About Susan Wingate

Award-winning author, Susan Wingate, gets a monthly column about writing and the publishing industry in her local newspaper, The Journal of the San Juan Islands. She will also be posting weekly discussions about the writing industry for the regional online newspaper, the PNWLocalNews.com site.

Born in Phoenix, Arizona to James & Amie Ajamie (a writer and an artist, respectively), Susan Wingate tried to fly, at age five off the roof of their family house using newspaper, wire hangers and scotch tape. She’s been dreaming of flying ever since. Oh, by the way, she never jumped. Her mother ran out in the nick of time to stop her from take-off.

Wingate realized her dreams when she entered the world of writing. At first, she only wrote songs and poetry but then her writing blossomed when she tried her hand at fiction. In 1997, she devoted her days to writing and in 2004, she began writing full-time. Since then, Susan has written several plays, one screenplay, one short story collection and seven novels with two more scheduled to be written in 2010. In 2008, she started writing a memoir.

A lover of the arts, Susan draws and paints abstracts using oil as her favored medium. She has taken up playing the violin (it’s been a squeakly start) and she loves the theatre. Susan lives in Washington State.

Wingate’s novel, Bobby’s Diner, received three finalist awards in the following book competitions:

■2010 International Book Awards,

■2009 National Book Awards (USA Book News),

■2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards

In May 2010, two of Wingate’s novels were released, they are:

■A FALLING OF LAW, and

■EASY AS PIE AT BOBBY’S DINER (the no. 2 book in the Bobby’s Diner Series)

“Camouflage,” Wingate’s fourth novel (written as Myah Lin) received a Finalist Award and an Editor’s Choice Award in the 2009 Textnovel Writing Contest.

To date, Wingate has written seven novels, two short story collections, a memoir, hundreds of poems, a few plays for theatre and one screenplay.

Her books can be found online and in bookstores across the country and her articles, short stories and poetry can be found in magazines, journals and reviews.

Locally, Wingate volunteers with the San Juan Island Library. She offers workshops, readings and presentations at writing conferences, bookstores and libraries throughout the country.



You can visit her website at http://www.susanwingate.com/.



About Easy as Pie at Bobby’s Diner

Georgette Carlisle, lost her first husband and is about to lose her next, one Hawthorne Biggs. She’s running the diner with Roberta, her late husband’s daughter. When old friend, Helen, comes back home after a failed attempt at a writing career, she is, once again, attracted to Georgette’s man. After the two women part company Helen goes missing. While digging around, Georgette finds out that Biggs has a dangerous past. With Roberta at her side, the two women, brave separation, torture and near death at the hand of Biggs. And, after taking him down, the women find a new strength and belonging. EASY AS PIE is the number two book in the four-part “Bobby’s Diner” series.

Read the Excerpt!

Chapter 1

Steel shackles jangled at his ankles when he shuffled to a stop on the cold travertine floor. Cabling, the kind used on bicycle locks, wrapped around his waist angling off at a Y to each wrist. He held his arms close to his stomach, monk-style as if praying.

At the thick red mahogany podium, an orange clad prisoner stood next to a small-framed bailiff. The bailiff’s hand cupped the man’s elbow and someone called out, “All rise. The honorable Judge Lindon.” The bailiff stepped back. The prisoner’s eyes lifted and the man’s lawyer stepped up next to him. The packed courtroom stood almost in unison.

Everyone watched as the judge stepped behind his wide bench, a massive dense desk spanning no less than eight feet long and three feet wide of the same rich mahogany as the podium.

He sat pausing midway and eyed the prisoner over his black-rimmed reading glasses, sitting slowly before lifting the docket in front of him and reading the papers.

He looked pissed.

Once he had finally sat, sliding his black and wooden chair under the bench, everyone else in the courtroom sat, everyone that is, except the prisoner and his lawyer. The judge wasted no time.

“Your sentence, sir, in light of this,” He hesitated briefly then continued, “new information and errors in allowing this new information from reaching the court at the time of your trial,” the judge glared at the man’s attorney, “I have no other reasonable choice than to reduce said sentence to no more than two years beginning today.”

Judge Lindon spoke cautiously, almost angrily to the prisoner. His dark lined eyes and the sharp angles of his cheekbones exaggerated his mood. His mouth tight and his eyebrows in a hard V gave away his disgust for the man restrained standing in front of him. “You should thank your lawyer with some flowers or something for this one, Mr. Pinzer. He’s done quite an acrobatic stunt.”

His short but formidable lawyer, Wallace Ruckheimer, looked down at his feet over his fat belly and coughed. Zach Pinzer remained cool not breaking a sweat, cracking a smile or fluttering an eyelash. He stared unswayed by Lindon’s comments, just as his lawyer instructed him.

“No matter what, Zach, do NOT react. The judge can either hand down a lighter sentence or not. If he doesn’t, we start the appeal process all over again but this time with a higher more difficult court.”

Pinzer remembered his lawyer’s advice and not a muscle twitched. Lost somewhere, he spent his next few minutes while the judge spoke, in thought about the ineptitude of all the Pyles. Angry, still, at the mayor and now at his ridiculous pathetic wife. A wimpy woman with no backbone. Reneging on her part of the deal. A woman who spent her life in a balancing act, walking a tightrope blaming others for her fate. Now, on the run, she couldn’t hide, not from him. He promised to find her and he had. It was too easy really. His man outside found her within a week of running. She left a trail of crumbs practically. His man outside had replaced her already. Her going on the lam actually opened up a better plan of action, a much more devious plan. People had to die. But who cared if he was dying in prison? No one.



My Take:
I didn't read Bobby's Diner but you don't have to, to enjoy Easy as Pie at Bobby's Diner.
there was more language than I like in a book but other that this was a well put together story.  Unfortunately I had a really hard time liking the main character and try as I might I couldn't for the life of me feel sorry for her when bad things happened.  Most of the time I just wanted to say to her " Well you should have seen that coming".  But that's what makes this a good book.  Real people are not always logical and real people don't always see things coming. 

I would recommend this book if you like a good thriller.     I will probably get the first book just because I am curious about some things that were mentioned in this book.  Will be looking for the next in the series also.