Fan Club Freebies
Lotsa cool free bonus content for M. L.'s fans!
Jump to: Miranda Chase, The Night Stalkers, Night Stalkers Reload, Firehawks, Delta Force, Kate Stark
Why? It's a way to say thanks. Thanks for liking what we do! Note: We'll be adding additional titles on the 14th of each month, The Ides of Matt 2.0.
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BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
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Miranda Chase
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Drone
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| 1. Miranda has a new team foisted upon her. Have you ever had a similar experience? How did you make it work? What would you do the same and what do you wish you'd done differently? |
| 2. A common theme in Buchman's work are the circles of trust. How do you think of trust at the family, individual, team, friends, work, country, or societal level? |
| 3. Miranda is a very one-focus gal. If you were an autistic with a single, overarching Special Interest, what would it be? What would it be if time and money weren't an object? |
| 4. The pilots in Drone give their all for one great passion. What is there that you would give anything to have or do? Is there a way to start doing even a little of it now? |
| 5. What about the reading experience most matched your expectations? What matched the least? |
| 6. What about the characters most matched your expectations? When did they surprise you? |
| 7. If you were to cast these characters in a movie, who would play what parts? Use the form below to send your cast to M. L. and he'll send you his. |
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Thunderbolt
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| 1. Hacking has become a fixture in our society. Where would you rate it on the spectrum of crimes? |
| 2. Are the final actions of "White Hat" hackers (Heidi and Harry) against a "Black Hat" hacker (Daemon) justified? |
| 3. What is the role of justice vs. vigilantism in our society? Is the latter ever justified? |
| 4. Jeremy feels terrible guilt (Buddhism's "Second Arrow") over something he almost did. Have you ever done anything that caused you to plunge in your own Second Arrow of guilt? If so, what have you found helps you remove that self-inflicted emotional pain? |
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Condor
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| 1. Our nations spend billions, hundreds of billions, on weapons of war (ships, jets, spy satellites, etc). Is it justified? Discuss how this massive escalation cycle might be mitigated. |
| 2. Elayne Kasprak takes drastic actions to protect Russian assets (the helicopter transport plane she destroys). Holly Harper takes equally drastic action to steal the Russian Persona satellite. Are both of them justified? Are either of them justified? |
| 3. Imagine that you are the Wright Brothers, who have just achieved the first airplane flight. Now imagine you are standing in this story's C-5 Galaxy transport jet, whose cargo bay is as long as your entire first flight. How do you think they would react? Awe, horror... |
| 4. What is something in your life that has affected you that way? |
| 5. Holly fights a physical battle. Have you ever been in one? What was most surprising about it? |
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Ghostrider
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| 1. General Martinez and Taz declare a direct and personal war on drug lords. Is this the answer? If it was completely up to you, how would you run the "War on Drugs"? Militarize everything? Legalize everything? Unleash Special Operations in foreign countries? |
| 2. For Taz, all life is a battle to be fought. To Jeremy, it is all about cooperation and collaboration. What is your own place on that spectrum and how does it help/hurt you? |
| 3. Following orders of a superior officer can mean life or death in the military. General Elizabeth Gray chooses to forgive Rosa for actions Rosa knew were illegal but performed at the order of her commanding officer. Was this right? |
| 4. Jeremy draws a very specific moral line at what he will and will not do, even at the risk of his and Mike's life. What choice would you have made? What was a moral-based choice you made in your life and how did that change you? |
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Raider
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| 1. Have you ever met someone with PTSD? Discuss what they were like, how they reacted? Were they changed if you knew them before and after? |
| 2. Do you have something that you react to, that you simply can't help? (Ex. When I was a kid, some "friends" sicced the Doberman on me. I love dogs, but I've been afraid of Dobbies ever since.) What are you doing to change that reaction? (I force myself to pet each Dobbie I meet, because it wasn't the dogs fault.) |
| 3. Holly completely mistakes Mike and Andi's relationship in the beginning, with amusing results. Have you ever been in a similar situation and were you able to laugh afterward? |
| 4. Asli gives Metin a simple guide that changes his life, "Would you be willing to tell me what you did if you were allowed to?" Another version of this is: "If it was in the newspaper, would you be okay with that?" What guideposts do you use when weighing a questionable action in your mind? |
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Chinook
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| 1. China and the US are in a battle of wills (and hopefully that's all they're still in when you're reading this). How do you think Taiwan specifically and US-China relations will play out? How do you think they should play out? |
| 2. Have you ever served or even been to a military airshow? If so, tell others about it. What you saw, your impressions, how it altered your view of the military. |
