Laura Powell's "Witch Fire"

Laura Powell grew up in the Brecon Beacons and spent most of her childhood with her nose in a book. She went on to study classics at Bristol and Oxford, then spent five years working in the editorial departments of both adult and children's publishers. She now lives in West London.

Here Powell dreamcasts a big screen adaptation of her new novel, Witch Fire:

Witch Fire, like its predecessor Burn Mark, gives the crime thriller genre a fantasy twist by putting witches into the mix. The plot moves from London to a secret boarding school in Switzerland to a corrupt South American Republic, so it’s pretty action-packed. Sam Mendes did a great job on Bond so he’d be my top choice for director.

My hero, Lucas, comes from a long line of inquisitors and is struggling to reconcile his powers as a witch with his family’s status as famous witch-hunters. Skander Keynes, who played Edmund in The Chronicles of Narnia films, is now too old for the part, but he’d convey the right mix of posh-boy arrogance, charm and vulnerability. A young Billie Piper would be great as my heroine Glory, the trailer-trash witch girl with criminal ambitions.

Lucas’s dad, the formidable Chief Prosecutor for the Inquisition, would have to be Jason Isaacs, partly because I’ve got a crush on him. Plus he’s got the right icy blue stare.

Speaking of cold stares … I imagine Troy Morgan, the reluctant heir to a mafia-style coven, as looking like a red-headed version of Benedict Cumberbatch, and would cast Eddie Redmayne as the inquisitor Gideon Hale. Eddie’s good-looking but I also think he’s got what it takes to play a convincing psychopath. And I’d pick Rachel Hurd-Wood, the English actress and model, to play the beautiful and enigmatic Rose Merle.

Since Witch Fire has a large and varied cast – spies, mobsters, witch-hunters, party girls and politicians – I would insist on having a cameo role myself. Perhaps I’d pop up as one of the patrons in the seedy Carabosse Club, where Glory gets a job turning magic tricks for tips. Or else I’d like to appear as a kick-ass inquisitor, hunting witches through the South American jungle…

Read more about the book and author at Laura Powell's website.

Learn about Laura Powell's top ten heroes in disguise.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter von Ziegesar's "The Looking Glass Brother"

Peter von Ziegesar is a New York-based filmmaker and screenwriter. He has written articles, essays and reviews on film and art for many national publications, including DoubleTake, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, and Art in America. His short fiction won a PEN Syndicated Fiction Prize. His work as a film and multimedia artist has received national attention, including a solo exhibition at the Hirschhorn Museum of Art in Washington, D.C. He lives in New York City.

Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of his new memoir, The Looking Glass Brother:

Casting The Looking Glass Brother would present some problems if it were turned into movie, because there are several sizes of everyone, for example myself at ten years old, then seventeen, then forty. Laying that aside, most of the action takes place around the turn of the century. I put the question out at the dinner table tonight of who would play me and got an interesting answer: Ewan McGregor. At forty-two he’s the right age to play me at the start of the book, but infinitely too handsome, I thought. Just for the nose I personally chose Adrien Brody, but got outvoted. Then my wife came up with the excellent idea of Aaron Eckhart, who not only looks a bit like me, but as an actor could handle all the conflicts I go through in the memoir: beginning a family, the sudden reappearance of a homeless schizophrenic stepbrother, propping up a faltering writing career, and trying to escape the weight of an uber-waspy childhood that included some suicides of close family members.

My homeless stepbrother Little Peter can be both eloquent and crude, childlike and wise, calm and crazed and can also change his appearance from extremely scruffy to rather good-looking. Joaquin Phoenix could play all those extremes and more.

As for my wife, who’s Korean-American, Sandra Oh, who has great depth and serious Korean soul, would be perfect to play her as she is today, but my wife at 29? A bit of a stretch. Perhaps Esther Chae, who’s a smart up-and-coming young actress who went to Yale Drama School and is making numerous TV appearances these days.

The plumb role in the film would have to be my father, Franz, who was irascible and self-centered most of the time, and also rather cutting, but could focus himself in a second to say something profound and warm. He was something of a clown as well. As a kid I always thought he looked a bit like Humphrey Bogart. But for me casting my father at seventy is a no-brainer. Robert De Niro has already distinguished himself playing a bipolar father in Being Flynn, and the ADHD father of a bipolar son in Silver Linings Playbook. He is the nearest thing we have to a Humphrey Bogart in the twenty-first century would be excellent in the role.

