Author Paulette Stout and I first crossed paths years ago via a Facebook group, and since then, I’ve been surreptitiously keeping up with her. Paulette “considers herself a rhythm writer, using pacing to craft momentum, tension, and sticky reading experiences” and a “wordsmith who reveres the written word.” That’s probably why readers are singing praises,…

The old idiom reminds us not to “judge a book by its cover,” but we’re going to ignore those words when it comes to author Carol Van Den Hende‘s Goodbye, Orchid series. Each book has a striking cover that draws readers into a “well-researched” and “well-written book” that features traumatized individuals and their capacities to…

Sheila Athens writes the kinds of books I love to read—“smart women’s fiction with a hint of romance.” She also says that “her stories are about women seeking to find the peace we all deserve—whether they’re battling an external foe or an internal one (or both).” Which means her books are both relatable and realistic,…

The old saying is to write what you know, and author Caitlin Avery has done just that. In 2010, she released a memoir “that’s about learning from her mistakes, and learning how to accept herself entirely—one that alters her love life eternally.” She then poured her personal experience on several fronts into her women’s fiction…

Author Kimberly McMillan knows how to write enjoyable, relatable, and heartfelt fiction. Her debut novel, Never Enough Time, launched in early 2023 with Warren Publishing, and readers have used all three adjectives to describe the novel. Other readers praise different attributes. One Goodreads reviewer wrote, “I love stories like [this]—stories that have flawed characters who…

Plants, their survival, and climate change have always fascinated me, so I’m looking forward to reading The Life of Plants in a Changing Environment by Rishikesh Upadhyay. The book released in July 2022, and though it is Rishikesh’s fourth book, he says he’s been writing and preparing for years and loves “sharing his stories with the…

It’s rare that I feature two people at a time in these interviews, but today is one of those days. Stephen and Mary Weller are partners in both life and in writing. Married with “kids, pets, and a mortgage” for many years, they’re coauthors of the first two books in the Kantara Scrolls Series with…

One of my favorite types of people to showcase in this forum are the emerging authors, and DJ Hicks falls into that category. Though he’s just celebrated the one-year anniversary of his debut, First-Name Basis, the book was the “first (official) project” to make it from his head to the page thanks in part to…

Author Helen Garraway and I might write in different genres, but we certainly have (at least) two things in common: both of us inherited our love of reading from our mothers, and we started writing somewhat late in the game. Despite her delayed start, Helen is doing something exactly right: she’s an award-winning and USA…

Knowledge is power, and we can all learn something from experiences that differ from ours. Lexi Andresen Lutz hopes to help others with that learning process. She is the author of All Mixed Up: Discovering the Beauty in Racial Ambiguity, a memoir released in 2023. The book “delves into the complexities of navigating different cultural…