Dean (English, Rivier College, New Hampshire) examines Woolson's (1840-1894) novels and short stories, focusing on how her work illustrates late 19th century attitudes about a variety of cultural issues including art, women's rights, and the nexus of social class, race relations, and ethnicity. Also examined are how Woolson's transient lifestyle and progressive deafness isolated her from family and friends and Woolson's friendship with Henry James and his family. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Constance Fenimore Woolson: Homeward Bound

Dean, Sharon L.

History

Univ Tennessee Press

A farmhouse in New Hampshire that had been on the Underground Railroad. An African-American scholar searching for his grandmother's history. A body found on the grave of a man who had been the town's minister during the Civil War. As retired English professor Susan Warner tracks down the motive, she discovers a secret that uncovers the sins of the past and that connects the victim and the murderer. In Tour de Trace, the tenacious Susan confronted the fraught history of Mississippi's Natchez Trace. In Death of the Keynote Speaker, set on New Hampshire's Star Island, she unraveled how Celia Thaxter's nineteenth-century literary salon and a brutal murder on Smuttynose Island led to a twenty-first century murder. In Cemetery Wine, Susan once again finds herself a reluctant sleuth as she tries to solve a murder in a town she calls home.

Cemetery Wine

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

W & B Publishers

Leaving Freedom

Literature & Fiction

Women's Fiction

W & B Publishers Inc.

The Barn (A Deborah Strong Mystery)

A barn with a wooden cow’s head peeking out of the loft… 
Two girls bicycling on a September day in 1990… 
The friend they find dead in the barn…\nFor the next thirty years, the case of Joseph Wheeler’s murder lies as cold as a New Hampshire winter. Deborah Strong has settled in the town she grew up in, learning to heal after her friend’s murder, and later, the deaths of her husband and child in an automobile accident. When her former best friend Rachel Cummings returns home for the funeral of Joseph’s mother, the precarious peace Deborah has found as the town’s librarian is threatened. 
Against the backdrop of the beautiful but cold New Hampshire landscape in January, Deborah and Rachel reopen the cold case of their murdered friend, and uncover secrets about their neighbors that have festered for thirty years, as they often do in small towns. 
The Barn is a story of friendship lost and recovered, of secrets buried and revealed, and of the power in forgiving others… and ourselves.

Encircle Publications

A barn with a wooden cow's head peeking out of the loft... Two girls bicycling on a September day in 1990... The friend they find dead in the barn... For the next thirty years, the case of Joseph Wheeler's murder lies as cold as a New Hampshire winter. Deborah Strong has settled in the town she grew up in, learning to heal after her friend's murder, and later, the deaths of her husband and child in an automobile accident. When her former best friend Rachel Cummings returns home for the funeral of Joseph's mother, the precarious peace Deborah has found as the town's librarian is threatened. Against the backdrop of the beautiful but cold New Hampshire landscape in January, Deborah and Rachel reopen the cold case of their murdered friend, and uncover secrets about their neighbors that have festered for thirty years, as they often do in small towns. The Barn is a story of friendship lost and recovered, of secrets buried and revealed, and of the power in forgiving others... and ourselves.

