A CLOSER LOOK AT JANUARY’S
MY BEST FRIEND WAS ANGELA BENNETT
By Suzanne Hillier
Powerful, disturbing and moving!
THE BOOK
During WWII, two high school friends take very different paths. Angie falls in love — forever — with a sailor, whose life is tragically ended by a German torpedo, while Dorothy takes the road less traveled by doing something unheard of in the forties: she goes to law school. When Angie loses her sailor lover and marries the boy next door — who turns out to be a sexual sadist — she fears there is no way out. Angie turns to Dorothy, now a lawyer, for assistance. It’s what happens after, however, that’s surprising — and unsettling.
Filled with tragedy, magic realism, and humor, gaze upon a picture of women’s lives in the forties, and of the prevailing and enduring power of female friendship.
THE AUTHOR
SUZANNE HILLIER was born in St. John’s, NF., before Confederation with Canada, and before the start of WWII. She started law school in 1968 and graduated in 1972, the year of her husband’s death. She opened her own law practice in 1974, retired in 2005, and started writing. Her fiction has been published in various North American periodicals. Sonja & Carl was published by Brindle & Glass Publishing in 2017; My Best Friend Was Angela Bennett is her second novel. She currently divides her time between Caledon, Ontario, and the Southern California Desert.
I KILLED SAM
By Robert A. Steadman
A novel inspired by the true story of a ground-breaking trial of a battered woman.
THE BOOK
In 1957, most of the country accepted and supported spousal abuse. Attorney Bob Nichols tries a never-before-tried-strategy of positing a dual defense for his client, Betty, who killed her husband after enduring years of abuse. On the surface, his defense strategy appears contradictory: self-defense and temporary insanity. Replete with unexpected plot turns and the drama of a young, small-town lawyer trying to juggle his obligations to his client and to his fledgling law practice. Meanwhile, Nichols is in love with Betty, who is not only the defendant but also his high school sweetheart whom he should never have let go. Nichols is tortured by the thought of losing his long-shot, legal gamble, which would mean forever losing Betty to a life sentence in prison.
THE AUTHOR
ROBERT STEADMAN grew up in the lovely little town of Marcellus, near Syracuse, New York, the second oldest of five children, and finished his education in Michigan, where his dad served as the state’s Controller. Bob graduated from Wayne University Law School in February of 1951, having earned his Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Law, and Juris Doctor degrees in five-and-a-half years, while working nights for extended periods on the Ford Rouge Plant’s engine line.
Drafted in May of 1951 for the Korean conflict, he completed Officer Candidate School and was discharged as a second lieutenant late in 1953. Bob was 81 in 2009 when he tried and won his last jury case with an extremely rare verdict of fraud against a local bank. The jury awarded his clients $400,000. He then cared for Bernice during her remaining years of illness until he lost her in 2015 after 56 wonderful years.
Since 2018, he has led the campaign for a new senior center as president of Senior Center Friends in Traverse City. He continues fishing, hunting pheasants with his German Shorthair pointer, Belle, and playing bridge with his friends.
LOVE LETTERS TO THE VIRGIN MARY
By David Richards
One man’s quest to unite the nations of Abraham …
THE BOOK
David has spent his entire mortal life searching for a single woman on a planet with billions of people. At the start of the pandemic, he sees a post on Instagram of a woman; he knows he has seen this picture before. As the pandemic spreads, he wrestles with the dark night of his soul, only to begin to awaken to his identity. Then, with the fog of mortality lifting from his mind, David realizes his mission: unite the nations of Abraham and bring about heaven on earth. The time has come to awaken the gods. His greatest quest will be finding the strength to lift a certain hammer. His greatest challenge will be coming to terms with who he is …
THE AUTHOR
DAVID RICHARDS grew up in a military family where, at an early age, he was exposed to different people and cultures. He spent much of his childhood living on military bases both in the US and overseas, before attending Penn State University, and majoring in English. Immediately upon graduation in May of 1991, he served as an officer in the Marine Corps, and participated in OPERATIONS DESERT STORM and RESTORE HOPE. He earned two master’s degrees before leaving active duty in 2006, where he went to work with Cisco Systems.
