July 12, 2026 — Sensational Storytellers

Sensational Storytellers

July 12, 2026 at 7pm ET

Jean Kwok
Ande Pliego
Liz Tully
David Heska Wanbli Weiden

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Jean Kwok

Jean Kwok is the award-winning, New York Times and international bestselling author of The Leftover Woman, Searching for Sylvie Lee, Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown. Her books have been chosen by Read with Jenna, CBS New York, Book of the Month, LibraryReads, Indie Next, Goodreads Choice Awards, Belletrist, Discover Great New Writers, and as a Good Morning America Buzz Pick. Most of her work is in development for film and television.

She has been chosen for numerous honors including the American Library Association Alex Award, the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award, an Orange New Writers title and the Sunday Times Short Story Award international shortlist. She was one of twelve contemporary authors asked by the Agatha Christie estate to write an original, authorized Miss Marple story for Marple: Twelve New Mysteries. Her most recent book is Dominion.

Dominion

In a world divided into four rival dominions, power is everything—and Rubi Morningtail has almost none. Three years after the Annihilation destroyed her homeland and shattered her memories, she lives as an Azure refugee in the Dominion of the Silver Tyger, scraping by as a ribbon dancer and hiding her little bit of singing magic. When she wounds a massive battle tyger on her doorstep, she draws the notice of Blake Axefire—supreme metal mage, leader of the royal Tyger Warriors, and the last man an Azure should trust. His sentence? Cast her into the Bonding, a brutal trial where tygers choose their riders and slaughter the rest. Surviving is unthinkable.

But survive she does. Now she’s stuck on Blake’s elite team racing to reseal the Anchors to the Demon Realm. With rebels striking, demons rising, and the dominions at each other’s throats, Rubi must unlock the truth of her magic and her past…while resisting her dangerous attraction to the ruthless warrior who could be her redemption—or her ruin.

Ande Pliego

Ande Pliego began writing stories when she discovered she could actually wield her overactive imagination for good. A lover of stories with teeth, she writes books involving mind games, dark humor, general murder and mayhem, and most importantly, finding the hope in the dark.

When not reading or writing, she can usually be found dabbling in art, scheming up her next trip, or making constant expeditions to the library. Born in Florida, raised in France, and having left footprints all over the globe, Ande is settled in the Pacific Northwest, USA, with her craftsman husband and little son.

The Library After Dark

Aria Stokes is finally feeling settled—she lives in a tiny New York apartment, works as a bookseller at a local shop, and has even taken a leap of faith in love by indulging her attraction to bookstore regular Jasper. And he seems to already know her so well.

As a Valentine’s Day surprise, Jasper gets the two of them tickets to an exclusive, after-dark tour of the Daedalus Library—the grandiose establishment famed for its immersive genre-based reading rooms and, more notoriously, its rumored hauntings. While Aria normally loves all things ghastly, this place holds more dark secrets than she’d prefer Jasper to know. Like that the last time she was here, she left a body behind.

But when the automatic-door entry malfunctions and Aria, Jasper, and the five other people in their tour group become trapped in the library, they are forced to venture through the storied rooms and hidden passageways of the Daedalus in search of escape . . . and Aria quite literally has nowhere to hide from the shadows of her past. Then the group learns there’s a murderer in their midst.

Now, as she tries to break out of the library’s intricate reading rooms, Aria has to decide who she can trust—and what secrets are best kept buried—if she wants to make it out alive.

Liza Tully

Liza Tully is a pseudonym for Elisabeth Brink, who writes dark thrillers under the name Elisabeth Elo, as well as literary fiction under the name Elisabeth Panttaja Brink.

Before turning to fiction writing, she worked as an editor at a children’s magazine, a project manager at a tech company, and a counselor at a halfway house. A magna cum laude graduate of Brown University, she earned a PhD in American Literature from Brandeis University, and is the author of scholarly articles on subjects as diverse as Cinderella and Walt Whitman. She lives in Boston, MA.

Her most recent book is The Forty-Year Grudge.

The Forty-Year Grudge.

It’s been four decades since the women of Sigma Delta Tau were last together. The passing years, growing families, and maturing careers may have strained the bonds of sisterhood, but now a reunion at the Western ranch of one member offers an opportunity to renew acquaintances…and at least one long-standing grudge.

Still, this weekend is supposed to be a pleasant diversion for former sorority member and current private investigator Aubrey Merritt. She’s come to New Mexico to reconnect with old friends and she’s brought along her personal assistant, Olivia Blunt—an aspiring detective who is learning more about packing bags on this trip than about solving crimes.

The shocking murder of a sorority sister changes everything. With the local police overmatched, all eyes turn to Merritt and Blunt to crack the case. With a surprising abundance of suspects, it’s going to take both of them to cut through the knot of old hurts and current grievances to find the killer.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden

David Heska Wanbli Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation, is the author of Wisdom Corner, forthcoming in July, 2026 from Ecco/HarperCollins. He’s also the author of the national bestseller Winter Counts (Ecco, 2020), which was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. The book was also the winner of the Anthony, Thriller, Lefty, Barry, Macavity, Spur, High Plains, Tillie Olsen, CrimeFest (UK), Crime Fiction Lover (UK) Awards, and was the winner of the Electa Quinney Award from the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures. The novel was longlisted for the Hammett Prize, Shamus Award, Colorado Book Award, Reading the West Award, and the VCU Cabell First Novel Award. The novel was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, an Indie Next pick, main selection of the Book of the Month Club, and named a Best Book of the year by NPR, Amazon, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The Guardian, and other magazines. The novel is included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 best mystery and thriller novels of all time.

Wisdom Corner

Virgil Wounded Horse is desperately trying to escape his past as a hired vigilante on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. But when a legendary figure from the reservation is murdered, Virgil is forced to return to the job. Making matters more complicated, threats are coming from the Pine Ridge 705—a street gang from a neighboring reservation who want to expand their reach into Rosebud—and Mitch Gagnon, a shady politician who will stop at nothing to gain more power.

With a heated tribal council election looming, as well as new revelations regarding past injustices at the local Native boarding school, the stakes grow even higher. Will Virgil find the justice he’s seeking before it’s too late?

David Heska Wanbli Weiden, whose writing “melds the gritty realism of Dashiell Hammett with the lyricism of Tommy Orange” (O, The Oprah Magazine), once again brings us a tour de force of crime fiction—and an expansive look at Native American life in a shifting world.

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