Another day, another awesome author to feature in the Summer BBQ Recipe Roundup! Today, historical fiction author Jennifer L. Wright is here with more info about her new book, a tasty and easy recipe to share, and a chance to win a copy of IF IT RAINS (details below)!  Have you checked out our recipes from Days 1 and 2? Please do! Day 1 with Minerva Spencer Day 2 with Sera Taíno *** In my novel IF IT RAINS, fourteen-year-old Kathryn is forced from her Oklahoma farm by the Dust Bowl. Her trip is interrupted, however, when she becomes separated from her father and is forced to continue the journey on her own. Crippled, frightened, and alone in a strange land, Kathryn longs for familiarity. She longs for comfort. She longs for home. As a military spouse, I am deeply familiar with this ache. In the past fourteen years, I’ve lived in three different countries and four different states. Just as soon as some place starts to feel like home, the Air Force sends my family and me packing again. It’s a hard life, but it’s also full of beauty. Because I don’t just have one home; I have several….

1–What is the title of your latest release? JOHN EYRE: A TALE OF DARKNESS AND SHADOW 2–What is it about? JOHN EYRE is my dual timeline, partially epistolary, partially gender-reversed, supernatural Victorian gothic retelling of Charlotte Bronte’s JANE EYRE (and one other Victorian classic I can’t reveal without spoiling the story). It’s about strength, allyship, the struggle between light and darkness, and the battle with real-life monsters. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  I loved being able to incorporate all of my favorite Victorian gothic trappings. There’s atmosphere and creepiness galore. 4–How did your heroine surprise you?  Bertha Mason Rochester may well be the strongest heroine I’ve ever written. Not because she started out strong, but because, in a deeply horrifying situation, she finds a level of strength she didn’t know herself capable of. By the end of the story, she’s become a formidable opponent. Truly a force to be reckoned with. 5–Why will readers love your hero?  He’s thoughtful and compassionate, and he knows how to listen. He doesn’t start out as an ally—a man willing to risk his reputation to help a woman—but by the end of the novel, he understands what it means…

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Boston. Please tell us about yourself and a little about your new book, TWO BOYS AT BREAKWATER.   A writer should never tell you a little about their own book. It might tend to sound too much like a waiter reading off to you the night’s specials. Set against the backdrop of New York in the 1950s and 60s, TWO BOYS AT BREAKWATER is about two young men growing up and learning about who they truly are, and the love they find in each other. Where did the idea for this novel originate?   I collect incidents. I listen and I watch. And what I sense will take me somewhere else I write down. I sat at my desk for a generation And watching the Bronx rain one night I recalled A moment in a drinking dive not unlike The one Gary Snyder wrote about in I Went into the Maverick Bar That too was on a rainy night Coming down hard on a tin roof. Above the room  Where a pool table reigned supreme. And where two rough type western drunks Shot eight ball and the breeze. “This is gonna come across as strange,” one said. “But…

Jen: What inspired you to write LADY SUNSHINE? Amy: One of my favorite albums is “Mermaid Avenue,” a project between the folk singer Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Nora, and modern singers Wilco, Billy Bragg, and Natalie Merchant. Nora Guthrie found a trove of her father’s unrecorded lyrics and worked with these artists to set them to music. I’ve been intrigued by that project for decades. In LADY SUNSHINE, my main character, Jackie, inherits a gorgeous piece of land in California called The Sandcastle—as well as the recording studio in the home’s basement. We know that she spent one life-changing summer there with her cousin Willa as a teen in 1979, when it was a mecca for musicians, artists, and free spirits who’d descend on it every summer to bask in the glow of her musician uncle. But we don’t know what happened to make her run away. In 1999, she reluctantly agrees to host musicians for the summer so they can record a tribute album to her late uncle. The place comes to life again and she’s drawn into their world…and forced to confront the truth of her 1979 summer. Another major inspiration was the setting of The Sandcastle. I’ve always…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE NATURE OF SMALL BIRDS 2–What is it about? In 1975, 3,000 children were airlifted out of Vietnam to be adopted into families in Australia, Canada, and the United States in what was known as Operation Babylift. This is a story of a family who adopted one of these little girls.  3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  This story is set in a fictional town in Northern Michigan. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to do my home state justice, but I really love living here. That’s why I love writing stories about people who are fellow Michiganders.  4–How did your main character(s) surprise you?  This is the kind of book that needed more than one main character. That certainly surprised me while I was writing it! Bruce has the 2013 timeline, Sonny narrates 1988, and Linda is the main character in 1975. But, really, all of their stories point to Minh, the daughter who was adopted from Vietnam.  5–Why will readers relate to your characters?  You know, in a lot of ways this is a story about letting go. Letting go of long-held wishes in…

