Burying Ben: A Dot Meyerhoff Mystery

"The sad legacy of suicide...survivors are left with many unanswered questions." And 48 year-old Dot Meyerhoff, the newly employed psychologist of the Kenilworth (California) Police Department, is faced with more unanswered questions than most.

Burying Ben opens with the suicide of Ben Gomez, a sensitive young rookie cop who had a serious personality clash with his Field Training Officer (FTO), jaded Eddie Rimbauer, who chronically needled Ben, referring to him as "Mr. Safeway," as in the food store. "He used to work produce. Knows how to handle a cantaloupe, but he's over his head as a cop," Rimbauer once told Dot when she counseled Ben, working hard to earn the rookie's trust while gauging his ability to perform amid the pressures of law enforcement.

After Ben kills himself, his emailed suicide note blames Dot for his tragic fate. He believed Dot breached their patient-therapist confidentiality and made matters worse for him with his bullying, demeaning FTO.  As a result of the therapy sessions and Dot's advice, Ben even believed his marriage began to suffer.

Ben's accusations about Dot, a divorcee still hung up on her ex, shatters her self-worth and confidence. Is she truly responsible for this young man's death?

When charges are later brought against Dot by Ben's widow and Dot is put on administrative leave without pay, investigated by the California Board of Psychology, she becomes determined to learn more about Ben and other factors that could've led to his death.

Everyone on the police force comes into question, in particular FTO Rimbauer and the police chief, as well as Ben's family, friends and peers. Even Dot's ex, a psychologist who steps in for Dot at the police department, becomes suspect.

As Dot slowly puts the pieces of Ben's life together, danger abounds as it becomes clear that Ben lived with many secrets and faced a slew of life complications including a dysfunctional family, a baby on the way and a shotgun wedding to a sociopath wife with displeased parents, most especially her high-powered, District Attorney father. 

Author Ellen Kirschman, an award-winning public safety psychologist in real life, conveys an authoritative grasp on cops—their language, mentalities and lifestyles. The dramatic, suspenseful narrative of Burying Ben is authentic and compelling, as are the chilling realities of life for a smart, middle-aged, career-driven protagonist forced to reinvent her life amid a string of unfortunate events.

Burying Ben: A Dot Meyerhoff Mystery by Ellen Kirschman

Aakenbaaken & Kent,  $15.95, Paper, 9781938436116 , 244 pp

Publication Date: September 4, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Photographer Brian Nice and "The B Nice Project"

I discovered the photography of Brian Nice in 2009, when he published Rescue Tails: Portraits of Dogs and Their Celebrities, a project that was inspired by his own dog, a Pug named Buster, who was losing his eyesight. Buster was later helped by the Humane Society and proceeds from the sale of Nice's book continue to benefit the organization.

Nice has been a photographer for thirty years. His career was originally launched in advertising and fashion photography. Nice was at the top of his craft when he suffered a series of severe, life-threatening traumatic brain injuries. After numerous surgeries, vigorous therapy and a life now spent in a wheelchair, Nice has remained undaunted in reinventing himself—personally and professionally. With great courage, inner strength and the support of a loving family, Nice is continuing to pursue his photography as a fine art, now with a completely new focus.

On September 27, 2013, Brian Nice and his team embarked on an exciting cross-country road trip to photograph the American landscape. Brian hopes his journey and the images he captures will inspire others, especially TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) survivors, to see past their own limitations and do what they love. The project will include the production and promotion of a gallery exhibit of photographs, a full-color coffee table book and a documentary film about Brian and the journey.

Link HERE to learn more.

Follow Brian's cross-country journey and see the world from his unique perspective.

Read a feature about Brian Nice in The New York Times

Follow Team Brian Nice on Twitter: @TheBNiceProject

To make a donation to "My Point of View/The B Nice Project" link HERE

Photograph by Brian Nice - TheBNiceProject

 Enjoy the journey, Brian! 
You're an inspiration to us all!

