#ReadSoulLit FauxCast | Ruby by Cynthia Bond

The audio quality drops mid-way.  I do apologize.  We have glitches we can't control at times.  

Ruby by Cynthia Bond (Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/EBiagq

"Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby Bell, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city—the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village—all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. 

When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, thirty-year-old Ruby finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town’s dark past. Meanwhile, Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy.

Full of life, exquisitely written, and suffused with the pastoral beauty of the rural South, Ruby is a transcendent novel of passion and courage. This wondrous page-turner rushes through the red dust and gossip of Main Street, to the pit fire where men swill bootleg outside Bloom’s Juke, to Celia Jennings’s kitchen, where a cake is being made, yolk by yolk, that Ephram will use to try to begin again with Ruby." ~ On Amazon

CHOP IT UP (FauxCast): The Medusa Pool by M. K. Wren

The Medusa Pool by M. K. Wren (Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2pKvEUZ

"Election day in Wesport, on the magnificent Oregon coast, changes everything for Deputy Cornelia Faith Jones, the only woman and the only African American in the Taft County Sheriff's Office. As a result of a write-in campaign that Neely did not encourage, she is elected Sheriff --a job she did not want.

Neely accepts, however, when Jan Koto's body is found submerged in the jellyfish display tank in the Oceanographic Center. The victim is marine biologist Jan Koto and Neely's lover.

Grief and rage drive Neely to find Jan's killer, and she learns the hard way that small towns are not exempt from racism, rape, violence, and murder --and greed. When ex-sheriff Giff Wills is also murdered, Neely discovers she is dealing with a wide-ranging conspiracy." ~ On Amazon

#ReadSoulLit FauxCast | Mama Stalks the Past by Nora DeLoach

Mama Stalks the Past by Nora DeLoach 

(Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2pNj2fR

"When my mama receives an angry visit from Nat Mixon, she learns some startling news. Nat's mother and Mama's neighbor, spiteful recluse Hannah Mixon, has just died--and left a large parcel of land to Mama! Nat is convinced Mama stole his inheritance, and to save her reputation, Mama's determined to find out why Hannah named her in her will. And when it turns out Hannah was murdered, Mama needs to find more answers. With the help of three notorious local gossips--and me--Mama uncovers a long, bloody history of greed and family betrayal connected to the land Mama's inherited. And unless she discovers the truth about this plot of land, it may become her burial plot...." ~On Amazon

CHOP IT UP: The Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron (#MarchMysteryMadness)

The Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron 

(Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2I9iAAr

This first novel in Maron's Imperfect series, which won the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 1993, introduces heroine Deborah Knott, an attorney and the daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger. Known for her knowledge of the region's past and popular with the locals, Deb is asked by 18-year-old Gayle Whitehead to investigate the unsolved murder of her mother Janie, who died when Gayle was an infant. While visiting the owner of the property where Janie's body was found, Deb learns of Janie's more-than-promiscuous past. Piecing together lost clues and buried secrets Deb is introduced to Janie's darker side, but it's not until another murder occurs that she uncovers the truth.

CHOP IT UP: Death on Demand by Carolyn G. Hart (#MarchMysteryMadness)

Death on Demand (Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2DWQJ3D

At Annie Laurance's Death On Demand bookstore on Broward's Rock Island, South Carolina, murder most foul suddenly isn't confined to the well-stocked shelves. Author Elliot Morgan's abrupt demise during a weekly gathering of famous mystery writers called the Sunday Night Regulars is proof positive that a bloody sword is sometimes mightier than a brilliant pen.With Annie in the unenviable position of primary police suspect, the pretty young mystery maven and her wealthy paramour, Max Darling, embark on an investigation into a classic locked-room mystery with high stakes. For failing to unmask a brutal and ingenious killer could mean prison for Ms. Laurance. While success could mean her death.

#MarchMysteryMadness | The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino | BORROW PROMPT (35%)

#ReadSoulLit FauxCast | The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Earnest J. Gaines