| 3. General Zhang Ru is a heinously entitled and abusive man. If you were creating a justice system from scratch, how would you punish him and those like him? |
| 4. Spoiler: Taz returns from the dead. She is the ultimate survivor but is forced by her resurrection to consider her past deeds. She remains convinced that she only deserved the worst future. What assumptions do you make about your own future? How might you change them? |
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Havoc
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| 1. Holly acts before she thinks. Mike thinks before he acts. Jeremy feels before he thinks. Taz acts and struggles not to think. Andi feels before she acts. And Miranda...is Miranda. Which one are you? And why? How does it affect your life? |
| 2. What's the most exotic place you've ever been? How did it affect the way you look at where you live? |
| 3. Have you ever stood at the grave of someone you knew, loved, or were related to? How did it change your view of your own life? |
| 4. Everyone Miranda comes in contact with rises to their best self through no conscious effort of her own (well, except Elayne Kasprak). How do you think meeting Miranda would influence you? |
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White Top
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| 1. In 2010 the US Supreme Court declared that corporations were people. They've gained a lot of rights since, including in 2023 the right to vote in a municipal election in Delaware. Many near-future stories in speculative fiction discuss corporations becoming a law unto themselves. Is that tipping point already here? |
| 2. It has been a long time as of this writing (thankfully) since the US has lost a President or Vice President while in office. Think about the recent administrations. How do you think the country would be different if one or the other was killed? |
| 3. The innocent victims on the ground killed by the White Top crash, had no warning. One moment they were going about their lives and the next they were dead. If you had a moment's warning, what last choice, act, thought would you have? |
| 4. Would there be any regrets? If so, are they something you could find a way to fix now? |
| 5. Which is a worse crime, foreign or domestic terrorism? Or a US drone attack on a foreign actor? Discuss this from all the various points of view. |
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Start the Chase
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| 1. Each of these origin stories focus on a seminal moment in the characters' lives. And how they interpreted those changes to move forward in their lives. Discuss each of them: Miranda, Holly, Mike, Jeremy, Andi, and Taz. Who might have they become if they'd made different choices? |
| 2. Was there a seminal moment that shaped/changed the course of your own life? Using the form below, send in a sentence each about that person and the change they wrought, and M. L. will send you his. |
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Lightning
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| 1. China has taken over and militarized much of the South China Sea, ignoring the rights of Vietnam, the Philippines, and others in the region. China sees this as justified by manifest destiny, self-protection, and shortening the route for their access to Middle East oil tankers. All despite the condemnation of the rest of the world, including the UN. How do you think this might shape future trade and conflict? |
| 2. Ultra-high-power laser satellites are (probably) still a thing of the future. Someday that technological hurdle will be crossed as well. Once they're operational, how do you think that might change the nature of conflict? More peaceful, like the anomalous side effect of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, that made everyone unwilling to use nukes even at the height of the Cold War? Or more dangerous? |
| 3. Lieutenant Commander Penny Brightman must take over an entire aircraft carrier's operation on no notice. Have you ever had to take on a job or project that was way out of your normal comfort zone? What did you learn by stretching to achieve that goal? Did you succeed, do okay, or not so much? How did that change what you did going forward? |
| 4. Miranda is constantly jerked from one task to the next. To an autistic, this is a personal disaster in the making. Have you experimented with longer focus on a single task vs. attempting to multi-task your life? What did you learn? (How did that change if you were the parent of an infant/toddler?) |
| 5. Send M. L. each of your favorite dog breed and why, using the form below. He'll send you back his. |
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Skibird
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| 1. Russia and China are threatening to walk away from the Antarctic Treaty System that says the continent may not be militarized or used for commercial resources (mining)--only science. Many of the world's past (and future) battles have been over resources, oil being the obvious one (but now also, among many others, the elements needed to make solar panels and long-life high-capacity batteries). Nature has concentrated some of these in a very few countries. Many are under the control of corporate raiders, keeping the governments unstable to take advantage. If the world was yours to order, how would you address this? A globalized version of the ATS? |
| 2. Have you ever been somewhere beyond immediate help? Hiking in the deep woods, driving across the Outback, out on a boat far from land, trapped on the Antarctic ice cap in a missile-damaged airplane? In the moments after a car crash or other accident? How did that experience make you feel? Invigorated to be alive? Terrified? Focused? |
