"A Night of Minnesota Mystery": Wendy Webb reads from "The Vanishing," and Ellen Hart reads from "Taken by the Wind"

Join two great Minnesota authors for a night celebrating the not-so-nice side of the North Star State.

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A mysterious visitor with an intriguing offer, a centuries-old mansion in the middle of the wilderness, and a séance gone horribly wrong set the stage for the newest spine-tingling tale about family secrets by bestselling author Wendy Webb.

Recently widowed and rendered penniless by her Ponzi-scheming husband, Julia Bishop is eager to start anew. So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired . . . and who the world believes is dead. When she arrives at the Sinclairs' enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her "too-good-to-be-true" position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls.

Wendy Webb's first novel, The Tale of Halcyon Crane, was the 2011 winner of the Minnesota Book Award for genre fiction, and an IndieNext Pick from the Independent Booksellers' Association, a Midwest Connections Pick from the Midwest Booksellers Association and a Great Lakes, Great Reads Pick from the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association. Her second novel, The Fate of Mercy Alban, was published in February 2013. Wendy is also the editor of Duluth-Superior Magazine. She lives in northern Minnesota with her husband and her beloved Alaskan Malamutes. Visit her at www.wendywebb.com.

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Taken by the Wind, the riveting mystery from award-winning author Ellen Hart, is a race against the clock for Jane Lawless and the terrified parents of two missing boys.

Although Eric and Andrew have been trying to keep up a semblance of normal life, they know their thirteen-year-old son Jack has been having a tough time of it since they separated. They've been concerned, but now they're terrified--Jack has run away from home. It happened once before, just after the separation, but then it was only a matter of hours before Eric found him. This time, Jack disappeared with his cousin, and the two of them haven't been seen for more than twenty-four hours. Desperate, Eric and Andrew call on private investigator Jane Lawless, a friend of Andrew's from years ago. Despite the fact that her business partner, A.J. Nolan, is now in a wheelchair and struggling with depression, Jane agrees to help out. But after examining Eric and Andrew's home, Jane's first impression of the case isn't good--in fact, she's not convinced the boys ran away at all. She thinks they may have been abducted… or worse.

Ellen Hart is the author of thirty crime novels in two different series.  She is a five-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery, a three-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Best Popular Fiction, For the past sixteen years, Ellen has taught “An Introduction to Writing the Modern Mystery” through the The Loft Literary Center, the largest independent writing community in the nation. Taken by the Wind, the 21st Jane Lawless mystery, was released by St. Martin's/Minotaur in October, 2013.  Ellen lives in Eden Prairie with her partner of 36 years.