Finally, there’s my grandmother, Frances, who makes a brief but memorable appearance in the book when she’s about 60. She came from a patrician family, but was also a great raconteur, far from the Long Island lockjaw type. We immediately thought of the brilliant Jessica Walter of Arrested Development, who has some of my grandmother’s irreverence and wit.

Learn more about the book and author at Peter von Ziegesar's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleanor Kuhns's "Death of a Dyer"

In Death of a Dyer, Eleanor Kuhns's second Will Rees mystery,

Will Rees feels at home. It’s been a long time since he last felt this way—not since before his wife died years ago and he took to the road as a traveling weaver. Now, in 1796, Rees is back on his Maine farm, living with his teenaged son, David, and his housekeeper, Lydia—whose presence contributes more towards his happiness than he’s ready to admit. But his domestic bliss is shattered the morning a visitor brings news of an old friend’s murder.

Here the author shares some ideas for casting the leads in an adaptation of the novel:

If Death of a Dyer were made into a movie? (Something I would love!)

Scarlett Johansson for Lydia, I think. She can carry off red hair and she plays many of her parts with a sweetness and a feistyness that is appropriate for Lydia.

Sean Bean (Boromir in Lord of the Rings for Rees). He is a little old but he has the look.

Learn more about the book and author at Eleanor Kuhns's blog and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue

Susan Dennard's "Something Strange and Deadly"

Susan Dennard is a reader, writer, lover of animals, and eater of cookies. She used to be a marine biologist, but now she writes novels. And not novels about fish either, but novels about kick-butt heroines and swoon-worthy rogues. (She really likes swoon-worthy rogues).

Dennard's novels are Something Strange and Deadly and its sequel, A Darkness Strange and Lovely.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of Something Strange and Deadly:

If the Ambiguous They ever make Something Strange and Deadly into a movie, I can tell you exactly who I'd want to play my characters. Admittedly, these actors are all a bit older than their characters, but that's pretty typical...right? (Plus, it'd be creepy if I was eyeing teenagers. I am almost 30, after all.)

When I was crafting Daniel Sheridan, I very vividly imagined him as Max Irons (Red Riding Hood, The Host). His cocky grin, unruly blond hair, and lanky frame just screamed "Daniel" to me. I still think--in terms of looks and acting--he'd be perfect as my short-tempered inventor.

Joseph Boyer wasn't someone I had an actor in mind for...but then I saw the film The Adjustment Bureau. The instant Anthony Mackie walked on the screen, I was like, "Him!!" He's just so suave, so good-looking, and so perfect for Misyeu Boyer!

For Jie, I also had a very particular idea of what she looked like...and no actress quite fit the part. Until I saw the TV show Awkward (which is so good, by the way!). Jessica Lu has just the right amount of spunk, spark, and snark. I think she would be perfect as my Chinese tomboy.

And this brings me to Eleanor Fitt. My heroine; the character that--above all--has to be perfectly portrayed. But who to do it? I have to admit I haven't yet discovered a single actress (or even person) who seems to be exactly like the vision in my head. But, I do think there are two actresses that might pull off this zombie-beating, high-society gal: Rachel Hurd-Wood (Dorian Gray) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland).

They'd both need to gain a bit of weight for the role--Eleanor's a curvy girl!--and they'd definitely need long, light hair. But I think their skin coloring and their acting skills would do well for my leading lady.

As for a director, how about Tim Burton? Just kidding! (Though I think he'd make the series brilliantly dark and wacky.) I have to say I really don't know many directors, but I would think--if my book ever even made it far enough to reach "choosing a director" status, that I'd be quite pleased with whoever came onboard. The important thing is that the director--and cast--love the story and be willing to tell it properly.

Thank you so much for hosting me! And I hope you all enjoy Something Strange and Deadly: The Movie--you know, if it ever actually makes it to the big screen.

Learn more about the book and author at Susan Dennard's website, blog, and Facebook page.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Susan Dennard & Asimov and Leia.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Housewright's "The Last Kind Word"

David Housewright is the Edgar Award and three-time Minnesota Book Award-winning author of the Rushmore McKenzie and Holland Taylor novels as well as other tales of murder and mayhem in the Midwest.

