MY BOOKS
When Detective Winston Radhauser’s phone rings in the middle of the night, he knows something terrible has happened. On this night, a homeless man, rummaging for food in a local dumpster, finds the body of a severely beaten young woman. On scene, Radhauser estimates the victim to be in her early twenties. He's overcome when he learns the forensics reveal she is the girl whose disappearance has haunted him for three years--Ava Cartwright.
In broad daylight, Ava's bicycle had been found parked with the kickstand down near a wooded area. Search parties inched their way through every portion of those woods, the neighborhood, nearby Lithia Park, and along miles of railroad tracks, but there was no sign of the little girl.
Where has she been all this time? And why was she dumped on the eve of her thirteenth birthday? There must be something, some tiny detail, he missed that will give him a lead. This time, Radhauser won’t quit until he finds it.
In broad daylight, Ava's bicycle had been found parked with the kickstand down near a wooded area. Search parties inched their way through every portion of those woods, the neighborhood, nearby Lithia Park, and along miles of railroad tracks, but there was no sign of the little girl.
Where has she been all this time? And why was she dumped on the eve of her thirteenth birthday? There must be something, some tiny detail, he missed that will give him a lead. This time, Radhauser won’t quit until he finds it.
When an infant's skull is revealed during a groundbreaking for the new homeless shelter behind Harrison Mortuary, Detective Winston Radhauser immediately opens an investigation.
While cordoning the scene, Radhauser spots a giant of a man standing at the back of the gathering crowd. He's crying. The two of them lock gazes for an instant before the big man scurries away.
Radhauser turns to Sister Anne Monique, a long-time resident of Ashland who knows the history of the mortuary better than anyone. When she's told about the discovery, she seems almost frightened. She tells Radhauser The Stillwater Home for Unwed Mothers preceded the mortuary and housed pregnant women, most of them teens. Dr. Stillwater sold the property in 1973. When asked about the man at the groundbreaking, the sister says Roosevelt Levingston had been the home's caretaker.
Medical Examiner Steven Heron and his forensic team excavate the site. The remains of more than twenty infants are discovered. Forensic anthropologists estimate the bones are thirty to fifty years old. Cause of death is unknown.
What went on at the Stillwater?
What caused the death of so many newborns?
Who buried these children?
Radhauser won't stop until he has the answers.
While cordoning the scene, Radhauser spots a giant of a man standing at the back of the gathering crowd. He's crying. The two of them lock gazes for an instant before the big man scurries away.
Radhauser turns to Sister Anne Monique, a long-time resident of Ashland who knows the history of the mortuary better than anyone. When she's told about the discovery, she seems almost frightened. She tells Radhauser The Stillwater Home for Unwed Mothers preceded the mortuary and housed pregnant women, most of them teens. Dr. Stillwater sold the property in 1973. When asked about the man at the groundbreaking, the sister says Roosevelt Levingston had been the home's caretaker.
Medical Examiner Steven Heron and his forensic team excavate the site. The remains of more than twenty infants are discovered. Forensic anthropologists estimate the bones are thirty to fifty years old. Cause of death is unknown.
What went on at the Stillwater?
What caused the death of so many newborns?
Who buried these children?
Radhauser won't stop until he has the answers.
When fifteen-year-old Shannon Hoffman goes missing, Detective Winston Radhauser conducts a frantic search of Ashland and its surrounding areas. He knows kidnapping victims rarely survive beyond the first forty-eight hours. The clock is ticking. None of her friends have seen her since cheerleading practice. Local volunteers post flyers, search parks, wooded areas and canvas door-to-door along the route Shannon would have taken home. Videos from school and neighborhood security cameras show nothing. They notify airline terminals, train and bus stations, but no one saw a girl matching her description leave Ashland.
During his investigation, Radhauser’s learns Shannon’s neighbor and lifelong friend, a boy named Rich Gasser, died less than two weeks before her disappearance. Rich had stood in front of a moving freight train. His death shocked the small community and devastated Shannon. Could she have run away? Was she depressed enough to join Rich? The medical examiner determined the boy’s death a suicide, but Rich’s parents know there is more to it. They believe Carson Summers, an older high school student, bullied their son to death.
