Susan Wittig Albert Books In Order

Thyme of Death

China Bayles has it all a prestigious Houston law practice, money, power but it’s not enough. She’s smart, she’s tough, she’s confident, and she knows she wants something more out of life than the fast track offers. Something like the Thyme and Seasons herb shop in Pecan Springs, Texas. Realizing that her career is turning her into somebody she doesn’t like, China does what many people only dream of doing: She relocates to a small town to begin a new and, she hopes, a gentler, more fulfilling life. But even in Pecan Springs, evil can occur among ordinary people living everyday lives. China soon learns that while she can move from the city, she can’t escape the world of moral choice. When China’s good friend, Jo Gilbert, apparently commits suicide, China is more than puzzled. Jo had been suffering from a terminal disease, but wasn’t the type to take her own life. And, to a lawyer like China, some revealing letters that Jo leaves behind shout blackmail and murder, not suicide. But why would anybody want to kill a woman who will die soon anyway? And what about the scent of perfume in Jo’s house? When another mysterious death occurs, China is sure she’s dealing with homicide. Helped by her best friend, New Ager Ruby Wilcox, and with support from lover Mike McQuaid, a former cop turned professor, China follows a trail of greed and fear to discover some unsettling answers. Thyme of Death marks the memorable debut of one of the most original and appealing new female sleuths to come along in years. Readers will identify with China Bayles as she makes the kind of tough decisions that confront us all.

Witches’ Bane

When a holiday prank culminates in a brutal murder, China Bayles’s friend Ruby becomes a prime suspect after being accused of practicing witchcraft by a mudslinging minister. Reissue. AB.

Hangman’s Root

In her most challenging case yet, lawyer turned herbalist China Bayles has to prove the innocence of her friend Dottie, an animal rights activist charged with the murder of a prominent animal researcher. As China sorts through the dead man’s past, she learns that Dottie isn’t the one who may have wanted him dead.

Rosemary Remembered

One in a popular series of mystery novels featuring herb shop owner China Bayles finds Bayles consulting a psychic for answers when she discovers a murdered woman in a pick up truck who bears a disturbing resemblance to herself. By the author of Thyme of Death.

Rueful Death

In search of respite, China takes off to St. Theresa’s Monastery with her friend Maggie, a former nun. The goal is a brief, tranquil retreat but there’s a conflict at the convent. The mother superior has recently died, and a battle over the future of St. Theresa’s suggests that her sudden demise might not have been accidental. Now, China’s quest for a replenished spirit takes second place to a more earthbound pursuit: catching a killer…

Love Lies Bleeding

The newest in the nationally bestselling series a ‘fast paced and absorbing’ tale Midwest Book Review. Ex lawyer and herb shop proprietor China Bayles is investigating the mystery of retired Texas Ranger shot dead with his wife’s gun…
and at the same time trying to sort out some mysteries about her own relationship after she overhears a suspicious phone conversation…

Chile Death

She planted the seeds of mystery stardom with her first book, Thyme of Death. She continued growing with such highly praised follow ups as Witches’ Bane and Love Lies Bleeding. Now Susan Wittig Albert’s career blooms with a flourish with the brand new offering Chile Death. An annual chili cookoff, a womanizing judge, and a crisis in China’s personal life add up to a novel that will delight fans of this fast rising author, a nominee for both the Anthony and Agatha Awards and attract a whole new audience to this ‘appealing series that just keeps getting better.’ Booklist

Lavender Lies

From the national bestselling author of Chile Death an all new mystery featuring the herbal wedding of the year!Nominated for both Agatha and Anthony Awards, Susan Wittig Albert’s bestselling series has taken root with mystery fans who delight in the exploits of lawyer turned herbalist China Bayles. Now, as China prepares for her upcoming nuptials, the only cold feet threatening the wedding are those of a corpse…
A bushel of praise for the China Bayles herbal mysteries:’Warm, witty…
an appealing series that just keeps getting better.’ Booklist’Albert’s characters are as real and as quirky as your next door neighbor.’ Raleigh News & Observer’A treat for gardeners who like to relax with an absorbing mystery.’ North American Gardener’One of the best written and well plotted mysteries I’ve read in a long time.’ Los Angeles Times Prime Crime’s fastest growing series titles include Chile Death, Love Lies Bleeding, Rueful Death, Rosemary Remembered, Thyme of Death, Witch’s Bane, and Hangman’s Root Chock full of herbal lore, customs, and facts lavender is a traditional wedding herb

