This author delves into the complexities of human relationships and the psyche within her acclaimed novels. Her distinctive style is recognized for its incisiveness and capacity to illuminate profound emotional truths. As an assistant professor in a creative writing program, she mentors and inspires emerging literary voices. Her work is celebrated for its literary merit and insightful exploration of challenging themes.
Eighty-three-year-old obituary writer Essie finds her life in small town Nebraska turned upside-down when a young country girl is reported missing and the long-awaited final book in an infamous series of young adult gothic novels is being secretly printed on her newspaper's presses. Reprint.
Author of five novels: The Swan Gondola, The Coffins of Little Hope, Devils in the Sugar Shop, The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God, and The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters. Director of the (downtown) omaha lit fest. Contributing editor, Fairy Tale Review. Assistant Professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln creative writing program."The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God" is part of the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers program, and was the 2007 Omaha Reads one-book-one-city selection. "Devils in the Sugar Shop" was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Book Sense pick.
For readers of Water for Elephants or The Night Circus, a lush and thrilling romantic fable about two lovers set against the scandalous burlesques, midnight séances, and aerial ballets of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair. On the eve of the World’s Fair, Ferret Skerritt, ventriloquist by trade, con man by birth, is unsure how the fair’s events will change him or his city. Omaha still has the marks of a filthy Wild West town, even as it attempts to achieve the grandeur and respectability of nearby Chicago. But when he crosses paths with the beautiful and enigmatic Cecily, his purpose shifts, and the fair becomes the backdrop to their love affair. One of a traveling troupe of actors that has descended on the city, Cecily works in the Midway’s Chamber of Horrors, where she loses her head hourly on a guillotine, playing Marie Antoinette. And after closing, she rushes off, clinging protectively to a mysterious carpetbag, never giving Ferret a second glance. But a moonlit ride on the swan gondola, a boat on the lagoon of the New White City, transforms everything when the fair’s magic begins to take its effect.
"Clementine, sometimes known as Judge, is a 72-year-old reformed con artist with a penchant for impeccably tailored suits. Her life of crime has led her from the uber-wealthy perfume junkies of belle epoque Manhattan, to the scented butterflies of Costa Rica, to the spice markets of Marrakesh, and finally the bordellos of Paris, where she settles down and opens a legitimate shop bottling her favorite extracts for the ladies of the cabarets. In 1941 as the Germans stranglehold on the city tightens, Clem's perfume-making attracts the notice of Oskar Voss, a francophile Nazi bureaucrat, who comes to demand Clem's expertise and loyalty in his mysterious play for Hitler's favor. Clem has no choice but to surrender fully to the con, but even though she knew playing the part of collaborator would be dangerous, she never imagined it would be so painfully intimate. At Oskar's behest and in an effort to win his trust, Clem tells him the full story of her life and loves, this time without the cover of the lies she came to Paris to escape. Complete with romance, espionage, champagne towers and haute couture, this full-tilt sensory experience is a dazzling portrait of the underground resistance of twentieth century Paris and a passionate love letter to the power of beauty and community in the face of insidious hate"-- Provided by publisher