Skip to main content

Alumni serve adventure in truth and fiction

July 08, 2024

Image of an open book and a sun hat on a sandy beach
Submitted for your summer reading lists: Roanoke College alumni have been hard at work writing thrillers, love stories and the true tales of legendary ocean explorers. Read all about it from the latest edition of Roanoke College Magazine.

Book cover with overhead view of turquoise ocean washing up on sandy beach and words " Hunt for Gold by John Christopher Fine"“Hunt for Gold: Sunken Galleons in the New World” 

By John Christopher Fine ’64, a marine biologist and ocean explorer who has dived to shipwrecks all over the world. He is a master deep sea diving instructor, instructor trainer and certified underwater photography instructor. He holds two doctoral degrees and is the author of 27 books. 

Publisher: Pineapple Press 
Overview: “Hunt for Gold” tells the story of legendary oceanic explorers Bob “Frogfoot” Weller and his wife Margaret, early pioneers in Florida’s diving community who dedicated their lives to secret treasure hunts and underwater dives. This book blends storytelling with compelling images from the Wellers’ underwater adventures.  
Review: "I enjoyed it so much, I read it without getting up. John is one of those extraordinarily talented people who you too rarely run into...Part of what makes him a great writer is his phenomenal gift for detail. Reading his book was like walking back in time to the days when treasure hunting, in the Florida Keys and along what is now called Florida’s Treasure Coast, was just beginning." 
—Dr. E. Lee Spence, underwater archaeologist 

Book cover in solid yellow with white words "An Inconvenient Wife : A Modern Tudor Mystery by Karen E. Olson" and illustration of three women talking and the center woman has one finger to her lips as if to say "Shhhhhhhh!"“An Inconvenient Wife” 

By Karen E. Olson ’82. Olson holds an English degree from Roanoke and is the author of multiple books, including the Black Hat Thrillers series, Tattoo Shop Mysteries series and the Annie Seymour series. She is the winner of the Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award and a Shamus Finalist. 

Publisher: Pegasus Crime 
Overview: Kate Parker has just married billionaire Hank Tudor when a headless body is discovered near their summer home. What ensues is a thrilling crime novel inspired by the Tudor era, with three women caught in a web of betrayal as Parker races to find a murderer.  
Review: “Hugely entertaining, bursting with irony and all about the women – imagine ‘The Tudors’ set in the world of ‘Succession,’ by way of Jackie Collins. I was swept off my feet.” 
— Elizabeth Fremantle, author of “Disobedient” and “Queen's Gambit” 

Dark book cover with red and orange leaves and the words "The Woods are Waiting: A novel, Katherine Green"“The Woods Are Waiting” 

By Katherine Greene (Pen name for Abbi Walters Horne ’01 and Claire Riley). Walters Horne, who majored in English at Roanoke, said she was inspired by her childhood in Shenandoah County, Virginia, to co-write a mystery set in a rural Appalachian town. Under the name A. Meredith Walters, she is the bestselling author of the Find You in the Dark series, the Bad Rep series, the Reclaiming the Sand series, and the Twisted Love series, among other books. 

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books 
Overview: When a child goes missing in their hometown, two childhood friends reunite to discover the truth and its connections to the town’s dark past. 
Review: “A claustrophobic, page-turning mystery that kept me guessing. I loved every twist and turn.” 
—Bestselling author Natasha Preston 

Blue book cover with illustration of a note emerging from an envelope, two old-fashioned snapshots with white edges that show travel scenery, and one red stamp. The note emerging says "Letters from Sweden" and the bottom of the cover says "David Schaeffer"“Letters from Sweden” 

By David Schaeffer, brother to Eric Schaeffer ’76 and Ethelyn Schaeffer ’82, and uncle to Kristen Schaeffer ’05. 

Publisher: Mercer University Press 
Overview: A love story about the author’s Lutheran parents, Bill and Mary, who became engaged the same day Bill left for an 18-month post-graduate religious and academic study program in Sweden in 1947. This historical romance is based on the hundreds of handwritten letters they sent to one another.