Latest New Books Network podcast - IF THE OWL CALLS by Sharon White. Set in Norway in the 1970s, an investigator heads to the northern region where the “Sami” people live to investigate the sabotage of a dam. While he’s there, a body is found in a hidden ravine. www.gpgottlieb.com/podcasts/if-...

G.P. Gottlieb on Being Derailed

Thanks to Chicks on the Case for posting my essay: Basing Characters on Friends and Adversaries:

For 50 years, Leah has written an annual New Year's letter to her fellow teachers' college colleagues in Israel. She falls in love, is unfairly maligned, makes bad decisions, is proud or aggravated about her sons, and is betrayed more than once. www.gpgottlieb.com/podcasts/hap...

Thanks To Valerie Biel for posting my essay: Always Wear a Scarf (about a long-ago train incident involving a hemp plant).

Simone is 9 years old when she escapes from Belgium, her father shot by Nazis. Told from different perspectives, Simone in Pieces is a stunning historical novel that spans her life as a refugee, a student, a divorcee, an academic, and someone capable of love. newbooksnetwork.com/simone-in-pi...

Sister Bernadette, a retired nun, inspires her neighbors at the Abbey Senior Residences to protest a developer who will destroy their neighborhood. When unexplained deaths start happening, Bernie uses all the tricks she learned as a schoolteacher to help the police in this sweet, cozy mystery!

Want to read a free NETGALLEY of BATTERED: A WHIPPED & SIPPED MYSTERY? Available through Nov 15. www.netgalley.com/widget/96202...

Here's what I have to say about cliches:

Claudia Rose confronts two mysteries at her H.S. reunion: the unsolved case of a missing classmate and the death of a teacher. Claudia's skills as a forensic handwriting analyst and Sheila Lowe’s dark imagination had me turning pages long past bedtime. #partnersincrimeblogtours

Lord and Lady Terrence Reid are among the guests at a Cotswold “Chef’s week." One person is there to stir up old grudges and restart his career, and everyone has a reason to want him dead, but Reid is stumped when both his parents and sister confess to the murder. newbooksnetwork.com/mary-birk-vi...

Thanks to suspense novelist Peg Brantley for highlighting me (and including my essay about Escaping into Fiction with Peg) in her October newsletter! I've learned that much of writing is about helping other writers. pegbrantley.substack.com/p/escape-int...

Please follow me at gpgottlieb.com!

Thanks to Melissa Westemeier for posting my story on her website today!

It’s 1605, and Isabella (Isabella's Way, She Writes Press 2025) learns that the Inquisition has begun attacking small communities that were forced to convert from Judaism. She has to leave Portugal as soon as possible, perhaps forever. www.gpgottlieb.com/podcasts/isa...

Thanks to Karen's Killer Book Bench for posting my essay about writing,"HE SAID, SHE SAID." url:https://www.karendocter.com/karens-killer-book-bench-amateur-sleuth-mystery-battered-whipped-sipped-mysteries-book-1-by-g-p-gottlieb/

An essay about writing and unsolicited advice.

Zoey Kozinski is shocked when the cop who lets her ride along one afternoon gets shot. We don’t know if the murderer will be stopped before he silences Zoey, the only witness. I loved Crime Writer's characters, the forward motion, and being in the hands of master storyteller, Vinnie Hansen!

Thanks to Kathleen Kaska for posting "Birding and Murder at Montrose Point in Chicago" on her widely admired blog - kathleenkaska.com/blog/

A cinematographer gets unfairly blackballed from the industry and accepts a position in the film department at UW. To get tenure, she's making a film about poachers in Zimbabwe. Someone will kill to stop her in this gorgeous novel about fighting for women's and animal rights.

Mona is 10 years old when she experiences a sudden temporary blindness in this gorgeous novel (Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser) about overcoming loss, art, history, and family. newbooksnetwork.com/los-ojos-de-...

Still hoping to learn the rerelease date!

