Words and Wine

March 7, 2017 @ 6PM

Each month Kona Stories hosts an event with local and traveling authors. This event happens the First Tuesday evening of the month starting at 6 PM. Authors are available to talk story while you are getting your plate of appetizers and glass of complimentary wine. Authors then give a 15 minute talk about their book and themselves, the writing and publishing process or a short reading from the book. After all the authors presentations there is a time for individual questions and book signings with the authors. Expect 3 -5 authors to attend each month and the evening to wrap up around 9 PM. Dress is Aloha casual wear.

Leslie Karst

The daughter of a law professor and a potter, Leslie Karst learned early, during family dinner conversations, the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients for a mystery story. She now writes the Sally Solari Mysteries, a culinary series set in Santa Cruz, California. An ex-lawyer like her sleuth, Leslie also has degrees in English literature and the culinary arts. She and her wife and their Jack Russell mix split their time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai‘i.

In Leslie Karst’s snappy debut novel, Dying for a Taste,  Karst serves up a funny, feisty heroine, Italian family drama, a charming coastal California town, and clues tangled up like a plate of spaghetti carbonara. But don’t read hungry—the food will leave you drooling!

In a stew of suspects and restaurateurs, trouble boils over in the second in Leslie Karst’s tasty and tantalizing Sally Solari mystery series, A Measure of Murder.

Sally Solari is busy juggling work at her family’s Italian restaurant, Solari’s, and helping Javier plan the autumn menu for the restaurant she’s just inherited, Gauguin. Complicating this already hectic schedule, Sally joins her ex-boyfriend Eric’s chorus, which is performing a newly discovered version of her favorite composition: the Mozart Requiem. But then, at the first rehearsal, a tenor falls to his death on the church courtyard--and his soprano girlfriend is sure it wasn’t an accident.



Now Sally's back on another murder case mixed in with a dash of revenge, a pinch of peril, and a suspicious stack of sheet music. And while tensions in the chorus heat up, so does the kitchen at Gauguin--set aflame right as Sally starts getting too close to the truth. Can Sally catch the killer before she’s burnt to a crisp, or will the case grow as cold as yesterday’s leftovers?

Carol Thorsness

Carol Thorsness is a retired middle school teacher.  She enjoys the extra time retirement offers to write, work on home projects, play a little bridge, garden, and enjoy her beautiful granddaughters. She lives in northern California and Kailua-Kona.  This is her second novel.

Big Island 'Ohana is subtitled "An Unintended Romance" because the main character, Megan, has no intentions of getting a divorce, of moving to Hawaii, of buying an enormous house, of renting out rooms, or of falling in love with one of her housemates.

Megan, a high school English teacher, and her nine-year old daughter move to the Big Island after her "surprise' divorce.  She intends to rent a sensible townhouse, but instead ends up purchasing a house on the hill that is too big, has chartreuse walls, "rough plumbing," and a magnificent view.

The book begins in July with Megan attempting to deal with a somewhat unexpected $3296.45 property tax bill.  She decides to rent out a room in her home.  After placing an ad on Craig's list and screening out the wackos, she ends up with Peter, a young Filipino gardener,  who loves to cook, but hates to garden, and Dan, a contractor who is arrogant, annoying, and very good looking, as her new housemates. 

Big Island  'Ohana is a great, fun read to teachers, retired teachers, tilers, plumbers, painters, do-it-yourselfers, and anyone who loves the Big Island.

George John Douvis

In this exciting, inspirational sequel to Crossing Karma Zones, author George Douvris shares how his personal quest expands to include his wife and children, becoming a family odyssey to find a new homeland.

When George and his wife decide to take his aging mother back to her ancestral village in Greece, they understand they’ll need to adapt to unfamiliar customs, interact with new people, and work diligently to follow their children’s correspondence-based educational regimen.

But grasping an idea and living it are two very different things.

The Douvris clan chooses to embrace every opportunity to explore the countries around them, including Bulgaria, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Czech Republic. And when, after eight years in Greece, George’s one-hundred-year-old mother passes away, the family packs up once again, continuing their mission to find “home.”

Over the next several years, the Douvris’ visit India, Thailand, Bali, and Fiji; live in New Zealand and Australia; and finally, end in Hawaii, where they began.

Through it all, George and his family seek and find bliss by learning how to be citizens of the world, living with open hearts, treasuring each moment, and respecting and valuing each other’s hopes and dreams.

The only son of Greek immigrants, George John Douvris grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was in high school when the counterculture movements of the 1960s brought changes that no one could have imagined, and he was eagerly swept up in the political and cultural upheaval.