Rescue Tails: Portraits of Dogs and Their Celebrities by Brian Nice, Beth O Stern (Introduction)

Gallery Books,  $19.95, Paper, 9781439152768 , 176 pp

Publication Date: November 3 2009

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

The Lemon Orchard

Some losses we never get over. And when a parent loses a child, grief becomes all the more profound. In The Lemon Orchard, prolific author Luanne Rice explores this experience with creative compassion telling the story of Julia Hughes, a mother whose 16 year-old daughter, Jenny, dies in a car crash that also claims the life of Jenny's father and Julia's husband, a man whom she was in the process of divorcing.

Five years after the deaths, Julia, a professor of cultural anthropology at Yale University, is still unable to shake the loss. But when a beloved aunt and uncle ask her to house-sit for their Malibu property and lemon orchard, Julia packs up with her beloved dog and heads west. 

The natural, sensory beauty of the Santa Monica Mountains serves to intensify Julia's memories of Jenny and stir her presence. And when Roberto, the manager of the lemon orchard takes an interest in Julia--and vice-versa--the two, from different cultures, connect and bond through their shared pain of losing daughters. In Roberto's case, his daughter was lost and never found during their illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States. Julia and Roberto begin to fall in love, which inspires a renewed sense of purpose in Julia as she becomes determined to find answers about Roberto's daughter.

Alternating points of view lend intimacy to the romantic elements and suspense of the narrative. Rice has written a tender portrait of grief and loss that ultimately becomes a gateway to hope and healing, love and reinvention.

The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice

Pamela Dorman Books,  $27.95, Hardcover, 9780670025275 , 304 pp

Publication Date: July 2, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (7/12/13), click HERE

Ask Bob

Peter Gethers' popular memoirs about his beloved cat, Norton, put his name on the literary map. In Ask Bob: A Novel, Gethers tackles fiction, telling the story of Dr. Robert Heller, a prominent New York City veterinarian who also authors a newspaper column called, "Ask Dr. Bob," which addresses the concerns and woes of pet owners. Dr. Bob is no-nonsense in the delivery and approach of his column--and with his patients and their owners--but he's not as direct in his personal life. He comes from a dysfunctional family that has made his role as son, brother, uncle and lover a muddled, thorny challenge. When Bob meets and falls in love with a woman whose family has more issues than his, he takes solace in their romance and the security of his job, concluding that he understands animals better than people. But when tragedy strikes, Bob is forced to step beyond his comfort zone and tend to the people he loves and cares for the most.

Gethers has written a smart, lively novel infused with romance and heartfelt, real-life complications of family and domesticity. The book centers upon the women in Dr. Bob's life who influence him the most during an eighteen-year period from when Bob is 24 years old until he turns 42. The interspersed addition of several of Dr. Bob's newspaper columns and his charming, insightful notes about certain clients and important people in his life add levity and humor to some heavier aspects and themes.

Ask Bob: A Novel by Peter Gethers

Henry Holt and Co., $24.00, Hardcover,  9780805093315, 320 pp

Publication Date: August 6, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (8/9/13), click HERE

The Black Widow Club

Hilary Davidson (The Damage Done) has launched a short story collection that takes readers into dark recesses of the human experience. These nine, compact stories of mystery and suspense are infused with unexpected irony and a chilling sense of the macabre.

"People never know what they're capable of until they're in a terrible situation. That's when your true character comes out," says one of the protagonists in the headline story, "The Black Widow Club," which unravels revelations of wives, mothers, daughters and the men they love and those who love them back? Or do they?

Each story in the collection packs a wallop, oftentimes in the first line, sometimes by the last.  In each instance, characters are put to the test, facing challenges and "terrible situations."

Peru is the setting for "Stepmonster," where a former model, the jilted ex-wife of a plastic surgeon—whom she now refers to as "Dr. Frankenboobs"—goes to a resort for some r&r.  But when she gets to her destination, she finds that the woman who poached her husband and children, is vacationing at the very same hotel. Coincidence?

"Undying Love" is plotted in reverse. It is an off-beat story narrated by a deceased protagonist who slowly learns the mysterious circumstances of what brought him to the other side via Bart, a spirit guide who tends to hum the theme from the movie Ghostbusters amid their journey because he "died in 1984 and that song stuck in (his) head."

