A Whimsical Childhood And Grisly Murder: Two New Books Showcase Local Authors’ Talents

Two local authors who began writing after lengthy careers in visual fields have released their works — a series of children’s books and a gritty debut novel based on a true crime.

 After a 40-year career as an interior decorator, author Anita A. Caruso of Brewster began her training to become a writer by enrolling in classes — and therefore met “a wonderful group of aspiring authors.” After a couple of years, they formed a writers’ group that is still going strong. 

Her first published work was a memoir of finding love in a second marriage. “As Ever, Pudd,” was published in 2014.

Later, the décor in her young great-grandson Brayden’s bedroom inspired her to write children’s books. There were “stuffed animals everywhere. There was no room to walk. The walls were covered with burlap animals,” Caruso recalled in an email interview last week. “That’s when the idea for the first book came.”

 Caruso’s debut book for ages 3 to 7 is “Brayden’s Magical Jungle” (SDP Publishing, 2015). The whimsical book, illustrated by Randy Jennings, a freelance art illustrator based in California, won a Purple Dragonfly Book Award from Story Monsters Magazine, receiving honorable mentions and a third-place ranking.

 “The pictures are fabulous,” Caruso says. “They come right out at you.”

 In the book, 6-year-old Brayden lives on the top floor of his family’s house on Blueberry Lane. One day, Brayden explores the area beyond the empty field that his bedroom overlooks. After crawling through a hedge, he finds a pair of magic glasses. When he puts the glasses on, he enjoys an adventure in a jungle full of friendly wild animals. He arrives home safely for lunch.

 In the book’s sequel, “Brayden’s Magical Carousel Horse,” Brayden travels to Cape Cod. This time around his magic glasses transport him to a circus under a big top tent where he performs a trapeze routine. To date, Caruso has written five Brayden books. She is currently finishing her first chapter book for children ages 8 to 12.

 Caruso says her books invite her readers to “dream bigger, play more often and celebrate the magic all around each one of us.”

 Caruso’s books are available locally at Kid & Kaboodle Orleans and the Brewster Book Store.

 Caruso will read from and sign her books at the Harwich Cranberry Festival in Brooks Park on Saturday, Aug. 9 and Sunday, Aug. 10; the Kill Tide Arts and Craft Festival at Drummer Boy Park in Brewster on Saturday, Aug. 23 and Sunday, Aug. 24; the Harwich Cranberry Festival at the Harwich Community Center on Saturday, Sept. 13 and Sunday, Sept. 14; A Different Drummer Holiday Craft Fair at Monomoy Regional High School in Harwich on Saturday, Nov. 1; and at the Holiday Craft Fair at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich on Saturday, Nov. 8 and Sunday, Nov. 9.

 C.M.P. Kimball of Harwich trained and worked as an artist. Her debut novel “Fabrication: Murder is Real” (Kimball Productions, 2025) has a fascinating backstory. One day Kimball was driving to Logan International Airport to pick up one of her daughters when she spotted a group of baggage handlers driving a fancy car. She asked herself: What if they got rich from stealing luggage? And what if the beat-up car tailing them was out for revenge?

 Interestingly, Kimball discovered that, in fact, a woman who worked at Logan had been murdered. Combining her imagination with the facts of the case, Kimball calls this novel a work of “faction.”

 “I fabricated my story from facts, speculation, imagination and fiction,” she says. “I wove a story together; threads up and down are the facts, threads back and forth are fiction. The book is fiction.”

 These are the facts: In 1992, Susan Taraskiewicz, a ramp crew chief at Logan, was found beaten and stabbed to death. Her body was stuffed into the trunk of a car left outside an auto repair shop in Revere. To this day, the crime remains unsolved. For many years Taraskiewicz’s mother Marlene stood outside Logan Airport on the anniversary of her daughter’s death holding up a hand-made sign and asking people for information on her daughter’s murder.

 The story got under Kimball’s skin. “I became haunted to write this book,” she says.

 It was Marlene Taraskiewicz and her determination to find her daughter’s killer who specifically got under Kimball’s skin. Kimball is herself a mother of four daughters.

 “I found complicated court papers,” she says. “I read of multi-level law enforcement task force after task force gathering information and reviewing evidence but no arrests, no closure. An open wound.”

 In her novel, we follow an aspiring writer named Danielle Campbell who researches and writes a speculative true crime story based on the real story of Susan Taraskiewicz’s murder. Some sections are written from the point of view of the thugs who may have had a hand in Taraskiewicz’s death.

 “A sliver of hope is that any part of the story could have someone come forward with new information,” Kimball says. She describes the murder as “cruel and heartbreaking for the family left behind.”

 “Fabrication: Murder is Real” is available locally at Where the Sidewalk Ends and Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham, Below the Brine Bookshop in Harwich Port, and Brewster Book Store.