Get To Know You ~ Siobhan O’Brien

Siobhan here. I find it hard to believe that somebody wants to know more about me, but this very nice lady Dru Ann asked, so I said why not. But then I saw the number of questions and I was like, Jeez Louise, this is a lot of questions! Luckily, I was in my car, watching a door for the last three hours (third stakeout this week), so I had time to kill, I suppose. And as I kept writing my answers into my notepad, I must say, I enjoyed doing this quite a bit. Anyway, here you go. It’s back to the grind for me.

Get To Know You ~ Siobhan O’Brien by Sung J. Woo

Shepherd: The best mysterious classic novels that take place in a grand manor house

In celebration of Deep Roots, I’ve composed a list on Shepherd — The best mysterious classic novels that take place in a grand manor house. I list five novels — check out which ones I chose.

Publication Day for Deep Roots!

“Why has this food-providing human placed this non-edible object between us?”

Today is the official publication day for Deep Roots, my fourth novel. Friends and family have told me they have already received their pre-ordered copies over the weekend, so I guess the publication day is actually kind of useless. But hey, it’s still the official day, and it got me in a thinking mood, or more accurately, a calculating mood:

14 years
4 novels
1,249 pages
360,726 words

That’s my career so far as a novelist, in strictly numerical terms. The word count is suspect, of course, since I used Microsoft Word’s Word Count feature from the final drafts and added them up. But what’s a few hundred words here and there?

A few positive bits worth mentioning:

  1. got nice pre-publication reviews from Shelf Awareness and Booklist
  2. audiobooks will be made of both Deep Roots and Skin Deep

I’m quite excited about #2. The actress Jennifer Sun Bell will be narrating; she read Min Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires, so I’m fortunate to have such a professional lending her voice. The audiobooks will be widely available (via OrangeSky Audio, a subsidiary of Spotify) next month.

Amazon | B&N | Bookshop

My Book, The Movie: Deep Roots

My second mystery novel is due out in less than a week! To celebrate its publication, I’ll be putting out some content, such as this one.

In case you aren’t familiar with My Book, The Movie, it’s a blog that lets you pretend cast your book if it were made into a movie. Three years ago, I did it for Skin Deep, too. Anyway — enjoy!

My Book, The Movie: Deep Roots

Deep Roots – First Review

It’s a good one! Check it out.

Sung J. Woo (Love, Love) is one of those agile writers able seamlessly to insert detailed backstories mid-series: reading his second Siobhan O’Brien mystery, Deep Roots, without benefit of the inaugural Skin Deep is no less absorbing.

People often do a double-take when meeting Siobhan in person: “I was adopted by an Irish father and a Norwegian mother,” she’s forced to explain about her ethnic Korean heritage, which strangers have decided doesn’t match her name. Now 40, she finally seems at peace with who she is. She’s settled into running the detective agency she inherited when her boss died suddenly. She’s hired college student Beaker as her intern–and just in time, because she needs someone to check her e-mail while her new assignment takes her to a private island in the Pacific Northwest.

[read the rest of the review at Shelf Awareness]

Airport (1970): An Imperfect Best Picture Nominee for Our Imperfect Times

The Academy Awards are around the corner, and no doubt the viewers at home are eagerly awaiting which of the presenters will be slapped across their face.

What occurred last year between the right palm of Will Smith and the left cheek of Chris Rock was indeed a tragedy (or twisted comedy?) of manners, but it was not a disaster. For that, we must turn to a film I recently screened in celebration for the upcoming Oscars, a best picture nominee that raked in some serious dough back in its day: Airport, released on March 5, 1970, the second-highest grossing film that year.

Some film critics have labeled it the worst movie ever nominated for Best Picture. Could it be that a movie about a disaster was itself a disaster?

https://sungjwoo.medium.com/airport-1970-an-imperfect-best-picture-nominee-for-our-imperfect-times-9ef19a22365b

What’s the verdict? Read on and find out.