#read99women: Heather Webb

I have many fun Heather Webb stories, but here’s my favorite: when I flew cross-country to Portland, Oregon to attend my first Historical Novel Society Conference, I arrived at the conference hotel around 10 p.m. local time, exhausted and already spent. But at this particular hotel, the hotel bar was located between the front door and the registration desk, and the minute I got inside, I spotted Heather Webb. We hugged and started talking. I ended up not checking in until well after midnight Pacific time.

Totally worth it!

Even if you only know Heather Webb from her novels, you know she’s got a sharp mind, an eye for detail, a way with words, and a lively sense of fun. I knew she’d have a great recommendation for #read99women and her choice does not disappoint.

Heather Webb is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of six historical novels. In 2015, Rodin’s Lover was a Goodreads Top Pick, and in 2018, Last Christmas in Paris won the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award. Her latest, Meet Me in Monaco, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Goldsboro RNA award in the UK, as well as the 2019 Digital Book World’s Fiction prize. To date, Heather’s books have been translated to over a dozen languages.  

Heather’s pick is the amazing CIRCE by Madeline Miller. “Each sentence is a pearl; a smooth and iridescent beauty that you'd like to hold in your mind. I savored every page.“ Click here to read Heather’s full review.

Click here to follow Heather Webb on BookBub. (You’ll want to do this, trust me.)

#read99women: Matthew Norman

Yesterday we had our first double act, two collaborating authors each making her own recommendation, and today we’ve got another #read99women first: a male author sharing his pick. When I started putting together the idea of #read99women, I figured it made sense to extend invitations regardless of gender. If the books themselves were about or by women, I decided, the gender of the recommender didn’t particularly matter. (That said, you may have noticed the obvious preponderance of women, but if you know—or are—a male author who wants to participate, just drop me a line! We’ll talk.)

Today’s guest Matthew Norman’s latest novel LAST COUPLE STANDING follows a married couple, Jessica and Mitch, as they decide that the best way to minimize their chances of divorce—a plague that has hit their friend group hard—is to open their marriage. Trouble and hilarity both ensue.

Matthew Norman lives with his wife and two daughters in Baltimore, Maryland, and holds an MFA from George Mason University. His newest novel, LAST COUPLE STANDING, is out now.

His first novel, DOMESTIC VIOLETS, was nominated in the Best Humor Category at the 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards, and his second novel, WE’RE ALL DAMAGED, was an Amazon bestseller. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @TheNormanNation.

Matthew Norman

Without further ado: Matthew Norman!

“By sheer coincidence, as I write this, it should be MLB’s Opening Day. I’m doing my best to keep things in perspective. The world has bigger problems than a delayed baseball season, right? But, to be honest, the absence of my favorite sport has me down this week. Fortunately, I have Emily Nemens’ THE CACTUS LEAGUE to help me through.  

The book has several storylines and a rich cast of characters, so it’s a tough one to summarize in a single sentence. But, basically, THE CACTUS LEAGUE is about a group of people who are associated with a fictional baseball team during Spring Training, most notably superstar outfielder Jason Goodyear, whose life and career are beginning to come apart at the seams.

 Nemens clearly knows baseball inside and out. She gets the nuances of the game and, more importantly, the passion it instills in its players, coaches, and fans. But, you don’t need to be a baseball fanatic to enjoy this book. You just need to like really, really good fiction. The characters are wonderfully drawn and deeply human, and their storylines intersect in interesting, compelling ways. 

I absolutely loved this book. In fact, I loved it so much that I made myself read slowly—often putting it down when I wanted to keep going. Because, like a dream season, when something is this good, you want it to last.”  

#read99women: Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke

Eagle-eyed #read99women readers — not sure how many of those there are! — may have noticed that yesterday was the first time since the series started that we didn’t have a new recommendation posted. Partly that was to leave space for the GIRL IN DISGUISE temporary ebook discount (hint hint — there may be other books with a temporary price dip coming soon!) and partly it was because I knew that we’d have two recommendations today, in a #read99women first!

Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke have been best friends forever and amicably co-writing bestsellers since 2014. They are now the authors of six, soon to be seven, novels, including GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT, THE TWO LILA BENNETTS, and the Amazon Charts bestselling novel THE GOOD WIDOW. Their new novel coming this summer is a dark, heart pounding love story with a magical twist. HOW TO SAVE A LIFE will publish on July 14th, 2020. Pre-order it here.

