award-winning author
JOAN SCHWEIGHARDT
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BOOKS
THE ACCIDENTAL ART THIEF
ISBN-10: 1606190709
ISBN-13: 978-1606190708
For a quarter of a century forty-five-year-old Zinc has worked as a caretaker for a wealthy old man, living in a small casita on his ranch in New Mexico. She doesn't make much money, but she has the old man, her dogs, and gorgeous views of the mountains. She is basically a very content recluse who doesn't invest much time thinking about what she might do if her circumstances change. So when the old man dies suddenly, and his daughter all but throws her off the property, Zinc is forced to reinvent herself—and quickly.
With a touch of magical realism and a collection of offbeat characters, The Accidental Art Thief explores the thin line between life and death and the universal forces that connect all things.
Twilight Times Books, May 2015
ForeWord magazine "Reviewers' Choice" winner
for books reviewed in 2015
Virtual Silence
ISBN-978-1877946615
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Ginny, Sharon, Terri and Bev are high school honors seniors in a rural community in upstate New York. They hardly ever cut school, but on the day that they do, driving south to New Jersey, they are in the wrong spot at the wrong time as an unemployed loner goes on a shooting spree. Those who return home face the nearly impossible task of making sense not only of the act but of their own lives.
The Permanent Press
Homebodies
ISBN-978-1877946448
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From a distance--say from the house next door--the Arroways appear to be a normal family. Liz and Pete's marriage has held up over time, and their children, although not always perfectly behaved, seem to be clever and robust. But upon closer inspection (which is the intent of one of the characters in this darkly comic novel), this is not the case at all. Liz, a housewife with a keen nose for environmental issues, happens to be flirting with madness. Jake, the eldest child, is flirting with a reckless reinterpreation of the past. And Pete, a ghostwriter who is striving to come to terms with his masculinity, is fliritng with a woman at work. The trouble begins when Liz learns of Pete's preoccupations, and it escalates when Pete discovers Liz's. And when Jake boasts of his in front of Sherri, the most candid member of the cast, the reader knows it will take a miracle to sort out all the hard feelings that result.
The Permanent Press
Island
ISBN-978-1877946165
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The vacation is off to a poor start. Donald Bartlett, a quirky literature professor who has long been at odds with the academic life, cannot seem to abandon his need to locate the muse who abandoned him years earlier. Belinda Cavanaugh, a maverick beautician, persists in believing that she may be that muse. Carole Bartlett, Donald's new wife, is distracted by secrets concerning her children. And Meredith Bartlett, Donald's teenage daughter, has shaped her time-worn death wish into a fantasy involving her stay on the island. In fact, Roscoe Creedmore, a professional kerb-hawker who is Donald's oldest friend and Belinda's common-law husband, maybe be the only one to have come to the island simply to have a good time.
The Permanent Press