The road to higher ed is paved with good intentions.
The desire for relevance—and to save his marriage—is ultimately what pushed Peter Cook to leave his beloved Alaska for the prestigious Parker College. Lured by the chance to work with his childhood political idol turned college president, Peter moves his family to Portland, Oregon to help promote his hero’s fundraising initiative that would eliminate financial status from the college’s admissions process.
Peter arrives on campus as the Great Recession looms, the stock market is trending toward disaster, and the opioid crisis has breached the walls of the privileged college. He quickly learns the reality of Parker College strays far from its professed idealistic mission after discovering a plot to cover-up felonious drug activity in return for a seven-figure payday to the Need Blind Campaign.
While plumbing the depths of his conscience for the conviction to do the right thing, Peter’s untreated childhood trauma resurfaces, threatening to cloud his perception when it needs to be at its sharpest. Peter must stabilize his mental health while also trying to parse competing versions of “the truth” as law enforcement investigates the criminal conspiracy.
Need Blind Ambition asks: how far will a college stray to protect its reputation?
Secrets are revealed. Lies are exposed. And in order to have a future, William and Eva will have to delve into the past.
William Templeton, widower and police chief of Eden, North Carolina is working the scene of a local woman’s drowning when the body is found with an old gold coin in her pocket – identical to a coin that was discovered on Catherine’s body, his estranged wife, over a year ago. Catherine’s case, originally deemed a tragic accident, has been reopened, forcing William to step down as police chief.
Historian and Blackbeard expert, Eva Knightly, is brought into the investigation to help identify the coins and can’t understand why her good friend Catherine never mentioned anything about it. When more coins surface at a local church, Eva and William know it’s more than mere coincidence. With the entire town whispering about Blackbeard, cursed coins, and lost treasure, it becomes hard to separate what is true and what is a myth.
The Seafarer’s Secret is a thrilling cinematic mystery featuring the exigent slow-burning romance between William and Eva as they work together to reveal the secrets and lies of Eden, North Carolina. Though, in order to have a future, they’ll have to look deep into the past to keep from being a modern-day killer’s next victim.
Tullan Holmqvist, one-half of the writing duo that brought you Lacie’s Secrets and The Woman in the Park, discusses the trials and triumphs of collaborating.
I love questions. And I am usually the one asking them. It’s just my nature. I am curious and have always wanted to figure things out, why people do what they do, what makes them tick, and how things are done. So when I am asked a question, I usually have to take time to really think about it. When people ask about the writing collaboration in creating our thrillers The Woman in the Park and Lacie’s Secrets with Teresa Sorkin, I have to laugh a little.
When I was a kid, I hated having to collaborate. At school, I dreaded the group projects where you had to “find someone to work with.” If I could, I would just do them myself. I’m independent, I like quick solutions, less discussion, and more doing. As a child, my family and I moved every few years, and so I found myself in a new country, not knowing the language, the local ways, or the rules. Born in Sweden to two adventurous parents, I went to nursery school in Nigeria, elementary school in Austria, middle school in Italy, and high school at a French school back in Sweden. As a first grader in a new country and confronted with a language I didn’t speak, I had to find other ways to understand what was going on, picking up on body language, and visual, energetic clues.
When I was ten years old, I got my first sweet taste of the theater when I was cast as the lead in a school play in Rome. I experienced the spell of the stage, the thrill of getting a laugh or a tear from the audience, and, most of all, the warm embrace of the community created in the theater. I discovered that collaborating can be exhilarating and can add up to so much more than each individual. Magic can blossom from a creative coming together with a common purpose. And that’s what I try to keep in mind – the goal of creating a story that can be shared.
Stories often emerge out of curiosity and a wish to understand others. Our psychological thriller The Woman in the Park was born from an interesting character, a woman in a park we both had seen independently, and had piqued our interest. She was elegant and always alone, seemingly talking to herself, lost in her own world. We took aspects of that character, planted the seed of our story, and let it grow. We added more characters, worked through the story and its arcs, and took turns writing and editing.
Together, we discussed scene organization and character development, and then let the writing take over, giving each other space to create.
Our second collaborative thriller, Lacie’s Secrets, grew out of a “What if?” scenario, fantasizing an actual situation – a holiday week at an isolated villa with a group of friends where something goes horribly wrong – and letting our imaginations wander. In the actual creation, the excitement came from seeing where the story and the characters lead us. Lacie’s Secrets has been described as a “riveting thriller” reminiscent of classic suspense novels (by Publishers Weekly), and Big Little Lies meets The Haunting of Hill House at a seaside estate in Maine.
