Darden North, MD

As an author I love to visit book clubs. Recently by video teleconference, I was the honored guest of the Yarn Spinners Book Club of Ackerman, Mississippi. Friend and member Frances Coleman tells me that the club grew from a group of women who like to knit and crochet. They soon found themselves talking about books and decided to devote one meeting each month to having a book club. The program is sponsored by the Mississippi State University Extension Service - Chocktaw County.  Last year the Yarn Spinners read and discussed my newest novel, "Wiggle Room," but in 2015 my second novel, "Points of Origin," a national IPPY award-winner in Southern Fiction, was the focus of intention. Pictured separately  via Skype and Facetime  are the guest novelist and the Yarn Spinners group with guests. The club shared with me the 23 discussion questions it considered including such concepts as what was the central conflict of the novel’s plot, how does one ...

An agonizing story that you wish were only fiction ..... I shelved my personalized-signed copy of the lengthy novel and instead enjoyed the digital audio version of this latest Penn Cage installment. Admittedly, I was at a slight disadvantage since I have not yet read "The Devil's Punchbowl," Iles' preceding novel.  However, I quickly absorbed the sickening back-story of racism and political assassinations that filled so much of the news while I was in elementary school and growing up in Louisiana and Mississippi. Much of the first 40 chapters of "Natchez Burning" builds for the reader the sickening story of the KKK and Brody Royal's Double Eagles, a group bent on a degree of terror and torture that rivals any modern-day terrorist organization. It is after these chapters heavily laced in back-story that the novel finally accelerates, earning for Iles the reviewer cliché: "Couldn't put it down." Natchez (Mississippi) mayor and novelist P...

A five-star review is often defined as amazing. "Gone Girl," a novel by Gillian Flynn, is indeed amazing, mostly because of the amazing Amy Elliott Dunne.   The mark of an intense, imaginative author (Some reviewers call Flynn creepy) is that she has the mastery to make the reader either strongly like or dislike a character. Strong character development does not turn up lukewarm; it has to be either hot or cold. This reader took an immediate dislike to the selfish, manipulative Amy Elliott Dunn, Nick Dunne's antagonist, his wife of five years.   I would nominate Amy as one of the coldest females in modern fiction, and, perhaps, the cheating Nick as one of the most vulnerable, flawed males. To me, what is truly remarkable about storytelling (and maybe real life) is that some may disagree and consider Amy Elliott Dunne the hero. The work is written in first-person and told almost tit-for-tat by Amy and Nick. It includes enough foreshadowing and foreboding to make th...

A recent publication discussed the growing role of powerful female characters in many popular televison series and that many times the male lead becomes their kryptonite. This theme also drives the plot of many murder mysteries and thrillers. Whether on television, in the movies, or in novels, those of us seeking escape are drawn to flawed characters. Male and female characters create many conlicts with the opposite sex and drive a novel's plot. Murder mysteries and mystery fiction novels abound with men who lose the sexual battle but somehow find redemption. Are audiences as forgiving when a female protagonist is derailed by a love interest? Contemporary television does not seem to think so, and that concept helps this writer create flawed female characters that practically write award winner books themselves . To read more:  http://bit.ly/174GWC1 Darden North is the author of four novels including "Points of Origin," awarded an IPPY in Southern Fictio...

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