Recommended Reading List: January 2023

I taught a workshop, and spent a lot of January reading stories in manuscript. (I still have a lot to go because of a stupidly busy February.) I ended up reading a novel that was awful. The writing was good; the situation implausible; the characters all dumber than rocks. But I couldn’t figure out how this traditionally published author got to his ending. So I […]

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Free Fiction Monday: G-Men

The acclaimed short story that inspired the award-winning novel, The Enemy Within. February, 1964: Two men die in a squalid alley in a bad neighborhood. New York Homicide Detective Seamus O’Reilly receives the shock of his life when he looks at the men’s identification: J. Edgar Hoover, the famous, tyrannical director of the FBI, and his number one assistant, Clyde Tolson. O’Reilly teams up with […]

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Recommended Reading: February, 2022

February got away from me. I was working on a deadline and dealing with several other things. Plus a nightmare course at school that I eventually dropped. (The course was cursed; the original prof had left the university suddenly, so they substituted a woman whose Spanish was as good as mine [which is to say, not great]. All the native speakers dropped out. It was […]

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Recommended Reading List: September, 2021

It’s been an interesting reading month. I started reading a book on West Side Story, which looked truly interesting. It was unbelievably boring, but I finished it anyway. I’m not usually that completist. I think it simply points out how tired I am and how unwilling I was to look for something new. I read a lot of court cases and stuff in Spanish. I […]

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Free Fiction Monday: The Last Surviving Gondola Widow

In an alternate post-Civil War Chicago, the citizens still remember the day the Gondolas sent by the South died and the city burned—again. Lou, a Pinkerton detective, uses magic to hunt down the Gondola pilots, now called Gondola widows. She thought she caught them all. But when evidence comes to light that one last widow hides in the most public of places, Lou must find […]

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Free Fiction Monday: Death Stopped for Miss Dickinson

Poet Emily Dickinson writes about death like one who knows it well. But how she knows it proves a mystery to most who know her. Most, but not all. One knows her secret. One who loves her. One whose meeting she might come to regret for an eternity. “Death Stopped for Miss Dickinson,” by World Fantasy Award-winning author Kristine Kathryn Rusch is free on this […]

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Free Fiction Monday: Politicians, Lost Causers, and Abigail Lockwood

1912—In a world where President Andrew Johnson’s conviction at his impeachment trial guaranteed that Reconstruction not only had teeth but also continued into the 20th century, South Carolina stands out as a leader in change, a pioneer of laws that change the balance of power. This new United States, this new South, sees blacks and women rise to their rightful places of power alongside whites. […]

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Recommended Reading List: October 2019

October went by very, very fast. I have no idea how that happened. One day, the month started, and the next, it ended. Part of that was because the Business Master Class was at the end, and required a lot of prep. Next October, we hold the final Business Master Class, and we’ll limit attendance, so if you’re interested, sign up sooner rather than later. […]

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Alternate Peace

Now, here’s something fun. Alternate history stories about changes in history that occurred not because someone lost a war or won a battle, but because of something non-violent. No assassinations failing, no bombings unsolved. No. Instead, someone won an election who shouldn’t have…or, in my case, got impeached as he should have. Yes, I’m talking to you, Andrew Johnson, evil architect of our post Civil […]

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Recommended Reading List: August, 2018

Typos abound, even here on my website. I had this labeled August 2019 for the longest time. Who knew that I would be able to recommend books I would read a year from now? Seriously, though, August started out well, with the Amanda Quick book that I just devoured. I had a lot of other reading to do, and much of it was fun. I […]

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