The Sound Between the Notes Release Day!

Congratulations to Barbara Linn Probst on the release of her second novel! The Sound Between the Notes releases today!

Book Description:

What if you had a second chance at the very thing you
thought you’d renounced forever? How steep a price would
you be willing to pay?
Susannah’s career as a pianist has been on hold for nearly
sixteen years, ever since her son was born. An adoptee who’s
never forgiven her birth mother for not putting her first,
Susannah vowed to put her own child first, no matter what.
And she did.
But now, suddenly, she has a chance to vault into that elite tier of “chosen” musicians. There’s just one
problem: somewhere along the way, she lost the power and the magic that used to be hers at the keyboard.
She needs to get them back. Now.
Her quest―what her husband calls her obsession―turns out to have a cost Susannah couldn’t have
anticipated. Even her hand betrays her, as Susannah learns that she has a progressive hereditary disease
that’s making her fingers cramp and curl―a curse waiting in her genes, legacy of a birth family that gave
her little else. As her now-or-never concert draws near, Susannah is catapulted back to memories she’s
never been able to purge―and forward, to choices she never thought she would have to make.
Told through the unique perspective of a musician, The Sound Between the Notes draws the reader deep

Like her award-winning debut, Queen of the Owls (six awards and counting), The Sound Between the Notes is about a woman’s search for identity, authenticity, and belonging—but this time, the story is told through the unique perspective of a musician.

The Sound Between the Notes has been called powerful, riveting, gorgeously written, “a breathtaking emotional journey,” and a compulsive page-turner that’s impossible to put down. In its highly-coveted starred review, given only to books “of remarkable merit,” Kirkus has called it “a tour de force steeped in suspense … a sensitive, astute exploration of artistic passion, family, and perseverance.”

Praise for The Sound Between the Notes:

“The climax, on the night of her performance, is a tour de force steeped in suspense …
A sensitive, astute exploration of artistic passion, family, and perseverance.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“The Sound Between the Notes is so beautiful, so lyrical, so musical that it was hard to put
down…This is a wonderful story from a skillful writer, one that appeals strongly to the heart.
It features awesome characters, a twisty plot, and gorgeous writing.”

Readers Favorite, 5-star review
“In her second novel, Barbara Linn Probst delivers yet another powerful story, balancing
lyrical language with a skillfully paced plot to build a sensory-rich world that will delight those
who loved Queen of the Owls and win countless new readers. Offering a deep exploration of the
search for identity and connection, The Sound Between Notes reminds us
to embrace everything we are—and everything that’s made us who we are.”
Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY best-selling author of Perennials
“Beautifully told, The Sound Between the Notes, is the story of tragedy and triumph, of the push
and pull of family, of the responsibility we feel to ourselves and those we love.
Once I started the book, I couldn’t put it down until I reached the last, gorgeously written note.”
Loretta Nyhan, author of The Other Family and Amazon charts best-seller Digging In
Family ties can bind or blind us—even with relatives we’ve never met. In The Sound Between the
Notes, trails of music connect generations separated by adoption—while the same notes threaten
a family believed sewn with steel threads. In this spellbinding novel, Barbara Linn Probst
examines how the truth of love transcends genetics, even as strands of biology grip us. Once you
begin this story, suffused with the majesty of music and the reveries of creation,
the ‘gotta know’ will carry you all the way to the final note.
Randy Susan Meyers, International Bestselling Author of Waisted and
The Comfort of Lies
“As soaring as the music it so lovingly describes, poignantly human, and relatab

Barbara Linn Probst

Barbara Linn Probst is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her debut novel, Queen of the Owls, (April 2020) is the story of a woman’s search for wholeness, framed around the art and life of iconic American painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Queen of the Owls won the bronze medal for popular fiction from the Independent Publishers Association, placed first runner-up in general fiction for the Eric Hoffer Award, was short-listed for the First Horizon and the $2500 Grand Prize, and is currently a finalist for the Sarton Award for women’s fiction as well as the Somerset Award for literary and contemporary fiction. Barbara’s second novel The Sound Between the Notes, recipient of starred Kirkus Review for work “of remarkable merit,” launches in April 2021.

