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Norah Piehl

Biography

Norah Piehl


Norah Piehl worked for 10 years at the Boston Book Festival, overseeing their day-to-day operations. She is now the Director for Literary Programs at the Bay Area Book Festival. A former children's bookseller, Norah has also worked in the publishing industry for both university and trade publishers. She is an active writer whose essays, interviews and reviews have been published in Publishers WeeklyThe Horn BookBrain, Child, Skirt! magazine, National Public Radio and many other publications, as well as in several print anthologies. Her short fiction has appeared in Literary MamaThe Linnet's WingsThe LegendaryPrinter's Devil Review and the anthology BATTLE RUNES: Writings on War. Norah lives in Berkeley, California.

Norah Piehl

Reviews by Norah Piehl

by Holly Smale - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Margot Wayward is in manically gleeful self-destruct mode. Following the implosion of a 10-year relationship, she’s willfully derailing her successful career, joyfully taking down men on dating apps, and living in total chaos. Until one day, when Margot has a vision of herself with a man she’s never met before. She doesn’t believe in fate. But when Margot meets single-dad Henry, the vision comes true: exactly as she’d foreseen it. As her future continues to reveal itself, a glimpse at a time, Margot realizes she knows exactly what’s going to happen, and when. And there’s nothing she can do to change any of it. So Margot has to decide how to live, how to love again, and how to be herself. Because if you can’t change your destiny, how on earth do you live your present?

by Shobha Rao - Fiction

Janavi is a wonderfully independent, young modern Indian woman. Sagar is a trained hydraulic engineer, and his parents were never able to forgive him for an unspeakable act from his past. Yet the two are forced together into an arranged marriage that neither of them wants. Even worse, Sagar has already accepted a job in America, in a strange place called Montana, where he will be in charge of dismantling a dam. His white colleagues do not welcome him with open arms, and Janavi finds herself unable to forgive her sister back in India, whose betrayal led her to this marriage and this strange place. When a colleague of Sagar's is found drowned, Sagar is the obvious scapegoat. But is this death one in a long history of people of color paying the price for the white man's arrogance and expansionism?

by Jason Mott - Fiction

Two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. As their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.

by Francesca Serritella - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Reeling from a breakup and overlooked at her job as a lighting designer, Iris Sunnegren finds herself stuck, disconnected and lonely in crowded New York City. Then a mysterious neighbor, an older Frenchwoman, makes her a gift: a bespoke perfume. One spritz, a dab behind the ears, and Iris feels like a different woman. Suddenly, she is the object of every man’s desire. She can cast off her inhibitions and use her newfound allure to dazzle the high-profile client, attract a man who excites her like no other, and access all the rarified spaces that once excluded her. Invigorated by the perfume, Iris embodies her maximum power --- a flower fully bloomed. But there is danger in connecting to our primal emotions. Scent awakens buried memories, and nightmares of the childhood house fire Iris barely survived return to haunt her.

by Denise Mina - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

A year ago, a father and his fiancée were brutally murdered in their opulent London townhouse, sparking the most high-profile murder investigation in recent history. Blood spatter expert Doctor Claudia O’Sheil’s evidence put the killer behind bars --- or so everyone believes. But since the trial, Claudia has learned a horrific truth: her evidence and her testimony were wrong. And someone she knows made sure of it. Now, as she takes the stage to give a career-defining speech before London’s elite, Claudia faces a devastating choice. Protect her children and her career with her continued complicity, or blow the whole conspiracy apart and reveal the truth: not only is the real murderer still out there, but they’re in the audience.

by Josie Silver - Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Romance, Women's Fiction

Talent agent Charlie Francisco has three problems: a divorce that ended his screenwriting career, a business he never planned to inherit, and a take-your-breath-away romance novel whose author wants nothing to do with its publication. The book is a surefire hit, if only his agency can find someone to “play” author on its summer book tour. Enter Kate Elliott, a former soap actress who’s miraculously right for the part at the very moment her life seems to be going all wrong. But she can’t know who really wrote the remarkable story --- the one so beautiful it’s made her believe in love again. When Kate and Charlie meet, they’re all friction and sparks. As the summer heat ups and the lies get bigger and bigger, can they stick to their lines…or will they go off-script?

by Bruce Holsinger - Fiction

When the Cassidy-Shaws’ autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, 17-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret, implicating each of them in the accident. During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. But Lorelei’s odd behavior tugs at Noah’s suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident --- suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal.

by Megan Giddings - Fiction, Women's Fiction

On an ordinary summer morning, the world is changed by the appearance of seven mysterious doors that seemingly lead to another world. People are, of course, mesmerized and intrigued: A new dimension filled with beauty and resources beckons them to step into an adventure. But, perhaps inevitably, people soon learn that what looks like paradise may very well be filled with danger. Ayanna and Olivia, two Black midwestern teens --- and twin sisters --- have different ideas of what may lie in the world beyond. But will their personal bond endure such wanton exploration? When one of them goes missing, will the other find solace on her own? And will she uncover the circumstances of what truly happened to her once constant companion and best friend?

by Lydi Conklin - Fiction

SONGS OF NO PROVENANCE tells the story of Joan Vole, an indie folk singer forever teetering on the edge of fame, who flees New York after committing a shocking sexual act onstage that she fears will doom her career. Joan seeks refuge at a writing camp for teenagers in rural Virginia, where she's forced to question her own toxic relationship to artmaking --- and her complicated history with a friend and mentee --- while finding new hope in her students and a deepening intimacy with a nonbinary artist and fellow camp staff member.

by Rob Franklin - Fiction

An arrest for cocaine possession on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil as he is pulled into the court system and mandated treatment. It’s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate, Elle, the daughter of a famous soul singer, and he’s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle --- as well as lingering questions around how well he really knew his closest friend. He flees to his hometown of Atlanta, only to buckle under the weight of expectations from his family of doctors and lawyers and their history in America. But when Smith returns to New York, it’s not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life --- drawn back into the city’s underworld, where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future.