By Tanya Carter
Shelf Life
Work in Progress
A brutal attack on a local grocery store owner in the fictional town of Edison, Pennsylvania, sends shock waves through the community and tests the bonds that hold the town together. Long-held secrets are exposed, testing the character of many of the town’s residents, including the new Chief of Police, Jake Keenan; Lucas Harmon, a veteran who has moved back home to find some elusive peace; Jackson Wagner, a neurodivergent teenager; and Piper Jones, a young woman who is trying to keep her family organic farm alive while shelving her dream of a career in music. Through shifting points of view, the novel presents a town in flux that nevertheless defends its essential humanity against the mayhem that threatens it.
Anne Lamott suggests that the very best novels remind us of the ways in which we take care of one another.Tanya Carter’s novel, “Shelf Life,” does exactly this, and then some.
Literary Suspense Novelist
Tanya Carter
“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”
―
Coming Soon!
Upcoming Project
Half Life
Suspense
It is fall in Edison, the season when the leaf peepers come to town and the Scout troops are hiking in the woods. Police Chief Jake Keenan is called to a grisly scene–an unidentified vagrant with his chest cavity torn open has been left in a shallow grave. Who is he, and who is leaving mutilated bodies in the Westmoreland Country countryside?
My Writing Blog
Musings
What I’m researching
The novel I am working on, Shelf Life, includes a situation where a family farm is being seized in an eminent domain purchase by the state, to facilitate construction of a highway. Researching eminent domain sales is fascinating, more so because I am not at the mercy...
What I’m listening to…
When I'm writing, I like to listen to music. It has to be instrumental music, however, because other people's words make it harder for me to come up with my own. A few things that are often playing while I'm hard at work on a chapter are the spaghetti western music of...
What I’m Reading
Over the past month I have been reading my way through the Vera Stanhope series by Ann Cleeves. Last year, I discovered her Shetland series and read those while finishing up my MA in Writing. I am delighted to be reading the Vera series because the books have the same...
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