Barbara has a PhD in clinical social work and blogs for several award-winning sites for writers. To learn more about Barbara and her work, visit barbaralinnprobst.com. You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

To order The Sound Between the Notes, please go to Amazon or the links on her website

Author Website here:

Home

Available Now:

I’m with Barbara Linn Probst at The Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend in Jefferson, Texas! The biggest book club convention in the world!

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Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan

“Surviving Savannah is an epic novel that explores the metal of human spirit in crisis. It is an expertly told, fascinating story that runs fathoms deep on multiple levels.”

Fate, chance, choices, and destiny are mere concepts until an inspired author comes along and depicts the essence of each through the power of story. Patti Callahan has done just that in her widely anticipated Surviving Savannah. The New York Times bestselling author sets historical fiction’s stage in a mahogany paneled library before a roaring fire, where six- and eight-year-old sisters, Everly and Allyn Winthrop, sit at their pipe-smoking grandfather’s knee, while he spins yet another fantastic version of the ill-fated, steamship, Pulaski. Haunting imagery of the Pulaski looms in the family’s multi-generational, Georgian style house on Savannah’s historic Jones Street: “Above the fireplace hung an oil painting of a lustrous steamship with its sails spread wide and its wheels churning the water into whipped foam, the sky clear and bluer than the sea as human figures on the deck regarded the vast sea.”

Read My Full Review Here: a book review by Claire Fullerton: Surviving Savannah (nyjournalofbooks.com)

It was called “The Titanic of the South.” The luxury steamship sank in 1838 with Savannah’s elite on board; through time, their fates were forgotten—until the wreck was found, and now their story is finally being told in this breathtaking novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis.

Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of sixteen novels and podcast host. She is the recipient of The Christy Award — A 2019 Winner “Book of the Year”; The Harper Lee Distinguished Writer of the Year for 2020 and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year for 2019. She is the co-host and co-creator of the popular weekly online Friends and Fiction live web show and podcast. A full-time author and mother of three children, she now resides in both Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Bluffton, South Carolina with her husband.

Home | Patti Callahan Henry l New York Times Bestselling Author

New Podcast Series: The Untold Story Behind Surviving Savannah (patticallahanhenry.com)

https://linktr.ee/cffullerton

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

You’ll see in this photographs that I’m standing against a gray stone wall on a windswept day in the middle of an Irish field, with what are obviously the ruins of a monastery behind me.

Observant people might ask why the monastery is behind me, and I am holding a set of keys in my hand as if it were the bigger focal point. Here’s the story.

We kind of knew where we were heading, my friend Tama and I, and by this I mean we had a loose plan with regard to how we were going to spend the afternoon in Gort, Ireland. We’d been freewheeling across the countryside in a rented car the size of a match box, with its steering wheel on the right side, while we drove on the left of the two-lane road as if trying to best a test for dyslexia. Tama is a devout Catholic, who has a thing about historic churches, which is why we couldn’t have adhered to a plan had we had one. “Stop,” Tama would shout every time we spied one of the dim, ominous structures off in the distance. We’d scratch the gravel driveway and wander inside, our solitary footsteps crossing the marble floor in a tread- ye- lightly and humble yourself echo off the cavernous vaulted ceiling. We did this so many times that after yet another sweep inside a church, I’d take to wandering the halcyon graveyards to read the Irish tombstone inscriptions, while Tama would light a red votive candle and fall to her pious knees.

I thought I was alone in the yard when a voice came sailing from behind me. “Have you found your way to Kilmacduagh monastery?” it queried. I turned to find a young woman taking in my outlander attire of three quarter down jacket and rubber soled shoes. “It’s just up the road there,” she continued, pointing. “Just knock on the door of the middle house across the road and ask Lily for the keys.”

