SOKY Book Fest

Authors Attending

• RAYBOURN, DEANNA	• REID, NICOLE LOUISE	• RENNER, JAMES	• ROBINSON, RICK
• ROTH, TY	• RUFFIN, PAUL	• RUNNER, JR., BEN

DEANNA RAYBOURN

Book Title: The Dark Enquiry

Book Description:

Partners now in marriage and in trade, Victorian sleuths Lady Julia and Nicholas Brisbane have finally returned from abroad to set up housekeeping in London. But merging their respective collections of gadgets, pets and servants leaves little room for the harried newlyweds themselves, let alone Brisbane's private enquiry business. Among the more unlikely clients: Julia's very proper brother, Lord Bellmont, who swears Brisbane to secrecy about his case. Not about to be left out of anything concerning her beloved—if eccentric—family, spirited Julia soon picks up the trail of the investigation. It leads to the exclusive Ghost Club, where the alluring Madame Séraphine holds evening séances…and not a few powerful gentlemen in thrall. From this eerie enclave unfolds a lurid tangle of dark deeds, whose tendrils crush reputations and throttle trust.

Author Biography:

A sixth-generation native Texan, New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio with a double major in English and history. Deanna makes her home in Virginia, where she is hard at work on her next novel.

NICOLE LOUISE REID

Book Title: So There!

Book Description:

With the graceful lyricism of a musician’s ear for song, the nine stories of So There! inhabit the quiet spaces of heartache and the loud spaces of rage. Their landscapes hark back to the South of Reid’s first novel, In the Breeze of Passing Things, and form their own kind of topography of the human heart and all its many urges. Within the world of this collection, girls and women sidle the precipice of new lives, new selves. Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh, writes, “My goodness, how my blood stirs and my heart hurts when I read the stories of Nicole Louise Reid, who writes of troubled love, both familial and romantic, with a voice like poisoned honey.” Lee K. Abbott, author of All Things, All at Once, says, "Here, Ms. Reid has taken a switchblade to the conventions of feeling and form, bringing light and heat and sound to the world of the page." "Carefully made stories, carefully made with the playful seriousness of a real artist," says NPR's book commentator Alan Cheuse.

Author Biography:

Nicole Louise Reid is the author of the story collection, So There!, a novel, In the Breeze of Passing Things, and two fiction chapbooks, Girls and If You Must Know. Winner of the 2010 Dana Award in Short Fiction and Burnside Review Fiction Chapbook Competition, her stories have appeared in the Southern Review, Indiana Review, Meridian, Quarterly West, Other Voices, and elsewhere. A graduate of the M.F.A. Creative Writing Program of George Mason University, she now teaches creative writing at the University of Southern Indiana, where she serves as director of RopeWalk Reading Series, editor of RopeWalk Press, and fiction editor of Southern Indiana Review. She lives in Newburgh, Indiana with her two best boys.

JAMES RENNER

Book Title: The Man from Primrose Lane

Book Description:

In West Akron, there lived a reclusive elderly man who always wore mittens, even in July. He had no friends and no family; all over town, he was known only as the Man from Primrose Lane. And on a summer day in 2008, someone murdered him.

Four years later, David Neff is a broken man. The bestselling author of a true-crime book about an Ohio serial killer, Neff went into exile after his wife’s inexplicable suicide. That is, until an unexpected visit from an old friend introduces him to the strange mystery of “the man with a thousand mittens.” Soon Neff finds himself drawn back into a world he thought he had left behind forever. But the closer he gets to uncovering the true identity of the Man from Primrose Lane, the more he begins to understand the dangerous power of his own obsessions and how they may be connected to the deaths of both his beloved wife and the old hermit.

With a deft and singular blend of suspense, literature, and horror, The Man from Primrose Lane boasts as many twists and turns as a roller coaster. It’s a spellbinding journey of redemption and a reflection on the roles of fate, destiny, and obsession when it comes to matters of the heart.

