Tiffany McDaniel Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Tiffany McDaniel is a reputed American writer of literary fiction, magical realism, and contemporary stories. She is particularly famous for writing the standalone book called The Summer that Melted Everything. The success of this novel helped McDaniel win the Ohioana Library Reader’s Choice Award as well as The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize in 2016. Author McDaniel is a native of Ohio. She says that her writing is inspired by the buckeye woods and the rolling hills of her hometown. In addition to being a novelist, McDaniel is also a renowned artist and poet. She gained prominence in the world of writing after her debut novel won a few prestigious literary awards and was nominated for several others, including the Lillian Smith Award, the Goodreads Choice Award, and the Star Award by the Women’s Fiction Writers’ Association. McDaniel wishes to travel across the Atlantic on her Moby Dick and enjoy the cool breeze.

In her debut book, she has described the story of a man called Fielding Bliss, who looks back at the 1984 Ohio summer when his father had invited the devil to the town through an advertisement in the local newspaper. A small boy answers the invitation and arrives in overalls and bruises. The story goes on to take different twists and turns with the arrival of the boy. Shortly after the strange boy arrives, the town experiences a heat wave of the blazing sun. The burning flames engulf the entire community and burn down everything until things melt and drip between the fingers. Author McDaniel says that it is her characters that inspire her to write her stories. She sees her characters as real people and feels that they influence her to tell their stories as authentically as she can.

McDaniel feels her characters deserve their stories to be told truthfully. While the story of her first book is not taken from personal experiences, the setting is what makes it real. McDaniel has set the story in a fictional town called Breathed in Ohio. The landscape of this fictional town reflects her childhood summers and weekends that she has spent in southern Ohio. McDaniel is so much attached to the landscape that she feels the hills speak to her. The self-paced creeks, dirt-laid roads, front porch chats, southern twang, and wildflower song has helped to shape McDaniel into a writer. Author McDaniel believes she was destined to become a writer. She had in her genes to create stories and tell the world. The exposure she received at the early stage of her career only helped her cause.

McDaniel is grateful to her parents for supporting her interest and motivating her to pursue a career in the field of writing. McDaniel loves to read as well. She has read all kinds of books, including murder mysteries, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc. As a reader, she enjoys reading a story that makes her want to live. Some of her favorite authors include Donna Tartt, James Wright, Ray Bradbury, Toni Morrison, Markus Zusak, Kazuo Ishiguro, Agatha Christie, etc. The beautiful works of these prominent authors make her swing into infinity. When she is not busy writing her stories, McDaniel likes to do gardening, reading and watching her favorite movies and TV shows. As of now, McDaniel has finished writing eight novels and is currently working on her ninth novel. She is expected to release all these novels in the coming days in succession. McDaniel loves to interact with the readers. However, she is not available on any social media platforms. McDaniel interacts with her fans only through her personal website. She considers it very important to interact with the readers as it gives her a sense of what they like and writes her subsequent novels accordingly.

The debut book written by author Tiffany McDaniel is entitled ‘The Summer that Melted Everything’. It was released in 2016 by St Martin’s Press. The main characters featured in this novel include Autopsy Bliss, Fielding Bliss, Sal, and several others. This novel’s story revolves around Fielding Bliss, who remembers the heat wave of the summer of 1984 that had scorched his hometown of Breathed, Ohio and had got him acquainted with the devil. The book opens by depicting Autopsy Bliss as a local prosecutor. He is the father of Fielding Bliss. Autopsy Bliss puts out a weird advertisement in the local newspaper in which he invites the devil to come to his country town called Breathed, located in Ohio. No one had expected that anyone would turn up after reading the strange invitation. But, when a bruised and tattered 13-year-old boy arrives in the town and claims to be the devil Autopsy Bliss has invited, all the people of the town are left in great shock.

Fielding Bliss is the first one to come across the boy near the courthouse. He brings him to meet his family members, who welcome him warmly. The boy introduces himself as Sal and becomes well acquainted with the Bliss family. Fielding’s family members believe that Sal has run away from a nearby town and is riled by the extremely hot heat wave that baked the town from inside out. As the days pass by, the people of Breathed begin to believe that Sal is exactly the one who he claims to be and has come to destroy the town with the flames of a heat wave. There is a confusion in the minds of people regarding Sal, who are not able to decide whether is a traumatized kid of an incarnation of the devil.

One thing is pretty sure about him that he is as strange as anyone can get. Sal converses in riddles and possesses an uncanny understanding and knowledge that seems far outside the capacity of a normal kid. Also, the entire the town mesmerized by Sal’s eerily affecting stories about heaven and hell. This devastatingly beautiful story is a captivating take on community, dark places inhabited by evil, and redemption. It has been labeled as a must read by all the fans of literary fiction. The book has entertained a large number of readers in all the parts of the globe and has increased the popularity of author McDaniel to a great extent.