1–What is the title of your latest release? Victoria Christopher Murray: THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN which I co-authored with Marie Benedict. Marie Benedict: THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, which was co-written with Victoria Christopher Murray. 2–What is it about? VCM: It is the story of Belle da Costa Greene, a woman who walked into JP Morgan’s library in 1906 when she was in her twenties, became his personal librarian, and rose to be one of the most powerful women in the art world. She helped to build Morgan’s art and rare books and manuscript collection. MB: THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN is the remarkable story of J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, who became one of the most important people in the art world during her lifetime and left a lasting legacy that enriched our nation but could only do so by passing as white and hiding her true Black identity because of the racist, segregated society in which she lived. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  VCM: It’s in New York (my favorite place in the world) and so much of it takes place at the Morgan Library which is incredibly beautiful for lots of reasons. MB: The book…

1–What is the title of your latest release?  THE GODMOTHERS 2–What is it about? Pitched as “Elena Ferrante meets Big Little Lies”,  THE GODMOTHERS is about four remarkable women from very different backgrounds who are united by marriage in an elegant, prosperous Italian family, and then must take charge of the family’s business when their husbands are forced to leave them during World War II. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  THE GODMOTHERS takes place mainly in New York City and its Westchester suburbs from the 1930s through the 1950s. I worked in the city and I loved discovering its old buildings and the great stories that went with it. That glamorous, dangerous, bygone aura still clings to places like Bergdorf Goodman’s, the Copacabana, the Majestic apartment building, Coney Island, Balducci’s Market, the Plaza Hotel—it’s all still there. 4–How did your main character(s) surprise you? They are so brave! The four Godmothers never fail to rise to the occasion as a team: Filomena overcomes childhood trauma to be a leader and protector of the family; Lucy uses her skills as a nurse to make the right decisions even when she feels betrayed; Amie recovers from an…

Although marriages take place all during the year, June was traditionally the month of brides and weddings. For this June, as we emerge from isolation to actually be able to attend events like weddings again, we’ll look at novels that relate the stories of some famous romances and marriages based on real events. Starting with the royal, we have BEFORE THE CROWN by Flora Harding.  In the years before World War II, young Princess Elizabeth’s visit with her family to the Royal Naval College leads to her meeting the naval cadet detailed to escort and entertain them—Prince Phillip, son of the deposed Greek king and nephew of her uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, who becomes the major supporter of the romance.  Smitten with the handsome blond prince, Elizabeth’s attachment never waivers.  Nine years later, with the Prince a decorated combat veteran intent on a brilliant naval career, Elizabeth will fight tenaciously against her family’s reluctance and the court’s disapproval to insist on marrying none but this penniless foreign prince.  A tale of “royal secrets and forbidden love.” A commoner who became royal stars in our next selection, THE GIRL IN THE WHITE GLOVES by Kerri Maher.  Defying her proper family to…

PROLOGUE Cush shall hasten to stretch out her hands to God. PSALM 68:31 AD 31 He took one last aching look outside the crumbling window; the Nile was molten gold in the light of the rising sun, a sparkling coil winding its way into the horizon. Forcing himself to turn away, he came to kneel by the pallet where his bride lay sleeping. To have this woman, he would have to give up the lush beauty of his land, give up his family and heritage. He smiled. She was worth all the loss. For his sake, she had given up as much and more. “Time to wake up, love.” She groaned something incoherent, more asleep than awake. “Come now, lazy. Open those enchanting sea-green eyes. We can’t linger here. They will have discovered our absence by now.” He spoke in a light tone, making sure none of his mounting anxiety leaked into his voice. Still, the reminder of their vulnerability was enough to banish the last vestiges of her sleep. She snapped her eyes open and sat up in one smooth motion, holding the sheet to her throat. “How long have we been here?” “Too long.” He motioned to the…

Seemed everybody was talking about Aunt Perdie today. Truth was, plenty of Aunt Perdie stories floated around the mountains. She hadn’t ever married. Said nobody ever came calling to ask her, but if they had, she might just have said no. Leastways once she got past normal marrying age. By then she couldn’t see the purpose in sharing a cabin that wasn’t all that big with some man who’d want her to do things his way. Not when she was happy doing things her way. Would that be how Tansy ended up? An old lady in a lonesome cabin after spurning whatever marriage prospects might have come knocking on her door? Youngsters then might be sharing Aunt Tansy stories. Could be they already were talking about that crazy book woman, even if they were glad to see her coming. The thought made her laugh out loud. At Aunt Perdie’s, Tansy tied Shadrach to a handy tree, then climbed up the steps to bang on the cabin door. Aunt Perdie didn’t have a porch, just a little slab of roof over the top step. She was ready to knock again when the door creaked open. “Well, if it ain’t the book woman….