Mistletoe Man

Susan Wittig Albert’s ‘unique’ series Seattle Post Intelligencer featuring herbalist China Bayles is infused with the down home charm of small town Texas. Compelling, suspenseful, and wholly original, Mistletoe Man tells the story of China’s search for a killer, her struggle to support a troubled friend and of her desperate attempt to reconcile the demands of her new business with the desires of her heart…
‘Warm, witty…
an appealing series that just keeps getting better.’ Booklist ‘Albert’s characters are as real and as quirky as your next door neighbor.’ Raleigh News & Observer’A treat for gardeners who like to relax with an absorbing mystery.’ North American Gardener Ninth in the series

Bloodroot

In a starred review of Mistletoe Man, Publishers Weekly raved: ‘ Albert’s writing sparkles…
a funny, human story.’ Now Albert presents her most stunning achievement to date. Set on a Mississippi plantation, Bloodroot is a vivid, haunting novel brim*ming with dangerous family secrets and drenched in the enduring mysteries of the Deep South…

Indigo Dying

Times have been tough on Indigo, Texas. But now, as artists flock to the countryside in growing numbers, Indigo is experiencing a revival. In town to teach a workshop, herbalist China Bayles, like so many others, is committed to bringing Indigo back to life. Only one person stands in their way: longtime resident Casey Ford, who has decided to sell his profitable mining rights. Once the deal is done, Indigo will be dead and buried. But when Ford winds up dead himself, China, along with her best friend Ruby, quietly begin their own investigation to discover who is behind the murder. Before long, it becomes chillingly clear that this is a town with its share of dark secrets secrets that someone thinks are worth killing to keep.

Dilly of a Death

China’s otherwise sensible husband is bored with teaching and ready for a career change…
say hello to Mike McQuaid, P.I. His first client is Phoebe the Pickle Queen, owner of the biggest little pickle business in Texas. She says her plant manager is embezzling, and she wants McQuaid to follow the money. But just days before the annual Picklefest, Phoebe disappears. And now it’s up to McQuaid and China to search for her and for clues in a case that promises to leave a very sour taste.

Dead Man’s Bones

Texas ex lawyer and herbalist China Bayles digs into murders past and present, as a Dead Man’s Bones are uncovered and a community gathering is interrupted by murder…
China Bayles already has her hands full balancing her job, her family, and her friends’ romantic entanglements. Then her teenage son finds some skeletal remains during a local cave dig remains from a not so distant, not so accidental death.

Bleeding Hearts

When local football coach and hero Tim Duffy is accused of improper behavior, lawyer turned herbalist China Bayles investigates, following a trail of obsession and murder that may lead to her own doorstep.

Spanish Dagger

Between the herb shop, the catering business, and a weekend paper making class, China Bayles has her work cut out for her. And now China’s half brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father’s supposedly accidental death, and her husband is taking on the case meaning she’s just bound to get involved. To put the unsavory business out of her mind, she’s gathering supplies for making paper. But in a patch of yucca plants, she finds a body cause of death unknown. Many residents of Pecan Springs live seemingly simple lives that hide complex and dangerous pasts, and it appears the victim was one of them. Now, while unraveling secrets that hit close to home, China must set the record straight and find a killer.

Nightshade

China’s herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she’s still reeling from her father’s death, and not even remotely interested in her half brother Miles’s investigation into that event. China’s husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it’s time to bring the past to light or else it will haunt her the rest of her life. But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have been keeping as many secrets as he seemed determined to uncover. How deep do the layers of secrecy go? And who has a stake in concealing the truth after sixteen years?

