New York Times bestselling writer Cassandra King (Tell Me a Story) in conversation with a trio of Southern mystery authors, Agatha Award-winning and USA Today bestselling novelist Susan M. Boyer (The Liz Talbot Mysteries), Alicia Bessette (The Outer Banks Bookshop Mysteries), and Kristen Ness (At Loggerheads), with a special appearance by Gallery Books vice president and executive editor Carrie Feron.
$15/person. Followed by a book signing. (USC Beaufort Center for the Arts, 805 Carteret St., Beaufort)
ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS WOMEN
Cassandra King is an award winning and bestselling novelist whose fiction has won the hearts of readers everywhere, especially in the American south. Often told in first person, her novels portray strong and memorable characters who struggle with the same timely issues and dilemmas that readers face in their own lives. Before becoming an author, she has taught creative writing on the college level, conducted corporate writing seminars, and worked as a human interest reporter. The widow of acclaimed author Pat Conroy, Cassandra resides in Beaufort, South Carolina, where she is honorary chair of the Pat Conroy Literary Center.
Susan M. Boyer is the author of the USA TODAY bestselling Liz Talbot mystery series. Her debut novel, Lowcountry Boil, won the 2012 Agatha Award for Best First Novel, the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, and garnered several other award nominations. The third book in the series, Lowcountry Boneyard, was a Spring 2015 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Pick, and was short-listed for the 2016 Pat Conroy Beach Music Mystery Prize. Lowcountry Book Club was a Summer 2016 SIBA Okra Pick and was short-listed for the 2017 Southern Book Prize in Mystery & Detective Fiction. There are eleven full-length novels and one novella in the Liz Talbot Series.
Big Trouble on Sullivan’s Island, a Carolina Tales novel and the start of a new series, released on April 11, 2023, and won the 2024 Independent Publisher Book Award silver medal in Southeast Regional Fiction. Each of the Carolina Tales can be read as standalones.
Susan loves beaches, Southern food, and small Southern towns where everyone knows everyone, and everyone has crazy relatives. You’ll find all of the above in her novels. She and her husband call Greenville, SC home and visit the Carolina coast as often as possible.
Alicia Bessette is the bestselling author of the Outer Banks Bookshop mystery series. Book 1 in the series, Smile Beach Murder, was Edgar®-nominated for the inaugural Lilian Jackson Braun Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Before penning fiction, Bessette worked as a reporter in her home state of Massachusetts, where she won a first-place award from the New England Press Association. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines. A pianist and editor, she now loves living in Beaufort, South Carolina with her husband, novelist Matthew Quick.
Kristen Ness grew up in South Carolina and serves as a volunteer for the Island Turtle Team on Isle of Palms. A graduate of Duke University and the University of South Carolina School of Law, she is an immigration attorney obsessed with marine biology. She lives near the coast in Charleston, South Carolina, with her family. At Loggerheads is her first novel.
Carrie Feron is the newly named Executive Editor of Fiction at Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster . She previously worked at Morrow/Avon, where she published more than 30 New York Times bestselling authors. Her legions of loyal writers—many of whom she has worked with for more than 25 years—include Meg Cabot, Deborah Crombie, Christine Feehan, Dorothea Benton Frank, Sunny Hostin, Eloisa James, Faye Kellerman, Lisa Kleypas, Laura Lippman, Sarah MacLean, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Julie Quinn, and Nora Roberts. She has edited at least one winner of every major mystery and romance award (Edgar, Anthony, Agatha, Shamus, RITA), and she herself has won multiple industry awards.
