Monday, October 27, 2014

Susan McBride

Susan McBride is the USA Today bestselling author of Blue Blood and four other award-winning Debutante Dropout Mysteries from HarperCollins/Avon, including The Good Girl's Guide To Murder, The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club, Night Of The Living Deb, and Too Pretty To Die. A sixth title, Say Yes to the Death, will be out in September 2015. McBride has another series with Avon that debuted in May 2014, the River Road Mysteries, starting with To Helen Back and followed by Mad as Helen (July 2014) and Not a Chance in Helen (September 2014). McBride's young adult thriller, Very Bad Things, is an October 2014 release from Delacorte Press. Publishers Weekly raves: "McBride's fast-paced plot is fueled by jumps between multiple characters' perspectives, and her rendering of the venerable yet sinister school... is as absorbing as the tightly wound mystery."

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. McBride's reply:
I normally don’t read two books at once, but I’m doing that now.

First, I’ve got Lisa Wingate’s The Prayer Box on my Android. So it goes with me to doctors’ appointments and anywhere I’ll be sitting for a while, twiddling my thumbs and waiting. It’s about a woman named Tandy whose life has come apart at the seams. She has two kids, and she’s recently run from an abusive marriage. So she’s trying to lie low, pick up some cash, and rebuild her messed-up life from scratch. In the process, she becomes the caretaker of a dead woman’s house. She finds scads of letters this woman wrote to God, asking all sorts of questions and trying to figure out her own confusing life. I’ve never really read Christian fiction before, but I met Lisa a few years back at the Southern Indie Booksellers convention and I figured it was about time I checked out her bestselling fiction. I’ve definitely been sucked into the story, which takes the reader on a journey of discovery through Tandy’s eyes, of her own life and the dead woman, Iola Anne Poole’s. It’s not in any way preachy. It feels like mainstream fiction, which kind of surprised me. It’s a very satisfying read.

The other book is a trade paperback which I keep at my bedside. It’s called The Night Garden by Lisa Van Allen, and my agent sent it to me as she knows I enjoy magical realism (and they rep Lisa, too). I just started it a few evenings ago, and I’m already caught up in the strange world of Olivia Pennywort and her garden in the Catskills that defies the laws of nature. I’m a big fan of Sarah Addison Allen, who does magical realism like no one else. I’m hopefully that Lisa Van Allen’s novel will transport me in the same way that Sarah’s novels do.
Visit Susan McBride's website.

Writers Read: Susan McBride (September 2011).

The Page 69 Test: Little Black Dress.

--Marshal Zeringue