Here he shares some suggestions for casting an adaptation of The Last Kind Word, the 10th of his Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie novels:

Truth is, I’ve never given much thought to which actors I would want to play the major parts if my books were to be made into movies. But my fans have. I asked the question on my social media outlets and was quite surprised by the responses I received.

For Nina Truhler, I was given names of actors including Jennifer Connelly (my favorite), Cobie Smulders, Stana Katic, Claire Forlani, Marg Helgenberger, Mary Steenburgen, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Barbara Stanwyck (if only). Yet few of my readers seemed to have a handle on McKenzie (throwing out the names Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise doesn’t count). Some readers said they imagine me in the part even though we’ve never met and all they know about my appearance is from the photo of the dust jacket.

If wonder if it’s because while I have described Nina in some detail, I’ve never described McKenzie - not his hair, the color of his eyes, or even how tall he is.

Readers create a picture in their mind of what characters in their favorite books look like (sometimes ignoring of the actual descriptions) and will not be happy when the actor doesn’t measure up to the image. Remember the uproar when the comparatively diminutive Cruise player Lee Child’s Jack Reacher? Come to think of it, my wife has never forgiven Cruise for playing the vampire Lestat in Interview with the Vampire. As far as she’s concerned, that part belonged to Daniel Day Lewis.

Learn more about the book and author at David Housewright's website and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue

Simon Toyne's "The Tower"

Simon Toyne has worked in British television for twenty years. He was the writer, director, and producer for several award-winning shows, one of which won a BAFTA. He lives in England with his wife and family.

Sanctus, the first book of Toyne's Sanctus trilogy, has been published in over 50 countries and translated into 28 languages. In the UK it was the biggest selling debut thriller of 2011. The Key, book two of the trilogy, sold twice as many copies as Sanctus in the same period. The Tower, the third volume of the trilogy, is now out in the US.

Here Toyne dreamcasts an adaptation of The Tower:

I read somewhere that the act of fantasy casting the movie of your own book is known as ‘casturbation’ – so I guess this is as good a moment as any to confess that I casturbate - a lot. I come from a TV background and find that visualising everything really helps me write. As a result I spend probably far too long drawing up character documents littered with images of people to help me get a handle on what they look like.

In The Tower a high level FBI investigation runs through the book and the two agents, Shepherd and Franklin, are like black and white, coming from two entirely different perspectives so I cast them in my mind as different physical types to help visualise that division. Shepherd is younger, more cerebral, uncertain of himself, wiry and intense and I always imagined Sam Rockwell playing him with the same kind of off-kilter intelligence he brings to most things, but particularly Moon. His older partner is physically more imposing and more comfortable with himself. He’s from the south so has an old style courtesy about him and slow charm. I imagined Phillip Seymour Hoffman nailing it, but then I can imagine him nailing most things. I also liked the blonde and dark haired contrast these two actors brought to the picture.

Returning characters from the first two books include Liv Adamsen, who is an investigative journalist from New Jersey who I still refer to as my Jodie Foster character in that she is resourceful, vulnerable but also very brave. When I ‘cast’ Sanctus I said I saw her as Emily Blunt with blonde hair and that hasn’t really changed, although I think Natalie Portman would also be very interesting (with blonde hair, of course).

Last time out I said the hero, Gabriel - ex-US special forces superman – could be played by either Jake Gyllenhaal or a young John Cusack, circa Grosse Pointe Blank. Since then I’ve seen Jake in Source Code and think he’s now edged it. Besides, John Cusack is even older now – but then aren’t we all?

Learn more about the book and author at Simon Toyne's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Tower.

Writers Read: Simon Toyne.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tara Ison's "Rockaway"

Tara Ison is the author of the novels The List, A Child out of Alcatraz, a Finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Rockaway, as well as the short story collection Ball.

Here Ison shares some ideas for the leads in an adaptation of Rockaway:

The two main characters of Rockaway are Sarah and Marty.