According to her girlfriends, Shannon and Carson were an item until she discovered how cruel his bullying of Rich had become. Witnesses to their altercation claim Carson took the breakup badly and threatened to get even with Shannon. The deeper Radhauser digs, the more secrets he uncovers. He is convinced there is a link between Rich’s alleged suicide and Shannon’s disappearance.
Will Detective Radhauser find that link before it’s too late to save Shannon?
When the murder of a fourteen-year-old homeless boy rocks the small town of Ashland, Oregon, Detective Winston Radhauser is desperate to make an arrest. The boy, Tadeas Phan, is found stabbed through the heart on a bench near the pond in Lithia Park.
One week earlier, another victim, also stabbed, was found in the Shakespeare theater courtyard. Both had empty Starbucks coffee cups beside them. The press has already dubbed them the Starbucks murders.
Maxine McBride, Radhauser’s partner, discovers a homeless man, crouching behind the park restroom. His clothing is blood soaked and he clutches a knife in his hand. She is convinced the man, Michael Cornelius, is the Starbucks killer.
Cornelius, known as Corndog, is a former police officer, a Vietnam vet who suffers from PTSD. He is a hero, having received both a purple heart and a bronze star for his service. The evidence against Corndog is daunting, but no matter how hard Radhauser tries to make the pieces fit, he can’t find a motive for the killings.
His boss, pressured by the mayor, wants the case closed and insists Corndog be arrested. The case is officially closed. But Radhauser can’t let it go. He risks everything, even his job, to investigate further. The closer Radhauser gets to the truth, the harder it is to believe. Will he find the real killer, free Corndog, and reunite him with the family he left behind?
If Detective Winston Radhauser knew how many skeletons his visit to his dying uncle would unearth, he might have stayed in Ashland. Might never have learned the truth about his past.
During a deathbed confession, Winston Radhauser learns his parents are still alive and his mother is in a psychiatric facility having confessed to the murder of his three-month-old sister. After her confession, his mother stopped talking and hasn’t uttered a word in forty-three years.
Torn between grief for his uncle and anger at the lies he’s been told, Radhauser sets out to discover the truth about his family. As he conducts his own investigation and uncovers more evidence, Radhauser realizes the police took the easy way out by blaming his mother. He is convinced she is innocent. During his investigation, he unveils one more dark secret. Will this one lead him to the person who murdered his three-month-old sister, and vindicate his mother at last?
During a deathbed confession, Winston Radhauser learns his parents are still alive and his mother is in a psychiatric facility having confessed to the murder of his three-month-old sister. After her confession, his mother stopped talking and hasn’t uttered a word in forty-three years.
Torn between grief for his uncle and anger at the lies he’s been told, Radhauser sets out to discover the truth about his family. As he conducts his own investigation and uncovers more evidence, Radhauser realizes the police took the easy way out by blaming his mother. He is convinced she is innocent. During his investigation, he unveils one more dark secret. Will this one lead him to the person who murdered his three-month-old sister, and vindicate his mother at last?
When Detective Winston Radhauser receives a frantic call, ‘shots fired at Mountain View High School’, he and his partner are on the scene in less than four minutes. Chaos greets them. Screaming students run in every direction. Some hide behind bushes. One boy has fallen into the memorial fountain, his arm bleeding so profusely it turns the water red. Others lie on the ground, blood seeping into the concrete in dark pools. Procedure demands first responders wait for SWAT to clear the building, but Radhauser enters, fearing more injuries and loss of life. In the band room, two students, one dead, the other barely breathing, lie in front of the shattered windows. In practice room four, another boy and girl are dead. Sprays of blood splatter the cinderblock walls and shell casings litter the floor.
Radhauser kneels beside the girl's body. A cell phone, with a hot pink Hello Kitty cover, peeks from the pocket of her blood-stained hoodie. In her childlike right hand, nails chewed and painted an innocent shad of glittery pink, she holds a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun, her fingers still curled around it.
It is easy to believe fifteen-year-old Kristina Sterling is the shooter. Everyone does. Everyone except Detective Winston Radhauser.