Wormwood

‘In a class with…
sleuths V.I. Warshawski and Stephanie Plum,’Publishers Weekly China Bayles stumbles over old secrets in a Shaker village. China’s friends and family are urging her to get some rest and a Kentucky Shaker village seems the ideal place for it. At Mount Zion, China can assist with some herbal workshops while absorbing all things Shaker, from their furniture to their peaceful ways. But the restored modern version of the village, striving to become a popular tourist attraction, is plagued with misfortune and strife some of it the likely result of sabotage. China and her friend Martha are hoping to get to the bottom of it. However, much like Shaker history itself, the case appears simpler at first than it is. There is tension behind the serene exterior. And after a shocking death occurs during her stay, China will plunge into the archives of another time to connect the sins of the past with a modern day murder.

Holly Blues

‘In a class with…
sleuths V.I. Warshawski and Stephanie Plum,’ China Bayles deals with a most unwelcome guest…
China Bayles is fit to spit when her husband’s troubled ex wife, Sally, shows up at her herb shop, claiming to be broke with nowhere else to turn. China isn’t sure if it’s the goodness of her heart or the scent of Christmas wreaths, but she invites Sally to stay. Then China starts receiving menacing calls from an ‘ex’ of Sally’s, who seems to have a connection to the murder of her parents nearly a decade ago. With her P.I. husband out of town, it’s up to China to weed out the truth behind whatever it is Sally’s running from before danger catches up to all of them…
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Mourning Gloria

Another herbal treat from national bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert. While Pecan Springs bustles back to life in the warmth of spring, one woman’s life is tragically brought to an end. China Bayles happens upon a burning house trailer and hears a woman screaming for help. The evidence leaves no doubt that it’s arson homicide. Jessica Nelson, an intern reporter at the local paper, is assigned to cover the story. But she’s gotten herself too deeply involved. When Jessica disappears, China is determined to find her, before she becomes headlines herself.

Cat’s Claw

Police Chief Sheila Dawson believes the death of Pecan Spring’s computer guru, Larry Kirk, to be a suicide, perhaps triggered by his painful divorce. Further investigation reveals that Kirk’s death wasn’t self inflicted. And the truth is reinforced by her friend China Bayles’ news Larry recently asked her for legal advice in regards to a stalker. As a police chief in a male dominated force, Sheila meets many challenges, especially when her theories rock the boat in high profile cases like that of George Timms. He was caught breaking into Larry’s computer shop to steal his own computer back because of dangerous personal information it contained. Now that Larry is dead, she’s sure it’s connected to the burglary. And she’s also sure she’ll get plenty of resistance on her as*sessment…
Timms’s time to turn himself in to the police comes and goes, and he’s nowhere to be found. In her investigation, Sheila uncovers secrets, terrible secrets that would drive anyone to kill. So who then? It’s up to Sheila to prove she’s got what it takes to hunt down the predator that’s loose on the streets of Pecan Springs…

An Unthymely Death and Other Garden Mysteries

Now readers can join China Bayles in ten puzzling cases and get a taste of her world. This delightful collection features loads of wonderful herbal tidbits on everything from rosemary to feverfew to catnip; recipes for such to die for dishes as a Deadly Chocolate Valentine, Ruby’s Applesauce Mint Bread, China’s Five Spice Chicken and Veggie Stir Fry, and McQuaid’s Tex Mex and a host of creative ideas for garden and home. It’s a one of a kind collection featuring a one of a kind sleuth who’s worth spending some ‘quality thyme’ with!

China Bayles’ Book of Days

A companion treasury from the author of the national bestselling series.

Readers of the China Bayles mystery novels are familiar with the usefulness and wonder of the many herbs the amateur sleuth sells in her beloved Thyme and Seasons shop. Compiled by national bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert at the request of her fans, China Bayles’ Book of Days gathers together tidbits and treasures about plants and reveals ways you can put more green into your daily life.

