More sad news this week. Lesa Holstine noted the death of
Karen Harper, author of over 70 novels: romantic suspense, historicals, and mysteries, including
The South Shores Series, The Cold Creek Trilogy,
the Maplecreek Amish Trilogy, and many, many more. Her latest mystery that just became available today:
Deep in the Alaskan Woods. Her
British historicals (The Queen's Secret comes out in May), are wonderful, too, and it would be a tribute to Karen to start reading any and all of her novels. Karen Harper won the Mary Higgins Clark Award. According to author Connie Campbell Berry, Karen died recently of cancer.
Karen was a frequent contributor to the
Mystery Readers Journal with author essays appearing in the
Midwestern Mysteries issue (Spring 2017),
New York City II,
Gardening Mysteries;
Art Mysteries II; History Mysteries II, and several more. She will be missed.
My sympathy goes out to her family, friends, and fans at this sad time.
8 comments:
Sad news indeed. Her books sound intriguing.
I am so very sorry to hear this. Karen Harper was an amazing author and wonderful lady. Always kind with an encouraging word for other authors. She will be missed.
She was a loyal friend of Buckeye Crime Writers and a terrific role model for other authors.
She was a fantastic teacher as well, delivering many presentations to help the budding writer. I benefitted greatly from her work. I saw her at Christmas and sadly, didn't know of her illness.
I had known Karen since 1974 -- she was my high school English literature teacher for 2 years and she created and put on our high school's Elizabethan Festival. Karen and I had kept in touch (since I also became a writer for TV and film in LA), and we got together whenever I was back in Columbus for a visit. I am devastated to hear this news. She was an amazing writer, but an even more amazing person. She will be missed. My heart goes out to her family -- her husband, who was my high school principal, and her stepson who was my classmate. Very sad news.
Karen also wrote two wonderful columns for inSinC several years ago. She graciously offered them to help less experienced authors in on some writing secrets. Good bey to a generous author.
Known to me as Mrs. Powell, she was my senior English teacher and became my inspiration to pursue teaching English! We were excited to learn that she had been an instructor at Ohio State and I felt privileged to have such a special teacher in high school! My excitement turned out to be justified as she was the most sophisticated, learned teacher I had ever had. She never lost her cool ! She inspired my love for the written word even more, especially Shakespeare! She started the Elizabethan Fair that year and we ALL got involved enthusiastically, even the “not so smart” students whom she embraced with patience, humor, and kindness. She was the best! My heart felt condolences to her loved ones.
Karen Harper was my supervising teacher during my student teaching experience at the newly opened Westerville North High School from January-March of 1976. At that time, she was the English Department Chair and recently married Don. We team taught using a thematic approach in a pod situation. A few years later I visited Karen and Don at their home one summer where she shared with me her first manuscript. About 15 years ago, I reached out to Mira Books and was able to reconnect with her. Since I recently retired after 42 years of teaching, I resumed reading her books. When I went to order one of her books online, I was shocked to learn that she had passed away. My deepest sympathy to Don and her family. Karen Harper was the best role model that a future teacher could ever dream of being assigned! Her legacy lives on in her books!
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