Author Biography:

James Renner is the author of two books of nonfiction that detail his adventures in investigative journalism: Amy: My Search for Her Killer and The Serial Killer’s Apprentice. His work has been featured in Best American Crime Reporting and Best Creative Nonfiction. He lives in Ohio.

RICK ROBINSON

Book Title: Writ of Mandamus

Book Description:

Rick Robinson's latest in the captivating and fast-paced Richard Thompson series, Writ of Mandamus, will keep you up at night as you weave your way from Washington, DC to the countryside of Ireland following Thompson and the CIA as they chase Middle Eastern conflict and Kentucky horses. Though just released, Writ of Mandamus has already been named the Grand Prize Winner for the London Book Festival.

Author Biography:

Rick Robinson has spent thirty years in politics and law, including a stint on Capitol Hill as Legislative Director/Chief Counsel to then-Congressman Jim Bunning (R-KY). In 2010, Rick was named the Independent Author of the Year for his third book Manifest Destiny. In the months that followed the award, Manifest Destiny was optioned for a movie.

TY ROTH

Book Title: So Shelly

Book Description:

High school junior John Keats has only tiptoed near the edge of the vortex that is Gordon Byron, schoolmate and literary prodigy. That is, until their mutual friend Michelle "Shelly" Shelley, drowns in a sailing accident. After stealing Shelly's ashes from her memorial at Trinity High School, Keats and Gordon set a course for the small Lake Erie island where her body washed ashore, and where she wished to be laid to rest. Granting her last wish would be Keats and Gordon's way of letter their friend have one final "so Shelly" romantic journey. As they make their way to Lake Erie, navigating obstacles and resisting temptations, Keats and Gordon glue together the shattered pieces of Shelly's and their own pasts while attempting to make sense of her premature death.

Author Biography:

Ty Roth teaches literature and composition at both the high school and university level. He holds a Sociology degree from Xavier University, a Masters of Education from Ashland University, and a Masters of English from the University of Toledo. He lives with his family in Sandusky, Ohio, along the shores of his much-loved Lake Erie. Ty was named one of the top “New Voices in YA Literature for 2011” by the American Booksellers Association, and SO SHELLY was chosen as a “Top Ten Romance for Youth” by Booklist, a Publication of the American Library Association.

PAUL RUFFIN

Book Title: Travels with George in Search of Ben Hur

Book Description:

This fourth collection of essays by accomplished southern scribe Paul Ruffin highlights his idiosyncratic wit and practiced storytelling skills in memorable autobiographic pieces ranging from the comic to the confessional. Most of these pieces are set in Texas and Mississippi.

Author Biography:

Paul Ruffin, 2009 Texas State Poet Laureate, holds the rank of Texas State University System Regents' Professor and Distinguished Professor of English at Sam Houston State University, where he directs the creative writing program, serves as Director of Texas Review Press, and edits The Texas Review. His published books include two novels, three collections of short stories (with a fourth, Living in a Christ-Haunted Land, to be released in translation by a French publisher in 2012), four books, including studies on the work of John Steinbeck and Texas novelist William Goyen. Ruffin write a weekly newspaper collumn, Ruffin-It, for the Huntsville Item.

JR. RUNNER, BEN

Book Title: Then & Now: Bowling Green

Book Description:

Then & Now: Bowling Green provides a sampling of change during the city's growth from small town to Kentucky's fourth-largest city. Once an important point by river or rail, Bowling Green now boasts tourism and a growing university along one of America's busiest interstates. Bowling Green has a rich history marked by dramatic change and growth. Our book looks at current and older views of locations and notes changes over time as well as any historical significance.

Author Biography:

Childhood friends Kevin Comer and Ben Runner, Jr. have combined their shared interests in local history and photography to produce this comparison of Bowling Green's past and present. Kevin and Ben, natives of Bowling Green, are both local photographers and local historians. Kevin is currently finishing a second book, The Louisville and Nashville Railroad in South Central Kentucky, lives in Warren County with his family, and as a photographer specializes in historical documentation and railroad photography. Ben, an excellent photographer, has a successful photo business - Photografics Digital Imaging (www.photografics.net), and lives in Warren County with his family.

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