Featuring 365 days of recipes, crafts, gardening tips, remedies, and more, this special volume is a personal calendar of the legends and lore of herbs and also features brand new essays from the author, clues from China’s mysteries, and some special contributions by the irrepressible members of the Myra Merryweather Herb Guild, Pecan Springs’s oldest civic organization.

The Tale of Hill Top Farm

The author of Peter Rabbit and other tales, Beatrix Potter is still, after a century, beloved by children and adults worldwide. In this first Cottage Tale, Albert introduces Beatrix, an animal lover and Good Samaritan with a knack for solving mysteries. With help from her entourage of talking animal friends, Beatrix sets out to win over the human hearts of Sawrey, where she’s just bought an old farm and plans to stay.

The Tale of Holly How

New in the delightful series that’s ‘a most ingenious blend of fact and fiction.’ In the second Cottage Tales mystery, Miss Beatrix Potter has won over human and animal hearts alike in her new home, the sleepy village of Sawrey, England. Here, everyone of both human and animal persuasion has a good word to say about local shepherd Ben Hornby. But one day, Beatrix finds him dead in the meadow, and suspects foul play.

The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood

Beatrix Potter loves the warmth of Sawrey, her new hometown. But even the kindest of souls can turn snappish when houseguests overstay their welcome. When Beatrix returns from time away, she finds the attic overrun with rats. Rosabelle, resident rat and generous hostess, has offered her family a place to stay. But when word gets out, she soon has dozens of rat families on her tiny hands. To get rid of them, Beatrix invites some cats over deeply offending Felicia Frummety, resident cat. Then a mysterious outsider plans to ruin the pristine shoreline of Lake Windermere by building a sprawl of villas. And trouble has beset three village children, favorites of Beatrix, who are counting on the help of the fairies of Cuckoo Brow Wood. Now, with her signature tact, Beatrix must work with her friends human and animal to set things right.

The Tale of Hawthorn House

A brand new mystery in the endearing Beatrix Potter series from a national bestselling author.

During Sawrey’s annual summer f& 144;te, Miss Beatrix Potter receives an unexpected visitor in the form of Baby Flora, left in a basket on her doorstep with a note, a sprig of hawthorn, and a scarab ring. All Beatrix knows about Flora’s previous guardian is that she was a gray haired woman, capable of scaling a brick wall in seconds.

An investigation reveals that the ring was pawned and reclaimed in Sawrey by a resident of Hawthorn House. The legendary manor is supposed to be vacant and rumored to be haunted. Now Beatrix and her animal friends are left pondering the possible involvement of fairy folk in these utterly puzzling happenings.

The Tale of Briar Bank

Beloved children’s author Beatrix Potter, wearing the hat of amateur sleuth, returns in this delightful series with legs and tails. Publishers Weekly

Near Sawrey, the seat of Miss Potter s country home, is abuzz Mr. Wickstead has died under a tree limb. The villagers are certain that his death had to do with a treasure he dug up last spring. But why was he in the wood on a frigid night? And what of the claw marks on the limb? And what was that treasure? As per usual, the town s animals know more than the Big Folk. And only Pickles, Wickstead s fox terrier, knows exactly what happened.

Meanwhile, Miss Potter wonders: can she acknowledge her fondness for Mr. Heelis and remain loyal to the memory of her fianc ? She has no time to muse, what with helping the denizens of Sawrey, human and animal and the little matter of murder.

The Tale of Applebeck Orchard

The latest delightful tale in Albert’s Beatrix Potter series. Out of spite for having his haystacks burnt, Mr. Harmsworth barricades a common path through his orchard and Tabitha Twitchet and her Cat Council want answers. Reliable witnesses, including some Big Folk, say the arson was the handiwork of a lantern wielding specter. The mournful ghost has a message and Miss Potter, for one, hopes to figure it out. Meanwhile in Sawrey, romance buds between the schoolmarm and a confirmed bachelor; Hyacinth Badger hopes to be the first female to earn the Badger Badge of Honor; and a rumor has Beatrix and the solicitor practically betrothed. But the matter of the barricade involves everyone and Miss Potter and her friends might have to take matters into their own hands and paws.

