Nancy Stancill

    Nancy Stancill spent 38 years as a newspaper reporter and editor before she began writing fiction full-time. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, she earned an M.A. in creative writing from the University of Tampa in 2015.

   Her works include Saving Texas (2013), Winning Texas (2016), Tall (nonfiction, 2020), and Deadly Secrets ( 2024).

  More on Nancy is here.

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http://www.charlotteobserver.com/entertainment/books/reading-matters-blog/article78814787.html

MAY 20, 2016 7:00 AM

Nancy Stancill’s latest a twisty Texas thriller

Author to talk at Park Road Books on Wednesday

 

BY DANNYE ROMINE POWELL

You hold your breath when a friend writes a book.

Will I like it? What if I don’t? What can I say that’s supportive but non-committal?

The Pulitzer-winning novelist Peter Taylor once said he couldn’t be friends with someone whose work he didn’t like. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but there are risks.

Well, whew! I happen to really like Nancy Stancill’s latest novel, “Winning Texas.” Stancill is a good friend and former Observer colleague, and she’s given us a taut thriller with a rabbit warren of twists. It’s a newspaper novel, set in Houston, where Stancill once worked as an investigative reporter.

Oh, sure, there are a couple of dead bodies. But Stancill goes beyond the whodonit to a world of frenzied intrigue. Hers is a Texas where one group plots to secede and form an independent nation, and another group longs to turn the Hill Country into German Texas. Add to that, a group of Albanian strippers herded off to an isolated ranch, where they are to produce babies for the wealthy.

Stancill’s tireless hero, investigative reporter/editor Annie Price, makes you wish you were 40 again.

Stancill will talk about “Winning Texas” at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Park Road Books. It’s free, and you’re invited.

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