Two More for You, and One Forthcoming

As part of an event sponsored by my publisher, Signature Editions, in June, I appeared on a panel. It was fun! (Links for all things REVERBERATIONS-related are here and here.) We talked about the rewards and pitfalls about writing intensely personal stories related to health and illness.

Books. Lots.

In preparation for the panel, I had occasion to read the titles by the other panelists:

* Micro-Miracle: A True Story, by Amy Boyes, about her experience when daughter Madeline comes sixteen weeks early. It's a harrowing and ultimately satisfying story about a world entirely new to me, that of a micro-preemie baby. Well, babies are pretty foreign to me in general, and I think that (lack of) experience intensified my concern when things start to go wrong for Amy and her baby.

* Rain on a Distant Roof, by Vanessa Farnsworth, about her experience with Lyme disease in Canada and making sense of her body when her body no longer makes sense to her. Sections that provide a window into her hallucinatory experiences alternate with descriptions of the ways in which the Canadian healthcare system stresses and ultimately fails those with Lyme-related conditions. 

I recommend both books. Both successfully tackle complicated subjects--they provide information and immersive suspense. 

And Vanessa Farnsworth has a new book coming with Signature next month! It's fiction, called The Haweaters, and it's set in Manitoulin Island about 150 years ago, loosely based on events in Vanessa's family. I look forward to finding that one, too!