Collaborating takes openness in communication, active listening, and constant compromise. While muddling through the messy forest of details, collaboration requires keeping the goal of the story in mind, finding creative solutions, and abiding by the golden rule of improvisation – “Yes, and…”
Lacie’s Secrets and The Woman in the Park are published by Beaufort Books. www.tullanh.com
Dr. Janet Gilsdorf, author of June release Fever, provides an informative and reassuring outlook on the pandemic for parents with children returning to the classroom.
Epidemics of nasty new germs are upon us; COVID, monkeypox, and hepatitis in children from adenovirus are the latest. In addition, old germs have raised their ugly heads (or will soon): polio, measles, and maybe the causes of other vaccine-preventable diseases. That’s a lot of worry for parents, especially since it’s back-to-school season and children will begin doing what they do so well: sharing with others—their ideas, their food, their dreams, and their infections.
My novel Fever also deals with the outbreak of an infectious disease in young children. That one actually happened in Brazil in 1984, and Fever offers a fictional depiction of the outbreak and the efforts of Dr. Sidonie Royal, a young physician-scientist, to figure it all out.
The outbreak in Brazil, called Brazilian Purpuric Fever or BPF, differed in many important ways from the current outbreaks. With BPF, the epidemic eventually burned out. While that definitely won’t happen with COVID, it may, in odd ways, happen with adenovirus-associated hepatitis and monkeypox. With BPF, all the affected children died while most children affected with modern epidemic microbes survive. The most important difference between BPF and COVID is that we have the means to prevent transmission of the COVID virus to children, and to treat serious infections if they occur.
The fact that such valuable tools are available to us, less than three years after the first appearance of SARS CoV 2 (the virus that causes COVID) is a miracle. Not a Biblical-type miracle, but the miracle of modern science and the scientists who developed the technology for RNA-vaccines over twenty years ago and then applied it to COVID when it emerged, and who built upon previous treatments to develop new anti-viral drugs and anti-inflammatory agents. We are so very fortunate this time. The next epidemic or global pandemic may not work this way.
So, as children return to school, we can be reassured that their COVID vaccinations will go a long way in protecting them from getting infected with SARS CoV 2. In addition, as that wily virus evolves and changes, we have additional tools to protect kids in school from newer, more transmissible SARS CoV2 variants. Children are very adaptable, and they manage masks much, much better than many adults do. Enlightened schools have updated their HVAC systems to maximize air-exchange in classrooms, thus diluting any viruses that find their way in. Newer vaccines are on the horizon.
Just as Dr. Sidonie Royal worked day and night to understand the BPF outbreak in Fever, physicians and scientists around the world are working day and night to more completely understand COVID and other contemporary epidemics, so that medical science can protect us and our precious children even better. We are indeed fortunate.
My last blog post featured some of my favorite books in a variety of genres. This blog will be about one genre in particular and my favorite author, Veronica Roth. She is the author of Chosen Ones, the Carve the Mark sequel, and the Divergent series, also one of the first book series that I ever read. Fast forward six or seven years later, Veronica Roth is coming to my city to promote her new Dystopia/Mystery/Thriller, Poster Girl. To quickly summarize her latest novel: it takes place between the cities of Seattle and Portland after the main character, Sonya searches for a missing girl as a favor to free herself from imprisonment after their “perfect” society falls apart.
On October 26th, at Powell’s Books in Oregon, I met Veronica Roth on her book tour. The event was after hours in the store, so it was quiet and all attendees were just as anxiously waiting for her as I was. I went to the event alone, so I didn’t have a friend to get out all of my excited feelings to before she walked out — that would have definitely helped me with all of the tears I was fighting back when she did step out with her husband. I had expected there to be a whole team of people assisting her, but it was just Veronica and her husband, which was so nice and made things more intimate.
The audience had the opportunity to write down questions for her when we got closer to the event’s end, and this is the one thing that I wish I had spent more time on in advance. I asked three questions, and the best one I had asked was answered before it was time for audience questions. The question was whether or not she was working on trying to get away from being known as the author of the Divergent series by not further promoting the book on her social media. The short answer to this question was yes. Roth had written Divergent when she was 24 years old and for a debut novel to take off as Divergent did completes all of the goals an author often has before having to really work for them. She summarizes this question by stating that she was left with a goal void and wasn’t sure where to go after that, which raised the question for her, “What is next after your first book does all the things you’ve ever dreamed of as an author?”
All that being said Veronica did talk a little bit about what it was like being on the set of all three Divergent movies which I was happy to get some inside on. It was obvious in the conversation that both Veronica and her husband had some mixed feelings about how things went for the films. They both joked about how the movies were true to the spirit of her books, but as they continued filming they got further away from what she had originally written. When she was on set for the third film she remembered walking around the filming location and having no idea where she was and why the actors were wearing the outfits they had on. Her husband answered with a little more hostility stating that Roth was only able to be so patient during the process. She wraps up this segment by expressing her gratitude for the films and how she wouldn’t be so far into her career without them.