The idyllic town of Ashland is nestled in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains. Locals often describe it as a little bit of England set down in Southern Oregon. Yet amidst the historic craftsman bungalows, the world-renown Shakespeare theaters, and the lush, manicured gardens in Lithia Park, something evil lurks.
While walking his pet raccoon, 72-year-old Homer Sullivan spots something shiny sparkling in the leaves near Ashland Creek. Thinking it might be a diamond ring, he hurries over to retrieve it in the hope he’ll become someone’s hero. He panics when he discovers the ring is attached to the fourth finger of a severed hand. He must find Detective Radhauser and fast.
Winston Radhauser has always searched for the truth. Set only eight months post 9-11, a young Islamic family is terrorized, and the severed hand is only the beginning. This time, Radhauser is tested to his limits, but will the truth devastate him?
Five days after a tragic fall kills her 10-year-old son, Blair Bradshaw, an actress with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is found dead. Her husband, Franklin Bradshaw, an esteemed criminal defense attorney, discovers her body. It is carefully displayed under her son's tree house, among the flowers and other memorabilia left at the site of his death. Franklin insists her death is a suicide brought on by the loss of their son. But Detective Radhauser finds evidence at the scene--a bloody shoe print on one of the rocks in the nearby creek, the careful way the body is arranged, and the fact that no weapon is found near her body--that leads him to believe otherwise. Was it grief that killed her? Or was it murder?
WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING
Customer Review July 31, 2019
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
This is the sixth book in the Winston Radhauser mystery series by Susan Clayton-Goldner. Another excellent mystery.
A young boy falls from his really nice treehouse to be impaled on one of the pointed stakes in the wrought-iron fence surrounding the tree. A few days later his parents hold a memorial service for him at the treehouse to which several of his classmates including his best friend and other interested parties are invited. The next morning his mother is found dead amid the flowers of the memorial his classmates had set up. Her husband insists she committed suicide in grief over her son’s loss. But Detective Winston Radhauser isn’t so sure. And soon the medical examiner is able to confirm his suspicions that Blair Bradshaw was most likely murdered.
There is no shortage of suspects; her marriage was in trouble, and her criminal-defense lawyer husband was having an affair with an intern from his office. Her brother, whose existence she had only recently learned of, was about to jointly inherit the vineyard he and his father had been running on the impending death of his father, and Blair wanted him to sell it so she would have some money to leave her husband. There were people she worked with at the local Shakespeare company where she was a leading actress.
But to find her killer, Radhauser has to go back to a much earlier era of her life.
At least as interesting in this book is a side-story involving Tommy Bradshaw’s best friend and a little boy who was kidnapped in infancy ten years earlier. Another really interesting character is Blair Bradshaw’s mother, Sunflower Finney, an old hippie from ‘way back who is still keeping the faith even though the rest of her family has abandoned her.
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
This is the sixth book in the Winston Radhauser mystery series by Susan Clayton-Goldner. Another excellent mystery.
A young boy falls from his really nice treehouse to be impaled on one of the pointed stakes in the wrought-iron fence surrounding the tree. A few days later his parents hold a memorial service for him at the treehouse to which several of his classmates including his best friend and other interested parties are invited. The next morning his mother is found dead amid the flowers of the memorial his classmates had set up. Her husband insists she committed suicide in grief over her son’s loss. But Detective Winston Radhauser isn’t so sure. And soon the medical examiner is able to confirm his suspicions that Blair Bradshaw was most likely murdered.
There is no shortage of suspects; her marriage was in trouble, and her criminal-defense lawyer husband was having an affair with an intern from his office. Her brother, whose existence she had only recently learned of, was about to jointly inherit the vineyard he and his father had been running on the impending death of his father, and Blair wanted him to sell it so she would have some money to leave her husband. There were people she worked with at the local Shakespeare company where she was a leading actress.
But to find her killer, Radhauser has to go back to a much earlier era of her life.
At least as interesting in this book is a side-story involving Tommy Bradshaw’s best friend and a little boy who was kidnapped in infancy ten years earlier. Another really interesting character is Blair Bradshaw’s mother, Sunflower Finney, an old hippie from ‘way back who is still keeping the faith even though the rest of her family has abandoned her.