I was standing behind Tama when she knocked on the front door of a low slung house on a sparsely populated lane. Across the lane, placid fields of damp clover shimmered in the afternoon mist as far as the eye could see. On one verdant field, a series of interspersed ruins jutted in damp metal-gray; some without roofs, some with wrought-iron gates, and one in particular beside an impressively tall stone spire, which had two windows cut in vertical slashes above a narrow door raised high from the ground.

Immediately the front door opened, and a pair of blue water eyes gave us the once over with an inquisitive, “Yes?””Are you Lily? We’re here for the keys,” Tama said.”The keys, is it? Just a moment there,” the woman said, and after closing the door, she opened it seconds later and handed us a set of long metal keys. “Just slip them through the door slot when you’re through,” she said, closing the door with a quick nod.I can’t say there was any indication of which key went to what, among the cluster of gates and doors throughout the 7th century monastery called Kilmacduagh, but we figured it out. I was so tickled over the keys that I couldn’t get over it. “Is this weird?” I said to Tama. “We could be anybody. It’s not that there’s anything anybody could steal, but that’s not the point.” I could wax rhapsody over the hours we spent unlocking gates and pushing through doors in the eerie, hallowed grounds, but that’s not my point either. My point is that’s Ireland for you: a stranger offering directions without being asked, Lily handing over the keys like an afterthought, and Tama and I trolling the grounds of sacred space when nobody else was around. But suddenly a German couple appeared as we were on our way back up the lane. They looked at us wide eyed and queried, “What is this place?”

“It’s a 7th century monastery,” I said, “here, take the keys and slip them through Lily’s door when you’re through.”

https://linktr.ee/cffullerton

March 14, Irish Parade on Facebook!

An unprecedented, live event will take place on Sunday, March 14 from 8:00 AM Eastern Standard Time on Facebook. 8 Book Pages will coordinate to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and the idea is for attendees to join the group pages ahead of time then hop from page to page as events happen! You can see the Book Pages here, at the right of the image below.

I will have the great pleasure of being “in conversation” with my favorite author, Billy O’Callaghan, who hails from Douglas, County Cork, Ireland, and who is the author of 4 short story collections and 3 novels, his latest being the newly released, Life Sentences, which I loved!

The Irish Echo released the article below yesterday. Below the image is the actual link!

FB book clubs combine for virtual event | Arts & Leisure | Irish Echo

Here are some of the panelists who will appear during the all-day event. Come by and meet those of us with Irish connections!

There will be giveaways and a live Irish band playing on all book pages simultaneously!

I hope to see you there!

https://linktr.ee/cffullerton

The Women in Publishing Summit Begins Next Week !

I’m delighted to be a part of the Women in Publishing Summit. It’s the first online writing and publishing conference dedicated to women, the Women in Publishing Summit is the biggest online conference for women in publishing, featuring over 70 authors, publishers, editors, graphic artists, marketers, book sellers, mindset coaches, & more!

One Week of Featured Speakers of the Publishing Business

Held annually the first week of March we’ll end with a bang on International Women’s Day. The next event will be online **March 1-8, 2021** and *you must register to access.* The Summit is a combination of guest expert interviews, panel discussions, tutorial presentations, and LIVE interviews, run completely online that you can enjoy from your phone, computer, or tablet.

My talk will air on Friday March 5 at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time! In my talk, I explained how I prepared for the book launches of Mourning Dove and Little Tea. Both books are set in the Deep South and depict Southern culture, female friendships, coming of age, and the family dynamic! A lot of preparation went into the launch of both books, and I had a wonderful time explaining my launch strategy for the Women in Publishing Summit.

