Fiction | Chapter 16

Victorian Secrets and Lies

By Faye Jones

October 28, 2011

October 28, 2011 Members of the Victorian upper crust, like rich people of all times, feared losing their money. They were afraid their children wouldn’t make good marriages. They worried about keeping reliable servants. But, as former Franklin novelist Tasha Alexander clearly understands, the greatest fear of Victorian society was the loss of respectability. The perp in Alexander’s latest Victorian mystery, A Crimson Warning, plays on this fear as Lady Emily Hargreaves and her husband Colin race to find the culprit before the bodies stack up.

Great Self-Doubt—and Intense Dedication

By Susannah Felts

October 27, 2011

October 27, 2011 In Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s charming collection of linked stories, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a young seventh-grade English teacher, Beatrice Hempel, offers lovingly detailed observations of a middle-school ecosystem—observations that are immediately resonant and often suffused with wry humor, both for readers who have taught and those who have done time in those locker-lined halls only as students. Bynum answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to her reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on November 3 at 7 p.m.

Living In a Gray Area

By Chris Scott

October 26, 2011

October 26, 2011 Court Gentry lives in a morally ambiguous world. In Ballistic by Memphis novelist Mark Greaney, the ex-CIA assassin brings his unique fighting skills to bear against some of the most violent people on earth—the Mexican drug cartels. The action is fast and deadly, and the shadows dark and deep, in this third outing for one of the thriller genre’s newest heroes.

Can Southern Girls Go Home Again?

By Faye Jones

October 25, 2011

October 25, 2011 In Yankee Doodle Dixie, Franklin resident Lisa Patton brings her popular character Leelee Satterfield home to Memphis after a tumultuous and cold year in Vermont. Leelee believes that all will be well once she returns to Tennessee. But will she be able to settle back into her old life? Does she want to? Patton will read from and discuss the book as part of the Evening with an Author series at the University Club of Nashville on October 27 at 6 p.m.

Murder on Music Row: A Music Industry Thriller

By Tristan Hickey

October 21, 2011

“Dill, who has served as personal manager for Minnie Pearl, Billy Ray Cyrus and other notables in the Nashville country music world, brings his insider’s expertise to his solid debut, a mystery thriller…The conclusion is stunning.”

— Publishers Weekly

Listen: Twenty Nine Short Conversations

By Tristan Hickey

October 21, 2011

“Corey Mesler’s page-turning collection offers readers conversation: here is a deeply engaging mode which delights the intelligence while also registering on the nervous system of its readers – a combination that will wake you right up. These pieces also return us to the essence of the gift of conversation itself: that we might learn to live with it – the mysteries and gaps that haunt the human experience. This is an exciting new work from a writer who knows how to position himself in order to truly listen and mercifully invites his readers to do the same.”

— Selah Saterstrom, author of The Meat and Spirit Plan

“The highlight of the book is Fields’ animal characters. Whether happy, nervous, or sad, their expressive faces are easy to read, and their feelings will be familiar to young tots. … A tender book to help little ones make sense of the emotions around prayer.”

~Kirkus Reviews