Post-Backlash Feminism

It's the end of the semester, time to return to the writing I love. Thought I would share a bit of the novel I am working on, The Fanny Banks Mysteries.

River is confused as only anacademic can be. Torn between a worldly and dangerous graduate student, Jake, andher ground-breaking work: “The Woolen Bodice: A Study of Knitting, TruckFarming and the Victorian Wool Trade,” she faces an impossible choice: finishher manuscript in time for Promotion and Tenure review or head south for thebiggest adventure (and best sex) of her life.

She could take her laptop.And note cards. Right?

Living in a shrinking andrainy mid-western town, River seeks distraction and adventure through theexploits of her favorite literary heroine, chronicled in The Fanny Banks Mysteries series. She’s read them all; the last bookfound Fanny and her long-legged, sandy haired, ex-Special Forces lover,Antonio, tangling with a corrupt Central American government as they raced tosave the kidnapped daughter of an American CEO whose company has just securedthe patent to a mysterious new “green” military weapons system. River herselfteaches Women’s Studies at the local university, living a tidy little lifeamong messy, ill-tempered colleagues—until a graduate student turns up dead. Andshe’s the prime suspect. River may have been the last person to see the studentalive when, walking home from the library, down a rundown street in anunfamiliar part of town, she stumbled upon a late-night, heated argumentbetween the student and the chair of the department, long rumored to be herlover. With tenure in the balance, River must choose between doing the rightthing, reporting what she knows to the authorities, or joining Jake at theairport and kissing the university life goodbye. “What,” River asks herself,“would Fanny do?”

The Fanny Banks Mysteries is a 75,000 word novel about a shy academic womanwith a rich fantasy life who finds herself living a life suspiciously like herliterary heroine’s. Combing Fanny Banksfor clues, River hopes to learn enough to save herself, her lover and hercareer. River might be described as Stephanie Plum’s nerdy, highly educatedcousin—like Stephanie, she lives in an ordinary place, full of curiouslyordinary folks, and she can’t resist the mysteries she stumbles upon.