Tuesday, March 23, 2010

What is Kristin Harmel reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Kristin Harmel, author of After and other novels.

Her entry begins:
I just finished reading A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents, by Liza Palmer, a fabulous writer who also happens to be a great friend of mine. It was an absolutely tremendous book. It was a beautifully realistic look at family relationships, which I think are very under-explored in women's fiction. We spend so much time focusing on friends, career, romantic relationships, etc., that I think sometimes we forget to delve deeply enough into the first important relationships of our lives-- those with our parents and siblings. Liza does this masterfully in a novel about four siblings whose mother died five years ago and who are now coming to terms with the loss of their father -- who left them two decades earlier -- on his deathbed. Her novel explores not just those family relationships, but how they impact everything -- from work to friendship to love. It really made me think. And honestly, I was crying...[read on]
Kristin Harmel's first five novels, How to Sleep with a Movie Star, The Blonde Theory, The Art of French Kissing, When You Wish, and Italian For Beginners have been translated into numerous languages and are sold all around the world.

Among the early praise for After:
"[After's] lessons about family, friendship, loss, and the enduring power of love should stick with readers."
--Publishers Weekly

"The various reactions to grief depicted are real and can serve as a guide for other teen survivors and the adults in their lives...[a] heartfelt story."
--Kirkus Reviews
Visit Kristin Harmel's website.

Writers Read: Kristin Harmel.

--Marshal Zeringue