New Year, New Mentors: Tana French

Welcome 2016!!

New years are for new starts and I’m gonna kick of 2016 with a brand new batch o’mentors.

First up, we have Tana French!

Tana French is one of my very favorite authors. Based in Dublin, Ireland, French trained as a professional actor at Trinity College. She’s worked in theatre, film, and voiceover. She’s well-traveled. But, most of all, she’s a spectacular writer.

Her books are all based around the Dublin Murder Squad. No, that’s not a squad of murderers…though that would be interesting too….It’s the squad of detectives who solve homicides in Dublin. There’s plenty of murder, darkness, and angst to be found in her books.

However, if her novels were just mysteries, I don’t know if I would be as interested in these stories. Instead, the murders/mysteries tend to serve as triggers for the internal struggles of whichever detective French is focused on in a particular novel. She creates real people dealing with some troubling circumstances…which the main characters themselves are often responsible for.

Plus, in a feat that’s verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry difficult to pull off, French manages to make each book in the series stand alone. There’s no need to read any of the series in order. Every story is complete within itself. The fact that you recognize characters and get different perspectives on those characters is just a delightful bonus.

I’ve read every one of her books:

  
 

There’s lots to admire here and there’ll be a lot more of Tana French talk coming at you.

If you haven’t read her yet. Please, do yourself a favor and grab any one of these.

As for the rest of 2016, the mentor line-up is as follows:
(Every Tuesday and Friday)

Tana French: January — March
Robert Louis Stevenson: April — June
Sarah Ruhl: July — September
Cormac McCarthy: October — December

So, it’s a packed year. Hoping for lots of good conversation!!