In 2007, he became a yoga instructor and, in 2017, published his first book, Whiskey and Yoga. Three years later, he published his second book, The Lighthouse Keeper
PRESENCE, THE PLAY
By William E. Jefferson
A penetrating perspective on the vital role personal presence plays in the essence of life.
THE BOOK
Script, a playwright and monk, lives on the Isle of Estillyen. On the opening night of Script’s long-awaited play, Presence, he suffers a devastating fall in the theater balcony and lapses into a prolonged coma. Experience many daunting adventures on an epic mission to save the Isle of Estillyen from the forces of darkness in a novel that evokes the imaginative prose of J. R. R. Tolkien, the spirited perception of C. S. Lewis, and the dramatic flair of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
THE AUTHOR
WILLIAM JEFFERSON’s first novel, Messages from Estillyen, is a highly allegorical tale set beyond the Storied Sea on the distant isle of Estillyen. As Jefferson puts it, “Estillyen is equally far from everywhere, but mystically near.” His latest novel, Presence, the Play, addresses the need of personal presence in a world awash in virtual, mediated matter. While not bound by space and time, Jefferson’s work is not divorced from human worth, want and reality.
William Jefferson writes from a Civil War-era cottage in the rural Ozarks and is the owner of Storybook Barn. The original 1880s all-occasion venue welcomes guests from near and far. Bill Jefferson holds an MTh in Theology and Media from the University of Edinburgh and an MA in Communication from the Wheaton Graduate School.
THE MUSIC WE MAKE
By Michelle Rene DeBellis
A gripping tale of overcoming pain to achieve dreams.
THE BOOK
Santiago DeAngelo is consumed by grief, guilt and the opiates he is prescribed for his injuries after surviving an accident that took his mother’s life.
Nearing rock bottom, the 22-year-old receives a spark of inspiration for a song from his late mother, but while he struggles to write it, he also falls in love with Kitty Holladay — a music producer who offers a rare shot at fame. Kitty seduces Santiago into the fast-paced world of pop music where he records a hit album while fighting his opiate addiction to write the one song that will help him make peace with his mother’s death.
When their relationship ends over the betrayal of that song, however, Santiago must decide the real value of his life in a moment that nearly ends it.
THE AUTHOR
MICHELLE RENE DEBELLIS is the author of the multiple award-winning novel, The Music We Make. Her vision is to deliver entertaining stories that help us make sense of our humanity. She is proud to be the recipient of the following awards and nominations: Literary Titan’s Book Award, The Kirkus Star/as well as being included in their “Best Indie Books of 2022”, a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and the Pen/Hemingway debut novel award.
TWICE A DAUGHTER
By Julie Ryan McGue
Unearth secrets and lies in a real-life quest for answers.
THE BOOK
Julie is one of a set of twins who were both given up for adoption. Because their adoption was closed, she and her sister lack both a health history and their adoption papers — which becomes an issue for Julie when, at 48 years old, she finds herself facing several serious health issues.
Julie will face many obstacles in her search for answers that spans eight years and involves a search agency, a PI, a confidential intermediary, a judge, an adoption agency, a social worker and a genealogist. By journey’s end, what began as a simple desire for a family medical history has evolved into a complicated quest — one that unearths secrets, lies and family members that are literally right next door.
THE AUTHOR
JULIE RYAN MCGUE is an author, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. She writes extensively about finding out who you are, where you belong, and making sense of it.
Julie’s debut award winning memoir Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging (She Writes Press) came out in May 2021. It is the story of her five-year search for birth relatives. Her weekly blogs That Girl, This Life and monthly column at The Beacher focus on identity, family, and life’s quirky moments.
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