About Jane Friedman (quickly)
Jane Friedman has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers. She’s the editor of The Hot Sheet, the essential industry newsletter for authors, and has previously worked for F+W Media and the *Virginia Quarterly Review*. In 2019, Jane was awarded Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World; her newsletter was awarded Media Outlet of the Year in 2020.
Jane’s newest book is *The Business of Being a Writer* (University of Chicago Press); *Publishers Weekly* said that it is “destined to become a staple reference book for writers and those interested in publishing careers.” Also, in collaboration with The Authors Guild, she wrote The Authors Guild Guide to Self-Publishing.
In addition to being a professor with The Great Courses, Jane maintains an award-winning blog for writers at JaneFriedman.com; her expertise has been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, NPR, PBS, CBS, the National Press Club and many other outlets.
Jane has delivered keynotes and workshops on the digital era of authorship at worldwide industry events, including the Writer’s Digest annual conference, Stockholm Writers Festival, San Miguel Writers Conference, The Muse & The Marketplace, Frankfurt Book Fair, BookExpo America, and Digital Book World. She’s also served on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund, and has held positions as a professor of writing, media, and publishing at the University of Cincinnati and University of Virginia.
In her spare time, Jane writes creative nonfiction, which has been included in the anthologies *Every Father’s Daughter* and *Drinking Diaries*. If you look hard enough, you can also find her embarrassing college poetry
.

Women In Publishing Mission & Vision

We celebrate the accomplishments of women in publishing – authors, publishers, editors, typesetters, cover designers, marketers, booksellers, everyone involved in creating and selling books and provide a community where we can share great resources, encouragement, tools, and mentorship for women who want to have their voices heard and stories told.

Get Your Ticket Now!

The Women in Publishing Summit was made for women, by women.

We’re featuring publishers, authors, editors, agents, marketing experts, graphic designers, tools you need for success, and MORE to provide expert advice and resources YOU NEED to write, publish, and sell more of your book!

Register for the event and you’ll receive information to access the content from the comfort of wherever you choose to watch!

Don’t miss it!2021 TICKET INFO

I’ll look forward to seeing you there!

https://linktr.ee/cffullerton

A Mariner’s Tale by Joe Palmer

My Book Review:

Sixty-four-year-old, tattooed, and ponytailed Jack Merkel is haunted by past tragedies, ten years gone. A retired career merchant seaman, he’s a seasoned mariner, with “a physical presence as sturdy as an oak” and “the hard-bitten look of an old salt.” Jack lives and works on Morgan’s Island in Ocean County Florida, with his Great Dane, Pogey. A third generation local, he owns a combined North Florida boatyard/marina, with a view of the Intracoastal Waterway. Used to salt air and capricious weather, his life is defined by the accoutrements that make up a mariner’s life. His is a simple life, and looking through his old, Jeep Wagoneer’s window, Jack is spellbound by “the spartina grass, the color of emeralds and worn like a monarch’s cloak in spring and summer, as well as the dull brown peasant’s rags that clad it in the winter.” Appreciative of, and in rhythm with his environment where the marsh’s fragrance is “a distillation that reminded him of the smell of fresh oysters,” and he hears “the maniacal laughter of marsh hens,” Jack can’t imagine living anywhere else.

When an indigent youth vandalizes the cherished sailboat Jack’s been building for the past ten years, Jack’s life takes a twist when he takes the high road. Rather than pressing charges, he reconsiders, when he “looked into the boy’s eyes and saw someone who’d never had a break.”

Local Circuit Court Judge, J. Harlan Kicklighter is Jack’s good friend, and when Jack makes a plea to personally rehabilitate eighteen-year-old Doug Eleazer, who is charged with resisting arrest, criminal mischief, and petty theft for what he’s done to Jack’s boat, the judge agrees to implement a part-time, work-release program. Bringing Doug out of his shell is a process, but Jack is determined to bring out the good in him, for reasons having everything to do with the tragedy of his family’s past.

