My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Michele Levy, author of the book Anna's Dance. Born a Yankee in Providence, Rhode Island, after seven years in Boston, she moved with her family to Wisconsin and Northern Virginia. Then she continued the southern trend with graduate studies in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and followed her Brooklyn-born husband even farther south, to New Orleans. Twenty-six years later, they traded the Superdome (seven minutes away from their house by car) for the North Carolina woods. This wandering stripped away her Boston accent, leaving a tendency to enunciate clearly that made New Orleanians think she was from England.

From the age of four she has played classical piano and read voraciously. But an exposure to Balkan dance in high school kindled what became a life-long passion. Still, her love for D. H. Lawrence and Dostoevsky led her to a PhD in Comparative Literature (English, French, Russian), and then to universities, where she taught, researched, and became a chair. Though she first published on Russian and European authors, her academic interest shifted to the Balkans. She wrote on Balkan history and literature and returned to the region (she’d first visited in 1968) in 2000, after the end of the Bosnian War, and 2002, invited by the Serbian Writers’ Association. By then she’d begun to write poetry and stories with Balkan settings. Anna’s Dance grew from her deep engagement with Balkan history and culture.

These days, she plays piano and reads, but mostly she writes. She’s working on a novel about a Bosnian asylee in New Orleans. Carolina’s nature nurtures her, she and her husband enjoy their three children and seven grandchildren, who have moved nearby, and she still does Balkan dance!

In my book review, I stated Anna's Dance: A Balkan Odyssey is a beautiful Jewish historical fiction novel. I once again found myself wondering what history I was taught in school because I knew next to nothing about Balkan history, even as it related to WWII. This book helped me fill in several gaps in my knowledge.

We meet Anna Rossi, an early 20's girl on a journey through the Balkan region. She starts out with one set of plans and moves to another, then another, and then another, finding herself learning more and more about prejudice and suffering. She sees a strong correlation to her own Jewish heritage - how minority suppression can lead to horrible end results, including violence.

As Anna travels, she grows from a silly girl to an experienced woman who knows her place in the world. Eventually, she learns to embrace her heritage and all that encompasses. I found the book to be quite beautiful in the telling and very relevant to our day.

Author Note: There are some sexual scenes - a couple that were a bit graphic for my taste. However, overall, these scenes were not gratuitous but helped the reader understand where Anna was in her journey.

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Website: www.micheleflevy.com.

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My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is MN Lee, author of the book Proof of Origin. MN Lee is a fiction author with a soft spot for oversteeped tea, tangled gardens, and stories that blur the line between the real and the uncanny. She writes across speculative and literary genres, weaving sharp prose, political unease, and moments of quiet magic into narratives that linger. She is hard at work on her next novel, The Ajumma Point, a feminist comedy about supernatural midlife transformation.

In my book review, I stated that Proof of Origin is a contemporary women's fiction that could be torn from today's headlines. This near-future story looks at politics gone awry, with the latest executive order calling for a lineage purity test. Anyone not 'American enough' is no longer welcome in the US and sent to camps that are far too reminiscent of the concentration camps of WWII.

We follow three characters - Jenny, born in the US to Vietnamese immigrant parents, Huy, Vietnamese but highly influential in the US government - until he's not, and Charlotte, a woman on the arm of an up and coming politician. What happens as their lives criss-cross and each has to confront difficult truths?

Lee's rendition of the rhetoric from the US government is very haunting - from the views on immigrants to their views on woman, birth control, family, books, and more. It is reminiscent of things one might hear on fringe-leaning social media posts, which makes her story even more chilling.

But we also see what happens to people who, once erased from their country, find a way to move forward and build again. Lee's ability to show resilience, and how it is forged, is beautiful, despite the circumstances.

I think this is a must-read book, if for no other reason than to help people understand what happens when you take something like patriotism and transform it into nationalism that has gone too far.

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You can follow Author MN Lee

Website: https://mnleewrites.com/

IG: @mn.lee.writes

Purchase Proof of Origin on Amazon:

Paperback: https://amzn.to/425iTaS

Ebook: https://amzn.to/3VtsrIX

Teri M Brown, Author and Podcast Host: https://www.terimbrown.com

FB: @TeriMBrownAuthor

IG: @terimbrown_author

X: @terimbrown1

Want to be a guest on Online for Authors? Send Teri M Brown a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/member/onlineforauthors

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*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Lya Badgley, author of the book The Thirty-Fifth Page. Lya Badgley was born in Yangon, Myanmar, to Montana parents—a political scientist and an artist—who sparked her lifelong love of creativity and critical thought. After moving to the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s, she became part of Seattle’s arts and music scene. In the 1990s, she returned to Southeast Asia as a videographer documenting interviews with Burmese insurgents, then went on to lead Cornell University’s Archival Project at Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng Museum, preserving evidence used to prosecute war crimes. She later opened the 50th Street Bar & Grill in Yangon—one of the first foreign-owned businesses of its kind at the time.

Lya writes internationally set fiction that blends suspense with cultural nuance, exploring women’s journeys through landscapes shaped by historical legacy, grief, and transformation.

Her debut novel, The Foreigner’s Confession (2022), set in Cambodia, was a finalist for the Nancy Pearl Award for Best Fiction. Her second, The Worth of a Ruby (2023), set in Myanmar, was also honored as a finalist for multiple international awards. She now lives outside Seattle, Washington in the United States, and is excited to release her third novel, The Thirty-Fifth Page—a gothic-tinged literary suspense set in Bosnia.

In my book review, I stated The Thirty Fifth Page is a literary suspense laden with magical realism and a dash of historical fiction. Miri is a researcher whose specialty is medieval manuscripts. She flies to Bosnia to study the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illustrated Jewish text of the Passover Seder housed at the National Museum. Unfortunately, Sarajevo is on the brink of war, so Miri has to work quickly.

As she works, she believes the Haggadah has strange powers. Before she can figure it out, war breaks out, and the Haggadah is lost. But when it finally returns to its place of honor at the museum, it has a new page. And she is called back to find out why. This thirty-fifth page merges history and folklore, putting Miri and those she cares deeply about into the middle of an ancient curse.

I loved going on this adventure with Miri as she tries to figure out who she is and what she wants in the world. I also loved seeing how the past directly affects our present and future - and how we pass that on from generation to generation.

You are definitely going to love this new novel by Lya Badgley!

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Join the Novels N Latte Book Club community to discuss this and other books with like-minded readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3576519880426290

You can follow Author Lya Badgley

Website: https://lyabadgley.com/

FB: @lyabadgleyauthor

IG: @lyabadgleyauthor

Purchase The Thirty-Fifth Page on Amazon:

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3JBzcpP

Ebook: https://amzn.to/4q5ai1W

Teri M Brown, Author and Podcast Host: https://www.terimbrown.com

FB: @TeriMBrownAuthor

IG: @terimbrown_author

X: @terimbrown1

Want to be a guest on Online for Authors? Send Teri M Brown a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/member/onlineforauthors

#lyabadgley #thethirtyfifthpage #suspense #historicalfiction #terimbrownauthor #authorpodcast #onlineforauthors #characterdriven #researchjunkie #awardwinningauthor #podcasthost #podcast #readerpodcast #bookpodcast #writerpodcast #author #books #goodreads #bookclub #fiction #writer #bookreview

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.