Also! Hit up their Facebook page for virtual brunches, their new podcast, a mega-huge 43-book giveaway, and more.

Liz & Lisa

And now: two authors, two #read99women recommendations!

Liz recommends Cheryl Strayed’s TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS, saying it’s “a masterpiece, and is meant to be savored.” Full review here.

Lisa’s pick is FOREVER IS THE WORST LONG TIME by Camille Pagan, “one of the best books I've read in a very long time.” Here’s the rest of the rave.

ebook deal: GIRL IN DISGUISE!

Hello world! Hope everyone’s hanging in there, taking these wild times day by day. Here at Macallister HQ the kids are reveling in all the extra screen time and the parents are grateful for ways to make that screen time educational (thank you for your service, Mo Willems.)

Whether you’re busier than usual or becalmed and bored, I hope you’re finding the time to escape into a book and read for pleasure. If so, here’s a deal for you: my novel about the first woman Pinkerton detective, GIRL IN DISGUISE, is $2.99 across multiple ebook platforms (Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iBooks, Google Play Books, and Kobo) TODAY ONLY!

More on GIRL IN DISGUISE:

For the first female Pinkerton detective, respect is hard to come by. Danger, however, is not.

In the tumultuous years of the Civil War, the streets of Chicago offer a woman mostly danger and ruin―unless that woman is Kate Warne, the first female Pinkerton detective and a desperate widow with a knack for manipulation.

Descending into undercover operations, Kate is able to infiltrate the seedy side of the city in ways her fellow detectives can't. She's a seductress, an exotic foreign medium, a rich train passenger―all depending on the day and the robber, thief, or murderer she's been assigned to nab.

But is the woman she's becoming―capable of lies, swapping identities like dresses―the true Kate? Or has the real disguise been the good girl she always thought she was? As the tensions between the north and south escalate, Kate takes on a job in which the stakes have never been higher. The nation's future is at risk, even as the lines between disguise and reality begin to blur.

(Plus, it’s perfect for Women’s History Month!)

#read99women: Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon is a native New Yorker, former actress and history geek. Her book SCANDALOUS WOMEN was released in March 2011 to enthusiastic reviews. Since the book’s release, the book has been sold to Thailand, Korea, and Poland. SCANDALOUS WOMEN was an RT Book Review Non-Fiction Pick for April 2011 and Elizabeth was also named RWA NYC’s Author of the Year. In 2012, she was a featured speaker at the We Move Forward conference on Isla Mujeres, Mexico, and participated in Chick History’s yearlong project #HerStory. Elizabeth has been featured in the H2 show How Sex Changed the World, as well as The Travel Channel’s Monumental Mysteries, and the Investigation Discovery show Tabloid. A pop-culture diva, Elizabeth has written for The Royal Representative, Heroes and Heartbreakers, Ever After Romance, and Criminal Element.

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

Elizabeth’s #read99women recommendation is Julia Kelly's historical novel THE WHISPERS OF WAR. She says, “World War II is a particular interest of mine, since my dad and uncle fought in the war and I love books that are about female friendships.  THE WHISPERS OF WAR is such a beautiful, heartrending story of three friends who struggle to remain loyal when one of them is threatened with internment by the British Government.  The friendship between Nora, Marie and Hazel just felt so real. I felt like I was there in London in those early months of the war. You will think about this book long after you turn the last page.” 

#read99women: J.T. Ellison

It seems so long ago already, but before we all stopped leaving our houses, I was lucky enough to catch J.T. Ellison’s event at Solid State Books for her new boarding school thriller, GOOD GIRLS LIE. J.T. is always a ray of sunshine and her newest book is getting some of the best reviews of her career, like this starred rave from Publishers Weekly: “A high-tension thriller...Alternating points of view raise the suspense, blurring the lines between what’s true and false...Ellison keeps readers guessing throughout." (I love to guess. Don’t you?)

J.T. Ellison began her career as a presidential appointee in the White House, where a nuclear physicist taught her how to obsess over travel itineraries and make a seriously good pot of Earl Grey, spawning both her love of loose leaf and a desire for control of her own destiny. Jaded by the political climate in D.C., she made her way back to her first love, creative writing. More than 20 novels later, she is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with millions of books in print, and is published in 28 countries and 16 languages. She is also the EMMY-award winning cohost of A WORD ON WORDS, a literary interview television show, and co-wrote the “A Brit in the FBI” series with #1 New York Times bestseller Catherine Coulter. She lives in Nashville with her husband and two small gray minions, known as cats in some cultures. She thinks they’re furry aliens. Visit JT at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more insight into her wicked imagination.

