Over the course of eighteen years, the elegant and entertaining Book and Author Dinner sponsored by the Roanoke Academy of Medicine Alliance (RAMA) has raised over $630,000, providing scholarship money to local students training in health care fields.
Once again, RAMA has organized a delightful evening featuring three popular authors at the top of their games. On April 28 at the Hotel Roanoke & Convention Center, Sandra Brown, William Geroux and Sally Cabot Gunning will discuss the craft of writing and share insight into the sources of inspiration for their novels. The Honorable Martin Clark, no writing slouch himself, returns as Emcee.
Of the three authors, two have their historical fiction novels set in Virginia. Sally Cabot Gunning, author of Monticello, was inspired by reading the letters of a young Martha Jefferson to her father Thomas, and his to her. In Monticello, Gunning presents a woman who is caught up in two families’ secrets. She says that one of her intentions in writing Monticello was to explore the family’s struggle with slavery in an effort to better understand how intelligent, conscience-ridden people could allow it to live so long.
Further to the coastline, The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and The War Against Hitler’s U-Boats, tells an untold story of a little known yet epic WWII sea battle near Mathews County, Virginia. Written by veteran newspaper reporter and editor William Geroux, who spent his 25-year career at the Richmond-Times Dispatch, The Mathews Men brings us one of the last unheralded stories of World War II: The U-boat assault off the American coast against the men of the U.S. Merchant Marine who were supplying the European war. The Mathews Men tells that heroic story through the experiences of one extraordinary family whose seven sons, all Merchant Marines, found themselves in the crosshairs of the U-boats bearing down on the coastal United States in 1942.
Taking place further south in the Lousiana backwoods, Sting, written by Sandra Brown, cements her reputation as one of the most highly decorated and bestselling female thriller writers. Having authored 67 titles ranging from thrillers, historicals and classic romance, Brown crafts yet another page-turner replete with deceit and manipulation. In Sting, savvy businesswoman Jordie Bennet finds herself in a dive bar on the banks of a bayou, locking eyes with Shaw Kinnard, a man sent to kill her. The twists and turns of the unpredictable plot will keep any avid thriller fan turning the page.
The Book and Author Dinner is open to the public and tickets may be purchased at the website (www.bookandauthordinner.com). For additional information email [email protected].
Kate Ericsson
