Susan Meissner and Free Books!

Just before the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 descends on the known world, a tobacco farmer becomes partner and heir to his uncle’s funeral home and he moves his family from the peaceful Pennsylvania countryside to Philadelphia, one of the hardest hit American cities.

Before we meet today's author, I want to announce that the winner of the e-copy of Loving Treasures, by Gail Gaymer Martin, is:

phantoms_labyrinth_2005@...

Congratulations! We'll get your book right out to you. I encourage readers to keep commenting and/or subscribe at right (above my list of books) in order to participate in future book give-aways! Subscribers are entered a second time when they comment.

And now let's chat with novelist Susan Meissner, author of As Bright as Heaven (Berkley Publishing, February 2018), historical fiction set in two time periods, 1918 and 1925, with no contemporary layer.

Susan says, "It’s the first book of mine in ten years that isn’t a blend of the past and the current day. But this is the right architecture for this novel. I would never want to force a story construction on a book just to fit a pattern. My next book with Berkley will be a blend again of historical and contemporary time periods, but this book is strictly historical."

Susan Meissner a multi-published author, speaker and writing workshop leader with a background in community journalism. Her novels include A Bridge Across the Ocean, Secrets of a Charmed Life (a 2015 Goodreads Choice award finalist) and A Fall of Marigolds, named to Booklist’s Top Ten women’s fiction titles for 2014. Susan is grateful and humbled to also be RITA finalist and Christy Award and Carol Award winner.

A California native, she attended Point Loma Nazarene University. She's a pastor’s wife and a mother of four young adults. She also a writing workshop volunteer for Words Alive, a San Diego non-profit dedicated to helping at-risk youth foster a love for reading and writing.

Please tell us one random thing we might not know about you.

I have a new puppy, a yellow English Lab, named Winston – after Sir Winston Churchill, of course – who fills my non-writing moments (actually, it’s every moment) with wonder and delight and constant vigilance. Puppies not only chew everything, they eat everything. As I was typing this I had to rescue a doormat from being consumed. Seriously.

Oh, yes. I remember. It's wonderful watching all of those adorable puppy clips on Facebook, and I've loved all of my dogs to death, but those early adventures can be pretty messy!

Please tell us a bit more about the plot of As Bright as Heaven.

The Spanish Flu of 1918 claimed a staggering fifty million lives worldwide, and yet until I began researching to write this novel, I had not known the extent of this pandemic’s reach, nor its impact.

This is a book, then, about the preciousness of life; about how beautiful and fragile we humans are, and yet how resilient we stand in the face of crushing loss. The Spanish Flu was more than just a moment in time; it was the individual stories of countless mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers all over the world. I wanted to imagine what one of those stories might’ve been, and explore all the nuances of this idea that we only get one life – just the one – so we endeavor to make it as wonderful as we can with the time we are given.

Exactly. So often moments in world history (and Biblical history) are addressed in a few sentences or verses which distance us from the devastation of the individual experience. It helps to focus more closely on specific stories.

What is it about your lead characters that will make your readers care about them?

There are four point-of-view characters – a mother and her three daughters – who narrate the story in alternating chapters. I think it is the daughters’ innocence, as well as their individual personalities and ages – fifteen, thirteen, and seven – that account for the most empathetic moments in the telling because even though they have a mother and father who love them very much, their parents cannot shield them from what is happening in their city and in the world. The daughters’ perspectives on the flu and its impact are what I feel give this story its weight, along with the mother’s desire to protect her girls from harm while still grieving the loss of an infant son.

These four characters are just like us, really; they live in an imperfect world that is wonderful and yet is filled with forces that are often greater than we are.

Share with us a quote you like from a book other than yours. Why do you like it?

There are a great many quotes that I love from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, but this one is among my top three favorites. Albus Dumbledore says it to Harry in The Chamber of Secrets:

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

I love it because it is so simply true. We are never in complete control of our circumstances, but we can always decide what we will do in them.

What is the last novel you read that you would recommend?

I actually read Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours before it released, so it’s been a few months, but it is still the book that is most memorable to me now after many weeks of reading other books. It’s a blend of both history and contemporary story threads and it deals with one of those events in the past that ought not to be forgotten. Lisa is a masterful storyteller, and she found a way to weave a tale that incorporates the incredibly awful things that a certain children’s home did in the 1930s to provide people who had money and wanted kids but couldn’t have them with sons and daughters to adopt. Not always an easy read, but the best books do usually tend to wound us a little in the reading.

And hasn't the book done well! My goodness. I haven't yet read it, but your recommendation has pushed it up on my list.

What are you working on now?

The story I am writing right now is still a work in progress, but I can share the basics: It’s about a teenage girl, born in the Midwest, whose parents had emigrated to the US from Germany years before. Elise is an American citizen, but her parents are merely legal residents. After America enters WW2, Elise’s father, an unsuspecting and loyal-to-America chemist, is nevertheless declared an enemy alien primarily because his brother serves in the German army and his father had been a decorated WW1 hero. He is interned for the duration of the war. The family can only be reunited if Elise, her mother, and brother volunteer to be interned as well, which is what they do. It’s a book about identity, really. Are you who people say you are, even if they don’t know you, or do you get to decide who you are, even if no one around you affirms it? Most of us have heard about the internment during WW2 of Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast but few of us know German-Americans were interned, too.

Such a good point. Even as I read your description, I thought of Stewart Ikeda's excellent novel, What the Scarecrow Said, which did look very empathetically at the internment of Japanese-Americans. I have to say I never gave much thought to the fact that the same happened with German-Americans.

Where else can readers find you online?

I am here on my website: www.susanmeissner.com and on Twitter at @SusanMeissner or at Facebook. My Instagram handle is @soozmeissner.

The book can be purchased online via the following button:



Finally, what question would you like to ask my readers?

What do you like best about reading historical fiction, and how important is historical accuracy to you? Do you think it’s ever okay for a historical novelist to bend the truth?

Thank you, Susan, for visiting and telling us about yourself and your book. Readers, Susan has offered to give away a signed copy of her novel. To enter, leave a comment and your email below in answer to Susan's question, above. "Please enter me" won't get you entered. Remember that subscribers are entered an additional time in each drawing. The drawing is done by email, so leave your email address, like so: trish[at]trishperry[dot]com.

Many commenters are left out of the drawing because they forget to include a way for me to notify them of their win (their email).

Also readers, I'd love it if you'd connect with me on Facebook. Just click on my name at the right of today's post title.

Remember, if you'd like information on additional new releases, check out Christian Book Heaven, a new email newsletter for Christian book deals in whatever genres you select. You can subscribe here: ChristianBookHeaven

Annoying legal disclaimer: drawings void where prohibited; open only to U.S. residents; the odds of winning depend upon the number of participants. See full disclaimer, as well as my Disclosure of Material Connection HERE