Sarah is a 30-something, neurotic, nervous, drifting, single, struggling artist kind of gal, borderline alcoholic, borderline Jewish, attractive enough for whatever, conflicted over her responsibility to her aging, consuming parents, questioning all the choices she's made in life, feeling desperate and trapped, wondering if it's too late to start over. The story is, in a way, a delayed coming-of-age novel. She's not the most endearing character, actually - too brittle and high-maintenance, too in-denial about so much - so an actress playing her needs some warmth. I can't really "see" Sarah from the outside, so it's hard to picture a face for her; I had to brainstorm:

Anna Paquin: not quite right, but the Sookie mania works

Anne Hathaway: too beautiful, but I am always pro-Hathaway

Chloe Sevigny: too harsh

Emily Blunt: this could work - brittle but vulnerable

Jennifer Carpenter: is she the most divisive actress ever?

Kate Mara: too waif

Maggie Gyllenhaal: I could see this - I could see her do anything

Natalie Portman: too doe-eyed

Reese Witherspoon: too Gentile

Rosemarie DeWitt: should be top of the list, perhaps!

Jennifer Connelly: waaay too beautiful, also too chilly

Jennifer Westfeldt: too nuts, even for Sarah

Winona Ryder: a bit too old, too fragile?

Young Diane Keaton: yes, please!

But one absolute rule: No Zooey Deschanel.

Marty is a late-fifty-something, once semi-famous doo wop musician, tall, still handsome, very invested in rediscovering his Jewish faith and identity. A whiff of Catskills comic, some musician groove, some sex appeal, some annoying faux-spirituality, so very Jewish, very Brooklyn, very charismatic but totally opaque.

I always pictured Richard Lewis, post-Anything But Love era. But also:

Paul Reiser: not tall enough...but maybe I'm just being a height-whore

Jon Stewart: if he were an actor

Alan Arkin: too old, but he's Alan Arkin.

Jeff Goldblum: because he's Jeff Goldblum

Richard Belzer: a little too weird, but...,

Albert Brooks: post-Broadcast News era

Larry David: too cranky

Neil Diamond: the musician thing, yes

Robert Klein: getting very close

Harold Ramis: he is so dear

Peter Riegert: not tall enough, but...

Ron Silver: always intrigued me

David Steinberg: again, getting close

Henry Winkler: ultimate mensch, probably too likeable

Elliott Gould: because he's Elliott Gould - but too goofy?

Ron Rifkin: like Ron Silver, intriguing

And...not an actor, but: Larry Seidlin. This guy was the judge for the Anna Nicole Smith fiasco - and turned out he loved the camera, and he was showing up on every news show for months, blathering away. First time I ever heard his voice - and saw the way he used his hands, very expressive - I thought: Yup, that's Marty.

Visit Tara Ison's website.

The Page 69 Test: Tara Ison's The List.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sally Koslow's "The Widow Waltz"

Sally Koslow, who was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota, is the former editor in chief of McCall’s magazine. Married and the mother of two sons, she lives in New York City.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, The Widow Waltz:

The Widow Waltz may be a novel, but I picture it as if it were cinema in the tradition of Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give or It’s Complicated. (Does anyone have Nancy’s email?)

The story is set in photogenic locations, Manhattan and East Hampton, with a heroine who searches for the truth beneath her dead husband’s betrayal. It’s a hopeful tale of not just a mother but two daughters, as well--all three pampered ladies need to grow up. Reinvention, humor, intrigue, midlife romance, dementia, jewelry, Twitter and gardening: these are the ingredients.

The star of the novel is the widow Waltz, Georgia. Given to self-deprecation, Georgia describes herself as “no longer a glorious bloom in the ecosystem” and “pleased that I am not like many of my friends, overly proud of ropy, hard-won bodies mismatched to faces that may as well display logos advertising cosmetic surgeons and dermatologists.” She remains much like she was in college, with “teacup breasts, round and high, which was enough, this being decades before implants inflated bosoms and expectations” and she is still a beauty, albeit with a crow’s foot or two and spider veins. Georgia hasn’t “gone aggressively blonde. Her hair (is) the color of clover honey, almost the brown of years ago…. a near-sighted nurse once measured her as five-five, and forever after Georgia has respected this mistake.” For the role of Georgia Waltz, I give you Vera Farmiga, Naomi Watts or Sandra Bullock.

