Spokane Authors

Follow the journey of Nitro, a tiger kept in captivity in Kansas. His story starts when the county sheriff visits the Kansas property and decides to confiscate all big cats from their owner. Lions are sent to Detroit zoo and Nitro and his friend Apache to the Carolina tiger rescue. As Nitro adjusts to his new home, things go terribly wrong. Read more »

Winner of the 2014 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut FictionShortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
Named Outstanding 2013 Collection by The Story Prize
Pushcart Prize Winner

In this stunning debut, Shawn Vestal transports us to the afterlife, the rugged Northwest, and the early days of Mormonism. From “The First...

In Courageous Canine, you'll read three true stories of amazing animal heroes. First meet Lilly, a playful pit bull who bravely pulled her owner from the path of a speeding train; two pods of dolphins that saved swimmers from the most powerful predator on the planet; and two gorillas that proved just how alike apes and humans really are. Follow... Read more »

An emotionally raw debut about the dangers of blind faith-and the power of having faith in oneself The cult known as the Community has taken everything from seventeen-year-old Minnow: twelve years of her life, her family, her ability to trust. And when she rebelled, they took away her hands, too. Now their Prophet has been murdered and their... Read more »

Whiskey is bitter to swallow and burns pleasantly as it goes down, but has a lasting, powerful effect on listeners.

Brothers Andre and Smoker were raised in a cauldron of their parents’ failed marriage and appetite for destruction, and find themselves in the same straits as adults—navigating not only their own marriages, but also their parents’...

From the winner of 2014's PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize, an unforgettable debut novel about Loretta, a teenager married off as a "sister wife," who makes a break for freedom At the heart of this exciting debut novel, set in Arizona and Idaho in the mid-1970s, is fifteen-year-old Loretta, who slips out of her bedroom every evening to meet her... Read more »

Astrid Irisdotter is a Valkyrie-a fierce warrior fighting to protect humanity from the evil god Loki and his brutal minions. She's on an urgent mission for her queen when everything goes hideously sideways. Undercover agent Luke Holden arrives on the scene just in time to save her life-and put his own on the line. Luke may have saved her, but...

The Financial Lives of the Poets is a comic and heartfelt novel from National Book Award nominee Jess Walter, author of Citizen Vince and The Zero, about how we get to the edge of ruin—and how we begin to make our way back. Walter tells the story of Matt Prior, who’s losing his job, his wife, his house, and his mind—until, all of a sudden, he... Read more »

Zulaikha hopes. She hopes for peace, now that the Taliban have been driven from Afghanistan; a good relationship with her hard stepmother; and one day even to go to school, or to have her cleft palate fixed. Zulaikha knows all will be provided for her--"Inshallah," God willing. Then she meets Meena, who offers to teach her the Afghan poetry... Read more »

The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his  funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet: the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 . . . and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later.  

“Why mince words? Beautiful Ruins is an... Read more »

From the author of WORDS IN THE DUST: an action-packed YA novel set in a frighteningly plausible near future, about what happens when the States are no longer United. Danny Wright never thought he'd be the man to bring down the United States of America. In fact, he enrolled in the National Guard because he wanted to serve his country the way... Read more »

Code Name Verity meets I Am the Messenger in this offering from Morris Award finalist Stephanie Oakes, in which three riveting points of view are woven together in a story that's part historical mystery, part contemporary coming-of-age, and completely unputdownable. Molly Mavity is not a normal teenage girl. For one thing, her father is an... Read more »

The Cassandra follows a woman who goes to work in a top secret research facility during WWII, only to be tormented by visions of what the mission will mean for humankind.

Mildred Groves is an unusual young woman. Gifted and cursed with the ability to see the future, Mildred runs away from home to take a secretary position at the Hanford Research...