| 3. When Holly gets the call from the Australian Transportation Safety Board, the rest of the team assumes they're going along when she asks. It doesn't occur to her that they might be going for her rather than for the crash. Thinking about your friends, how many would simply assume they were included or could help if you really needed it? Have you thanked them for that recently? |
| 4. Antarctica is very high on M. L.'s bucket list. Not a tourist visit, but living there through at least a season, perhaps a year. (It's an unlikely one now but it's still there on the list.) What's the craziest thing on your bucket list? Have you done anything to make it happen? (Send your bucket list to M. L. using the form below and he'll send back his.) |
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Nightwatch
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| 1. There are currently about 50,000 cargo ships crisscrossing the oceans. Estimates place 5-8,000 commercial planes aloft at all times. What other "systems" can you think of that are all overlapping on our planet? Trucks, power transmission, radio... |
| 2. The melting of the Arctic ice cap has numerous implications, climate and shipping being only two of them. What others can you come up with? |
| 3. Tech Sergeant Doyle sells out secrets for $50,000. Think up different scenarios: puncture someone's tire, send anonymous flowers to someone else's spouse to make them jealous, sell a state secret (if you had one), etc. Write down from least to most you'd have to be paid to do it. Compare the order you chose with others; discuss the different orders. |
| 4. The reach of drones is now global and their capabilities expand every day (dropping individual grenades in the Ukraine War was revealed just the week before this writing). How have they changed the world, how do you think they'll change it in the next 5-10 years? Send in your ideas using the form below and M. L. will send you a brief idea of his own. |
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Osprey
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| 1. Has a friend, relative, or co-worker ever betrayed you? How did that betrayal affect your future trust of others? Or if it didn't, why not? How, if you managed to, did you get past that betrayal? |
| 2. Discuss circles of loyalty: family, friends, community, state, country, global, humankind... |
| 3. The American NSA, UK's GCHQ, and others gather massive amounts of intelligence, including images, phone calls, messaging, etc. They do this to identify terrorist targets and to promote the security of their respective countries. Is this a "necessary evil" or an invasion of privacy? |
| 4. What's your favorite vacation spot? Share and discuss. Maybe trade for next year? Send your answers to M. L. using the form below and he'll send you back his. |
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Gryphon
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| 1. Have you ever been in a multi-year relationship that did not include engagement or marriage? Or known someone who has? Discuss the actual or perceived advantages and disadvantages of doing this: emotional, financial, logistical, past history, future fears... |
| 2. What is the most interesting conference you've ever gone to or heard of? If money and time were no object, what conference would you most like to attend? Hint: as part of the research for this book, the author actually attended the ISASI annual conference for professional air-safety investigators. So: cooking, medieval studies, philosophy, knitting, ambulance design... |
| 3. There are so many trust issues in this book. Not only between Mike and Holly, but also Tad, Kurbanov, Max... How do you choose who to trust and not trust? |
| 4. What the most "exotic" recipe that you cook regularly? The author would love to see it . (Use the form below and it might end up in some future book!) |
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Wedgetail
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| 1. What is the most exotic place you've ever traveled? What did you learn from the experience? |
| 2. Miranda has created her "Spheres" to avoid being overwhelmed. What habits have you created like that? Do they help or hinder? When was the last time you drove a new route to work or the store? Was it just a little unnerving? |
| 3. An autism therapist said that all of us probably share one or even ten traits with an autistic. She said that their challenge is they've got a hundred or more and they're all turned on all at once. What are some of the things you do that you think might be a shared trait (extra orderliness, particularly deep concentration to exclusion of all else, discomfort in new situations or groups...)? What would it be like if everyone's traits in the group were all going on at once in each of you? |
| 4. Holly is plagued by the conflict of her origins and their mutation into the need to protect those around her at any cost to herself. Discuss a driving need in your present thinking and try to trace back to its origins. |
| 5. Andi is constantly misinterpreting signals from Miranda's flat statements and taking them very personally. She's overreactive due to her family and her Army past. What do the other characters consistently misinterpret about each other? |
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Air Force One
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| 1. Miranda has gone through a huge set of changes and growth over the course of the series. If you've read the series, what were those changes and which should she be most proud of? (If you haven't read the whole series yet, consider the changes she personally goes through in this book alone.) |
| 2. Miranda ultimately deals with her grief by rejecting her past and changing course--drastically. Has your life ever made such a major course change? If so, what was it and what sparked it? |
| 3. Have you ever lost someone abruptly and unexpectedly? How did you deal with it? |
| 4. For fans of the series, was this a satisfying ending for the characters? Why or why not? |
