s the question The Moment of Menace addresses.

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Laura Lippman

Location – Maryland

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working full-time and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. 

Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards.

She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade.

After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light.

Dina Greenberg

Dina Greenberg

In the Fall of 2021 Dina published her first full novel, Nermina’s Chance.

In the realm of discovering new writers, it is often by chance.

Enjoying this book. Great chance.

War sears its imprint on the human spirit in infinite ways.

After her family is murdered and her body ravaged by Serbian soldiers, Nermina Beganović’s only chance of survival is to flee her Bosnian homeland during the Balkan War, circa 1992.

Nermina’s Chance by Dina Greenberg reimagines the essence of family and plumbs the depths of a mother’s ardent connection to her daughter.

Nermina’s Chance in less expert hands would have ended up as a drifting trilogy. Dina Greenberg has kept her story together in one tight and suspenseful narrative, intricately woven. She has given us a cast of main characters each worthy of their own novel. Rarely does a story blend so meaningfully the horrors of war, the possibilities and limits of love, and the human need for family. If you give Nermina’s Chance a chance, you will soon be turning the last page.”
Clyde Edgerton, author of Walking Across Egypt and The Night Train
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Related links for independent authors:

      Publisher : https://atmospherepress.com/
      Independent Bookseller : https://bookshop.org/

Robert Galbraith

Location – London and elsewhere in Great Britain

Robert Galbraith a.k.a. J.K. Rowling

When you browse Roaming the Arts you may note that the mission is to drive web traffic to known artists who may be familiar, but not “household names.” Thus you won’t find Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, or authors whose reach is worldwide such as James Patterson or, in this case, J.K. Rowling. They don’t need this post to send fans to their web presence.

You will also note the Word and Film connection, where it is found to be exciting when a great book has been turned into good film or television. That, in our opinion, is not easy, and is a bit rare and extremely exciting when located.

Ms. Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith, had ducked under our radar, and in all honesty was found by taking note of the HBO series C.B. Strike, where the first four books in the series have been presented with book five, Troubled Blood, in production. Whether looking for a good read or the next show to stream, Galbraith has created characters in Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott who will live in your consciousness for some time.

Good news for fans : Book six in the series, The Ink Black Heart, available August 30, 2022

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Robert B. Parker’s Beloved Characters

Location – Boston Area

Spenser / Jesse Stone / Sunny Randall

and the old west with – Cole and Hitch

With the passing of Robert B. Parker, now over ten years ago, his estate has engaged numerous authors to continue his legacy, but more so, to satisfy the longing his readers have for these characters. Throughout, television has engaged these characters. Spenser for Hire as a series, Jesse Stone in regularly released TV movies and a Cole & Hitch western – Appaloosa.

Now, Ace Atkins continues the Spenser series, Michael Brandman, (3) and Reed Farrell Coleman (5) added Jesse Stone stories from 2012-2019, Robert Knott contributed five Cole & Hitch westerns and most recently Mike Lupica, known for his books and sports commentary, has brought back Sunny Randall in three books and is about to publish his second novel in continuation of the Jesse Stone saga.

In this editor’s opinion, they are all gifts and well worthy of keeping these iconic characters alive in fiction. Having only recently finding out about Mike Lupica’s four entries in the mix, I read them all and will continue to do so. What fun to hang out in Boston with Sunny and Jesse. Thank you all.

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C.J. Box

Location – Montana/Wyoming

C. J. Box

C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 27 novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction.  He was recently awarded the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature by the National Cowboy Museum as well as the Spur Award for Best Contemporary Novel by the Western Writers of America in 2017.  Over six million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad and they’ve been translated into 27 languages.  Two television series based on his novels are currently in development.

Watch “Big Sky” on ABC

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