On the topic of her newly published title, Poster Girl, Veronica stated that she had intended on writing the sequel to her book Chosen Ones, she joked “I can’t be relied on,” after having instead found herself writing another dystopian novel. She talked about her love for her new main character Sonya and the joy she has in writing heroic figures with an attitude problem, which I happen to love reading because same. This led to a conversation about how a lot of the time women writers are accused of self-inserting themselves into their characters. Roth’s grandfather had constantly accused her of being her character Tris Prior from Divergent which she absolutely hated hearing.
The event is concluded with one last question from an audience member who asked for Veronica’s advice on how to get more teens to read and she joked that writers should keep getting their books adapted and make movies, but then defends teens, claiming it can be “hard for teens to read and let someone else’s words in,” so to give them some slack. The book signing portion is what wrapped everything up and I was practically shaking from nerves when I got up to the table trying to find something clever or funny to say. I first handed her my copy of Divergent and told her it is my old copy from 2012 which I don’t actually know to be true, but she was kind anyway and wrote “Be Brave” on the inside and then took my copy of Poster Girl to sign. All in all, a great night, and I am thrilled to say I can check meeting my favorite author off of my bucket list.
Gold Medalist in the 2023 IPPYs for the Mystery category!
From internationally acclaimed and best-selling author RAYMOND BENSON comes a wry and darkly comedic work in which a quaint suburb of Chicago finds itself rocked by more than just the uncertainties of 2020. Perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and the twisted prose of Tom Perrotta.
For Scott Hatcher, a former television writer turned struggling novelist with a failing marriage to boot, social-distancing and mask-wearing feel like fitting additions to his already surreal life. When his wife Marie and neighbor John Bergman disappear in the middle of the raging COVID-19 pandemic, Scott is naturally mystified and disturbed, but he is also about to learn that his picturesque neighborhood hides more than just the mundane routines of suburban life.
When a fire claims the empty house for sale next door, the entire community is shocked when the charred remains of Marie and John are found inside. Stranger still, stockpiles of valuable Personal Protection Equipment, clearly stolen, were destroyed in the blaze alongside them. As the neighborhood reels from the loss, Scott and Bergman’s earthy and enticing widow, Rachel, not only find themselves under investigation for the crime, but also inexorably drawn to one another. As tensions reach a fever pitch, the tale—which is at once familiar and ordinary, yet bizarre and eerie—shows that, just like life in 2020’s uncertain times, dread and danger lurk below the hidden underside of everyday suburbia.
Fans of Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town and films by the sardonic Coen Brothers will be captivated by the warped Americana of The Mad, Mad Murders of Marigold Way.
FEATURE: THE ROSE CITY READER BOOK BLOG, TEASER TUESDAY: THE WOMAN IN THE PARK BY TERESA SORKIN AND TULLAN HOLMQVIST
It was amazing how much of a difference seeing Lawrence made, and not simply in the ways she would have expected. . . . She founded a wonderful new thrill to keep so vast a secret from her friend; Laura’s natural inquisitiveness only made it that much more of a challenge, as though getting through an interview with her might somehow prepare Sarah for the more daunting task of concealing the affair from her husband and her therapist.
– The Woman in the Park by Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist. This psychological thriller finds a Manhattan wife and mother at the center of a woman’s disappearance from the park, but nothing is as it seems.
Why would Woody Cole, a peaceful, caring man, shoot a US Senator in cold blood on live television? That’s the mystery facing attorney Jack Patterson as he returns to Little Rock, Arkansas, a town he swore he would never step foot in again.
When Men Betray is the first book of fiction from author, lecturer, and political insider Webb Hubbell. A departure from his previous book, Friends in High Places, an account of his rise and fall in Little Rock, Hubbell crafts a deft narrative of mystery and political intrigue. Set in a fictionalized version of his home town of Little Rock, Arkansas, readers will be immersed into the steamy world behind the southern BBQ and antebellum facade—a seedy underbelly of secrets and betrayals. Clever readers may recognize the colorful personalities and locales of the Arkansas political scene.
Jack is supported by a motley but able crew; loyal assistant Maggie, college-aged daughter Beth, feisty lawyer Micki, and his bodyguard Clovis. Together, Jack and his rag-tag team are in a race against time to discover Woody’s hidden motive. All he has is a series of strange clues, hired thugs gunning for him, and the one man who knows everything isn’t talking. Alliances are tested, buried tensions surface, and painful memories are relived as he tries to clear the name of his old college friend. Jack Patterson will find that even the oldest friendships can be quickly destroyed when men betray.