Lillianna Ferguson has spent the last twenty years pretending her father is dead. She moved to Oregon—far away from her childhood home in Delaware—changed her name from Emma to Lillianna and vowed never to go back.
When her brother, Greg, phones, begging her to come home to care for their father who has been diagnosed with a dangerous, aortic aneurysm, she is adamant in her refusal. When did he ever take care of her?
But Greg is equally stubborn in his arguments that she return, as the surgeon at Johns Hopkins won’t repair the aneurysm without first amputating their father’s infected leg.
Calvin Miller, a disabled WWII veteran, survived a grenade that killed his best friend. It took off most of his right hand and left him with osteomyelitis in his leg, a bone-destroying infection, that refuses to heal. His surgeon believes his only chance for survival is amputation. The irony that his body is about to experience another explosion does not escape Lilianna.
Calvin, who has fought more than fifty years to save this leg, is adamant he will die the same way he lived—with both legs. Greg believes, if anyone can convince their father to have the amputation, it will be Lillianna.
Will she leave her safe life and reenter the minefield of her childhood?
When her brother, Greg, phones, begging her to come home to care for their father who has been diagnosed with a dangerous, aortic aneurysm, she is adamant in her refusal. When did he ever take care of her?
But Greg is equally stubborn in his arguments that she return, as the surgeon at Johns Hopkins won’t repair the aneurysm without first amputating their father’s infected leg.
Calvin Miller, a disabled WWII veteran, survived a grenade that killed his best friend. It took off most of his right hand and left him with osteomyelitis in his leg, a bone-destroying infection, that refuses to heal. His surgeon believes his only chance for survival is amputation. The irony that his body is about to experience another explosion does not escape Lilianna.
Calvin, who has fought more than fifty years to save this leg, is adamant he will die the same way he lived—with both legs. Greg believes, if anyone can convince their father to have the amputation, it will be Lillianna.
Will she leave her safe life and reenter the minefield of her childhood?
When Parker Collins, a gifted creative writing student at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, fails to show up for the first day of fall classes, his frantic girlfriend, Rishima Reynolds, files a missing person’s report. Though Parker has a history of alcohol abuse, disorderly conduct, and truancy, she insists he is committed to his writing classes. Rishima is adamant that something is very wrong.
Persuaded by the depth of her concern, Radhauser drives up to a cabin at Sunset Lake where Parker spent the last month finishing a novel his professor claims will be brilliant. The cabin has been trashed—the padlock on the liquor cabinet cut and empty beer and alcohol bottles strewn around the kitchen. A boat is missing. It appears wild-child Parker has gone on a binge and taken the boat out on the lake. Radhauser assures Rishima her boyfriend will turn up eventually, probably cold and nursing a gigantic headache. But something about the cabin scene nags at the detective and won’t let him go.
The following morning, 72-year old Homer Sullivan, one of the few year-round residents at the lake, finds a bloated body floating face-down near his cottage. He phones Radhauser, terrified it could be Parker Collins—the boy Sully befriended and has come to love. Is Radhauser’s missing person’s case a tragic accident? Or something much worse?
Persuaded by the depth of her concern, Radhauser drives up to a cabin at Sunset Lake where Parker spent the last month finishing a novel his professor claims will be brilliant. The cabin has been trashed—the padlock on the liquor cabinet cut and empty beer and alcohol bottles strewn around the kitchen. A boat is missing. It appears wild-child Parker has gone on a binge and taken the boat out on the lake. Radhauser assures Rishima her boyfriend will turn up eventually, probably cold and nursing a gigantic headache. But something about the cabin scene nags at the detective and won’t let him go.
The following morning, 72-year old Homer Sullivan, one of the few year-round residents at the lake, finds a bloated body floating face-down near his cottage. He phones Radhauser, terrified it could be Parker Collins—the boy Sully befriended and has come to love. Is Radhauser’s missing person’s case a tragic accident? Or something much worse?
