Books By Carol LaHines

Carol Lahines, 2024

The Vixen Amber Halloway is about a Dante professor who descends into darkness after her husband leaves her for another woman. What follows is Ophelia’s figurative descent into hell, as she obsessively tracks her subjects, performs surveillance in her beat-up Volvo, and moves into the foreclosed property next door to Amber’s. Spying on the lovers, Ophelia is tormented anew by the abandonment of her mother at age eight, and becomes increasingly estranged from the reality of her surroundings. The escalating tension comes to a crisis, however, when Andy and Amber become engaged. The novel, structured as a jailhouse confessional, is a dark comedy, a suspenseful revenge fantasy, an oeuvre of woman’s rage, and a moving portrait of one woman's psychological breakdown. Reviewers have called it “compulsive reading” (Mary Webber O’Malley, Skylark Bookshop), “perfectly engaging, provocative, darkly comedic at times, criminal” (Bookstalker), “the most unhinged novel you’ll read this year, guaranteed,” stating “Carol LaHines excels in a wry blend of humor and darkness” (Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review), “LaHines’ fascinating narrator, Ophelia, is decidedly pathological. And here’s the surprise—she’s also sympathetic, humorous, intelligent” (Joan Baum, NPR).

Carol LaHines, 2024

Someday Everything Will All Make Sense follows Luther van der Loon, an eccentric harpsichordist and professor of early music, as he navigates the stages of grief following the untimely death of his mother. Luther obsesses over burial practices, rails against the funerary industry, and institutes a personal injury suit against the Chinese take-out whose sloppy methods he blames for his mother choking on a wonton. He blames himself for failing to perform the Heimlich, a maneuver so simple that a child of six or seven could execute it. Luther finds redemption in music as he plans the annual symposium for his oddball group of early music colleagues. Slowly, and with the help of his therapist girlfriend, Cecilia, Luther gropes toward resolution. The novel speaks to the universality of loss and the struggle to make sense of the nonsensical.

Multiple Contributors, Rita Baker, John Casey, Elizabeth Gauffreau, Carol LaHines, Keith Madsen, Jim Metzner, Donna Koros-Stramella, Joyce Yarrow, Amy E. Wallen, 2022

Distant Flickers: Stories of Identity and Loss features stories by Carol LaHines and seven other authors. The emotive stories in this anthology take readers to the streets of New York and San Francisco, to warm east coast beaches, rural Idaho, and Italy, from the early 1900s, through the 1970s, and into present day. The distinct and varied characters in Distant Flickers stand at a juncture. The loss of a spouse, a parent, a child, one's self. Whether they arrived at this place through self-reflection, unexpected change, or new revelations-each one has a choice to make.