Books That Make You Podcast Desiree Duffy

Books That Make You Adventure Across a Mythical, Tolkien-Level World
Nothing juices up our imaginations like immersing ourselves in fantasy worlds that feel so real, you can so clearly see the characters, the flora, the fauna, the communities, cultures and countryside.
And so we have author C.D. McKenna’s award-winning The Vorelian Saga, a world of a dark epic fantasy, full of anti-heroes and ethically gray characters, the first book of which is The Blood of the Lion and which has readers all over the globe praising its Tolkien-level world-building. There’ve also been mentions of Game of Thrones and Eragon.
Living and working in the mountains of Colorado, C.D. McKenna is also a coffee lover who, when not writing with a dog on her lap, enjoys the fresh air and hikes to distant worlds right in her backyard. While McKenna explores various genres in her writing, she is published in fantasy and horror.
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Books That Make You Join With Aliens to Face a Common Threat
How about genre-bending today?
Beth Freely, award-winning author and BookFest Bellwether, is also a businesswoman and publishing industry professional. Raised in upstate New York and a temporary ex-pat in Great Britain, today she’s settled and writing in New Mexico.
Her novel, Beyond the Steps of Stone, illustrates in detail a future Earth in which humans and aliens from the distant past must band together to face down a mutual enemy.
Combining action, twists, great worldsmithing and world-shaking prophecies, the book launches readers on an unforgettable, literary sci-fi ride that will keep them hanging on for dear life.
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Books That Make You Mix Historical Cultures, Artifacts and, indeed, Aliens
KG Maw is back with us to discuss his book The Lazarus Project, the latest in his rich and stimulating “KV 66” series. Certainly a lot has happened since his previous visit, in both his fictional world and the real one.
Ancient Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs, and the mysteries surrounding the pyramids, tombs, and more all continue to fascinate us. And KG is no exception—his stories are inspired directly from that wonderfully vivid and enigmatic history.
A successful businessman who partnered with the Government of Dubai in an insurance brokerage venture, KG sold the business, took on an advisory role, and started writing his “KV66” stories. His ties to Egypt stem from extensive travels to the country with his wife, who comes from an Egyptian family.
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Books That Make You Tuck In With a Great Mystery
We all love a book that makes you want to pour a cup of joe and cozy up by the crackling fireplace. And that’s what Donalee Moulton delivers in her debut novel, Hung Out to Die.
The mystery follows Riel, a California-born transplant to Nova Scotia, where he is CEO of the Canadian Cannabis Corporation. Things seem to work out—until Riel finds his world hanging by a thread as a killer emerges. It doesn’t take the police long to determine all is not as it appears … and that includes Riel himself, now pulled into a world not of his making.
A freelance journalist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Donalee’s byline has appeared in more than 100 publications, including Canadian Business, The National Post, Chatelaine, Maclean’s, and The Lawyers Weekly.
In addition, Donalee is the author of The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say, as well as the co-author of Celebrity Court Cases: Trials of the Rich and Famous. Her short story, Swan Song, was one of 21 selected for Cold Canadian Crime, an anthology published by the Crime Writers of Canada.
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Books That Make You Think About Your Own Humanness as a Writer
As with any art, writing is both a natural talent and a developed skill. Many folks erroneously believe it’s all natural, or that storytelling is so ingrained in us that anyone can do it well. So far as we know, no other creature writes. Using the written word to relate stories is a very human endeavor.
Until now.
As everyone has heard by now, large language models like Chat GPT can indeed craft stories. They can help writers with editing. They can help with research and planning like never before.
What does all this mean for writers? For readers? Would you yourself read a book written by AI? Have you already? Can you tell the difference?
In this special edition of The Books That Make You Show, Desiree Duffy discusses the impact of AI on the writing community, and how it has—and will—impact readers, as well as the publishing industry at large.
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Books That Make You Enter A Dark, Political Fantasy Realm
We all love villains we can relish hating, and new realms we can escape into. Mix all this with a dark fantasy world, and political satire, and you might just get The Amber Menhir, the first book in “The Shadows of the Monolith” series.
Debut author Jonathan N. Pruitt is a lifelong educator turned fantasy writer. His redemption arc took him from being a musical child prodigy in a low-income rural county in Florida, to getting his PhD at the age of 24, to an international scandal in 2020 that set its sights on his research methods in behavioral ecology.
But he soldiered on, and has been teaching and traveling the world and, as of late, writing. With his impressive and varied background, and his experience and expertise as a scientist, he brings a unique and insightful eye to his fictional world.
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