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The Night Stalkers
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The Night Stalkers (Series)
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| 1. Emily Beale is the first woman to break the "glass ceiling" to become a pilot for the 160th Night Stalkers. Have you been or known anyone who faced a similar challenge? Was the effort met with success or failure? Try to step back and discuss why. |
| 2. To "get ahead" in a man's world, women must often choose a "role" to play. Read the first four books and consider their roles: 1) Emily Beale - simply be the best, taking on the man one-on-one, 2) Kee Smith - sex as a weapon to get ahead, 3) Connie Davis - taking on the meek "little sister" role even though she's the smartest one in the room, and 4) Lola LaRue - the chaos demon striking out in every direction. Discuss the roles you've taken or seen. |
| 3. Military teams, especially the more elite teams where service isn't for a few tours but rather a career choice, are held together by the "found family" of the team. They become so close, that departure from military service can be either a culture shock or wholly unthinkable. Discuss "found family" in your lives and what is unique about those bonds. |
| 4. Emily Beale, in her own tough way, becomes mother to each successive heroine in the first six books. She goes on to do this in several other series after she leaves the military. Discuss the roles we take among our friends: guide, mentor, student, acolyte, confessor... |
| 5. In the real world, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (The Night Stalkers) take on two fairly distinct roles. The first is relatively straightforward, delivering elite troops into precise positions at precise times--and getting them back out. The second role is clandestine operations. They were named "black-on-black" missions for the purposes of these novels. It often involves penetrating deep into countries (both enemy and ally) for the advancement of American interests. Discuss this second role and how different people feel about these actions. |
| 6. Dilya is a war orphan rescued in the second novel who continues through much of the series. She exemplifies a far wider crisis that is spanning across all nations. It is driven by famine, war, genocide, and sometimes actively created to use as a weapon against another country. It can also be driven by the desire for new opportunities and a better life. Rather than discussing existing border and refugee problems, discuss what you would do if famine, war, genocide... came to your town--tonight, while you were sleeping. |
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Night Stalkers Reload
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Guard the East Flank
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| 1. Both Emily Beale and Troy Ryland face a common crisis of family versus career; in their cases one so extreme they can't even occur in the same part of the country. How have you balanced these in your life and what led you to making the decisions that you did? In retrospect, if you're old enough to have retrospect, what do you think of the choices you made? |
| 2. The US is pulling back from being the world's policeman. In the past, we might well have long since put boots on the ground in Ukraine, Israel, and other places. What do you think of this contraction? Better security for us? Or giving rise to a dangerously chaotic world? |
| 3. Have you ever had a calling like our Night Stalkers pilots? Something that you felt driven and perhaps particularly qualified to do? How did that/is that shaping your life and the lives of those around you? If you don't have one, which one do you wish you'd had? Is there a way to pursue that? |
| 4. The military has very strict rules about relationships and not overlapping chains of command. Do you think this policy is good because it prevents an officer from being forced to make hard decisions in dangerous situations? Or should it be dropped so that families are not shredded by different duties often spread far apart? |
| 5. If you could wave a magic wand and make one small change in the world, what would it be and why? |
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Hold the West Line
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| 1. Captain Abbigail Rose has a decidedly Maine bent of humor. What regional humor, sayings, jokes can you recall from your own past? |
| 2. Spies like Miss Watson and her rising protege Dilya are a fixture of our geopolitical world. What roles do you think they play, and should they? Where is the line between morals, ethics, and protection of a nation-state? |
| 3. Abby has consistently pushed men away by being too smart and skilled. Have you experienced or witnessed this? |
| 4. Hold the West Line delves into issues of trust. Can Abby trust Derek? Can Emily trust Mark's friendship with Fey? Can Dilya trust anyone? Who do you trust and how do you decide? |
| 5. Emily is paying a high price, being away from her family, for something she believes in. Did you ever neglect one thing to achieve another? How did you make the choice and what was the outcome? |
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Firehawks
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Pure Heat
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| 1. Steve Mercer had completely identified himself with what his body could do, rather than what he could do. Have you ever had this happen to you or someone you know? How did you/they get past it? |
| 2. In contrast, Carly's loss is internal (her father and her fiancé). She coped by disappearing into her work. What have you/others done when faced with a major loss or setback? |
