Good morning, everyone! Did you have a great weekend? We did… Sigh… Will had a dental course/birthday celebration at The Umstead (which I was telling you about last week!) our favorite escape and getaway, only an hour away in Cary. After four days of being pampered at the spa, eating the most amazing food, and getting to write for hours on end (my favorite thing on earth!) getting back to reality has been a little rough! But, of course, it was so great to see little Will that it made coming home again fun.
One of my favorite parts of the weekend was going to Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh and getting to meet the incredible Kristin Hannah. She has been a favorite author and inspiration of mine for years and years now. And, this is so cool: one of the people working at the bookstore pointed out that she’s Kristin Hannah and I’m Kristin Harvey! Even though I go by Kristy, we’ll get to be beside each other on the bookshelf. Amazing!
I read an article about her years ago and how she writes her books longhand–on the beach in Hawaii a lot of the time! How fabulous is that? That hasn’t changed, she confirmed, which I absolutely can’t imagine. I love to type and am so much faster at it than writing that I can’t even fathom doing that. But I think that she does makes her even more amazing.
It was so neat to me to hear that she wrote her first novel when she was pregnant and sold her first one when her son was three, which is so similar to my publication story. Maybe there’s something about all of those pregnancy hormones that makes you ready for a life change! Fingers crossed that I’ll be talking to you about my twenty-something novel one day too! She is so poised and beautiful and hysterically funny that I think the hundreds of us that had our books signed left feeling like we had a new friend. (And I got to meet some fun new friends there too!)
I know that The Nightingale is all over the place right now, so there’s no doubt that you’ve heard of it. But if you’re wondering if it lives up to the hype, it does. It sounded like this was definitely a labor of love for Kristin, a book that she had dreamed of writing, and, as she said, her favorite to date. And it shows in this novel, where the writing is as beautiful as the plot and historical facts are expertly crafted. I am totally fixated already.
Wishing you wonderful week! If you need me, I’ll be reading!
It sounds like a wonderful book….
It also sounds like you had a fabulous time and meeting Kristin was the cherry on the top. I know you will have many, many more wonderful books in the future!!!
xo
Patty