The Tale of Oat Cake Crag

The latest tale in the ‘charming’ Publishers Weekly Beatrix Potter series! In the Lake District, noisy test flights of the new hydroplane are disrupting life in the village of Near Sawrey. Miss Beatrix Potter can barely hear herself think which she needs to do for the new case she’s just taken up. Her friend Grace Lythecoe has been receiving some anonymous letters, threatening her good name. Now Beatrix must proceed quietly, so as not to arouse village gossip. And while her visit to Near Sawrey has proven to be anything but quiet, there is yet another piece of business for Beatrix to address: that of her own future. When she’s offered a second chance at love, she decides that sometimes causing a disturbance can be well worth the trouble.

The Tale of Castle Cottage

The latest in the Cottage Tales series starring Miss Potter herself! It’s the heart of summer in 1913, and Beatrix is eager to marry her fianc , solicitor William Heelis. But there are a few obstacles blocking the happy couple’s path to the altar, like the troubled remodeling of Castle Cottage Will and Beatrix’s future home…

The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

The country may be struggling through the Great Depression, but the good ladies of Darling, Alabama, are determined to keep their chins up and their town beautiful. Their garden club, the Darling Dahlias, has just inherited a new clubhouse and garden, complete with two beautiful cucumber trees in full bloom.

But life in Darling is not all garden parties and rosemary lemonade.

When local blond bombshell Bunny Scott is found in a suspicious car wreck, the Dahlias decide to dig into the town’s buried secrets, and club members Lizzy, Ophelia, and Verna soon find leads sprouting up faster than weeds. The town is all abuzz with news of an escaped convict from the prison farm, rumors of trouble at the bank, and tales of a ghost heard digging around the cucumber tree. If anyone can get to the root of these mysteries, it’s the Darling Dahlias.

The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

A brand new mystery in the ‘exceptional’ Booklist series by the national bestselling author. Rumors are sprouting in Depression era Darling, Alabama. The town’s newest visitors, Nona Jean Jamison and Miss Lake, may be the Naughty and Nice Sisters from the Ziegfeld Frolic, who specialize in dancing nearly naked. The Dahlias suspect more than modesty when Nona denies her association. They’ll have to dig through clues to get to the root of the mystery…

Death at Bishop’s Keep

Kate Adrleigh is everything the Victorian English gentlewoman is not outspoken, free thinking, American…
and a writer of the frowned upon ‘penny dreadfuls.’ Soon after her arrival in Essex, England, a body is unearthed in a nearby archeological dig and Kate has the chance to not only research her latest story…
but to begin her first case with amateur detective Sir Charles Sheridan.

Death at Gallows Green

In Death at Bishop’s Keep, Kathryn Ardleigh captured the interest of detective Sir Charles Sheridan as they solved their first case together. Now the demise of a local constable and the disappearance of a child have the sleuthing couple on the trail of deadly greed and criminal mischief once again. And with the help of a shy woman who calls herself Beatrix Potter, Kate intends to uncover the sinister secrets of Gallows Green…

Death at Daisy’s Folly

When two murders occur during the weekend party of the unladylike Countess of Warwick, the Prince of Wales, hoping to avoid a scandal, orders Sir Charles and Miss Ardleigh to solve the case.

Death at Devil’s Bridge

Newlyweds Charles and Kate Sheridan host an auto exhibition at Kate’s ancestral home, attended by Europe’s foremost investors and inventors. But competition, speed and money more explosive than gasoline are deadly for one auto builder! Now amateur sleuths must unravel the mystery before the carnage spreads. .