| 3. As mentioned in the book, at the time of writing (2012), there were at least 20 known terrorist training camps on US soil. These were only the foreign camps. Today there are probably far more that most of us would call domestic terrorist training centers. Until they act, they are protected by the Bill of Rights. If you could redraft those rights, would you? And if so, how? |
| 4. Has anyone in your group experienced or volunteered to help during a natural disaster? What was it like, the good and the bad? |
| 5. Wildland firefighters are passionate about the forest. What was your favorite experience out in nature? What could you do to have another? |
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Full Blaze
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| 1. Cal has deep-seated trust issues; he trusts no one except himself. Jeannie chooses to step forward in trust. Are you the cautious type or do you plunge in? |
| 2. After years of risking his life and working outdoors, Cal is still ill-equipped to step into Jeannie's deep Outback. What is your "furthest out there" experience? Foraging? Camping wild? Hazardous climbs? How has that shaped how you approach new situations and who you are? |
| 3. Cal has lived a life with only short-term friendships. Jeannie's connection to Dale and Kalinda runs deep. Which do you tend to do and what are some of the reasons? |
| 4. Nations battle their neighbors for territory, security, resources, belief systems, and a myriad other things. If you were a nation, what would be your top 3 priorities about your region of the world? |
| 5. The golfers aiming at Jeannie's helicopter are being just plain stupid, mostly by not thinking first. Did you ever do anything like that as a kid? What did you learn from it--beyond not doing that again? |
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Hot Point
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| 1. Denise focuses on her failures rather than her successes. Instead of celebrating each achievement, she flogs herself with each failure. Do you or does someone you know do this? How do you/they work to turn this around? |
| 2. To the outside world, Vern projects a steady, confident man. Yet he is constantly struggling to hide his true feelings, from friends, his mother, and even himself. What do you think it is about Denise that unlocks that and lets Vern be his true self? |
| 3. Early on, Vern and Denise discover the odd connection of her love for Vern's Mom's music. And the man who taught Vern to fly wanting to introduce him to Denise a long time before. What's the strangest connection that ever happened to you? |
| 4. In the midst of Hot Point, Denise must face a career decision between two drastically different paths. Have you ever faced such a fork in the road? Who do you think you'd be now if you took the other path? |
| 5. Vern and Denise visit his home and the sociability of a community potluck. What do you do to bring that feeling into your own life? |
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Flash of Fire
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| 1. Robin Harrow has bought into a mythos about her family, the great matriarchal lineage. What are some of the myths you have embraced about your family or friends? Are they accurate? |
| 2. Mickey Hamilton is a womanizer, utterly convinced of his own charm, yet he reveals a very human, even vulnerable, side. Do you think this is realistic? Why or why not? |
| 3. Warriors put their lives on the line for their countries all the time. What price do you think they pay, especially in what it might do to their world view? |
| 4. Have you ever been near, seen, or experienced a wildfire? Or driven through the aftermath? Did it change how you think about nature? |
| 5. Read the bonus scene and revisit question 1. (I wrote that because I was curious to learn about Robin's mythos and its origins.) |
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Wild Fire
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| 1. Gordon Finchley was always glad to just be a team player. He makes an enormous transition after meeting Ripley. Discuss those changes. |
| 2. Have you ever had some one person or event drastically alter the course of your own life? Who and what happened? |
| 3. Gordon is something of a goofball and Ripley Vaughan is the queen of being practical. They should be oil and water, but they complement each other. Discuss similar relationships you've been in or seen. |
| 4. Have you ever suffered a major loss as the characters did with the burning of their camp? How did it change you? More or less: cautious, attached to belongings, connections to people... |
| 5. Have you ever gone caving or some equally off-the-beaten-track adventure? Talk about it and, if it did, how it altered your way of seeing things. |
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Wildfire at Dawn
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| 1. All of Akbar's "games" utterly fail with Laura. Have you ever had someone have that effect on you, where all of your usual conversational habits just don't seem to work? What was it about that person? |
| 2. Grayson is obsessively fixated on Laura. Without the obsessive part, have you ever had someone have that effect on you, where you just couldn't stop thinking about them? Any thoughts as to why? |
| 3. Laura has to be the calm center as the fire rages. Have you ever been in a high-stress situation? How did you react? |
| 4. Whether or not you've read the free bonus story (highly recommended) or the earlier books, or not, Akbar has a very fixed personality, until Laura utterly changes him. Yet he remains himself. It's as if his inside expression of self has changed drastically with only minor changes to the outside expression. Discuss this change and contrast. |
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Wildfire at Larch Creek
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| 1. This story was inspired by an old high school friend (long since out of touch). M. L. wanted to imagine a happy ending for her. Is there a past friend that you have nothing but good memories and better wishes for? Why? |
