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Welcome to “Oregon Books,” a new feature wherein I’ll review interesting new works by local authors. To kick things off, here are five local authors who will be appearing Dec. 12-13 at the Authors & Artists Fair at the Lane Events Center. Mark your calendar if you want to get autographed copies for the holidays.
Anthea Kreston: A musician’s memoir
The world-famous violinist Anthea Kreston published her memoir last month, describing her sometimes rocky journey through the world’s concert halls to Oregon, where she plays first violin in the Delgani String Quartet.
Kreston toured extensively with Yo-Yo Ma, whose blurb on the cover of the new book describes her as “an indomitable spirit.”
The story inside “Crescendo: Chronicles of an Adventurous Violinist” confirms that assessment. Although Kreston began playing the violin at the age of 2, her family in Chicago was so difficult that she left home at 16. She fought her way to the top of the international music world, burned out and then gave it all up to spend time in a commune in Portland.
She fought her way back, performing in some of the greatest concert halls in the world. When a suicide left a sudden opening in the Artemis String Quartet she moved to Berlin and became the only American violinist in a major European quartet.
Today she lives in Corvallis but performs 100 concerts a year all over the world. She also serves as artist in residence for All Classical Radio in Portland — and still somehow found the time to write this charming book.
Susan Palmer: A thriller set in Oregon
After 30 years as a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News in Alaska and The Register-Guard in Eugene, Susan Palmer has settled into the Eugene’s Friendly neighborhood, taken up Nia dance and started writing novels.
Coming out later this month is “The Booker Rebellion,” a thriller I was able to read as a prerelease galley.
In the book, two teenage sleuths and their little sister uncover a violent right-wing conspiracy in Oregon’s Coast Range. The three kids are a bit feral, living in a remote homestead where the only adult is their Aunt Louise.
They’ve grown up self-reliant, because their parents serve in the National Guard and were sent to fight fires in Alaska. Meanwhile the kids are discovering vigilantes with shotguns and motorcycles in the woods.
When Palmer was a reporter at the The Register-Guard, she interviewed the families of National Guard soldiers sent to Afghanistan and Iraq. Their resilience struck her so strongly that she dedicated the book to the families who “didn’t sign up, yet they also serve.”
The official book launch will be at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 20, at Wordcrafters, 469 Charnelton St. You can also meet Palmer at the Authors & Artists Fair in December.
Jennifer Chambers: Local true crime
Jennifer Chambers of Veneta began her writing career in 2009 with “Learning Life Again,” a startling memoir about loss. A head injury from a car crash erased all her memories before the age of 18.
She had to relearn how to walk, talk and tie her shoes. Since then she has married, raised a family, started two popular podcasts, been elected to the Fern Ridge Library Board and written a dozen books.
Her earliest books about Oregon history focused on remarkable women, which makes sense, considering Chambers’ own remarkable history. Lately, however, her focus has switched to true crime.
Three years ago she published “Murder and Mayhem in the Willamette Valley.” New this past year is “The Murder of Sheriff W.W. Withers and Other Historic Eugene Cases.”
To start her research, Chambers asked at the Lane County Historical Museum if they had information about the murder of Withers, a popular Lane County sheriff from the early 1900s. The curator opened a box that had been closed for a century and withdrew a noose. It was the actual rope used in Lane County’s last public hanging, of Withers’ killer.
Rumor has it she’s writing an entire series of mysteries about Withers, the pioneer Eugene sheriff with a handlebar mustache, a quick draw and an unswerving devotion to justice. Judging from the careful research, clear writing and entertaining choice of crimes in her current book, the Withers series is sure to be a hit.
Isaac Hunter: Supernatural suspense novels
Isaac Hunter lives south of Florence, on the shore of a lake that must be the perfect place to write supernatural suspense novels, because he’s published nine. Hunter’s latest, “Beautiful the Meadow,” came out last week on Halloween — but because it’s the third in a series, I suggest you start with the first book, “In the Meadow.”
The book starts out innocently. The first six chapters follow 18-year-old Dawn McKensie’s humdrum life in Oakridge. The town is described to a T, from Ray’s Food Place to Dawn’s trailer court and the only bright spot for Dawn, the library.
But because we have already read the book’s prologue about a ghost watching a girl’s burial, we know trouble’s coming. You want to shout warnings when a handsome stranger stops at the Shell station where Dawn pumps gas. Don’t fall for him!
“In the Meadow” is the first in the trilogy that Hunter just completed. You might try some of his other paranormal thrillers as well. In “Seeking Light Aurora” an Alaskan truck driver takes a wrong turn into an alternate reality. The “Ashen Monk Chronicles” follows a special agent sent by the Vatican to a haunted monastery in the Canadian Rockies. And “Our Daughter” is about a girl who discovers her foster family is a witch’s coven.
Donna McFarland: Bilingual picture book
Donna McFarland of Eugene retired from giving piano lessons and teaching at Bushnell University in order to focus full-time on writing and publishing books. Her latest is “I Lost My Monkey,” a children’s picture book that’s bilingual in English and Nepalese.
This is her fourth in a hilarious series that includes “I Lost My Elephant,” “I Lost My Penguin” and “I Lost My Kangaroo.” In each book, a distraught child is putting up posters, asking all over if anyone has seen a missing pet.
The gigantic animal in question is always hiding somewhere on each’s page illustration. It doesn’t take kids long to point and shout, “There it is!” The adults reading the book out loud always seem to be last to spot the monkey.
Why a monkey, and why in Nepalese? The book is a benefit for a nonprofit founded by McFarland’s father to provide humanitarian assistance in rural Nepal. McFarland told the story of her father’s work in a book last year, “From Small Beginnings.”
Well, there you have it — five local books I liked, all of them new, and all of them available at the upcoming Authors & Artists Fair. I’ll return with another batch of Oregon books Dec. 3 to help you choose yet more winter reading.
