SAGATHRILLER
Meat Cove combines saga and thriller via Fundy's lurid diary, which appears between each chapter, forming a tale within a tale. As Fundy's grim memories slowly come back to life, her past and present collide in a riveting conclusion worthy of the first sagathriller.
Date Published: January 22, 2026
Publisher: Seacoast Press
As local disturbances and international tensions escalate around a NATO conference in Halifax, Fundy must leave her safe lane and resurrect an implacable past. Generational love story meets geopolitical suspense in a SAGA THRILLER barreling across the North Atlantic.
Introduce yourself and tell me about what you do.
JW: I am a concert pianist who has written 9 novels. Or I am a novelist who plays piano concerts all over the world. I grew up Ridgewood, NJ, near NYC, and was considered a child prodigy, performing my orchestral debut at New York Town Hall when I was about ten. Over the course of my musical career, I have performed at the White House and Carnegie Hall, have appeared with the Boston Pops and leading American orchestras, have made ten recordings featuring esoteric virtuosic repertoire, and was a member of the piano faculty at Boston Conservatory before leaving to devote more time to writing.
I must usually drop the writing when I've got a lot of concerts, which is why I can only lay one literary egg every three or so years. Fortunately, that is accelerating as I dial down the performing (been there, done that) and ramp up the writing (ten more books yet to write).
I currently divide my time between two fishing villages in Massachusetts and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
Tell me more about your journey as an author, including the writing process.
JW: My first literary endeavors were school plays and short stories. Three disastrous years at a conservatory begat my first novel, an 800-page satiric fantasy about life at a conservatory (duh). Fate channeled that tome to a brilliant agent, Nicholas Ellison, whose eyes must have glazed over after twenty pages, but who kindly suggested I write something more accessible to the average human.
I responded with The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway, a wisecracking, torrid novel about a lusty composer of hymns. Eva became a Book of the Month Club selection and has been optioned three times for film.
Six books followed: Customs Violation, a sendup of the early days of women's lib; Frost the Fiddler, a thriller with a concert violinist moonlighting as spy; Devil's Food, a dark tale of marital distrust; Hot Ticket, second novel in the Frost series; School of Fortune, which I co-authored with Amanda Brown, creator of Legally Blonde; and Swing Set a literary bagatelle about...swinging.
My writing has been praised for its verbal virtuosity, wry wit, and emotional intensity. I could send specific reviews if you would like.
Writing process?
JW: Start early, stop when brain fries. That could be supper time. The first draft is always the hardest. I try to build on an outline driven by the story arc and finally realize that producing one lousy paragraph means I've had a good day. Books simply accrete.
Janice Weber grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey and graduated summa cum laude from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
At the time of her Carnegie Recital Hall debut at age nine, she was writing her first short stories. She has continued both pursuits, with her novels providing counterpoint to the staid world of a concert pianist, or perhaps with her recitals offsetting the staid world of a writer.
Janice’s novels have a worldwide following. Her debut, The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway, enjoys near cult status and is widely recognized as iconic Chick Lit – though appearing years before the genre was invented. Its colorful characters, verbal virtuosity, wit, and sensuality established the hallmarks of a style that has earned Weber comparison with Mark Twain, Fran Liebowitz, Harold Pinter, and Robert Ludlum (if such a hybrid can be imagined).
Janice’s novels happen between (and occasionally during) concerts. Music on some level infiltrates almost every book: Eva Hathaway writes hymns between trysts, Floyd Beck met the love of his life at Carnegie Hall, Leslie Frost is a concert violinist, and Ross Major listens to Beethoven when the going gets rough. Characters without music in their lives fill the void with swinging, murder, and treason, activities musicians tend to eschew since this would detract from practice time.
Janice divides her time between fishing villages in Massachusetts and Cape Breton.
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