J.T. Ellison

J.T.’s #read99women pick is Laura Benedict’s THE STRANGER INSIDE.

“Nothing excites me more than a talented author making an editorial pivot,” says J.T. “Dark, intelligent, beautifully written.” Read her full review here on BookBub.

(And follow J.T. on BookBub while you’re at it, because she’s always making awesome recommendations!)

#read99women: Alice Stephens

Please welcome to the blog today’s guest, Alice Stephens!

Alice Stephens’ debut novel, FAMOUS ADOPTED PEOPLE, was published in 2018 by Unnamed Press. Her work has appeared in LitHub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Margins, Banana Writers and other publications. She is a contributing editor to Bloom and writes book reviews and a column, Alice in Wordland, for the Washington Independent Review of Books. 

Alice Stephens

Alice’s #read99women pick is Stephanie Allen’s historical novel TONIC AND BALM.

Her rave review: “To discover how our country arrived at this era of climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, measles parties, and a conman in the White House, one only need look back to that unique American phenomenon, the medicine show, which mixed titillating entertainment with sketchy medical advice in order to sell useless balms for illnesses both real and imagined. Stephanie Allen’s fascinating and richly textured novel, TONIC AND BALM, depicts one such troupe, Doc Bell’s Miracles and Mirth Medicine Show, as it travels through Pennsylvania shortly after World War I. The relations in this close-knit community of outcasts are further complicated by racial divisions, as the troupe is comprised of both blacks and whites, including the eponymous Doc Bell, a man of Lincolnesque height who wears a suit of American flags; and the fulcrum of the novel, Antoinette Riddick, AKA Sheba, Queen of the Nile, a sideshow freak put on display for her Elephant Man-like deformity. Stephanie Allen richly renders an America where the marginalized must do everything they can to survive, which often entails exploiting the vulnerable, but also leads to tender displays of mercy, solidarity, and love.”

#read99women: Kristy Cambron

Blurbs are very much on my mind these days, as my forthcoming book THE ARCTIC FURY is out with a few key authors who are reading way-early advance copies in order to decide if they like it enough to blurb. Fingers crossed, right? I always advise first-time authors who aren’t sure about asking strangers to blurb that there is absolutely no harm in asking. I’ve encountered so many new-to-me authors when they or their publishers asked if I’d consider blurbing their books.

That’s how I first became familiar with the work of today’s guest, Kristy Cambron—reading and loving an early copy of her novel THE ILLUSIONIST’S APPRENTICE. (If you enjoyed my debut, THE MAGICIAN’S LIE, definitely take a look at this one!)

KRISTY CAMBRON is a vintage-inspired storyteller writing both award-winning historical fiction, including her bestselling debut THE BUTTERFLY AND THE VIOLIN, and nonfiction, including the Verse Mapping series of Bibles and Bible studies. Her work has been named to Publishers Weekly Religion & Spirituality TOP 10, Library Journal Reviews' Best Books, RT Reviewers' Choice Awards, received 2015 & 2017 INSPY Award nominations, and has been featured at CBN, Lifeway Women, Jesus Calling, Country Woman Magazine, MICI Magazine, Faithwire, (in)Courage, and Bible Gateway.

Kristy holds a degree in Art History/Research Writing and lives in Indiana with her husband and three sons, where she can probably be bribed with a peppermint mocha latte and a good read.

Kristy Cambron

Kristy’s recommendation for #read99women: “I was invited by a publishing colleague to advance read Patti Callahan's BECOMING MRS. LEWIS, the true-to-life love story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis. 

This was as stunning a novel as any I'd ever read. This book became a friend with the turn of each page. Even as I stood in line at the airport for my own season of travels, it gripped me and I couldn't put it down. I later wrote that it was: ‘Intelligent. Witty and charming. BECOMING MRS. LEWIS is a stunning foray into the wilds of faith—from doubt and discovery, to the great adventure of living it out. Patti Callahan’s invitation into Joy and Jack’s love story is as brilliant as the lives they led. I’m left as spellbound as the first time I met Aslan... with these characters now just as dear.’ 

If I've recommended novels by women, for women, in the last few years, this one has been (and still is) on the top of my list.” 

