Susan Meissner and Free Books!

A mail order bride’s world begins to crumble on the eve of the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake when she discovers the man she married isn’t who he said he was.

Before we revisit with today's author, I want to announce that the winner of the free Kindle copy of the historical romance, The Rancher’s Legacy, by Susan Page Davis, is:

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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 learn about new releases! U.S. subscribers are entered in the drawings a second time when they comment.

And now let's chat with novelist Susan Meissner, author of the historical suspense novel, The Nature of Fragile Things (Berkley, February 2021).

Susan Meissner is a USA Today bestselling novelist with more than half a million books in print in fifteen languages. Her critically acclaimed and award-winning works of historical fiction have been named to numerous lists including Publishers Weekly’s annual roster of 100 best books, Library Reads Top Picks, Real Simple annual tally of best books, Booklist’s Top Ten, and Book of the Month. 

Susan lives in southern California with her husband and yellow Lab, Winston.

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

I do not like escalators.

They made me nervous as a child--I always worried they would consume me at the bottom! (at the bottom of the escalators--not at my bottom)

Please tell us a bit more about the plot of The Nature of Fragile Things.

Sophie Whalen is living in a terrible tenement in Manhattan in 1905. She’s so desperate to get out of New York -- for many reasons, and not all of which she shares with the reader -- that she agrees to marry a San Francisco widower who has a young daughter; a man she has never met. 

By 1906 she has managed to cobble together a version of happiness for herself despite marrying this stranger. But when the quake hits in April 1906, everything in her world begins to crumble beneath her feet -- and I mean everything! 

Sophie’s fate is soon intertwined with the destinies of two other women, as well as that of the little girl to whom she had become an instant mother and now loves very much. Sophie is thrust onto a perilous journey that will test her resiliency and resolve, and ultimately, her belief that love can overcome fear. It’s a novel about the bonds of friendship and mother-love, and the power of female solidarity.

Your novels are always chock full of character development!

What is it about Sophie Whalen that will make your readers care about her?

The story is told in first person point-of-view, so the reader is privy to Sophie's biggest and most private hopes and dreams and fears. But because of the intimacy of this POV, the reader also understands that there are certain things about Sophie's past that she does not revisit, even within herself. Because she has suffered, the reader can understand then why she makes some of the choices that she makes.

Imagine you’ve been contracted to write a novel about a real person. About whom would you want to write?

What a great question! Off the top of my head I would pick Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein, which I suppose sounds really macabre. But think about it. She wrote this book in the early19th century, so well before women were writing novels in the science fiction vein, and to write a book about a doctor who reanimates life!? That’s just fascinating to me. 

Me too! I felt like I had read a novel about her for a wonderful book club I belonged to before I moved to the west coast. But in looking through my records, it looks like the night we discussed Frankenstein--our read for that month--the discussion leader shared the story of the brainstorming trip at which Mary Shelley came up with the idea for the book. It remained a vivid memory for me. You should write the novel!

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

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a novel by V.E. Schwab that I will not soon forget. It is definitely not for everyone; there is some language and some bedroom scenes, and the premise itself is chilling: A 17th century French woman – desperate to get out of an arranged marriage – makes a bargain with the devil. Addie Larue regrets the deal immediately when she realizes she is now not only immortal but afflicted with the condition of being unrememberable. By anyone. This means minutes after meeting her people forget her. She cannot hold down a job, she cannot own property, she can't even have a relationship with someone, because no one remembers her. 

She asked for complete autonomy in exchange for her soul to get out of the arranged marriage and what she gets is an endless life where she’s not bound to anyone but no one is bound to her either. It's a mesmerizing look at what life would be like if there wasn’t a mighty and good God watching over us and holding back evil. This book also has the most satisfying ending that I’ve read in a long time.

I have that novel on my reading list--I must have read a positive review at some point. I didn't remember its premise being so dark! But it sounds interesting.

What are you working on now?

The book I'm writing now has the working title Only the Beautiful and is a novel about three generations of women impacted by the eugenics movement in the early part of the 20th century here in my home state of California.

Wow, I will definitely read that one. So many ethical questions there. 

Where else can readers find you online?

At my website at www.susanlmeissner.com, on Facebook or on Instagram or on Twitter

The book can be purchased online via the following button:



Readers, you can access a sample from the novel by going HERE and clicking on Look Inside.

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

What era or event in history do you wish a historical fiction author like me would write about and has not done so yet?

Thank you, Susan, for visiting and telling us about yourself and your book. Readers, Susan has offered to give away a free copy of her book. To enter, click on the word "comments" below to reach the comments page, and leave your answer and your email in answer to Susan's question above. "Please enter me" won't get you entered. Remember that U.S. 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. 

Only United States residents are eligible for the drawing, but anyone can subscribe to the blog posts via the GDPA-compliant Feedblitz box above my list of books, at right.

Also readers, if you connect with me on Bookbub, you'll get alerts when my books release and when they're available at special sale prices. And if you'd like to connect with me on Facebook, just click HERE or on my name at the right of today's post title.

Annoying legal disclaimer: as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases; drawings void where prohibited; open only to U.S. residents; the odds of winning depend upon the number of participants. See full disclaimer, GDPA notice, and my Disclosure of Material Connection HERE

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.

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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