Margie Waller is a forty-something, recent divorcee with an athletic figure and audacious laugh. The mother of the two teenage boys on board, she owns and captains her forty-foot, custom-made sailboat named Starshine, which she docks with its damaged rudder at Jack’s marina shortly before Hurricane Brenda is expected to wreak havoc on the area.

Unreconciled with and haunted by the ghosts of his past, Jack Merkel is hesitant to let down his guard with Margie, but when Hurricane Brenda lands, the two are thrown together and, in conjunction with Doug and Margie’s two sons, the framework is laid for the possibilities of a blended family.

Author Joe Palmer’s clear knowledge of all things pertaining to mariner life shines throughout this seafaring story, as does his great gift for character development and distinct world-building. Hope lures the reader through this well-paced, humanistic story of characters trying to connect, while seeking triumph over the unlucky parts of their personal narratives. In a wonderfully descriptive setting so finely part and parcel to the story as to exemplify the idea of character as place, Joe Palmer’s A Mariner’s Tale will appeal to readers of Nicholas Sparks and Robert James Waller, in that the beautiful water-front story touches the heart in a way that resonates.

Available where books are sold: Publisher : Koehler Books (October 25, 2020)

Praise for A Mariner’s Tale:
A Mariner’s Tale is a stunning debut: a seafaring novel rich with lush imagery and colorful characters from an exciting new voice in Southern fiction. With deft narrative skill, the author takes the protagonist, a cynical middle-aged mariner, and his protege, a troubled young man, on a voyage of self-discovery that begins on an island in Florida and ends in an Irish fishing village. You don’t want to miss this beautifully crafted page-turner!”
– Cassandra King, bestselling author of Tell Me a Story: My Life with Pat Conroy

“Hard-edged and gripping. An intriguing mix of hope and fear. Fans of Pat Conroy’s evocative novels are going to love this stirring debut.”
– Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Warsaw Protocol

“A Mariner’s Tale is a richly rendered story scented with sea spray and filled with salty characters seeking grace, mercy and second chances. Palmer writes with heart and authenticity, bringing to life an unfortgettable crew worthy of the love and redemption we each hope to find in this life.” –
Nicole Seitz, author of The Cage-Maker

Meet Joe Palmer

A native of Waycross, Georgia, Joe Palmer is an award winning former newspaper reporter and longtime columnist, whose folksy newspaper column, Cup of Joe, ran for ten years in the Fernandina Beach News-Leader with a large and enthusiastic following.

He’s written investigative reporting and feature stories for the Bradenton Herald, Macon Telegraph and News and the Florida Times-Union, where he wrote a long series of articles about a plague that was killing massive numbers of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins on the East coast in 1987.

A Navy veteran and medical corpsman, Joe went on to work as a surgeon’s assistant at a major medical center in Jacksonville, Florida, while attending college for his BA in English with an emphasis on literature. He parlayed his investigative reporting skills into a 20-year career as an investigator for the Federal Public Defender’s Office.

A sailor, he got the inspiration for his debut novel, A Mariner’s Tale, while doing sweat labor one scorching August afternoon on an antique sailboat he and his wife painstakingly restored.

Retired since 2012, he spends his days writing, sailing, beach bumming and traveling. He credits his love of writing to his high school English and Creative Writing teacher, Elaine Stephens nee Thomas, whom he says woke his muse. He lives in Fernandina Beach, Florida with his wife, Pam and a room-sized Great Dane named Harley.

Joe Palmer’s Website: Bookstores/Libraries – Joe Palmer (joepalmerauthor.com)

https://linktr.ee/cffullerton

Life Sentences by Billy O’Callaghan

“Written with harrowing intimacy in cadence and phrasing so poetically elegant as to be breathtaking, it sings of perseverance in the face of adversity . . .”

