Author Talk - Linda Marshall feat. Donna Stramella

Ruth, a young woman struck by a heartbreaking loss, joins other residents in a wildly different Pacific Northwest community. Coastal View homeowners include Kevin, a young tech professional from the east coast wondering why he really moved across the country; Lou and Loretta, retirees who sold their waterfront home to start a new chapter; Champ, an often-misunderstood young man still finding his way in the aftermath of his mother's death; and Evan, who shares a family tragedy with Ruth. The residents cautiously connect with their new neighbors while closely guarding individual secrets. These connections prove lifesaving when a serial killer emerges in their midst.

"Among the Bones is a compelling murder mystery, a subtle comedy involving a cast of unforgettable characters, a meditation on profound loss and its long-tail effects, a story about a community of exiles living in a cemetery who have found their own strange redemption."

-Carol LaHines, author of Someday Everything Will All Make Sense and The Vixen Amber Halloway

"After both her parents die, Linda Murphy Marshall, a multi-linguist and professional translator, returns to her Midwestern childhood home, Ivy Lodge, to sort through a lifetime of belongings with her siblings. Room by room, she sifts through the objects in her parents' house and uses her skills and perspective as a longtime professional translator to make sense of the events of her past--to "translate" her memories and her life. In the process, she sees things with new eyes. All of her parents' things, everything having to do with their cherished hobbies, are housed in a home that, although it looks impressive from the outside, is anything but impressive inside; in short, she now realizes that much of it --even the house's fancy name--was show. By the time Murphy Marshall is done with Ivy Lodge, she has not only made new discoveries about her past, she has also come to a new understanding of who she is and how she fits into her world."--Author's website.

Anna Lee is an anxious 17-year-old whose life is stuck, largely because of her strained relationship with her mother Jacqueline, a quirky recovering alcoholic who is now addicted to coffee. The two take a road trip to explore independent coffee shops along the east coast, but Jacqueline's real agenda is an opportunity to reveal a series of disturbing family secrets-a fatal drunk driving accident, an abusive parent, and her mother's betrayal of a woman Anna Lee holds dear.

"As Donna Stramella strengthens Anna Lee's voice and probes her choices, readers receive a realistic story of an entire family struggling to recover not just from alcoholism, but the codependent pattern it creates. ...thoroughly engrossing and hard to put down." Midwest Review

"Coffee Killed My Mother is a wonderfully written tale about a mother-daughter journey. Stramella's novel shows an admirable level of professionalism with its characters and settings, and promises great things for the first-time author." Nancy Stancill, Author of Saving Texas and Winning Texas

"Written in Anna Lee's seventeen-year-old voice, Stramella's writing is superb, her characters fully developed and relatable, her settings of small-town eastern seaboard America realistic. Easily one of the best novels I've read this year, I look forward to reading more of Donna Stramella's work." Toni Morgan, Author of Patrimony and Queenie's Place.

"Stramella does a wonderful job of doling out Jacqueline's persona from behind a curtain of secrets and half-truths that drives the story's pacing to its unexpected conclusion." James White, Author of Ransoms are for Amateurs and Helen and her Brothers