#read99women: Randy Susan Meyers

And it’s Friday once again! Doesn’t it seem like several years since last Friday? I went to check the calendar on something recently, trying to remember when it happened, and it turns out that a phone call that felt like over a month ago… actually happened last week. With all the rapid changes and unforeseen circumstances hitting us hard these days, be sure to take some time for yourself, relax as best you can, and breathe deep.

(And wash your hands. Then moisturize them, because with all this soap and sanitizer, we’re all starting to look like we’re wearing alligator gloves.)

Randy Susan Meyers is our #read99women guest today, recommending a read that sounds perfect for these trying times. But first things first, before we get to the book: the bio.

Randy Susan Meyers' internationally bestselling novels are informed by years working with families impacted by violence. Her fifth novel, Waisted, tackles the personal and political: body image. Parade Magazine, Pop Sugar, BookBub, Women.com, Get Literary, and Brit.Com chose Waisted as a Top 2019 Summer Read. Three of Meyer's novels were chosen as a "Must Read Book" by the Massachusetts Council of the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress. They wrote, "The clear and distinctive voice of Randy Susan Meyers will have you enraptured and wanting more." She lives in Boston with her husband, where she teaches writing seminars at Boston's Grub Street Writers' Center.

Randy Susan Meyers

“I adore Lorna Landvik, on the page and in person. I still remember the first time I discovered her —with PATTY JANE'S HOUSE OF CURL—as one of my peak read moments. Lorna's latest, CHRONICLES OF A RADICAL HAG (WITH RECIPES) is a complete and utter delight—I loved this story of an older female journalist's life being rediscovered by a troubled teenage boy. The novel is not only utterly engaging, but also presents a story of how a small community meshes and supports each other despite their political differences. This is a novel we need right now, and one that provides page-turning pleasure. We discover this columnist's life through her columns— being republished while she is in the hospital—and the views of those reading them for the first time. Landvik provides a time-span of history and the life of a woman ahead of her time. I loved it, and from the reviews below, I’m not the only one.”

"At a time when local newspapers are nearing extinction, and reporters are deemed enemies of the people, Landvik’s smart and lovely paean to journalists is a welcome reminder of the important role they play in the lives of those who depend on newspapers for more than just information."—Booklist

"Landvik’s heartwarming novel is packed with big-hearted people tenderly and hilariously learning to appreciate the past and each other by visiting the planet of the town’s octogenarian columnist and coming away the richer for it."—Star Tribune

"This is a real tribute to all of the small-town, warmhearted, big-mouthed ‘radical hags’ out there, and a truly fun read for them, too."—The Washington Post

"Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes) uncovers secrets, cures heartaches, changes assumptions and offers opportunities."—Hutchinson Leader

#read99women: Drēma Drudge

We all know it’s a tough time for authors to put new books out into the world; for small press authors, the challenges are often even steeper. So I’m happy to be able to spotlight new releases from small presses as they come down the pike, like VICTORINE by Drēma Drudge, just released this week by Fleur-de-Lis Press.

Here’s the summary of VICTORINE: “In 1863 Civil War is raging in the United States. Victorine Meurent is posing nude, in Paris, for paintings that will be heralded as the beginning of modern art: Manet’s Olympia and Picnic on the Grass. However, Victorine’s persistent desire is not to be a model but to be a painter herself. In order to live authentically, she finds the strength to flout the expectations of her parents, bourgeois society, and the dominant male artists (whom she knows personally) while never losing her capacity for affection, kindness, and loyalty. Possessing both the incisive mind of a critic and the intuitive and unconventional impulses of an artist, Victorine and her survival instincts are tested in 1870, when the Prussian army lays siege to Paris and rat becomes a culinary delicacy. Drēma Drudge’s powerful first novel Victorine not only gives this determined and gifted artist back to us but also recreates an era of important transition into the modern world.”

The author’s bio: Drēma Drudge suffers from Stendhal’s Syndrome, the condition in which one becomes overwhelmed in the presence of great art. She attended Spalding University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program where she learned to transform that intensity into fiction. Her debut novel VICTORINE is now available. For more about her writing, art, and travels, please visit her website, www.dremadrudge.com, and sign up for her newsletter.

Drema Drudge

Drēma’s #read99women recommendation is THREE WAYS TO DISAPPEAR by Katy Yocom. She says: “Filled with tigers, twins, passion, second chances, and plot twists which lead to an unexpected but satisfying climax, this book mesmerizes.”

Read her full review on Goodreads here.