Hank Phillippi Ryan

Inside the Writing Brain: 8 Novels About Writing Novels

https://booktrib.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/meta-fiction-feat..jpg The question came to me in my admiration of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: how does someone write novelistic nonfiction when many of the main characters are dead? How can you write a true-crime novel if you don’t know the truth? And how can you ever find it? I’ll…

Hank Phillippi RyanOctober 22, 2020

Fiction Listicles

Mother Knows Best? 12 Suspenseful Mother-Daughter Dynamics

I can’t think of toxic mother-daughter relationships without hearing Joan Crawford screech about no wire hangers! Or remember the sinister Mrs. Coulter in Philip Pullman’s brilliant novel The Golden Compass, trying to lure her daughter Lyra into giving up the precious alethiometer. (And who was Cinderella’s real mother, anyway, who…

Hank Phillippi RyanSeptember 17, 2020

Fiction Listicles

8 Books to Make You Glad You Stayed Home This Summer

You remember vacations, right? When you got to leave your home, on your own or with your darling family, and pack into a car or plane, and head for a bustling vacation destination, with gloriously crowded beaches and bustling restaurants and expeditions and adventures. Okay, so, next year, we hope. …

Hank Phillippi RyanSeptember 3, 2020

Fiction Listicles

10 Beach Books to Take You to the Beach Vicariously

You can instantly recognize a good beach book. It’s the one with the grits of sand in the binding, and translucent splotches made by Coppertone fingers turning the pages. The ones you find on the shelves of that musty-smelling summer cottage by the ocean you rented, tattered and swollen by…

Hank Phillippi RyanJuly 30, 2020

Fiction Listicles Thrillers

Are You Kidding Me? 9 Thrillers About Children Gone Wrong

There’s no question that in the pantheon of COVID heroes, parents deserve a seat at the top. All of those moms and dads who once relied on eight-hour-a-day schools or eight-hour-a-day camps to take their darlings away, even briefly. To be forced into the present day proximity and relentless home…

Hank Phillippi RyanJuly 2, 2020

Fiction

Tall Poppy Review: Another Side of WWII America in “The Last Year of the War”

The Last Year of the War (Berkley) is now available in paperback. Read on to learn more about this emotionally compelling novel of trauma and friendship. —∞— We are all curious about other people’s lives, aren’t we? That’s why photo albums are endlessly fascinating — people we know seen as…

Hank Phillippi RyanJune 25, 2020

Fiction Listicles Thrillers

8 Thrillers with Twisted Physicians You’ll Be Glad Are Fictitious

First do no harm. That’s what every new doctor swears. It’s an oath, of course, but isn’t it also … an alibi? A doctor is the only person who a victim would willingly let inject with something when they don’t know what it is, swallow whatever pills they offer, drink…

Hank Phillippi RyanJune 4, 2020

Fiction Listicles

9 of Fiction’s Worst Mothers: Aren’t You Glad You Weren’t Their Kids?

I wanted a perfect Mother’s Day selection of books, but not about perfect mothers. Because bad mothers — in fiction at least — are more intriguing. So I asked myself: What books have bad mothers? And I answered in a whispery little voice: your own. Well, that was surprising. But…

Hank Phillippi RyanMay 7, 2020

Fiction Listicles

Need a Diversion? Escape Into These 11 Reads

Is everyone reading? Supposedly, everyone has a lot of time to read now; though, in my case at least, my brain is a little fidgety and it’s hard to focus. Books I open are acquiring some sinister subtext, just like everything else. So, hey. Let’s escape. Into joy and love…

Hank Phillippi RyanApril 2, 2020

Fiction Listicles Thrillers

11 Books That Deliver Suspense in Academia

It’s a seething microcosm of competition, envy, manipulation and the battle for supremacy. It’s high school. And those crowded classrooms — or the privileged halls of prep school — coupled with aspiration and aggression and enforced proximity make the halls of academe perfect places to set a novel of suspense.…

Hank Phillippi RyanMarch 5, 2020

Fiction Listicles Thrillers

9 Mysteries and Thrillers That Will Sate Your Hunger for Revenge

One of the first things I thought about when I started writing crime fiction was “whydunnit.” What would it take, I wondered as I began my first thriller, to push me to decide to kill someone? What is a believable motive for murder? Revenge, I thought. Oh, yes. We’ve all…

Hank Phillippi RyanJanuary 30, 2020

Fiction Listicles Thrillers

Keep the Lights On: Novels Starring Scary Houses

If you’re going over the river and through the woods this holiday season, to Grandmother’s house or wherever, what if you turned the corner, drove up the gravel lane, and there was — the house from Psycho? All turreted and gray, as gothic as a Charles Addams drawing. Wouldn’t you…

Hank Phillippi RyanDecember 19, 2019

Fiction Listicles

Let’s Twist Again: Eight Books That Will Surprise You

It’s lucky that Twitter wasn’t invented when The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published. Can you imagine? Within 15 minutes, somebody would’ve posted: Oh Em Gee, can you believe that ending? And then everybody would’ve read Agatha Christie’s classic in a different way. It’s always been a debate for me whether books…

Hank Phillippi RyanOctober 24, 2019

Listicles Thrillers

7 Legal Thrillers You Won’t Need a Law Degree to Enjoy

Perry Mason. Atticus Finch. Sir Wilfred Robarts in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution. John Grisham's Reggie Love and Jake Brigance. When a fictional lawyer captures the passion and fire of the literary search for justice, readers cannot fail but be captivated. Even Nancy Drew’s father was a lawyer, remember?…

Hank Phillippi RyanSeptember 12, 2019

Fiction

Tall Poppy Review: Shedding Weight and Tears

People argue over who said "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle," whether it was Plato or Philo or John Watson or whoever. But Cathy Lamb's touching Such a Pretty Face (Kensington) is the novel that philosophy perfectly embodies. It invites us to think about how what we…

Hank Phillippi RyanApril 18, 2019

Fiction

Tall Poppy Review: Koslow Enthralls with Historical Fiction

If you were an English major in college, as I was, you spent hours swooning over F. Scott Fitzgerald--his brilliant stories, his glamorous existence, his hobnobbing with Hollywood moguls, and, of course, his passionate and doomed relationship with the exotic Zelda. You think you know the story, we all do. But…

Hank Phillippi RyanOctober 11, 2018

Hank Phillippi Ryan

Inside the Writing Brain: 8 Novels About Writing Novels

Mother Knows Best? 12 Suspenseful Mother-Daughter Dynamics

8 Books to Make You Glad You Stayed Home This Summer

10 Beach Books to Take You to the Beach Vicariously

Are You Kidding Me? 9 Thrillers About Children Gone Wrong

Tall Poppy Review: Another Side of WWII America in “The Last Year of the War”

8 Thrillers with Twisted Physicians You’ll Be Glad Are Fictitious

9 of Fiction’s Worst Mothers: Aren’t You Glad You Weren’t Their Kids?

Need a Diversion? Escape Into These 11 Reads

11 Books That Deliver Suspense in Academia

9 Mysteries and Thrillers That Will Sate Your Hunger for Revenge

Keep the Lights On: Novels Starring Scary Houses

Let’s Twist Again: Eight Books That Will Surprise You

7 Legal Thrillers You Won’t Need a Law Degree to Enjoy

Tall Poppy Review: Shedding Weight and Tears

Tall Poppy Review: Koslow Enthralls with Historical Fiction

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