In sharp, insightful stories set in Canada, The Beauty and the Hell of It & Other Stories portrays muddled, saucy women who struggle with impending adulthood, difficult men, and dysfunctional families. newbooksnetwork.com/the-beauty-a...

GO ON PRETENDING is about Rose, who produces 1930s soap operas, her daughter Emma, born in the USSR but now in America, and her daughter Libby, who joins the revolution in Syria - 3 generations of strong women who insist on living as they choose. #novel #podcast newbooksnetwork.com/alina-adams-....

A few days in Santa Fe....

The Dime Museum is an intriguing novel-in-stories that revolves around Charlie, who lacks purpose and works in a Venice bookshop in exchange for books that he doesn't read. We meet his family, his ex-girlfriend, and all those whose lives and decisions formed him. newbooksnetwork.com/joyce-hinnef...

Want to Know What Annoys Blackbirds? open.substack.com/pub/blackbir...

Interested?

This is what my challah looks like nearly every week!

Lacy Fewer wrote Yankeeland based on letters she inherited from a great-aunt. Across the ocean, sharing the ups and downs of their lives and their deepest pain, Fewer delves into Irish society and culture, medicine, mental illness, poverty, and making it in America. newbooksnetwork.com/yankeeland

Gwen is confronted with heartbreaking memories and battling to preserve her family's coastal Maine cottage. This beautiful novel is about finding oneself, knowing whom to trust, and learning the value of historical preservation. #podcast newbooksnetwork.com/port-anna

The Palace at the End of the Sea (Simon Tolkien) is a gorgeous coming-of-age story. Theo loses his father after the 1929 crash, gets sent to a British boarding school, and has to figure out who he is and what he believes. newbooksnetwork.com/the-palace-a...

River Gold is about hunting, fishing, a much-admired sheriff, an annoying contender for the sheriff’s job, a murder, a villain, and a hunt for the gold sent by France (to interfere in the Civil War) and lost in an 1860s Lake Michigan shipwreck. newbooksnetwork.com/river-gold

Maureen Stanton's new memoir is a love song to a beautiful man with whom she once shared her heart and soul. newbooksnetwork.com/the-murmur-o...

Lionel is sure that the body burned in his apartment is not his lover and writing partner, but it's 1954, they're writing a book about a serial killer/spy protected by the FBI, and now they're in his sight. Hall of Mirrors, John Copenhaver newbooksnetwork.com/hall-of-mirr...

LOVED THIS MEDICAL THRILLER: When the FBI arrests Dr. Kate Deming's husband, she's sure he has nothing to do with the ransomware paralyzing her hospital. He's the primary parent of an 8-year-old who loves pirates and a 12-year-old who's on her school’s code-breaking team. Now, Kate's not so sure.

Three famous paintings have been stolen in this twisting novel (Discipline, Debra Spark) about art and its value, dysfunctional families, lonely women, and teenagers struggling to survive psychological trauma. #fiction #Maine #podcast newbooksnetwork.com/discipline

A divorced mother, her gay childhood friend, and the friend’s scheming lover are part of Memory Feather’s tumultuous 1950s Mississippi childhood in this moving and beautifully told coming-of-age tale. #historicalfiction #queerfiction newbooksnetwork.com/beautiful-dr...

Raised in Shanghai by a single mother, Lin struggles in America in Su Chang’s debut novel about China, mothers, daughters, lovers, immigrants, and intergenerational trauma. #China #fiction #culturalRevolution #immigrants #podcast newbooksnetwork.com/the-immortal...

Paul Lisicky’s new memoir about being sickly, othered as gay, and passionate about the music of Joni Mitchell is a love letter to the singer I also adored and listened to every day of high school and beyond. newbooksnetwork.com/song-so-wild...

A fun novel about immigrants, family, marriage, trust, and the cuisine and culture of the island of Rhodes. #podcast #http://newbooksnetwork.com/lisa-f-rosenberg-fine-im-a-terrible-person-sibylline-press-2025