A thoroughly realized treatise on the familial ramifications that haunt us, the beauty in Life Sentences comes from Billy O’Callaghan’s deep-probing gift for nuance. Wielding confessional monologues, O’Callaghan unfurls an epic story woven in three compelling parts that could justifiably stand-alone, yet from the sturdy threads of O’Callaghan’s deft crafting, the reader is invested from the start in this multi-generational story.

Read my full review in the New York Journal of Books: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book…. (less)

“Billy O’Callaghan’s work is at once subtle and direct, warm and clear-eyed, and never less than beautifully written. He has a moving ability to express the hopes and fears of ‘ordinary’ people, and he knows intimately the ways of the world. He richly reserves an international reputation. This writer is the real thing.”
~ John Banville, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea
“I know of no writer on either side of the Atlantic who is better at exploring the human spirit under assault than Billy O’Callaghan. The stories in The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind are at once harrowing and uplifting, achingly sad and surpassingly beautiful. O’Callaghan is a treasure of the English language.”
~ Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

Billy O’Callaghan was born in Cork in 1974, and is the author of four short story collections: In Exile (2008, Mercier Press), In Too Deep (2009, Mercier Press), The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind (2013, New Island Books, winner of a 2013 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award and selected as Cork’s One City, One Book for 2017), and The Boatman (2020, Jonathan Cape and Harper (U.S.A.)), as well as the novels The Dead House (2017, Brandon/O’Brien Press and 2018, Arcade/Skyhorse (USA)) and My Coney Island Baby, (2019, Jonathan Cape and Harper (U.S.A.)).

His latest novel, Life Sentences, was published by Jonathan Cape in January 2021 to much acclaim. Read more about it on the Books page.

Billy is the winner of a Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award for the short story, and twice a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Bursary Award for Literature. Among numerous other honours, his story, The Boatman, was a finalist for the 2016 Costa Short Story Award, and more than a hundred of his stories have appeared or are forthcoming in literary journals and magazines around the world, including: Absinthe: New European Writing, Agni, the Bellevue Literary Review, the Chattahoochee Review, Confrontation, the Fiddlehead, Hayden’s Ferry Review, the Kenyon Review, the Kyoto Journal, the London Magazine, the Los Angeles Review, Narrative, Ploughshares, Salamander, and the Saturday Evening Post.

Release Day: A Dance in Donegal by Jennifer Deibel!

A Dance in Donegal
Coming Febrauary 2, 2021 from Revell

All of her life, Irish-American Moira Doherty has relished her Irish mother’s descriptions of her homeland. When her mother dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1920, Moira accepts the challenge to fulfill her mother’s wish that she become the teacher in Ballymann, the homeland village in Donegal, Ireland.

After an arduous voyage, Moira arrives to a new home and a new job in an ancient country. Though a few locals offer a warm welcome, others are distanced by superstition and suspicion. Rumors about Moira’s mother are unspoken in her presence, but threaten to derail everything she’s journeyed to Ballymann to do. Moira must rely on the kindness of a handful of friends—and the strength of an unsettlingly handsome thatcher who keeps popping up unannounced. While Moira learns to trust Sean and his intentions, she struggles to navigate a life she’d never dreamed of . . . but perhaps was meant to live.

About The Author:

I’m your typical American mom, working, raising kids, and loving my hubby…I’ve just been blessed to do some of it in Vienna, Austria and the west of Ireland. However, after a decade of life overseas, we have settled back in America–in sunny Arizona!

I currently teach middle school English, and when I’m not working on school things, I’m spending time with my incredible family–my husband Seth and our 3 awesome kids–and writing.

My debut novel, A Dance in Donegal, releases from Revell February 2, 2021. You can read more about that here.

I write stories that explore home through the lens of faith, family, and culture–with the beauty and depth of Ireland coloring much of it.

ADD A DANCE IN DONEGAL ON GOODREADS!

Reader Review:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book: Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2021

A Dance in Donegal by Jennifer Deibel is a great historical fiction that has a wonderful plot, romance, a stunning backdrop with a dash of mystery thrown in to create an enjoyable read.

