Join authors Terah Harris, Michael Koryta, Mindy Mejia, and John Pruitt along with Back Room hosts Karen Dionne and Hank Phillippi Ryan for an evening of great conversation!
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The Authors
Terah Shelton Harris is a librarian and freelance writer, who now writes upmarket fiction with bittersweet endings. As a freelancer, her work has appeared in consumer and trade magazines including Catapult, Women’s Health, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Backpacker, Minority Nurse, and more.
Originally from Illinois, she now lives in Alabama with her husband, Jamel. Terah is a lover of life and spends most of her time reading or traveling. A world traveler, Terah has visited over 40 countries across six continents. She has watched the sunrise at the beginning of America, trekked through the jungles in the Bokeo Nature Reserve, and searched for William Clark’s grave in St. Louis, and much more.
One Summer in Savannah is her first novel. Learn more at terahsharris.com.
Michael Koryta is a New York Times-bestselling author whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages and has won or been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Edgar® Award, Shamus Award, Barry Award, Quill Award, International Thriller Writers Award, and the Golden Dagger. They’ve been selected as “best books of the year” by numerous publications.
Michael’s first novel, the Edgar-nominated Tonight I Said Goodbye, was accepted for publication when he was 20 years old. He wrote his first two novels before graduating from college and was published in nearly 10 languages before he fulfilled the “writing requirement” classes required for his diploma.
Michael has written for the screen in both feature film and television, writing scripts for Fox, Universal, and Amazon Studios. Those Who Wish Me Dead was released in 2020 as a major motion picture starring Angelina Jolie, Nicholas Hoult, Tyler Perry, Jon Bernthal and Aidan Gillen, directed by Taylor Sheridan. The film version of So Cold the River was released in 2022, directed by Paul Shoulberg and starring Bethany Joy Lenz, Alysia Reiner, and Andrew J. West. His newest thriller is An Honest Man. Learn more at www.michaelkoryta.com.
Mindy Mejia’s internationally acclaimed thrillers have been translated into over twenty languages. Her books have been picked for People’s Best New Books and listed in The Wall Street Journal’s Best New Mysteries.
A CPA and graduate of the Hamline University MFA program, she lives and works in the Twin Cities. Learn more at mindymejia.com.
John Pruitt covered the news of Atlanta and Georgia as television anchor and reporter for half a century. His major stories include the assassination and funeral of Dr Martin Luther King, Junior, Jimmy Carter’s rise from obscurity to become Georgia governor and President of the United States, eleven Democratic and Republican Conventions, the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, and the aftermath of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center.
His novel, Tell It True, draws on his experiences covering the sometimes bloody clash between those demanding their constitutional freedoms and those determined to deny them those rights.
Learn more at johnpruittauthor.com.
Authors’ Books
One Summer in Savannah by Terah Shelton Harris
It’s been eight years since Sara Lancaster left her home in Savannah, Georgia. Eight years since her daughter, Alana, came into this world, following a terrifying sexual assault that left deep emotional wounds Sara would do anything to forget. But when Sara’s father falls ill, she’s forced to return home and face the ghosts of her past.
While caring for her father and running his bookstore, Sara is desperate to protect her curious, outgoing, genius daughter from the Wylers, the family of the man who assaulted her. Sara thinks she can succeed―her attacker is in prison, his identical twin brother, Jacob, left town years ago, and their mother are all unaware Alana exists. But she soon learns that Jacob has also just returned to Savannah to piece together the fragments of his once-great family. And when their two worlds collide―with the type of force Sara explores in her poetry and Jacob in his astrophysics―they are drawn together in unexpected ways.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
An Honest Man by Michael Koryta
Israel Pike was a killer, and he was an honest man. They were not mutually exclusive.
After discovering seven men murdered aboard their yacht – including two Senate rivals – Israel Pike is regarded as a prime suspect. A troubled man infamous on Salvation Point Island for killing his own father a decade before, Israel has few options, no friends, and a life-threatening secret.
Elsewhere on the island, 12-year-old Lyman Rankin seeks shelter from his alcoholic father in an abandoned house only to discover that he is not alone. A mysterious woman greets him with a hatchet and a promise: “Make a sound and I’ll kill you.”
As the investigation barrels forward, Lyman, Israel, and the fate of the case collide in immutable ways.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
To Catch a Storm by Mindy Mejia
When her husband’s car is found abandoned and on fire–in the middle of a rainstorm–Eve Roth becomes the police’s number one suspect. After all, her husband was suspended from the University of Iowa for inappropriate conduct with a student, and who else but an atmospheric physicist could incinerate a car in a downpour? But Eve has no idea why her husband disappeared. She’s desperate to find him, both for herself and her beloved, disabled father-in-law.
Jonah Kendrick appears on their doorstep with a theory. He’s seen Eve’s husband, bound and bleeding in a barn. Claiming to be a psychic detective who dreams of the lost, Jonah has helped find missing people his entire life. He dreamed about a young woman trapped in the same barn months ago, and she’s still missing.
As a firm believer in the laws of nature, Eve rejects anything to do with psychics, but their investigations soon collide. As the temperature drops and Iowa turns to ice, Eve and Jonah race across the state to discover what happened to the people they’ve lost. But the truth is more deadly either of them expected, and the physicist and the psychic must learn to believe in each other if they want to escape this storm alive.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Tell It True by John Pruitt
An African-American serviceman is gunned down on a rural Georgia road in July 1964. This shocking murder ensnares a wide range of characters including the journalists who cover it, the lawmen who must solve it, the civil rights leaders who capitalize upon it, the politicians who exploit it, and the Atlanta magnate who fears its impact on the New South image he desperately wants to protect.
TV cameraman Gil Matthews and AP reporter Mindy Williams team up to follow the twists and turns of the murder investigation as rural, state, and federal lawmen clash, a civil rights leader fends off a black power challenger, and voters take sides in a governor’s race pitting virulent racist Roscoe Pike against moderate underdog Harrison Parker. TELL IT TRUE focuses on the challenges faced by journalists as they covered a societal revolution and brought the dramatic and sometimes violent scenes night after night to TV screens around the world.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Your Hosts
Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of two psychological suspense novels set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness, The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Wicked Sister, both published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the US and in dozens of other languages.
Praised by The New York Times Book Review as “subtle, brilliant, and mature,” The Marsh King’s Daughter is soon to be a major motion picture starring Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn.
Visit Karen at www.karen-dionne.com
Karen’s newest novel is The Wicked Sister. “Dionne paints a haunting portrait of a family hurtling toward the tragic destiny they can foresee but are powerless to stop.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review; best book of 2020)
Purchase The Wicked Sister online at www.bookshop.org.
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 14 psychological thrillers, winning the genre’s most prestigious awards: five Agathas, five Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She’s also investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, winning 37 EMMYs. National book reviewers call her “a superb and gifted storyteller.”
Hank is the co-host of The Back Room and First Chapter Fun, as well as host of her CRIME TIME interview show on A Mighty Blaze. She lives with her husband, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney, in Boston.
Learn more at www.HankPhillippiRyan.com.
Her newest is the page-turning standalone The House Guest – a story of psychological manipulation exploring the dark heart of marriage and friendship—it’s Gaslight meets Thelma & Louise. Publishers Weekly says, “Ryan is a master of suspense!” and the Library Journal starred review calls it “Binge-worthy.”
Purchase The House Guest online at www.bookshop.org.