Other stories deal with the haunted nature of the past; the perils of modern romance and marriage; role playing; revenge; obsessions; skewed family values; children conning parents—and vice-versa.   

Strong narrative voices and tight story lines underscore each tale, which reflects the decadent, often sinister nature of the modern world.

The Black Widow Club: Nine Tales of Obsession and Murder by Hilary Davidson

Beast Books, $2.99 , e-book, ASIN: B00E3GZW6E

Publication Date: July 21, 2013

To order this book via AMAZON link HERE

Misery Loves Company

Every Tuesday, Juliet "Jules" Belleno of Wissberry, Maine reviews a book on her blog. But when Jules is disappointed in the latest novel written by her favorite author, Patrick Reagan, and she posts an unfavorable review, her life changes in unexpected ways. Jules is a reclusive, 34 year-old widow who rarely leaves her house since her husband, Jason, died in the line of police duty. On the day of what would've been her wedding anniversary, Jules sets out to the grocery store to buy ingredients to recreate their favorite meal. Along the way, she meets Patrick Reagan, who ultimately kidnaps her, ushering her into a nightmare where she's taken to task and forced to explain her review and herself to a deeply troubled man who has suffered heart-wrenching personal losses of his own.

With Jules missing, her worried, alcoholic father, a retired military Lt. Colonel, enlists the help of Jason's former police partner. As the two search for Jules, startling revelations begin to emerge about Jason's death. Was it really an accident?  Or might Jason's death be connected to Jules' kidnapping?

Misery Loves Company is categorized as "spiritual suspense." The flawed, lonely characters grapple with ideas of faith amid loss, evil and corruption. However, as in Gutteridge's other novels (Listen, Possession), the narrative is never preachy. The fast-paced twists and turns of the plot present an insightful, chilling look at how privacy is often compromised in the internet age and how choices in life can ripple beyond the scope of personal existence.

Misery Loves Company by Rene Gutteridge

Tyndale House Publishers, $12.00, Trade Paper, 9781414349336 , 346 pp

Publication Date: August 1, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (8/6/13), click HERE

"How to Become a Bodyguard for Celine Dion's Larynx"

Proud to announce the release of 

a new, 

satirical short story:

Ever wonder how contemporary singing divas protect their voice boxes? Well, wonder no more! In the satirical short story, How to Become a Bodyguard for Celine Dion's Larynx by Kathleen Gerard, an over-achieving nine-year-old unknowingly embarks on an unlikely career path en route to working for Celine Dion, the popular singing sensation. You'll laugh and you'll cry as the narrator of the story, a gifted child with a MENSA I.Q., navigates through a journey of a lifetime. This short story is a clever, comedic read for adults and teenagers, who just might learn a thing or two about how the heartbreak of youth can become a gateway into living an unimaginable future!

Read an excerpt at the Untreed Reads bookstore

Link HERE for more information

How to Become a Bodyguard for Celine Dion's Larynx by Kathleen Gerard

Untreed Reads Publishing, $.99, e-book short story

Publication Date: August 9, 2013

To order this book via UNTREED READS PUBLISHING link HERE

To purchase the story via Amazon (for Kindle), link HERE

To purchase more of Kathleen's short fiction link HERE

Time Flies

Claire Cooke (Must Love Dogs) has built a brand writing light-hearted women's fiction where kernels of the absurd and comedic from everyday life blend to form compulsively readable novels. In Time Flies, she delivers again, this time by telling the story of Melanie, a vulnerable, middle-aged, recently divorced, metal sculptor with a highway driving phobia who is goaded by an old friend to attend their high school reunion in Massachusetts.

Melanie, who had uprooted herself and her then, two young sons to accommodate her husband's job years before, has no desire to leave suburban Atlanta and revisit the past. She is content to stay home and literally cut up her king-size marital bed with a chainsaw in order to harvest the springs inside for a new artistic creation. "I'm not famous, I didn't turn into a knockout, my husband left me," she tells her relentless friend. But when an old high school flame, Finn Miller, emails to ask if Melanie will be attending the reunion, their flirtatious correspondence, and the fact that Melanie doesn't exactly remember him, is enough to pique her interest and change her mind.

