Wake of Echoes

Do you love a good suspense novel? I do! And for me, summer is a great season for reading suspense. There is something about the long, warm days that make me feel safer when the words I'm reading turn dark and sinister. So what books do I suggest? Here is a short list of suspenseful summer reads for 2018. Some of them are romantic, some are thought-provoking and some have villains that will make you double check your locks at night, but one thing they all have in common: prose that will raise goosebumps across your sun-kissed shoulders. 1. BENEATH THE SURFACE by Jeni Grossman Griggsberg. A Safe Place to Raise a Family. That's what the sign into town reads, and few people have any reason to think differently. From the stately church on the hill—its magnificent stained-glass windows visible anywhere in the town—to man-made Lake Shiloh dotted by beautiful homes along the shore, an air of peaceful tranquility seems to envelop all of Griggsberg. But things aren...

Summer is the perfect time for catching up on all those wonderful books your friends keep raving about. Whether you're going to the beach, traveling abroad, visiting Grandma, or stuck babysitting your little brother, this collection of young adult dystopian novels will carry you away to darker worlds of the future, where young people fight to be heard ... and sometimes to save the world! Like any good collection, these twelve books are a mixture of new releases and classic favorites, but everyone of them is a MUST READ for true fans of the YA dystopian genre. Here they are, in no particular order: 1.  Stealing Liberty  by Jennifer Froelich When Reed Paine is sent to a secret detention school for teens whose parents are branded enemies of the state, he doesn’t expect to find friendship – especially after coming face to face with Riley Paca, a girl who has every reason to hate him.  But when Reed, Riley and a few others start reading the old books...

Do you ever feel like summer has just become... Get up and go,  Packed schedules, Overheated, Over expensive, Exhausting, Too much work, Sand in your eyes, not between your toes? My son just graduated from college and got his first full-time career job. One of the first things he said was, "Now summer is just another season for me." I don't like that! I want summer to be... Lazy days and lemonade, Straw hats and sandals, Hammocks and porch swings, Cloud watching, Trail hiking, Fresh air breathing, Adventure seeking! Nice fantasy, right? Especially if you're stuck working this summer, have no vacation money or vacation plans on the horizon and expect summer to just be the same as the rest of the year --- but hotter and with kids to deal with as well! The answer to our need for escape and our inability to escape is obvious: We need to spend our summer reading. Yes! Escape with me to the future, or the past. To Greece or Me...

STEALING LIBERTY by Jennifer Froelich, published by Clean Reads, 2017 I am so excited to share this news with you: my new novel, STEALING LIBERTY, will be released in all e-book formats June 13, 2017.  Here's the scoop: When Reed Paine is sent to a secret detention school for teens whose parents are branded enemies of the state, he doesn’t expect to find friendship – especially after coming face to face with Riley Paca, a girl who has every reason to hate him. But when Reed, Riley and a few others start reading the old books they find in tunnels under the school, they begin to question what they are taught about the last days of America and the government that has risen in its place. Then the government decides to sell the Liberty Bell and Reed and his friends risk everything to steal it – to take back their history and the liberty that has been stolen from them. In the coming weeks, I'm going to tell you more about Stealing Liberty: How I came up with the stor...

Back in January, when I wrote about why I love Millennials , I mentioned that Millennials are media cynics who neither watch nor trust what the mainstream media has to say about politics. It's true, and I respect that. Truly. But I know what some of you were thinking: Yeah, but whether they watch the mainstream media or not, Millennials are still overwhelmingly liberal. Yep, that's true too. There are lots of explanations for that, just like there are lots of explanations for why senior citizens are mostly conservative. Some are detailed, some are vague. Some are logical, some are just insulting. Some go back hundreds of years, like the one below, which I've heard in one form or another for most of my life ( For more information on the origin of this saying, visit:  Quote Investigator ). We could talk for a long time about the influence of teachers, parents and peers on the political and ideological outlook of Millennials (okay, and everyone else too), but to...

I'm a failure. A big fat failure. I'm so sick about my failure, I write this post distracted. Don't expect pithy sentences or clever metaphors. Expect cliches, danging participles and archaic expressions. I'm too upset to even try to impress you. Yes, it's a real thing. Why am I a failure and what are my excuses? Read on, dear reader. It's all because November is over, which means National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWRiMo , (the silliest acronym ever created by people who are supposed to be good at this stuff), is also over. And I have failed to reach any NaNoWriMo victories. Any! I know I shouldn't take it so hard. Failing at NaNoWriMo doesn't mean I'm a failure at writing. I wrote two novels before I had ever heard of NaNoWriMo. I wrote my third manuscript (currently being shopped to publishing houses by my hardworking agent ... stay tuned!) without participating. And yeah, "participating" is a...

I am so excited to share this news: A Place Between Breaths was awarded an Honorable Mention for genre fiction in Writer's Digest's most recent Self-Published Book competition. Nearly 5,500 books were entered in the competition and only ten books were honored for genre fiction (that combines romance, suspense, thrillers, sci fi, memoirs, mysteries, westerns, etc. -- in other words, a very competitive field). Each books was judged in six categories*, with a high score of five points. A Place Between Breaths was awarded a FIVE in every category! Here's what the judge who read it had to say (SPOILER WARNING: A minor spoiler from the prologue is in the second paragraph): I loved this story! It is a well-written, suspenseful, crime-investigation novel that also highlights the problems of border crossings, the Mexican drug cartels, dirty DEA officers and police officers as well as their truly courageous counterparts. In addition, I loved that you began with the vie...