Something evil has taken root in Ashland, Oregon. And with it, an uneasy feeling sweeps down on Detective Winston Radhauser. If someone doesn’t intervene, that evil will continue to multiply until the unthinkable happens.
While on vacation with his wife and their newborn son, Detective Radhauser receives a call from Captain Murphy--a high school kid has been branded with a homophobic slur and is hospitalized in Ashland, a small town known for, and proud of, its diversity. And this is only the beginning. White supremacy, homophobia and racism are one thing. But murder is something else.
Radhauser will do whatever it takes to find the perpetrators and restore his town’s sense of safety. With such hostile opposition, can he succeed and will justice be done?
While on vacation with his wife and their newborn son, Detective Radhauser receives a call from Captain Murphy--a high school kid has been branded with a homophobic slur and is hospitalized in Ashland, a small town known for, and proud of, its diversity. And this is only the beginning. White supremacy, homophobia and racism are one thing. But murder is something else.
Radhauser will do whatever it takes to find the perpetrators and restore his town’s sense of safety. With such hostile opposition, can he succeed and will justice be done?
Father's Anthony's devotion to God and His Church begins to unravel the moment Rita Wittier steps inside St. Catherine’s Cathedral in San Francisco. He struggles to control his feelings, but two years later, he is a man obsessed.
In an attempt to rediscover the priest he intended to become, Anthony flies back to Delaware to visit Father Timothy. If redemption can be found anywhere, surely it can be found in the church of his childhood and in the soothing Irish brogue of his old priest.
The months pass, 60 Minutes does a special on Father Anthony and the Shepherd Academy—a school he started for disadvantaged children. He’s become a national hero—nick-named the Good Shepherd. But he can’t get Rita out of his mind. He wants her more than anything—even God—and can no longer deny it. Six hours after he tells her how he feels, Rita is found dead in her car from an apparent suicide. Or is it murder?
When Detective Winston Radhauser is awakened by a call from dispatch at 12:45 a.m., it can mean only one thing. Something terrible awaits him. He races to the Pine Street address and knocks repeatedly. No answer. The door is unlocked. “Police,” he calls out. Again, no one responds. He unsnaps his holster and places his hand on his gun.
In the kitchen, Caleb Bryce, nearly deaf from a childhood accident, is frantically giving CPE to 19-month-old Skyler Sterling. Less than an hour later, Skyler is dead. The ME calls it a murder and the entire town of Ashland, Oregon is outraged. Someone must be held accountable. The police captain is under a lot of pressure and anxious to make an arrest. Despite Radhauser’s doubts, Bryce is arrested and charged with first degree murder. Neither Radhauser nor Bryce’s young public defender believe he is guilty. Radhauser will fight for justice, even if it means losing his job.
River of Silence explores the themes of family ties, forgiveness, disabilities, justice and redemption. Changed as a result of his journey with Bryce, Radhauser has finally let go of his past and is ready to move, unburdened, into a future with his wife, their 4-year-old daughter, and their soon-to-be born son.
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In the kitchen, Caleb Bryce, nearly deaf from a childhood accident, is frantically giving CPE to 19-month-old Skyler Sterling. Less than an hour later, Skyler is dead. The ME calls it a murder and the entire town of Ashland, Oregon is outraged. Someone must be held accountable. The police captain is under a lot of pressure and anxious to make an arrest. Despite Radhauser’s doubts, Bryce is arrested and charged with first degree murder. Neither Radhauser nor Bryce’s young public defender believe he is guilty. Radhauser will fight for justice, even if it means losing his job.
River of Silence explores the themes of family ties, forgiveness, disabilities, justice and redemption. Changed as a result of his journey with Bryce, Radhauser has finally let go of his past and is ready to move, unburdened, into a future with his wife, their 4-year-old daughter, and their soon-to-be born son.
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On a bench at the edge of the Lithia Park playground, someone is stalking two-year- old Emily Michaelson as she plays with her eighteen-year old half-sister, Brandy. The child’s laughter curves through the sunlight, as if on wings. The stalker is more enamored than ever, but aware of Brandy’s vigilance with Emily, knows a kidnapping won’t be easy. Planning to gain Emily’s trust, the stalker gives her a necklace—little girls love pretty things. A few days later, Brandy and Emily arrive at the park for the Children's Health Fair. When the stalker sees them enter the public restroom, the opportunity is seized.