Hilarious potholes pave the way to memory lane as Melanie journeys to Massachusetts, where she faces her fears while reconnecting with old friends who are dealing with their own life challenges. The piece de resistance, however, is the reunion itself where the past and present riotously collide and give birth to an ending that is as heartfelt as it is hopeful.

Time Flies by Claire Cooke

Touchstone (Simon & Schuster), $24.99, hardcover, 9781451673678 , 320 pp

Publication Date: June 11, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (6/14/13), click HERE

First Pages in Fiction: Instructions for a Heatwave

The first paragraph of a short story and/or the first page of a novel can be a microcosm that sets the foundation for what's to follow in terms of tone, character and story intent.

Here are the first few paragraphs from the novel, Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell:

Highbury, London 

The heat, the heat. It wakes Gretta just after dawn, propelling her from the bed and down the stairs. It inhabits the house like a guest who has outstayed his welcome: it lies along corridors, it circles around curtains, it lolls heavily on sofas and chairs. The air in the kitchen is like a solid entity filling the space, pushing Gretta down into the floor, against the side of the table.

Only she would choose to bake bread in such weather.

Consider her now, yanking open the oven and grimacing in its scorching blasts as she pulls out the bread tin. She is in her nightdress, hair still wound into curlers. She takes two steps backwards and tips the steaming loaf into the sink, the weight of it reminding her, as it always does, of a baby, a newborn, the packed, damp warmth of it.

She has made soda bread three times a week for her entire married life. She is not about to let a little thing like a heatwave get in the way of that. Of course, living in London, it is impossible to get buttermilk; she has to make do with a mixture of half milk and half yogurt. A woman at Mass told her it worked and it does, up to a point, but it is never quite the same.


This is a story about a family thrown into crisis when the patriarch, Robert Riordan, a retired bank employee--husband of Gretta and father to three adult children--disappears on a hot summer morning in 1976. Gretta reaches out to her children in an effort to find Robert, but as the story unravels, it soon becomes clear that her children are more lost than her husband (on a psychological and emotional level), as each child is facing challenges in his/her personal life and in relationship to each other. The nature of secrets, estrangement and shame rise to the forefront of the narrative. 

O'Farrell sets up those first four paragraphs to reflect an ominous restlessness amid actions of normal, daily life. This would appear a day like many others ("She has made soda bread three times a week for her entire married life"), but something about this particular day is and will be different. For starters, Gretta is baking, operating the oven, amid a heatwave and the reference to the need to substitute buttermilk in the recipe ("A woman at Mass told her it worked and it does, up to a point, but it is never quite the same") might be a metaphor indicative that perhaps, amid the crucible of events that unfold over the course of the novel, the ingredients that make up this Irish-Catholic family might never be the same, either.  

The kitchen often symbolizes the center of family life and if you look at the language O'Farrell employs, the tactile sense of the bread reminds Gretta of a baby ("...a newborn, the packed damp warmth of it"), which seems reflective of the implications of Gretta's children in this story.

In a few short sentences, O'Farrell evokes a sense of the oppressive, stifling heat that mirrors the brooding, pressured confinement of the story and how, as stated later in the book, "Strange weather brings out strange behavior." It's also interesting to note that O'Farrell relies on an Irish comfort food to anchor and ultimately juxtapose the coziness of family life against the idea that the "heat" in these lives is about to get turned up.

See how much you can learn about a book from the first page?


Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell
Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95 Hardcover, 9780385349406 304 pages
Publication Date: June 18, 2013
To order this book via INDIEBOUND, link HERE

Novel Escapes by Car

Although gas prices may be soaring and long lines may be forming at the pumps during summer, the contemporary road-trip-by-car novel continues to be a popular, major story thread that epitomizes journeys through life. Here are a few books to consider if you're thinking about taking a literary road trip:

For the literary-minded driver who gets lost in thought, How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu recounts travels from Peoria to Nashville, as a flawed man, facing a painful divorce, retraces a road trip his parents made on their honeymoon in an effort to understand his past and rediscover himself.

