Linda Morganstein is an award-winning , overeducated fiction writer who also happens to be the product of a Borscht Belt childhood in the Jewish hotels of the Catskills. In the seventies, she dropped out of Vassar College and drove a VW van to California, where she lived in Sonoma County for many years. She currently resides in the Twin Cities of Minnesota with her understanding partner and intrepid dog, Sherman.

Email: linda@lindamorganstein.com
Web site: www.lindamorganstein.com

My Life With Stella Kane

In 1948, Nina Weiss, a snobby college girl from Scarsdale, goes to Hollywood to work at her uncle's movie studio. She is assigned to help publicize a young actress named Stella Kane. Nina is immediately thrown into the maelstrom of the declining studio system and repressive fifties Hollywood. Adding to her difficulties is her growing attraction to Stella. When a gay actor at the studio is threatened by tabloid exposure, Nina invents a romance between Stella and the actor. The trio become hopelessly entangled when the invented romance succeeds beyond anyone's dreams. This is the "behind-the scenes" story of the trio's compromises and secrets that still has relevance for today.

Publication date: 03/10/2009
ISBN: 978-1-935053-13-2

Harpies' Feast

In Dante's circle of hell for suicides, those who take their own lives are transformed into dead trees that can still feel pain. Sitting on their withered branches are the harpies, birds with women's faces, who peck at their limbs. In Harpies' Feast, the second in the Alexis Pope mystery series, Alex is once again confronted with a crime that doesn't seem to be what it really is. She is plunged into a mystery exploring suicide and its repercussions.

After solving a crime at the Overlook Lodge in Ordinary Furies, Alex no longer feels welcome in the resort town of Guerneville, California. She flees down the road to the village of Sebastopol, home to a melting pot of old hippies, wine estate owners, apple farmers and retired baby boomers. She gets a job teaching "cardio self-defense" at a trendy fitness center, courtesy of her new landlady, Sandy Knight, bisexual personal trainer and part-time philosophy professor.

Through the class, Alex meets two intriguing newcomers to town, a teenage actress and a striking lesbian playwright who've both arrived to work on a local theatre production. Much to her dismay, Alex feels attracted to Nickie, the playwright, and maternally protective of Jaycee, the teenager, who is becoming the victim of a group of jealous local girls.

The bullying and nastiness lead to disaster. In their search for answers to the perplexing events, Alex and her friends, both old and new, explore the glory and sting of relationships and confront the bounds of sexual orientations and attractions.

Ordinary Furies

Alexis Pope's life has come undone. Just when she thought she'd found guaranteed security and conventionality, her husband's death casts her into a self-imposed solitary confinement in her suburban mansion. Unsure as to whether she'll ever stop grieving, she's reluctant to accept her gay cousin Jeffrey's offer to come up to the Russian River resort where he works.

Then, a revelation in the form of a nosy fundamentalist neighbor signals enough. Little suspecting she's jumping from the frying pan into the fire, Alex plunges into the refreshingly frantic world of restaurants in the funky chic town of Guerneville, California, a gay and New-Age haven in the redwoods. But peace of mind is elusive. A series of vicious events at the resort forces Alex to revive her abandoned skills as a self-defense instructor.

In this first book of the series, Alex begins to explore her changing sexuality. Like many women, she must face her denials and repressions before coming to terms with her attraction to women. For some women, these are issues not easy to face, and this series explores both the difficulties and rewards of lesbian "late-bloomers."

**This title will be published as an eBook only.

On A Silver Platter

When a film company begins production of a low-budget modern-day horror movie based on the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Alexis Pope is asked to lend a hand as a stunt double. In no time, she's immersed in the intrigues of the cast and crew, culminating in a terrible calamity that sends her, once again, on the trail of a killer.

In this the third installment of the series, Alex continues to explore her attraction to women and her fears of intimacy, as well as the inner demons that drive people to live out fantasy lives that shun the hard reality of regular life-and may lead to deadly acts.