EPISODE 640 - R D Moreno - Zada 5 - Path of the One - A prophecy waits for Connor if he can survive long enough

Retired communication executive after 41 years. Married for the second time to my loving wife of 30 years, with five grown kids between us, and fourteen grandchildren. Our family pets include two small dogs and a large macaw. We are now living in NC. We just finished remodeling our current home. Other hobbies include writing among a host of others, like landscaping and woodworking.

Zada 5 Saga - Connor Balcazar never expected to have a destiny. Though his family has served the galactic empire for generations, his older brother Adam has always outshone him in combat abilities and natural charisma. The brothers are the best of friends, but Connor is determined to prove himself and master his hidden ability to see the future to assist Emperor Esteban any way he can.

https://www.rdmorenoauthor.com/

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EPISODE 639 - Deepa Anappara - Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Letters to a Writer of Colour and The Last of Earth

Deepa Anappara’s debut novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian Literature. Time included it in its list of ‘The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time’. It has been translated into over twenty languages.

Anappara is the co-editor of Letters to a Writer of Colour, a collection of personal essays on fiction, race, and culture, published by Random House (US) and Vintage (UK) in 2023.

Her second novel, The Last of Earth, will be published by Random House in the US, and Penguin Random House in India, in January 2026, and by Oneworld in the UK in February 2026.

She has a PhD in Creative-Critical Writing and an MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) from the University of East Anglia, Norwich. She teaches creative writing and is a mentor on the South Asia Speaks mentorship programme for emerging writers in South Asia.

Anappara was born in Kerala, southern India, and worked as a journalist in India for eleven years. Her reports on the impact of poverty and religious violence on the education of children won the Developing Asia Journalism Awards, the Every Human has Rights Media Awards, and the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism.

Book: THE LAST OF EARTH
From the award-winning author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line comes a stunning historical novel set in nineteenth-century Tibet that follows two outsiders—an Indian schoolteacher spying for the British Empire and an English “lady” explorer—as they venture into a forbidden kingdom.

1869. Tibet is closed to Europeans, an infuriating obstruction for the rap­idly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians—permitted to cross borders that white men may not—to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet.

Balram is one such surveyor-spy, an Indian schoolteacher who, for several years, has worked for the British, often alongside his dearest friend, Gyan. But Gyan went missing on his last expedition and is rumored to be imprisoned within Tibet. Desperate to rescue his friend, Balram agrees to guide an English captain on a foolhardy mission: After years of paying others to do the exploring, the captain, disguised as a monk, wants to personally chart a river that runs through southern Tibet. Their path will cross fatefully with that of another Westerner in disguise, fifty-year-old Katherine. Denied a fellowship in the all-male Royal Geographical Society in London, she intends to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa.

A polyphonic novel about the various ways humans try to leave a mark on the world—from the enduring nature of family and friendship to the egomania and obsessions of the colonial enterprise—The Last of Earth confirms Deepa Anappara as one of our greatest and most ambitious storytellers.

https://www.deepa-anappara.com/

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podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/

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EPISODE 638 - Janet Skeslien Charles - Author of The Paris Library and Miss Morgan's Book Brigade comes a charming and cinematic multi-cast audiobook, The Parisian Chapter

Janet Skeslien Charles is the New York Times, USA Today, and #1 international bestselling author of The Paris Library, Moonlight in Odessa, Miss Morgan's Book Brigade (called The Librarians of Rue de Picardie in the UK and Commonwealth), and the audiobook The Parisian Chapter. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the anthology Montana Noir.

Her work has been translated into 40 languages. Janet was born and raised in Montana. After graduating from the University of Montana, she got a job teaching English in Ukraine. She later went to France intending to teach for a year, and has been there ever since. Place is at the heart of every story she has ever written. She loves traveling, spending time with friends and family, and researching stories of forgotten people and places.

The Parisian Chapter
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade comes a charming and cinematic multi-cast audiobook following a young woman from Montana who lands a job in the American Library in Paris, where she discovers the power of storytelling and writes her own Parisian chapter.

https://www.jskesliencharles.com/

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podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/

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