This weekly series highlights people in my writing circles who are exemplary literary citizens. I encourage you to look them up, buy their books, find them in the library, or otherwise read or support their writing lives. This week, we meet literary citizen Alison Reese.
Alison Reese is the pen name of my friend C.F., and I was super stoked to see that she had given my book a 5-star rating in Amazon… without me even asking for one!
This is precisely what we should be doing as we encounter debut books within our writing circles, give them a thumbs up (of course, only if we like them…).
We can and should do this, truly, for any book we read that we enjoy which we feel has succeeded. I think of it as “writerly karma” to do so.
An Amazon review may not make or break a book’s trajectory, but it definitely serves to acknowledge to the writer that what they’ve written has been read and appreciated. In the mostly solitary world of the writing life, that’s huge.
Pandemic life seems to demand more acknowledgment online than ever before, and leaving a positive review at a bookseller’s page is one easy way to do that.
It meant a lot to me to see that review. Thank you, C!
Read Alison’s work
I just finished her sweet book, Katy’s Song. I chose to read it over Valentine’s Day after finishing up an intense climate change novel that left me in desperate need of something more life-affirming.
(I can only read so much dystopia, post-apocalyptica, etc before it begins to turn me into Chicken Little.)
This book did the job! This was Alison’s first book and it was a pleasure to read. It’s one of those stories where lives intersect by chance, leaving people changed in a meaningful way.
The romance is believable and rooted in the details of conflicts of ordinary life, which I happen to prefer.
I also appreciated the connections to Seattle and Bainbridge Island in her settings (ah, ferry life!) and learned a thing or two about vegan living.
I remember going to PNWA a couple of years ago and she was pitching this title back then, and here it is, out in the world. Congratulations and great job!