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Who Murdered Wesley and Bonnie Mahaffey in Asheville, N.C.?
In 1986, a free vacation getaway turned into a nightmare for an Ohio couple visiting Asheville, North Carolina. Wesley and Bonnie Mahaffey, ages 33 and 29, respectively, had traveled to the area from Hanover Township, Ohio, after winning a three-day trip to Asheville through Wesley’s job. The couple had been staying at a nearby hotel, the Great Smokies Hilton, and a member of the maid service saw them come out of their room as they left for a day of sightseeing on May 18, 1986. Their bodies were found early the next morning by a group of teenage boys. They had both been shot multiple times with a .38-caliber handgun. Buzzard Rock is…
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Book Review: Trespassers and Other Stories by Áine Greaney
Hello again, fellow readers! On April 5, I shared the details about author Áine Greaney’s new short story collection, Trespassers and Other Stories, and wrote about a time and place where I personally struggled to fit into a new environment. Today I’m back to share my thoughts after reading the book in support of her participation in WOW’s Blog Tours. Book Summary From coastal Massachusetts to rural Ireland, the characters in Trespassers struggle to reconcile past and present, place and displacement, loss and hope. A woman travels from her Massachusetts home to her native Irish village to care for her estranged and sick father. Back in her childhood home, she comes face-to-face with…
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Book Review: The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner
When Jennifer Weiner announced the plot for her latest novel, The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. Weiner is well known in publishing for her exploration of the complicated female relationships we all experience, especially as mothers, daughters, and sisters, and this book examines all that and more against the backdrop of the music industry in the early 2000s. Synopsis: Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were thrust into the spotlight as The Griffin Sisters, a pop duo that defined the aughts. Together, they skyrocketed to the top, gracing MTV, SNL, and the cover of Rolling Stone. Cassie, a musical genius who never felt at ease in…
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Book Spotlight: Trespassers and Other Stories by Áine Greaney
Today I’m excited to participated in the WOW! Women on Writing blog tour for Áine Greaney, in support of her book, Trespassers and Other Stories. Learn more about the book below, and read through to the end to hear about a time in my life when I struggled to fit into a new place. Book Summary From coastal Massachusetts to rural Ireland, the characters in Trespassers struggle to reconcile past and present, place and displacement, loss and hope. A woman travels from her Massachusetts home to her native Irish village to care for her estranged and sick father. Back in her childhood home, she comes face-to-face with previously unspoken losses. A wealthy couple…
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Why I Love the Libby App
When my kids were younger, I used to frequent the library almost weekly, even more during the months of June, July, and August when the summer reading programs were in full swing. During the height of the pandemic, my visits came to a screeching halt. I was focused on keeping my job as a magazine editor and trying to launch a podcast. I knew there was an app called OverDrive that was supposed to allow you to check out books from the library digitally on your Kindle, but I found it clunky and difficult to use. Around 2022 I discovered the Libby app, which is owned by OverDrive but much more user-friendly. All I…
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Who Murdered Pamela Hoy?
On July 25, 1990, 41-year-old Pamela Mitchell Hoy had dinner with her husband Fred Hoy at a Burlington restaurant, and then went home and packed her gray Dodge van with her clothes and grooming tables, exercise runs, and crates. Pam raised and showed Italian greyhounds and was preparing for a trip that would take her to South Carolina the next day to a competition. She had plans to take her 11-year-old daughter on that trip. She went back inside the house to give her oldest daughter a magazine before leaving. She was expected at her parents’ home later that evening around 10:30 p.m., but never arrived. Pam Hoy grew up in the Greensboro…
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Book Review: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
I picked up this novel by author Liz Moore for two reasons—many other authors and reviewers whose opinions I respect recommended it and I wanted to see if it was a comparative title to my latest work in progress, a novel about a podcaster whose sister disappears from a North Carolina summer camp. Basically, I couldn’t get away from this book. I saw it everywhere I went, from online spaces, podcasts, and prominently displayed on the front tables at my local bookstores. Here’s the official synopsis: Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter…
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The Unsolved Murders of Pamela Murray and Beverly Sherman
Thirty-eight years ago, a young woman baked cookies with her aunt and then headed off to a local mall, probably to pick up a gift for her fiancé for Valentine’s Day. The two had plans to celebrate with a dinner out later that evening. But that young woman never made it inside the mall. Instead, she was forced back inside her car by an unknown assailant and found murdered a few miles away just a short time later. Investigators eventually linked her murder with another homicide of a local 17-year-old girl who had a prostitution arrest on her record. While the two victims came from very different backgrounds, it appears only one man…
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Book Review: The Devil at His Elbow
I recently read the true crime book “The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty” by Valerie Bauerlein. I shared my thoughts in the video below.
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New Beginnings
It’s nearly the first of the year and the perfect time for new beginnings, but if you’re like me, the wintertime often brings an unwelcome writing slump. With the past year being a rolling coaster of exciting news (a short story published in a new publication, readying a manuscript for submission, a few full manuscript requests), I also wrote myself into an incendiary burnout by year’s end. In early November, right after the loss of my grandfather who was the rock on the maternal side of our family, the dream I thought might be just within my reach began to drift away. Two of the agents who’d requested the full manuscript reached back out…