The Boone County Writers Group has hit its stride, as three of its members have recent publications to their credit. The group meets every other Tuesday evening at Boone County Public Library, Main Library, 1786 Burlington Pike in Burlington.
Mirsada Kadiric, the group’s newest member, released her memoir, I Am a Refugee: Finding Home Again in America earlier this month (April 12, 2018, 68 pages). It is a moving, personal story of a harrowing childhood journey in 1992 from war-torn Bosnia to Western Europe and finally to the United States. The suddenness with which life went from normal and happy to a terrifying nightmare is both heartbreaking and sobering. Refugees have been much in the news recently, and this book helps bring their plight home in a way that cold facts never could.
Ms. Kadiric now lives in Northern Kentucky. Her description of expecting Boone County
High School to be like the school in Beverly Hills 90210 and instead discovering a concrete block building next to a busy street is priceless. Her account of her high school classmates shunning her is disheartening, but Ms. Kadiric also recounts the students at Northern Kentucky University welcoming her and her relief at winning US citizenship. Her book will be of special interest to Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky readers.
 
Gary Reed ventures into historical fiction with his new novel, Things Could Get Ugly (April 15, 2018, 457 pages). Fast-talking reporter Jack O’Brien returns to his hometown looking for the story that will make his reputation as a journalist. He finds a misbehaving preacher, a wrongfully convicted black man, dirty cops, a crooked politician, a dangerous mobster … and love. The novel is set in Covington in the late summer of 1939, the final weeks before Hitler ignited World War II in Europe. It was a time when the Great Depression lingered on, Jim Crow ruled the South, and the Syndicate was spreading its tentacles.  Like the newspaper reporter movies of the era, Things Could get Ugly combines suspense, romance and a dash of humor.
Patricia Correll is out with The Corpse-Eater: A Novella (Amazon and Kindle, 90 pages, (March 5, 2018). Set in Japan, this novella falls into the genre of magical realism with a healthy dose of girl power.
Fiercely proud of her samurai heritage, teenage Rinko devotes herself to her sick father and, even as the Meiji Restoration destroys her world of the samurai and feudal nobility. Fleeing the emperor’s forces, she and her father are relieved to find a remote village that welcomes them. But this place is in thrall to a supernatural evil they don’t understand. The inhabitants’ intentions toward Rinko and her father may not as benevolent as they seem. Can one girl, even a samurai, save herself and her father while freeing the villagers from their curse?
John A. Bercaw, another member of the group, just had A Pink Mist, his memoir of his time as a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam, picked up by Amazon Prime. Members who subscribe to Amazon Free can read A Pink Mist for free.
Bercaw also used his experiences as background for his novel, The Mighty Jungle (2017), in which two American soldiers are the only survivors of a helicopter crash in the Vietnam jungle. Together, the two soldiers risk death from the enemy and the harsh environment. Little they have experienced in life has prepared them for their ordeal. They learn that it will take willpower, mutual trust and support, and a healthy dose of luck for them to make it out of the jungle alive.
Reed is also the author of the legal thrilled, A Fatal Cell Phone Video (Top Quark Publishing Co., 2016), and Correll is the author of Late Summer, Early Spring (DSP Publications, 2015).
The Boone County Writers Group welcomes new members. For more information, contact:  Alisa Snow at the BCPL, asnow@BCPL.org or just show up.
–Article written by Guest Blogger and Author Gary Reed