Death at Rottingdean

For Kathryn Ardleigh and her newly Lorded husband Charles, a seaside holiday in Rottingdean is a needed rest. The cozy hamlet is built on a labyrinth of hundred year old tunnels that once were used by smugglers. But when a coast guard’s body is found on the beach, the town is suspected to plying its illicit trades of the past. And with the help of a young writer named Rudyard Kipling, they’re about to discover something rotten in Rottingdean…

Death at Whitechapel

Kathryn Ardleigh and her husband, Charles, are called on for help when scandal threatens Jennie Jerome Churchill. Her son Winston’s political future is jeopardized by someone who claims to have proof that his father was none other than the notorious Jack the Ripper…
Praise for Robin Paige’s Victorian Mysteries: ‘I read it with enjoyment.’ Anne Perry

Death at Epsom Downs

Lord Charles Sheridan has launched an investigation into a jockey’s recent and mysterious death while his wife, Kate, puzzles over the long ago theft of an actress’s jewels. But soon the Sheridans can’t help wondering if the two strange events are, somehow, connected. ‘A neatly plotted tale of mayhem among the racing set. Publishers Weekly

Death at Dartmoor

‘Robin Paige’s detectives do for turn of the century technology and detection what Elizabeth Peters’ Peabody and Emerson have done for Victorian Egyptology.’ Gothic Journal Lord Charles Sheridan and his American wife, Kate, have come to Britain’s most notorious prison so that Kate can research her new Gothic novel and Charles can meet with one of the inmates. But when the inmate escapes and a body turns up on the moor the Sheridans join forces with Arthur Conan Doyle to determine if the missing convict is connected to this murderous new case.

Death at Glamis Castle

Upon their arrival, they discover they will be staying at the most historic castle in all of Scotland, a place teeming with dark secrets and haunting shadows. It seems that Prince Eddy, who had been heir to the throne until his purported death in 1892, has actually been alive all these years. Deemed unfit for the throne, he has been living secretly at Glamis Castle under an assumed name. Only now the prince has gone missing on the very morning that the body of one of his servants was found, her throat slashed. Now, Charles and his clever Kate must find Eddy and clear his name while keeping his true identity a secret.

Death in Hyde Park

Coronation Day, 1902. Charles and Kate Sheridan are pleased to be at the crowning of their king. But when an anarchist accidentally blows himself up with a bomb meant for their monarch, Charles and Kate turn up a number of intriguing and disturbing questions. For example, what is mysterious, beautiful Charlotte Conway editor of the anarchist newspaper where the dead man was employed doing in the arms of expatriate author Jack London?

Death at Blenheim Palace

Kate Sheridan is at Blenheim Palace to research King Henry’s mistress Rosamund, said to have been poisoned there by Eleanor of Aquitaine. But her visit takes a strange turn when her hosts unwittingly begin to relive the legend.

Death on the Lizard

Cornwall is rich with natural wonders: gorgeous shorelines and imposing cliffs. But these natural beauties conceal dangerous secrets, as amateur detectives Lord and Lady Sheridan discover.

Lizard Village, 1903: Wireless telegraph companies around the world scramble to develop the new communications technology. But an Italian beats them to it. His feat has bruised some egos, but no one expects sabotage, much less murder. After two apparently accidental deaths at the transmission station, Charles, Lord Sheridan, is asked to head an investigation and finds that valuable equipment has disappeared. And when a local girl drowns and it becomes clear that these deaths and the dirty tricks at the station are connected.

World Literature

HAS SOME MARKINGS,FEW DOGEARS,LITTLE WEAR ON CORNER OF SPINE.

Writing from Life

Encourages women to discover their natural storytelling talents, find authentic voices, and record their experiences by providing exercises, meditations, and writing examples for inspiration.

With Courage and Common Sense

‘Much of the time our society stereotypes and dismisses old women as ridiculous, troublesome, irrelevant, and worst of all boring. These memoirs contradict the assumptions. The women who wrote them have experienced solid, hearty lives, with a characteristic vitality enduring into old age’ from the Foreword by Liz Carpenter. Women who were sixty or older at the turn of the twenty first century have lived through some of recent history’s most momentous moments and yet these women often believe that their personal lives and stories are insignificant, not worthy of being recorded for future generations. To change that perception and capture some of these life stories before they are lost, the Story Circle Network, a national organization dedicated to helping women write about their lives, developed the Older Women’s Legacy OWL Circle Memoir Workshops. During the first two years of the project 1998 2000, nearly 500 older women participated in workshops that offered them the opportunity and encouragement to reflect on and create written records of their lives. ‘With Courage and Common Sense‘ presents an extensive selection of memoirs from the OWL Circle project. Organized thematically, they describe women’s experiences of identity, place, work, family life, love and marriage, loss and healing, adventures great and small, major historical events, and legacies to keep and pass along. Taken as a whole, the memoirs chronicle far reaching changes in the ways that women participated in the world during the twentieth century. They show how women learned to surmount obstacles, to courageously make the most of the opportunities that came their way, and to move quietly and wisely beyond the limits that were imposed upon them.