The long road to forgiveness is the route taken in A Gift for My Sister by Ann Pearlman, which reunites two estranged half-sisters who are forced to travel from California to their old home town in Michigan. Miles of highway and the stifling confines of a car prove a ripe breeding ground for resentment and sibling rivalry.

For those who get behind the wheel and often forget where they're going, try Bill Warrington's Last Chance by James King. In this novel, Bill, an absentminded 79-year-old kidnaps his 14-year-old granddaughter; together, the pair set off from the Midwest in an old Chevy Impala, heading toward California and hoping to force a dysfunctional family reunion.

And for the adventurous who love to hop in the car and just take off, The Lion Is In by Delia Ephron offers a wild, whimsical, often bumpy car ride out of Baltimore when three women, each bearing burdens and secrets, are forced to go on the lam. A retired circus lion they encounter in North Carolina ultimately changes their lives.

No matter the destination, buckle up and enjoy the ride offered by each of these literary getaways.

NOTE: This article is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this column as published via Shelf Awareness for Readers (6/25/13), link HERE

The Widow Waltz

It's not often that a main character in a novel of general literary fiction dies in the first chapter, but that's exactly how Sally Koslow constructs The Widow Waltz. The story opens via the point of view of Ben Silver, a charming, middle-aged, seemingly successful Manhattan lawyer who goes for a run in Central Park only to suffer a massive heart attack. His sudden death comes as a complete shock to those who love him - most especially, his devoted wife, Georgia Waltz. What's even more troubling and upsetting is the news that he has left his well-to-do family practically insolvent. Financial ruin and debt now fall to his widow and their two adult daughters who had been living, thanks to Ben, an upscale, privileged existence. Ben's death might make him physically absent from the lives of his loved ones, but his presence becomes more palpable as the trio slowly begins to uncover reasons why the family's fortune might've evaporated. Was Ben the man they thought he was? Was he harboring secrets? As Georgia and the girls reinvent their lives by selling off assets and scrambling to find work to support themselves, unforeseen circumstances, people and impulses--some romantic--alter their plans in unpredictable ways.

Koslow (The Late, Lamented Molly Marx) is a skillful, meticulous writer attuned to the absurdities of life, death and the multi-generational bonds of family. Pitch-perfect details and alternating narrative voices allow her to fully explore the emotional intricacies of these richly woven characters in crisis.

The Widow Waltz by Sally Koslow

Viking Adult, $27.95 Hardcover, 9780670025640, 352 pp

Publication Date: June 13, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note:  This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (6/25/13), click HERE

Looking for Me

Theodora Grace Overman, aka "Teddi," always loved restoring old furniture. As a teenager, this farm girl with a big dream rebelled against her mother's push for secretarial school and ran away from her rural Kentucky home, setting off to Charleston, South Carolina where she eventually opens a shop dedicated to the refurbishing of antiques.

"...Old furniture speaks to me," says Teddi. "The older it is, the more it has to say." Such is the case with Teddi's life. In 1993, when the workaholic finds herself successful but still single at the age of 36, she begins to reflect on the lost years while trying to understand the people she left behind: a mother who never understood her daughter's aspirations; a father who returned from war a completely changed man; and an enigmatic younger brother, Josh, whose love of nature and rescuing animals may have led to his mysterious disappearance and a final letter he left behind that read, "Don't come looking for me." 

When Teddi's mother takes ill, Teddi returns to her rural Kentucky home where strange occurrences begin to emerge that indicate Josh might still be alive. Hoffman flashes back to events from Teddi's childhood in the 1960s and 70s, delving into the haunted mysteries of the past in order to shape the contours of these interconnected, yet sadly detached lives. As in Hoffman's debut novel, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, Southern wit, charm and down-home characters add levity to this story of loss and broken hearts that are ultimately restored with love, hope and remembering. 

Looking for Me by Beth Hoffman

Pamela Dorman Books, $27.95 Hardcover, 9780670025831, 368 pp

Publication Date: May 28, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note:  This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (6/4/13), click HERE