Georgia’s older daughter, Nicola, is adopted from Korea. She’s reserved and elegant, with silky long black hair and “hips and arms, skinny as spaghetti but as toned a fifteen year old boy’s.” I’m seeing Jamie Chung, who got her start in reality TV and has branched out into movies. Remember her in The Hangover Part II? Nicola’s younger sister Luey is their parents’ biological child and has inherited her mother’s shape and face. Her lips are full and pouty. Depending on who is cast for Georgia, I could imagine the incomparable Jennifer Lawrence, because I could imagine her in anything, as well as Emma Watson or Elizabeth Olsen, who I loved in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Luey is a pisser; she would be fun to play.

We don’t see much of Ben Silver, Georgia’s husband, who dies in the prologue of a massive coronary, though “he was a study in egg-white omelets and soy.” Ben has salt-and-pepper-hair, blue eyes and long legs—he's a runner, who goes down training for the New York marathon. Paging George Clooney, who has proven chemistry with, well, anyone. Should George be unavailable, Viggo Mortensen would work for a devil like Ben. Yet another idea: Hugh Jackman. Give the guy a break and let him play sexy.

Camille Waltz, Georgia’s mother, fixates on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. I would cast Jaclyn Smith. Camille, who has Alzheimer’s, has lost her filter, and spits out zingers. Sweet Jaclyn could let loose lot with this role.

Stephan Waltz, Georgia older brother, is an Anglophile given to quoting Oscar Wilde. He has Georgia’s eyes—“almond shape, charcoal, deep set.” Who better than Rupert Everett, who is an Oscar doppelgänger? Although Stephan is from Philadelphia, Rupert need not tone down his posh speech. Stephan is affected enough to have a faux-Brit accent.

Casting Daniel Russianoff, Stephan’s lover and Georgia friend, is hard, because most handsome actors are thin, and I imagined the character with “bulk rendered elegant by the fine tailoring of his tweed jacket woven in the grays of cobblestones.” He has “black-haired with a closely trimmed beard and mustache…. broad shoulders and stands only a few inches taller than (Georgia,)” with dark curls that “tumble over his forehead and collar. His nose is a beautiful bumpy beak.” I could see Michael Imperioli if he grew a beard and ate a lot of lasagna or a newcomer the casting agent discovers shopping at Paul Smith.

Nat Ross, Georgia’s book store owner beau, is “rumpled, in cords with shaggy salt-and-pepper hair and the sort of thick, black glasses (she) associates with serial killers.” Greg Kinnear or Bill Pullman, come on down.

Last, we meet Naomi McCann, “all confidence and command. She has a symmetrical beauty-queen face that speaks of time on a sailboat and no use for sunscreen. Her hair is pushed back with a headband, though there’s nothing Junior League about her. She’d be the last woman to wear pastels. You’d elect her foreman of the jury or captain of the rugby team.” Hello,  Robin Wright or Maria Bello. Either tough cookie could run walk away with the part.

Now that casting of The Widow Waltz is complete, all we need is financing.

Learn more about the book and author at Sally Koslow's website and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael Pocalyko's "The Navigator"

Michael Pocalyko is an investment banker, CEO of Monticello Capital. His novel The Navigator, published on June 11 by Forge Books, is a financial thriller with the tagline “Wall Street Comes to Washington.”

“It’s a book,” he writes, “that crosses a whole lot of boundaries, deals with up-to-the-minute political anxieties, and addresses some major issues like the confluence of big business, big data, big government, and big regulation.”

And it has a lot of great characters. Here Pocalyko plays casting director in Old Hollywood:

I wrote The Navigator to be a terrifically cinematic book. The best thing about this novel is that there are not only three great main characters with depth and verve, but a rich supporting cast too.

These are magnificent roles for ten or more of our greatest actors today ... several of whom have recently been approached about The Navigator. That’s why I am dreamcasting historically. I also think it’s much more intellectual fun doing it that way.

Warren Hunter is a brilliant investment banker, the reigning master of the universe on Wall Street, a man of intellect, control, intensity, and overwhelming drive. Princeton, Harvard Business School, astonishing success and wealth even before he’s forty. And he’s coming apart inside. He’s the twenty-first century version of Jack Lemmon in about 1957, his Playhouse 90 years.

Rick Yeager is more complicated a guy who’s stumbled around with varying degrees of success and failure on the finance end of the high-tech world centered in Washington DC. All of the action in the thriller revolves around him as his world falls apart. He’s like Fred MacMurray in his Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges years, the wonderful American Everyman that he played before we pegged him as Steve Douglas, the Dad in My Three Sons. Rick is in every way the personal and acting complement to Warren—a wonderful part.