Not long after Emily's disappearance, Detective Radhauser finds her rainbow- colored sneakers in Ashland Creek, their laces tied together in double knots. Brandy’s father and stepmother blame her for Emily’s disappearance. Radhauser feels sorry for Brandy, but insists she stay out of the investigation. Brandy can’t do that. She is obsessed with finding out who took her little sister, and why. Will Emily be found in time?
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Not long after Emily's disappearance, Detective Radhauser finds her rainbow- colored sneakers in Ashland Creek, their laces tied together in double knots. Brandy’s father and stepmother blame her for Emily’s disappearance. Radhauser feels sorry for Brandy, but insists she stay out of the investigation. Brandy can’t do that. She is obsessed with finding out who took her little sister, and why. Will Emily be found in time?
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REDEMPTION LAKE is set in the desert backdrop of Tucson, Arizona. Eighteen-year-old Matt Garrison is harboring two deadly secrets: He’s hiding details of his 12-year-old cousin’s death. And he’s made the monumental mistake of having had drunken sex with his best friend’s mother, Crystal Reynolds, whom he finds murdered in a bathtub of blood the next morning. Fear of losing his best friend and past guilt over his cousin cause Matt to act on impulse to hide his involvement with Crystal. Detective Winston Radhauser knows Matt is hiding something. Matt’s world closes in on him when his father is arrested for Crystal’s murder and his best friend breaks off their friendship. He is certain his father is being framed and is determined to find the real killer. When his father pleads guilty at his arraignment, Matt knows he is trying to protect his son. Devastated and bent on self-destruction, Matt heads for the lake where his cousin drowned—the only place he feels can truly free him. Are some secrets best kept buried?
A Bend In The Willow
Willowood, Kentucky 1965 - Robin Lee Carter sets a fire that kills her rapist, then disappears. She reinvents herself and is living a respectable life as Catherine Henry, married to a medical school dean in Tucson, Arizona. In 1985, when their 5-year-old son, Michael, is diagnosed with a chemotherapy-resistant leukemia, Catherine must return to Willowood, face her family and the 19-year-old son, a product of her rape, she gave up for adoption. She knows her return will lead to a murder charge, but Michael needs a bone marrow transplant. Will she find forgiveness, and is she willing to lose everything, including her life, to save her dying son?
PRAISE FOR A BEND IN THE WILLOW
A Bend in the Willow is written by the award-winning poet, Susan Clayton-Goldner, and published by a small, elite publisher. You might get the idea this is an arty book full of smooth writing, striking images, great metaphors, and as exciting as a collection of modern poetry about meditations on painting your toenails. You’d be right about the smooth writing, striking images, and great metaphors, but you’d be dead wrong about the level of excitement, A Bend in the Willow is as gripping as a Jason Bourne thriller with the accelerator stuck. It begins in Willowood, Kentucky where Robin Lee Carter is terrorized repeatedly by her drunken father, a poker friend of the local sheriff. After an especially brutal night, Robin takes justice into her own hands. In a far-away city she reinvents herself and years later we find her living as Catherine Henry, happily married to a medical school dean. They have a five-year-old son diagnosed with a deadly form of leukemia. In a stunning plot twist, she has to return to Kentucky in search of relatives to donate bone marrow for her son. Her father’s old pal, the sheriff, is still in office and determined to arrest her for murder. A Bend in the Willow is about a woman who will risk everything--career, marriage, even her life--to save her son. It’s that rare story that is not just thrilling, but has heart.—James N. Frey, Internationally best-selling author of How to Write a Damn Good Thriller
Powerful and heartbreaking, A Bend in the Willow tells the story of a young woman who must reveal horrific secrets from her past to save the life of her five-year-old son. Catherine Henry faces a perilous homecoming and murder charges when she seeks aid from her bitter, hostile brother who, two decades before, had risked his life to rescue her from their burning childhood home. Susan Clayton-Goldner beautifully renders an account of fear, pain and tragedy alongside redemption, hope and compassion—and most of all love in this touching family drama. — Marjorie Reynolds, author of The Starlite Drive-in
A fierce and beautifully told story about an abused girl who meets violence with violence then disappears only to return, twenty years later, in order to save her child. Clayton-Goldner has a gift for honestly portraying both heartbreak and hope. I loved it.—Lily Gardner, author of Betting Blind
Susan’s skillful writing immerses you in a moving story guaranteed to touch your heart. - Ray Rhamey, “Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling”
Poetic and potent, this debut novel is a must-read for anyone seeking truths about how we transcend our past. As a daughter first abandons her family to save herself, then returns years later to save her son, she discovers that facing her most broken places is the path to redemption, forgiveness, and true healing. — Sage Cohen, author of Fierce on the Page
A Question of Mortality
Ultimately what makes poetry good lies inside the reader's reaction to it. Susan Clayton-Goldner paints a mind picture and evokes emotion from the heart that often leads to goosebumps. She takes ordinary moments and turns them into universal truths. Her poems honor the dead, enlighten the living and dig deep into the dark mysteries of childhood. They are affirmative, redemptive and purifying. This collection not only illuminates, it shines."
