Author Book Talks & Signing
The library is having three author events in February. C.J. Box, Jim Turner, and Rita Hanner-Ward will do book talks.
Jim Turner
Historian and author Jim Turner will do a book talk and signing. Rio Nuevo Publishers sold its business in 2025, so this may be Turner’s last book signing.
Date: Tuesday February 10
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Location: RHJ Lecture Hall
Doors open at 1:20 p.m. for residents and their guests with a valid Rec Card and at 2:00 p.m. for the general public.
Jim Turner rewrote parts of Native Roads in 2013.
He traveled to write The Mighty Colorado River from the Glaciers to the Gulf in 2016 and hit the road again for Crater Lake: Land of Fire and Ice the following year.
Then he wrote Four Corners USA and finally Arizona: A History of the Grand Canyon State in 2021. That book contains more historic pictures than any other Arizona history book.
Jim will be highlighting his favorite locations and telling stories from those wonderful road trips.
About the Author
Jim Turner earned his master’s in U.S. History at the University of Arizona and worked as Historian for the Arizona Historical Society for eight years where he worked with more than 70 local museums across the state. He retired and became an author/editor for Rio Nuevo publishers where he authored six books and co-authored or edited a dozen more. He is working on two more books and has produced self-guided audio tours of historic downtown Tucson, Tombstone, and Old Town Scottsdale for a GPS-directed app called VoiceMap.
Rita Hanner-Ward
Local Author Rita Hanner-Ward will be giving a book talk in the library.
Date: Tuesday February 17
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location: Library
Seating is limited; registration is required. Click below to register online or call the Data Resource Center at 623-544-6644.
About the Author
Rita Hanner‑Ward is a former museum curator and media contributor. Colorado‑raised and now based in Sun City West, Arizona, she brings a wide range of passions to her creative life. When she isn’t writing, she can be found volunteering with hospice, hand‑building with clay, or caring for her loyal companion, Zorro.
Writing as Kiva Wolfe, she debuted her novel Red Flash in 2006 and republished it independently in 2025, followed by its sequel, Tears of Iemanjá, in 2026. She is currently working on a new book slated for release later this year.
Her work extends beyond fiction into essays, media contributions, and poetry, where she explores themes of memory, grief, and redemption. The recent releases of Her Inconvenient Elegy: A Life in Fragments (2025) and Her Song of Sorrows: A Quiet Mourning in Verse (2026) mark significant milestones in her evolving and deeply resonant body of work.
C.J. Box
New York Times Bestselling Author C. J. Box will be back in Sun City West for a book talk and signing. His newest Joe Pickett book, The Crossroads will be available for purchase at the event from The Poisoned Pen Bookstore.
Date: Tuesday February 24
Time: 9:00 a.m.
Location: Kuentz Stardust Theatre
Doors will open at 8:15 a.m. for residents with a valid Rec Card and their guests and at 8:30 a.m. for the general public. Tickets are not required.
The Crossroads
Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett lies near death after a brutal ambush at a remote junction where three ranches meet—and every path leads to danger. As his wife and daughters race to uncover who shot him and left him for dead, they find themselves caught in a deadly web of greed, secrets, and betrayal that reaches far beyond their small town. It’s a literal and moral crossroads for every character—from corrupt ranchers to the Pickett daughters, who must decide how far they’ll go for justice.
Marybeth Pickett gets the call she’s always dreaded: Joe is in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head. He was found in his pickup at Antler Creek Junction, a crossroads connecting three ranches—each home to a dangerous family with a grudge against the local game warden. Marybeth and the new sheriff suspect one of them is responsible, but Joe never said where he was going—or why.
With Joe unconscious and fighting for his life, his daughters—Sheridan, April, and Lucy—take the lead, each investigating a different family. Their paths diverge across the rugged Wyoming landscape, forcing them to navigate danger in their own way and prove that grit runs deep in the Pickett family.