| 2. Tim is finally forced to see Macy in a new light, not just as an old friend. Have you ever had your view of a friend shifted like that, for either good or bad? How did that make you feel? |
| 3. Think about Tim's changes and read the Bonus story. Has your life ever detoured in unexpected ways? Talk about how they happened and what was the result? |
| 4. Tim has several dreams that he's forgotten about: home, writing, and family to name a few. Are there any dreams that you had when you were younger that slipped by the wayside? Is it too late to try one or two? Even a little? |
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Wildfire on the Skagit
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| 1. Krista's self-image and Evan's view of her are polar opposites. What have others told you about yourself that don't fit your self-image at all? How did those insights make you change your thinking? |
| 2. Mallory and Evan are both facing devastating loss. They eventually find different ways of facing those pasts and accepting rather than rejecting them. What is a loss you faced and how did you deal with it? |
| 3. Krista faces the loss of her home and memories. What is some place that you lost through moves, changes, or simply time? How has that affected you? |
| 4. Read the Bonus Story. Krista faces a drastic change in career. Have you? How did you navigate that? How would you navigate it differently knowing what you do now? |
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Delta Force
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Target Engaged
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| 1. Delta Force testing has one of the toughest testing "pipelines" of any military service. What's the toughest test you ever took? Did you think of yourself differently afterwards? |
| 2. Carla, Kyle, Chad, and Duane form an incredibly tight team because of the test. Have you ever had an experience that forced people together (perhaps a project or sport)? Discuss how the team did or didn't bond. |
| 3. Have you ever had or witnessed a workplace romance? How did it shift the dynamic? |
| 4. The US military has a strict policy against people in a relationship being in the same chain of command. It may be the most broken rule in the military as well, as these people are driven together by the very nature of teams. Do you think this is a good rule or a poor one? How would you handle it if you were in charge? |
| 5. Their team is assigned a deep undercover role in the War on Drugs. Some see cutting it off at the source as the answer, or breaking the transport chains. Others think it is convincing the end user to stop creating a demand. Where do you think the balance is and how would you approach it. |
| Bonus Question: Ever been on a submarine? What did it look / feel / sound like? |
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Kate Stark
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Final Taste
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| 1. Kate Stark's past won't leave her alone. Have you had a past job or person that kept circulating back into your life long after you were so done with it? How did you deal with that? |
| 2. Rikka is the loner/outsider. Her identity is wrapped up in who she was rather than who she is. How do you think her burgeoning friendship with Kate Stark will change that? |
| 3. Retired US Marine Sam Fierro never speaks. Yet he communicates. Have you had friends (most likely men) who were like that? How did you figure out what they were feeling? |
| 4. Kate versus Paul. She has a deep, deep passion: her love for cooking and nurturing chefs. Paul has no direction at all. Which are you? Or have you been both at different times in life? What's it like being or living with someone like one versus the other? |
| 5. Senior Captain Rang Jin-ho is a competent man made incredibly successful by the belief and passion of a woman, his wife Soo-yin. Do you know people who thrived because of the support of another? "Could never have done it without her/him?" What are ways to bring that support of absolute faith to others? |
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Ice Burn
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| 1. Kate Stark has to take on a task she feels grossly underqualified for, cooking for the G-7. Have you ever had to do something way outside your comfort zone? How did you get through it? |
| 2. Stephanie Bronson and Kate Stark came from very similar backgrounds, but ended up with very different attitudes towards life. Discuss what factors might have shaped them. Or is it nature vs. nurture? |
| 3. What the one young relationship (or missed relationship) that you most remember? How did it change who you became? |
| 4. In group dynamics, particularly teen dynamics, there are many types of bees: the Queen and King Bees who must be in control are perhaps the most destructive. Discuss ones that you knew and how you dealt with them. |
| 5. Paul wakes up naked in a trailer of racing sheep. What's the strangest thing that ever happened to you? |
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Knife's Edge
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| 1. Clara (and the author's wife) are very avid knitters. What hobby brings you the most contentment? |
| 2. Have you ever been on a cruise, do you ever want to? Why or why not? |
| 3. They say you can't pick your family and Savannah definitely finds that out. Yet Kate is creating a "found family" with Rikka. How have those two types of families flowed through your life? |
| 4. The Arctic terns of Iceland have a very distinct personality. What are the quirkiest animal stories you've got? |
| 5. Kate, Rikka, and Savannah are all forced to confront their past and choose their future. What were you forced to confront and how did you turn it into who you are today? |
