The Authors
Amy Sue Nathan is the author of Left to Chance, The Glass Wives, and The Good Neighbor (St. Martins) and The Last Bathing Beauty (Lake Union). Amy is the founder of WomensFictionWriters.com, which was named a Best Website for Writers by Writer’s Digest.
Born and raised in Philadelphia and a graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor’s in Journalism, Amy now lives in Chicago after twenty-six years away, and is the proud mom of two grown children and a willing servant to one rescued grey cat named Riggins aka Good Boy.
In addition to being a writer and book coach, Amy is a former-vegetarian, not-so-secret crafter, chocolate enthusiast, and lipstick collector. Find her at amysuenathan.com.
Kelly Simmons is a former journalist, advertising creative director and the author of six novels sold in a dozen countries: Standing Still and The Bird House (Simon & Schuster) One More Day, The Fifth of July, Where She Went, and Not My Boy (Sourcebooks).
She teaches in the Drexel University MFA program, and is a member of WFWA, Tall Poppy Writers and The Liars Club, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping fledgling novelists.
Additionally, she co-helms the weekly writers podcast “Liars Club Oddcast.”
Kelly was born the same day as Dorothy Parker. Coincidence? She thinks not. Visit her at kellysimmonsbooks.com.
Lori Nelson Spielman is a New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author whose novels have hit #1 in six different countries. Formerly a speech pathologist, guidance counselor, and teacher of homebound students, she holds master’s degrees in speech pathology and guidance counseling.
Lori enjoys fitness running, traveling, and reading, though writing is her true passion. Her first novel, The Life List, has been published in thirty countries and optioned by Fox 2000. Her second novel, Sweet Forgiveness, was also an international bestseller. Her third book, The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany, released November 17, 2020.
Lori lives in Michigan with her husband and their very spoiled puppy.
Learn more at LoriNelsonSpielman.com
Wade Rouse is the internationally bestselling author of eleven books, translated into 20 languages. Wade chose his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman, as pen name to honor the woman whose heirlooms inspire his fiction.
Wade’s books have been selected as Must-Reads by NBC’s Today Show, Indie Next Picks, Michigan Notable Book of the Year, and featured in the Washington Post, USA Today and on Chelsea Lately. Dorothea Benton Frank said, “Every so often a new voice in fiction arrives to charm, entertain and remind us what matters. Viola Shipman is that voice.”
His new novel, The Clover Girls, publishes May 18. He hosts Wine & Words with Wade, A Literary Happy Hour, every Thursday on the Viola Shipman Facebook Page at 6:30 p.m. EST. Visit Wade at waderouse.com.
Your Host
Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of the award-winning psychological suspense novel The Marsh King’s Daughter published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the US and in 25 other countries and The Wicked Sister (August 2020), also from G.P. Putnam’s Sons. The Marsh King’s Daughter was named a 2018 Michigan Notable Book, took home the Barry and the Crimson Scribe Awards for Best Novel, and was chosen as one of the best books of 2017 by iBooks, Hudson Booksellers, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Irish Independent, The Florida Sun-Sentinel, Library Journal, Shelf Awareness and many other booksellers and reviewers and is in development as a major motion picture.
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls The Wicked Sister “A devastating, magic realism–dusted psychological thriller . . . Dionne paints a haunting portrait of a family hurtling toward the tragic destiny they can foresee but are powerless to stop.” Visit Karen at www.karen-dionne.com
Authors’ Books
The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne
From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Marsh King’s Daughter comes a startling novel of psychological suspense as two generations of sisters try to unravel their tangled relationships between nature and nurture, guilt and betrayal, love and evil.
You have been cut off from society for fifteen years, shut away in a mental hospital in self-imposed exile as punishment for the terrible thing you did when you were a child.
But what if nothing about your past is as it seems? And if you didn’t accidentally shoot and kill your mother, then whoever did is still out there. Waiting for you.
Purchase The Wicked Sister at an independent bookstore near you.
Purchase The Wicked Sister online at www.bookshop.org.
The Last Bathing Beauty by Amy Sue Nathan
Everything seemed possible in the summer of 1951. Back then Betty Stern was an eighteen-year-old knockout working at her grandparents’ lakeside resort. The “Catskills of the Midwest” was the perfect place for Betty to prepare for bigger things. She’d head to college in New York City. Her career as a fashion editor would flourish. But first, she’d enjoy a wondrous last summer at the beach falling deeply in love with an irresistible college boy and competing in the annual Miss South Haven pageant. On the precipice of a well-planned life, Betty’s future was limitless.
Decades later, the choices of that long-ago season still reverberate for Betty, now known as Boop. Especially when her granddaughter comes to her with a dilemma that echoes Boop’s memories of first love, broken hearts, and faraway dreams. It’s time to finally face the past–for the sake of her family and her own happiness. Maybe in reconciling the life she once imagined with the life she’s lived, Boop will discover it’s never too late for a second chance.
Purchase The Last Bathing Beauty at an independent bookstore near you.
Purchase The Last Bathing Beauty online at www.bookshop.org.
Not My Boy by Kelly Simmons
When Hannah packs up her past and moves to the cottage next-door to her sister, she hopes the luxe neighborhood and close family ties will be the perfect escape for her son and the shadows that trail them. But when a young girl goes missing days after they unload their final boxes and her son is quickly thrown under suspicion, Hannah must do whatever it takes to protect her child.
Even if that means pointing the blame her sister’s way instead.
With investigators swarming and neighborhood scrutiny closing in, the divide between two sisters grows. As one fiercely defends her husband, the other shields her boy from the crime, keeping quiet the secrets that might unravel it all.
And all the while, one young girl has vanished, and someone is to blame.
Purchase Not My Boy at an independent bookstore near you.
Purchase Not My Boy online at www.bookshop.org.
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany by Lori Nelson Spielman
Against the backdrop of wandering Venetian canals, rolling Tuscan fields, and enchanting Amalfi Coast villages, romance blooms, destinies are found, and family secrets are unearthed—secrets that could threaten the family far more than a centuries-old curse.
Purchase The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany from an independent bookstore near you.
Purchase The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany online at www.bookshop.org.
The Heirloom Garden by Wade Rouse
Iris Maynard lost her husband in World War II, her daughter to illness and, finally, her reason to live. Walled off from the world for decades behind the towering fence surrounding her home, Iris has built a new family…of flowers. Iris propagates her own daylilies and roses while tending to a garden filled with the heirloom starts that keep the memories of her loved ones alive.
When Abby Peterson moves next door with her family–a husband traumatized by his service in the Iraq War and a young daughter searching for stability–Iris is reluctantly yet inevitably drawn into her boisterous neighbor’s life, where, united by loss and a love of flowers, she and Abby tentatively unearth their secrets, and help each other discover how much life they have yet to live.
Purchase The Heirloom Garden from an independent bookstore near you.
Purchase The Heirloom Garden online at www.bookshop.org.