What is Clarissa Harwood reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Clarissa Harwood, author of Bear No Malice: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

My usual reading material is either historical fiction or historical research for whichever book I’m currently writing, but lately I took a break from my usual genre to read two refreshingly different books.

Lauren Sapala’s Firefly Magic: Heart Powered Marketing for Highly Sensitive Writers is unlike any marketing or promotional advice for writers I’ve ever heard or read before. I’d already read and loved Sapala’s The INFJ Writer (people familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality types will recognize the acronym), and I enjoyed Firefly Magic even more. This book is a balm for the soul of writers who hate the "hard sell" approach or who shrink from the thought of marketing and promoting their work. I wish I’d known about this book when I published my first novel: it would have made my life much easier! While Firefly Magic contains practical suggestions for creative marketing, it also encourages writers to examine their deep-seated (and often misguided) beliefs about...[read on]

About Bear No Malice, from the publisher:

Great Expectations meets Grantchester in this story of love and lies, secrets and second chances, set in Edwardian England.

Beaten and left for dead in the English countryside, clergyman and reformer Tom Cross is rescued and nursed back to health by Miranda and Simon Thorne, reclusive siblings who seem to have as many secrets as he does. Tom has spent years helping the downtrodden in London while lying to everyone he meets, but now he’s forced to slow down and confront his unexamined life.

Miranda, a skilled artist, is haunted by her painful past and unable to imagine a future. Tom is a welcome distraction from her troubles, but she’s determined to relegate him to her fantasy world, sensing that any real relationship with him would be more trouble than it’s worth. Besides, she has sworn to remain devoted to someone she’s left behind.

When Tom returns to London, his life begins to unravel as he faces the consequences of both his affair with a married woman and his abusive childhood. When his secrets catch up with him and his reputation is destroyed, he realizes that Miranda is the only person he trusts with the truth. What he doesn’t realize is that even if she believes him and returns his feelings, he can’t free her from the shackles of her past.

Visit Clarissa Harwood's website.

The Page 69 Test: Impossible Saints.

The Page 69 Test: Bear No Malice.

Writers Read: Clarissa Harwood.

--Marshal Zeringue