A 2018 Colorado Book Awards finalist for Mystery At the beginning of Hunting Hour, Deputy Mattie Cobb is in a dark place. Haunted by repressed memories from her childhood, she’s sleep deprived and emotionally and physically spent. An emergency text from the sheriff’s department interrupts Mattie’s Skype session with her therapist, calling her back into […]
Book Excerpts
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
Excerpt: In “Graveyard Shift,” a crime story invokes a pharaoh, shape-shifters and vampires
2018 Colorado Book Awards finalist for Science Fiction/Fantasy Alex Menkaure once ruled as pharaoh. Marcus once lived in the time of Caesar. Now, mummy and vampire are partners in a special police unit, fighting to keep the streets safe from both supernatural criminals and anti-vampire vigilantes. But when someone starts poisoning the artificial blood used […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
Excerpt: In “A Borrowed Hell,” a man struggles to understand his presence in an alternate reality
2018 Colorado Book Award winner for Science Fiction/Fantasy Fate has dealt July Davish a lifetime of nothings: no happy childhood, no lasting relationships, and now, no job. Faced with losing his home, he starts down the same road of self-destruction the rest of his family followed. A car accident changes everything. When he dives from […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
Excerpt: In “The Blue Hour,” lives converge to navigate paths of mourning and love
2018 Colorado Book Awards winner for Literary Fiction Editor’s note: Many SunLit selections are meant for adult readers and may contain sexual or violent content. UNDER THE APPLE TREE When Joe left me sitting under the apple tree and started to walk across the pasture, he looked back and waved, and then walked on, and […]
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Excerpt: Family, depravity, and right and wrong collide in “Wishing Caswell Dead”
2018 Colorado Book Awards finalist for General Fiction JO MAE PROUD I mostly had one thing I thought about every minute of my life until the day I left Sangamon. If I have anything to say about it, Caswell will go to hell, and the sooner the better. And from time to time, I even […]
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Excerpt: In “No Barriers,” a blind adventurer tackles the unforgiving rapids of the Colorado River — and life itself
2018 Colorado Book Awards finalist for Creative Nonfiction PROLOGUE The Colorado River running through the Grand Canyon is known for big iconic rapids, and the biggest of them all is Lava Falls, a storm of energy that churns, tumbles, and explodes in its headlong rush toward the Sea of Cortez. Standing on the banks, I […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit, SunLit Interviews
Excerpt: “The Newcomers”
2018 Colorado Book Award winner for creative nonfiction Editor’s note: Many SunLit selections are meant for adult readers and may contain sexual or violent content. Nice to Meet You On the first day of school — it was going to be a ninety-degree scorcher and you could already feel the air starting to shimmer — […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
Excerpt: “Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore”
2018 Colorado Book Award winner for General Fiction Editor’s note: Many SunLit selections are meant for adult readers and may contain sexual or violent content. Lydia heard the distant flap of paper wings as the first book fell from its shelf. She glanced up from the register, head tilted, and imagined that a sparrow had […]