Julia Toussaint is bright, marvelous, gorgeous, and the moral center of The Navigator. She is a U.S. Senate legislative aide, and her role requires a psychological centeredness, restraint, and evident elegant and understated style. A young professional African American woman making her way in Obama administration Washington, she’s Dorothy Dandridge at Julia’s age, thirty-three.

Dutch, in his eighties, is a deeply troubled man confronting Alzheimer’s when his past unexpectedly intrudes upon his twilight. Hume Cronyn in his late prime.

Lauren Barr is amazingly strong and straightforward, the kind of woman who is compellingly appealing but you don’t know quite why. Myrna Loy as Nora Charles, only with a modern litigator’s personality, and even more mysterious and daring.

Horvath is a rational, incredibly competent bad guy, an old Cold Warrior and spy, a thinking man who is anything but a thug as he goes about his thuggery. Jack Palance with a Hungarian accent.

A mysterious older man, tall, thin, athletic ... nope, no spoilers here ... he is crucial to the plot of The Navigator, and if James Stewart played against type (as he sometime did), he’d be perfect.

U.S. Senator Tenley Harbison is hot, sixty, a former Ford model, ambitious, politically astute, and as driven in her own way as Warren Hunter is in his. She’s the über-modern version of Barbara Stanwyck or Maureen O’Hara.

Lois Carneccio is tough, determined, a Washington dealmaker, a money mover and kind of a lobbyist too.  Honor Blackman playing unapologetic northern New Jersey style, more Carmela than Snooki.

Every small universe has its rock stars, and in high-tech America, that part of it that’s in northern Virginia Beltway land, he’s Sanford Tuttle. Walter Pidgeon or William Holden in their character actor modes.

Learn more about the book and author at Michael Pocalyko’s website and Facebook page. You can also see the author act in the video trailer to The Navigator.

The Page 69 Test: The Navigator.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jennifer Zobair's "Painted Hands"

Jennifer Zobair grew up in Iowa and attended Smith College and Georgetown Law School. She has practiced corporate and immigration law and as a convert to Islam, has been a strong advocate for Muslim women's rights. Zobair lives with her husband and three children outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Here Zobair dreamcasts an adaptation of Painted Hands, her first novel:

Whenever people talk about Painted Hands as a movie, it’s clear that Zainab is the first character everyone wants to cast. She’s this brilliant, gorgeous, sharp-tongued political campaign staffer of Indian and Pakistani descent, and my agent and I both agree that Archie Panjabi from The Good Wife and Bend It Like Beckham would make a very fabulous Zainab. Panjabi is poised and smart and beautiful, and seems so comfortable in her own skin. She reminds me quite a bit of Zainab.

Zainab’s best friend, Amra, is a lawyer, and as you might expect, a little more reserved and diplomatic. I think Parminder Nagra, also from Bend It Like Beckham and ER, would be perfect—attractive with sort of that “nice girl” vibe. Amra’s love interest in the book is Mateen, and I have her refer to his “Shahid Kapoor good looks,” so really, I think it would only be right for Kapoor (of Bollywood fame) to play him.

Amra’s colleague, Hayden, struggles with body image issues and relationships with men, and eventually dabbles in fundamentalist Islam (where “dabbles in” means “sort of loses herself because of a guy”). She’s blond and pretty and troubled, and after seeing Silver Linings Playbook, I think  Jennifer Lawrence would be a perfect Hayden.

That brings us to Chase, the thirty-something, right wing talk radio host who publicly attacks Zainab for her Muslim background, but privately is ridiculously, madly infatuated with her. The first time she meets him, Zainab notes that he is “good looking for a white boy.” He’s smart and politically opportunistic. Also, he has a girlfriend. Despite these questionable qualities, he also has this very playful sense of humor and genuine caregiving capacity. So I’m going to go with James Marsden from 27 Dresses. I think he could capture both the unsavory aspects of Chase’s persona and the good nature that lurks beneath all that.

It would be incredible to have A.R. Rahman score the movie, but there’d better be some Pearl Jam somewhere in there, just to make the author of the novel smile.

Learn more about the book and author at Jennifer Zobair's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Painted Hands.

--Marshal Zeringue