James N. Frey, internationally acclaimed writing coach, author of How to Write and Damn Good Novel and The Key.
"A Question of Mortality takes us, step by step, through the difficult terrain of family history--its griefs, its losses, its regrets--offering up image-rich lines that "go by foot/into celebration or sadness...." This collection is the child of memory, its poems rising from that place where recollection does its epiphanic work. In the quotidian, Susan Clayton-Goldner's voice seeks and finds the mystery that restores both the poet and the reader.
Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate
Available through Amazon
The list price for the collection and CD is $15.00. If you prefer a copy signed by the author, please send a check to: Susan Clayton-Goldner, 330 Seclusion Loop, Grants Pass, OR 97526. I will cover the postage and handling.
Please read this review by Lois Rosen that appeared in the Statesman Journal, a Eugene, Oregon newspaper:
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/life/2014/11/11/mystery-writers-poetry-mourns-honors-lost-loved-ones/18668811
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/life/2014/11/11/mystery-writers-poetry-mourns-honors-lost-loved-ones/18668811
Murder At Cape Foulweather
A Comic Mystery
The five Sun City Sluts, forty-ish, fast and full of hell, attend a writing workshop at the remote Cape Foulweather Lodge on the Oregon coast, each hiding a secret they're afraid to spill. The first night, a destructive storm hits, all power is lost and one of their classmates, Orchid L'Toile, meets a fate they consider worse than a mere death: a bloody murder without adequate makeup while naked in the bathtub. The Sluts must find the killer or become victims themselves.
Murder at Cape Foulweather is available through Amazon in both Kindle and paperback format.
Please visit the Sun City Sluts Website
and the other authors:
Marjorie Reynolds and Martha Miller
Just Another Heartbeat
A Story of Loss and Reunion
Jessica Fenton's life, so carefully constructed to protect her secret, turns inside out when Gwen, the daughter she gave up for adoption, telephones. Jessica must tell her husband and her friends. But how will she justify twenty years of silence and deceit? Eventually, she finds the courage to face her past. And together, Jessica and Gwen embark on a redemptive journey back to each other. Just Another Heartbeat won an honorable mention in the Hemingway First Novel contest and was a finalist for the Heekin Foundation fellowship.
Finding A Way Back
After the suicide of her husband, Bryan, Kelly Hadley is left to unravel the twisted web of addiction and deceit he left behind. She engages the help of Bryan's only brother, Michael, and together they learn that wiser, maybe even better people can emerge from tragedy. They discover new truths about themselves, their relationships with their parents and children, and the meaning of friendship. Kelly and Michael come to understand love, betrayal and what it means to be human. Finding A Way Back was a finalist for the National Writers Association contest.
A Question of Mortality, Murder at Cape Foulweather, Just Another Heartbeat and Finding A Way Back are available on Amazon.com.
A Question of Mortality, Murder at Cape Foulweather, Just Another Heartbeat and Finding A Way Back are available on Amazon.com.