What is Susan Meissner reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Susan Meissner, author of As Bright as Heaven.

Her entry begins:

One of the delights of having fellow authors for friends is getting to read their newest books early. I just finished I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon and my first response when I read the last page was, “Wow!” Most of us have probably heard what happened to the royal Romanov family during the Russian revolution, and perhaps even the mystery surrounding one of the daughters, Anastasia, when a woman named Anna Anderson claimed to be her. Anderson spent her lifetime claiming she had survived the brutal execution of the rest of her family. Lawhon has constructed a cleverly engaging look at both Anastasia Romanov of history and the woman who claimed until her dying day to be the sole surviving daughter of the last tsar of Russia. It is a...[read on]

About As Bright as Heaven, from the publisher:

From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and A Bridge Across the Ocean comes a new novel set in Philadelphia during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which tells the story of a family reborn through loss and love.

In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters–Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa–a chance at a better life.

But just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew. But even as they lose loved ones, they take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source of hope. Amidst the tragedy and challenges, they learn what they cannot live without–and what they are willing to do about it.

As Bright as Heaven is the compelling story of a mother and her daughters who find themselves in a harsh world not of their making, which will either crush their resolve to survive or purify it.

Visit Susan Meissner's website.

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My Book, The Movie: A Bridge Across the Ocean.

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Writers Read: Susan Meissner.

--Marshal Zeringue