What Wildness Is This: Women Write about the Southwest

How do women experience the vast, arid, rugged land of the American Southwest? The Story Circle Network, a national organization dedicated to helping women write about their lives, posed this question, and nearly three hundred women responded with original pieces of writing that told true and meaningful stories of their personal experiences of the land. From this deep reservoir of writing as well as from previously published work by writers including Joy Harjo, Denise Ch vez, Diane Ackerman, Naomi Shihab Nye, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gloria Anzaldua, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barbara Kingsolver the editors of this book have drawn nearly a hundred pieces that witness both to the ever changing, ever mysterious life of the natural world and to the vivid, creative, evolving lives of women interacting with it. Through prose, poetry, creative nonfiction, and memoir, the women in this anthology explore both the outer landscape of the Southwest and their own inner landscapes as women living on the land the congruence of where they are and who they are. The editors have grouped the writings around eight evocative themes: The way we live on the land Our journeys through the land Nature in cities Nature at risk Nature that sustains us Our memories of the land Our kinship with the animal world What we leave on the land when we are gone From the Gulf Coast of Texas to the Pacific Coast of California, and from the southern borderlands to the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, these intimate portraits of women’s lives on the land powerfully demonstrate that nature writing is no longer the exclusive domain of men, that women bring unique and transformative perspectives to this genre. 20070513

Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place

What does it mean to belong to a place, to be truly rooted and grounded in the place you call home? How do you commit to a marriage, to a full partnership with another person, and still maintain your own separate identity? These questions have been central to Susan Wittig Albert’s life, and in this beautifully written memoir, she movingly describes how she has experienced place, marriage, and aloneness while creating a home in the Texas Hill Country with her husband and writing partner, Bill Albert. Together, Alone opens in 1985, as Albert leaves a successful, if rootless, career as a university administrator and begins a new life as a freelance writer, wife, and homesteader on a patch of rural land northwest of Austin. She vividly describes the work of creating a home at Meadow Knoll, a place in which she and Bill raised their own food and animals, while working together and separately on writing projects. Once her sense of home and partnership was firmly established, Albert recalls how she had to find its counterbalance a place where she could be alone and explore those parts of the self that only emerge in solitude. For her, this place was Lebh Shomea, a silent monastic retreat. In writing about her time at Lebh Shomea, Albert reveals the deep satisfaction she finds in belonging to a community of people who have chosen to be apart and experience silence and solitude.

An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days

From Eudora Welty’s memoir of childhood to May Sarton’s reflections on her seventieth year, writers’ journals offer an irresistible opportunity to join a creative thinker in musing on the events–whether in daily life or on a global scale–that shape our lives. In An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days, best-selling mystery novelist Susan Wittig Albert invites us to revisit one of the most tumultuous years in recent memory, 2008, through the lens of 365 ordinary days in which her reading, writing, and thinking about issues in the wider world–from wars and economic recession to climate change–caused her to reconsider and reshape daily practices in her personal life.

Albert’s journal provides an engaging account of how the business of being a successful working writer blends with her rural life in the Texas Hill Country and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. As her eclectic daily reading ranges across topics from economics, food production, and oil and energy policy to poetry, place, and the writing life, Albert becomes increasingly concerned about the natural world and the threats facing it, especially climate change and resource depletion. Asking herself, ‘What does it mean? And what ought I do about it?’, she determines practical steps to take, such as growing more food in her garden, and also helps us as readers make sense of these issues and consider what our own responses might be.

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