Genre Fiction

Encircle Publications, LLC

Review Praise for the Deborah Strong Mysteries: "Fascinating and clever! Sharon L. Dean has woven fascinating historical references with her fictional heroine into a compelling drama, and although sans any murder, the mystery is very engaging, and Deborah's research and investigation into the thefts has put her in danger. Couldn't put it down."-Kings River Life on The Wicked Bible"Something wicked comes to a New Hampshire college campus.... Past relationships rear up, new ones tease, and The Wicked Bible rocks along a bumpy path to conclusion. A delightful read. 5 Stars."-Matt Cost, author of the Goff Langdon Mainely Mysteries"I plummeted into Sharon Dean's The Wicked Bible and did not come up for air until the final satisfying lines.... A genuinely gripping story and a fascinating woman at the center, with remarkable prose and rich sensory details, this story is a genuine pleasure to read."-Louise Foerster, GoodReads"I was intrigued by the title and the unusual plot did not disappoint.... There were plenty of red herrings and potential culprits to keep me guessing, and as the tension grew, I just didn't want to put the book down."-Anita Dow, GoodReads, on The Wicked Bible"Starting a new series with a new protagonist is a difficult undertaking, but Sharon Dean brings this off with aplomb." -Michael Niemann, award-winning author, on The Barn"Quiet, but quite deadly... captures the New England vibe with an economy of words, wealth of detail and crisp characterizations." -Carole Beers, author of the Pepper Kane Mysteries, on The Barn"A fascinating yarn about past events coming to roost in the present. As always, Dean's sense of place and vivid and compelling characters blend together to provide the reader with an intriguing look at life in her native New England. Highly recommended!" -Clive Rosengren, author of the Eddie Collins Mysteries, on The Barn Product Description When Deborah Strong accepts an invitation for a reunion with high school friends who will all be turning fifty, she anticipates a lovely Fourth of July weekend in Maine. Her friend Brenda’s summer house is rustic and beautiful, but from the moment Deborah arrives, something seems wrong. Old rivalries flare between Brenda and Rachel, and Krista plays the role of peacekeeper the way she did thirty years earlier. Soon, a murder disturbs the quiet of the summer homes that dot the isolated cove. Deborah's suspicions follow her like the Maine landscape—plenty of sunshine, plenty of fog, and plenty of evening mosquitoes that, like the questions now plaguing their reunion, arrive like the sparks of fireworks. Where is Brenda's husband? Where have her caretaker and cook gone? Who is the thin young man who keeps appearing? Is one of them a murderer? Or could it be the old woman who lives across the street; her son, who runs an oyster farm in the face of global warming; or the poet-tenant who lives in her apartment? Deborah even suspects each of the friends she grew up with. Her idyllic summer retreat has turned as deadly as contaminated shellfish. About the Author Sharon L. Dean grew up in Massachusetts where she was immersed in the literature of New England. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of New Hampshire, a state she lived and taught in before moving to Oregon. Although she has given up writing scholarly books that require footnotes, she incorporates much of her academic research as background in her mysteries, and continues to write and research in the landscape she's still discovering in the Northwest.Sharon is the author of three Susan Warner Mysteries-Tour de Trace (W&B Publishers Inc., 2014); Death of the Keynote Speaker (W&B Publishers Inc., 2015); and Cemetery Wine (W&B Publishers Inc., 2016)-and a literary novel titled Leaving Freedom (W&B Publishers Inc., 2018). Her mystery series featuring librarian and reluctant sleuth Deborah Strong includes The Barn (Encircle Publications, 2020), The Wicked Bible (Enc

Calderwood Cove (A Deborah Strong Mystery)

Calderwood Cove: A Deborah Strong Mystery

Six old women living on an isolated island in Lake Winnipesaukee; teenagers vacationing on Newfound lake in 1959; paragliders and skiers on Cannon Mountain; an old woman in a house covered in gypsy moths; a man living off the grid in a shack he built himself? The characters in these stories all keep secrets. They are as tough and rugged as New Hampshire's iconic Old Man in the Mountain. And like the Old Man, who fell in 2003, their pasts survive only in memory. Sometimes, that's a good thing.

Six Old Women and Other Stories

Literary

Contemporary

Murder in New England When Susan Warner plans a conference on the writer Abigail Brewster, New England's Isles of Shoals seem the perfect setting. Members of the Abigail Brewster Society will stay in Star Island's historic Oceanic Hotel. They'll visit Appledore Island, where Abigail summered at Celia Thaxter's nineteenth-century salon for writers and artists, and Smuttynose Island, the scene of a notorious 1873 murder. But Susan hasn't counted on a twenty-first century killer or a killer storm. Death of the Keynote Speaker blends a fictional Abigail Brewster with the actual histories of Star, Appledore, and Smuttynose islands. Susan needs to piece together the connections between the past and the present as she searches for an unknown murderer trapped with her group in a creaky hotel with no locks on the doors.

Death of the Keynote Speaker

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dean, Sharon L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Dean, Sharon L.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dean, Sharon L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Constance Fenimore Woolson: Homeward Bound

Cemetery Wine

Leaving Freedom

The Barn (A Deborah Strong Mystery)

The Barn (A Deborah Strong Mystery)

Calderwood Cove (A Deborah Strong Mystery)

Calderwood Cove: A Deborah Strong Mystery

Six Old Women and Other Stories

Leaving Freedom

Death of the Keynote Speaker