The book starts off in Boston during the 1920s where we meet Moira whom has just graduated from school to become a teacher. She ends up on a quest to her mother’s hometown village of Ballymann in Donegal, Ireland. Here Moira encounters so many new things: a different culture, societal culture and customs, the local inhabitants (some more welcoming then others), mystery surrounding her mother’s past presence here that is shrouded in questions and whispers, and possibly even love.

I love the awakening of Moira throughout this novel. Learning her profession, making friends, finding a partner/romance, facing questions of where she came from, who that makes her, what is her purpose in life, where does she fit in, and where is her home. I really enjoyed her finding herself, her place, path, and solidifying her faith. I also loved how the author was able to draw the reader in with the MC on her journey to the end of the novel. I really wanted to see how it would all wrap up.

I enjoyed the complex and rich array of characters. They were well thought out and added perfectly to my favorite part of the novel:

The location: Ireland. It was wonderful to be able to read and visualize such a beautiful place. Taking a peak into this rich culture, the people, customs, religion, daily lives, the food (oh my the food!), and the stunning landscapes at times took my breath away. The inclusion of the wonderful Irish Gaelic really added to the story as well. It is such a beautiful language. The author has a real talent in being able to give the reader a fully immersive experience to make one feel as if they were actually there right along with her, experiencing it all for the first time together. I absolutely loved imagining life within the villages of this gorgeous country within the early part of the 20th century. I learned so much about this time period there just from reading this novel.

An excellent book that has me yearning to travel to Ireland myself to find out where my own Grandmother is from.

Books

Order A Dance in Donegal here:

Baker Book House
ChristianBook
Barnes and Noble
Target
Amazon
Books-A-Million
IndieBound
Walmart

The Pulpwood Queens 2021 Zoomathon!

All hail The Pulpwood Queens, the largest book club in the world! The International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club is more than its 800 book club chapters, it’s a literary culture populated by avid readers and enthusiastic authors who fraternize under the Pulpwood Queens literary umbrella to share the love of books!

In existence for more than twenty years, The Pulpwood Queens hold an annual, book club conference experienced more like a party. Featured authors and attendees dress up in the Pulpwood Queens’ signature leopard print and tiaras for three days, in what becomes the ultimate meet and greet between authors and readers. Featured authors are panel guests in the most unique forum imaginable. Nothing staid and stuffy about the proceedings, rather, the panels are conducted as a celebration, where authors share more than the synopsis of the books they’ve written– they tell their background story: where they’re from, their writing process, and what inspired them to embark upon the craft of writing in the first place.

Since a picture tells a thousand words, here are some photographs from the Pulpwood Queens previous, annual event billed as Girlfriend Weekend:

This past Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend was different. What made the January 14-17th’s Girlfriend Weekend unique was that it was a Zoomathon fueled by the power of its good intention! Hundreds of us fretted over a possible Girlfriend Weekend cancellation due to Covid restrictions, but Kathy L. Murphy, the Pulpwood Queen herself, the visionary mastermind and rallying point of the largest book club in the world fit the needs to the moment and conducted the entire weekend on line! It was billed as The Pulpwood Queen and Timber Guy’s Reading Nation Slumber Party, and its aim was all about connections. Authors met readers, readers watched authors introduce themselves and their books, panel discussions were followed by keynote speakers, a popular audiobook narrator with a gorgeous British accent read excerpts from featured books and there was great audience participation! You can see a little about it here:

The Pulpwood Queen Announces SLUMBER PARTY Program for our 2021 Girlfriend Weekend Zoomathon!

Here are highlights from the Pulpwood Queens January 14-17 Zoomathon:

Oxford, Mississippi author, Michael Farris Smith enchanting us all by talking about his latest release, Nick: the prequel to the Great Gatsby that is currently all the rage!

