Book Review The Writer and The Engineer

 

Author Niomi Rohn Phillips found inspiration for her new book “The Writer and The Engineer” in an unexpected place. A gifted box of memorabilia from her friend June House piqued Phillips's imagination and interest to discover more about Mignon Eberhart, whose sorority sister, Carmen, was June's mother.

Eberhart was a prolific American writer who had a distinguished career writing classic romantic suspense novels. It included 59 novels and 8 of her novels were adapted into movies. Her distinguished literary career spanned from 1929 to 1988. Her first novel "Patient in Room 18" introduces her series character Nurse Sarah Keate and her boyfriend Detective Lance O'Leary. By the end of the 1930s, Eberhart became the leading female crime novelist in the US and the highest paid in the world next to Agatha Christie. She made enough money to live a lavish lifestyle. 

Phillips has created a fictional account of a real-life person, writer Mignon Eberhart, who was passionate and obsessed about her writing. Her husband Alan Eberhart, the engineer, was dedicated to his profession and his work took him to many locations. While the novel examines the need for nurturing love and commitment it shows how intertwined their lives were despite opposite interests. The frustrations of a sexless marriage and its impact on their relationship capture a tumultuous marriage. Over a span of several decades, Mignon married and divorced Alan 3 times with another marriage in between to John Perry.

Phillips excels in character development. With not a lot of public information available, she had to use her imagination to craft a fictionalized account of two real-life people set in a believable world in which they lived. The author captures the nuances of each decade with references to the literary and publishing world at that time, popular fashion and entertainment, the political arena, and the people the Eberharts interacted with in different social circles. As the author develops Mignon's and Alan's characters, their personality, interests, and motivations emerge to propel each of them through the story. With exceptional word choices and pacing my interest was sustained throughout the story. It's apparent this book was a labor of love for the author who gave voice to the writer and her engineer husband.

 

ALL ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Niomi Rohn Phillips is a multi-genre writer born and raised in North Dakota and lives in northern Minnesota. She has a Bachelor of Education degree in English and a Master of Arts degree in American Literature. Prior to retirement from the University of North Dakota, she published work in Plainswoman and the North Dakota Quarterly, and was awarded a grant for creative nonfiction in the centennial anthology, Day In, Day Out: Women’s Lives in North Dakota.

Her creative nonfiction has been published by Lake’s Alive, Among Women, Online AARP, PersimmonTree.org, and Lake Country Journal. Short stories and poetry have been published by The Talking Stick, Dust & Fire, Lake Region Review, and Whistling Shade literary journals. Gardening and travel features were published by Greenprints, Prime Life, and Boomers magazines. Her short stories were included in anthologies, Twigs and Bards of a Feather Write Together. "Growing Up Catholic," a memoir, was published in 2015.

Phillips's most recent work was published in the spring issue of PersimmonTree.org, an online literary journal. 

"The Writer and The Engineer" can be ordered from Beagle and Wolf  Books https://shop.beagleandwolf.com/  or on Amazon.