My newly-completed novel, SPECIMENS: True and Un-Altered Notes on an Inadvertent Adventure of an Unusual Nature, the Which Contains Sorrow, Death, Danger, Art and Great Happiness has been shortlisted for the 2019 Wilbur and Niso Smith Foundation Adventure Writing Prize.  An earlier draft was named a Semifinalist in the 2017 Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest

My novel, The Angel Carver (Random House/Warner Books), was named a New York Times “Notable Book”, and featured by Barnes and Noble in “Discover Great New Writers”.   I am the author of Awaiting Grace (Picador US) and the memoir Beeing: Life, Motherhood and 180,000 Honeybees (Lyons Press/ Globe Pequot).  I both wrote and illustrated the graphic novella Coffee: The Bean of My Existence (An Owl Book/Holt).

SELECTED PRAISE:

 My writing:

Publishers Weekly: “As an editor have you ever received  book that didn’t need editing?”

Susan Bell:  “I did.  It was The Angel Carver by Rosanne Daryl Thomas.  I didn’t touch that book except to tell her there were three words she might change.”

–  ‘Writer, Edit Thyself’, an interview with Susan Bell, author of The Artful Edit,  in Publishers Weekly 6/27/2007

  The Angel Carver:

New York Times “Notable Book”, and  Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” pick

“What a strange and beautiful novel this is…Thomas writes with the gentle precision of a master.  Her way with fantasy makes it real: her light touch with realism illuminates the fantasies that swirl through it.”  –Newsweek

“A tender novel, vividly written, with a relentless momentum.  Wonder, anticipation, devotion – all are implicit in this scrupulous writing.” – New York Times Book Review

 “…Sweeps the reader up like a mischievous tornado…Original and compelling…a fable about Marilyn Monroe and other dreams…you will not be disappointed.” – Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times

“…an allegory for our age ” —  Orlando Sentinel

“Beautiful and delicate…an absorbing, consoling portrait of three very ordinary people who live extraordinary lives.” – The Chicago Tribune

“Entertaining, daringly original, and unpredictable… has charm, with and an enticing element of suspense.” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Transcendent…keeps the reader turning the pages…simply told yet beautifully complex.” – Baltimore Sun

“A page turning story…Innocence, constancy, artistic integrity and the evanescence of beauty are among the age-old themes addressed with vivid, compelling intensity in this quirky high-flying tale.” – Publishers Weekly

“…like Walker Percy in his early novels, Thomas possesses a real gift for the lyrical and fabulous; an impressive, oddball pleasure.” – Kirkus Reviews

“The writing has the clarity of an ecstatic vision – and twice the impact – illuminating human nature with an unforgiving  deity’s eye.”  – Stuff

“Unusual..spare but elegant…an exquisite cautionary tale.”  – Library Journal

Awaiting Grace:

“Witty and compassionate…Whatever divine inspiration drives her is the reader’s good fortune.” – Library Journal

“Thomas displays a witty and confident knack for mixing the mundane and the fabulous, the earthy and otherworldly, the innocent and the corrupt.” – The Hartford Courant

“Provocative and cleverly imagined.” – Publishers Weekly

“… breezy fable is about possibility, not religion or even morality…[L]ife is complicated, as God and Thomas illustrate with a series of outlandish events that result in…pain for these mortals.” – New York Times Book Review

“…Rosanne Daryl Thomas introduces the U.S. to homegrown magical realism…charmed, elegant, wicked and hilarious.” – Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

Beeing: Life, Motherhood and 180,000 Honeybees ( memoir):

“Rosanne Daryl Thomas’s tale of her enchantment by bees is a delight to read.  It also contains close observations of the natural world, tales of failure and triumph with the hives, and a stellar cast of characters…Every word tastes as sweet as honey.”  — Janet Lembke

“Beeing is fluidly penned…lyric in description of the changing seasons.  And there are lessons to be learned here, not the least of which is, “If you want to get honey, you have to be prepared to get stung.”  – Dallas Morning News

 “…an exciting look at the life of an amateur beekeeper/single mom.  In addition to pondering the captivating lives of these communal insects, readers will delight in earning the meaning of words such a “supersedure”. ” – Orion Magazine

“High points for courage and stick-to-it-iveness.  Good reading and not just for apiarists.”  – Buffalo News

“…a story that will appeal to readers who have a dream that they love to mentally indulge but can’t imagine fulfilling…Beeing is poetic, literary, factual…and chronological by seasons…a nice balance between the poetry and the hive maintenance, the literary references and the remedies for stings.” –  Cape Cod Times

“Thomas is no writer of fluff…[she] weaves quotidian concerns, mythology, and epiphany, creating a delicately balanced whole…crisply defined moments combine detective-like distance and plain spoken poetry…Thomas tells her tale with the skills of observation worthy of a sleuth; what’s more she relates sentiment without sentimentality.” – The Valley Advocate

Complications (a comic novel “by” Prince Charming):

“…writes whimsically and often hilariously!” – Publishers Weekly

“Stylish, sassy, funny…first-rate entertainment!” – Kirkus Reviews

Coffee: The Bean of My Existence (a “graphic novella” written and illustrated by “R.D. Thomas, an addict”):

“Hardly a traditional text, this book is an illustrated tale of one person’s humorous addiction to coffee…whimsical confession of a caffeinated love affair…   Outrageous, yes, but your take on coffee will ever be the same after reading this funny, charming and clever book about North America’s most popular habit.” – UPTOWN, Winnipeg’s News and Entertainment Weekly