Annie McDonnell of the Facebook Live Interview program, The Write Review, accepting the Doug Marlette Lifetime Achievement Award for Promoting Literary.

Cassandra King Conroy, a multiple award-winning author and literary force who gave a talk about her memoir, Tell Me a Story: My Life with Pat Conroy

Keynote Speaker Julie Cantrell of the books, Into the Free, Perennials, and Crescendo: The True Story of a Musical Genius who Forever Changed a Southern Town.

Actor, Author, and Audiobook narrator, Chris Humphries reading a book excerpt during The Write Review’s Panel: Hearing Voices and Matchgame!

I had the immense pleasure of being a part of the Pulpwood Queens’s Virtual Weekend by interviewing illustrious literary agent, Marly Rusoff, who shed light on the mysteries of the publishing world, past, present and future. Marly was fascinating, and we all were honored by her presence!

You can see the interview here: 2021 Girlfriend Weekend Author, Claire Fullerton in Conversion with Literary Agent Marly Rusoff – YouTube

You can read more about the Pulpwood Queens on the website here: https://www.thepulpwoodqueens.com/

And there’s a delightful YouTube Chanel under the name Kathy L. Murphy with fascinating book-related author interviews here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRY0gmHXWfdLWAe7yMjp5bA

All told, the 2021 Pulpwood Queens Book Club Zoomathon was a rollicking success and an enthralling series of firsts, in that it essentially set the standard of excellence for online, book-related events!

https://linktr.ee/cffullerton

Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth by Mandy Haynes.

In Mandy Haynes’s collection of Southern tinged short stories, Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth, characters are as different as Jayhawks and Starlings, they grin like possums, and, if in need while in someone’s bad graces, are told they can go get what they want “their own dang self.” Throughout the assembly of Haynes’s five, compelling stories, her character-intensive narrative is urgent and breathless, so regionally pitch-perfect as to feel indiscreet:

“Now don’t roll your eyes at me,” the narrator of short story, Junebug Fischer says. “You know dang good and well Rita’s daughter did not get pregnant on her honeymoon. And you know same as me that she shouldn’t have married that no count Tucker, pregnant or not.”

Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth is laser-sharp, finely wrought fiction in each stand alone story. In “Eva,” the abused daughter of a con-artist preacher is depicted with such Southern Gothic surrealism as to make her seem other-worldly. In “Plans for Sweet Lorraine,” a fearlessly headstrong mother is led by gut-intuition to rescue her innocent daughter from the clutches of a smooth-talking charlatan posing as a man of God.

In each story, the narrator’s voice is chock full of gumption– the sure-footed kind grown and fostered in the hollows of the rural South. They are all unique, memorable narrators. In “The Day I threw the Rock,” the young, red-haired narrator prefers to go barefoot in overalls, in whose pocket she keeps a garden snake as she unfurls the high-drama of events that lead to her throwing the eponymous rock. In “Cussing Snakes and Candy Cigarettes,” a young girl defies common, local opinion of her dead mother’s twin sister, in an eye-opening summer that impacts her coming of age.

Author Mandy Haynes approaches her craft with an uncanny grasp on pace in perfect measure. Her authentic voice is beyond comparison. Her high-stakes stories are layered with utter unpredictability. I cannot recommend this Southern to the core collection of short stories emphatically enough. Each of the five stories in Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth is the perfect combination of riveting story and character as place.

Mandy Haynes has spent hours on barstools, at backstage venues, and riding in vans listening to some of the best songwriters and storytellers in Nashville, Tennessee. She now lives in Fernandina Beach, Florida with her three dogs, one turtle, and a grateful liver. Her first collection, Walking the Wrong Way Home was a finalist for the Tartt Fiction Award, and selected as a bonus pick for The Pulpwood Queens’ 2020 Reading List.

About me – Mandy Haynes, author of literary fiction with a southern drawl

Mandy Haynes’s Blog http://www.the runawaywriter.com

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