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This author appeared at the 2009 festival. Please view the list of authors appearing at this year's festival or see our suggestions for similar authors below.
 Sandra Brown
Brown is the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers – including, most recently, the romantic thriller Smash Cut, which earned a rare starred review from Publishers Weekly. At the Festival, however, Brown will launch her first novella, Rainwater, a moving story set in Depression-era Texas, and based on a true story Brown's father once told her. The year is 1934. With the country in the stranglehold of drought and economic depression, Ella Barron runs her Texas boardinghouse with an efficiency that ensures her life will be kept in balance. Between chores of cooking and cleaning for her residents, she cares for her 10-year-old son, Solly, a sweet but challenging child whose misunderstood behavior finds Ella on the receiving end of pity, derision, and suspicion. When David Rainwater arrives at the house looking for lodging, he comes recommended by a trusted friend as "a man of impeccable character." But Ella senses that admitting Mr. Rainwater will bring about unsettling changes. However, times are hard, and in order to make ends meet, Ella's house must remain one hundred percent occupied. So Mr. Rainwater moves into her house...and impacts her life in ways Ella could never have foreseen. The changes are echoed by the turbulence beyond the house walls. Friends and neighbors who've thus far maintained a tenuous grip on their meager livelihoods now face foreclosure and financial ruin. The climate of desperation creates a fertile atmosphere for racial tensions and social unrest. Conrad Ellis – privileged and spoiled and Ella's nemesis since childhood – steps into this arena of teeming hostility to exact his vengeance and demonstrate the extent of his blind hatred and unlimited cruelty. He and his gang of hoodlums come to embody the rule of law, and no one in Gilead, Texas, is safe. Rainwater tells a story that bears witness to a bittersweet truth: that love is worth whatever price one must pay for it. Brown is the recipient of the 2008 Thriller Master Award from International Thriller Writers, Inc. She and her husband live in Arlington.
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