Valerie Baeza, Parris Afton Bonds, BR Kingsolver, François-Marie Patorni, and Judy Willmore are members of SouthWest Writers (SWW) with 2021 releases that couldn’t fit into this year’s interview schedule. Look for interviews or updates for most of these authors in 2022.

A list of interviewed SWW authors with 2021 releases is included at the end of this post.

Valerie Baeza’s Story of My Life (October 2021) is a gripping epistolary novel that possesses unforgettable characters and impassioned storylines. When the worst happens, how do you move on? Garence Leitner had it all: a meaningful career traveling the world as a writer and photographer, the quintessential cottage in Bourton-on-the-Water, England, and the love of his life, Sabina. Now, with each passing day, the memory of her suffocates him. Even new romantic love delivers misery. Garence has sold the cottage, and can barely stand to look at what were once their prized possessions. But one alluring leftover item does claim his attention: a piece of luggage containing all the letters he and Sabina exchanged. As the letters transport Garence back through five years of emotional highs and lows, he will move into the shadows of despair—where love, hope, and friendship also pervade. Can these letters be his saving grace? If Garence cannot find a reason to live without Sabina within three days, he will take his life.

You’ll find Valerie on her website at ValerieBaezaAuthor.com and on Amazon.

The Betrayers (Lagan Press, May 2021) is the fourth book in The Texicans series by Parris Afton Bonds. Love and hate combine to endanger the Paladíns and all they hold dear. A violent scuffle between Drake Paladín and Roger Clarendon results in a none-too-subtle message to the Paladíns: politics is dirty business. From hereon, the Paladíns suffer failures and sabotage across their many business ventures. Eventually, even the sprawling South Texas ranch the family fought for and won the right to at the Battle of San Jacinto is put in peril. Rallying together to save their ancestral home, the Paladíns put niceties and tolerance behind them. This is war. But the battle to exterminate the Clarendons brings Preston Paladín to pre-war Nazi Germany—and the disarming charms of Fabienne Allaman. But on whose side is she really? And dare he risk the fate of his entire family for the love of a resistance fighter with nothing to lose?

For all of her books, visit Parris on her Amazon author page.

BR Kingsolver’s newest novel, The Gambler Grimoire (August 2021), is the first book in the urban fantasy mystery series Wicklow College of Arcane Arts. When Savanna Robinson arrived at Wicklow College to assume her new teaching position, she was curious about the abrupt departure of her predecessor. Then she discovered he had been murdered. No one knew who killed him or why, but everyone had their theories and suspects. Even the police—arcane and mundane—didn’t seem eager to investigate. But Savanna discovered a possible connection with the murder of a broker of rare arcane books. Were there really spells that could change your luck? When her own life is threatened, and the murders begin to pile up, she knows she can’t leave the mystery unsolved.

Visit the author’s Amazon author page.

The Politician’s Breviary: a Companion to Leaders and Influencers and Those They Seek to Control (French Legacy Press, June 2021), by François-Marie Patorni, is the first translation into English of the seventeenth-century Breviarium politicorum. This nonfiction book draws inspiration from the legacy of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, King Louis XIV’s mentor and prime minister. The original 1684 Latin edition was attributed only to an anonymous author, and subsequent editions over the following decades captivated readers as had Machiavelli’s The Prince a hundred and fifty years earlier. Yet, the Breviary’s principles and maxims that unveil how to achieve and retain power are even more relevant to guide today’s leaders and politicians.

The Politician’s Breviary is available on Amazon.

Judy Willmore’s debut novel,The Menagerie: Passion, Power, and Poison in the Court of the Sun King, was released by Artemesia Publishing in June 2021. Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart had to have Louis, King of France, but his other mistresses stand in the way. Then she meets a  sorceress and Athénaïs gets her wish. But soon Louis hears tales of witchcraft and poison, a conspiracy spreading through his court—like the beasts in the Versailles menagerie, courtesans are clawing their way to his favor, and his bed. He orders Lieutenant General of Police Gabriel-Nicolas de la Reynie to investigate. Mysterious deaths mount while La Reynie presses on, hauling in witches, charlatans, and the nobility alike. Grimey fingers point to Athénaïs, the King’s mistress, with whispers of a black mass celebrated over her naked body. Then La Reynie discovers a plot to kill her.

You’ll find Judy on her website at JudyWillmoreAuthor.com and on Amazon.

Ramblings & Reflections: Winning Words of SouthWest Writers’ 2021 Contest

Ramblings & Reflections includes 54 winning entries from the SWW 2021 writing competition. Inside you’ll encounter aliens, foreign lands, post-apocalyptic environments, supernatural beings, paeans to nature, tributes to the lost, calls to action, wry humor, mysteries to ponder and histories to marvel at. The authors in this volume emote, exhort, evoke, inform, implore, explore, explain, entertain and exorcise. They have engaged in all the best pursuits, which—in the end—are really just one: to look within in order to see more fully without. We hope you, too, will be transported and transformed on the journeys they curate.

Ramblings & Reflections is available on Amazon. For a look at the anthology’s table of contents, go to this page. And visit the SWW Publications page for all of SWW’s releases.

SWW Author Interviews: 2021 Releases

• Jeffrey Candelaria
TORO: The Naked Bull
• Marty Eberhardt
Death in a Desert Garden
• Melody Groves
When Outlaws Wore Badges
• Holly Harrison
Rites & Wrongs
• Robert Kidera
A LONG TIME TO DIE
• BR Kingsolver
Soul Harvest
• Marcia Meier
Face, A Memoir
• Victoria Murata
The Acolyte
• Barb Simmons
The War Within: A Wounded Warrior Romance
• Gina Troisi
The Angle of Flickering Light

KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kathy posts to a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.