GENRE: Women’s literature
Book Blurb
When a newspaper reporter’s fiancé dies abruptly, she questions how he could just cease to be.
Dogged by unbidden thoughts, odd coincidences and unexplained phenomena, Ann Stewart becomes obsessed with finding out what really happens after we die and whether her beloved Gregory is still out there. She finds her answer, which takes her and a close-knit coterie of women to the edge of the cosmos—and the core of their own hearts.
Based on a true story.
Book Excerpt
We stood a moment without speaking—sizing each other up, I suppose—before I invited her to have a seat on the couch. I sat down next to her.
“Look, I know this situation is awkward,” I began. “Me the fiancée, you the ex-wife…”
“Yeah, I can only imagine what he’s said about me. Medusa unbound.”
“Oh no, that’s not what I meant.…”
I tripped over my words.
“But it’s very likely what he meant.” She let out a belly laugh.
Bunching up her considerable green velvet skirt, she stretched out her legs, revealing black cowboy boots.
“Ours was not a friendly parting.”
“I gathered,” I said. “I also know you were married for, like, ten years—double the time I knew him. And I know I ought to feel jealous…”
Elizabeth stared at me, waiting.
“But I don’t.”
“No?”
“No. You were close to him. He was close to you.” I paused. It was difficult, even counterintuitive, what I was trying to say. “I could hear this in the intimate way you talked about him at the service.”
I clasped my hands as my words spilled out haltingly.
“I don’t even know how to say this,” I continued, “but I understood. It’s not like you’re a rival. You’re more like a sister. Or something like that. Someone I have a common bond with. He’s gone, and the hurt of that…”
I looked away. Tears were percolating up, boiling over again. Would this fountain of grief never cease?
I rushed to add, “The hurt of that doesn’t leave room for trivial bullshit like jealousy.” There, I’d said it. My heart was pounding.
“We… shared… him. Like no one else can understand.”
Someone understands.
Kim Pierce gives us a sneak preview of her favorite things.
What are your favorite TV shows?
My all-time favorite is Star Trek: The Next Generation because I am in love with Jean Luc Picard. Lately I’ve been finishing up This is Us. I like its cross-generational plot style. You see people grow and change over a lifetime. I’m also eager to pick up on the next season of My Brilliant Friend, about two Italian girls who grow up together and take different paths. I like PBS NewsHour and Washington Week because I am a news junkie.
What is your favorite meal?
Back many years, I went to Greece with a group from a local community college. The tour guide, an instructor who had immigrated to the United States as a youth, took us to his birth village, Leonidio. Our visit happened to fall on his name day (similar in significance to a birthday). To celebrate, his friends and family in the village laid out a spread where everything on the table was grown or produced locally: the wine, the cheese, the bread, the olive oil, the grape leaves, the cucumbers and tomatoes, the eggplant, the herbs, the lamb, the chicken, the yogurt, even the honey on the dessert—everything. We ate outside slowly at a long rustic table until we ached. In so many ways, it was a perfect meal.
If you were to write a series of novels, what would it be about?
What lies beyond our physical universe and space-time.
Is there a writer you idolize? If so who?
I don’t idolize any writer, but I do think the opening paragraph of The Secret Life of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is one of the most brilliant pieces of writing I have ever seen.
How did you come up for the title of this book?
My partner suggested it. (P.S. My writers group didn’t like it.)
About Author
Kim Pierce is a former Dallas Morning News writer and editor who completed the Writer’s Path fiction program at Southern Methodist University. My Dead True Love is her first novel, inspired by events surrounding the death of her fiancé in 1998. She lives in Dallas, Texas, with her partner and three cats.
Giveaway
A randomly drawn winner will receive a $50 Amazon/BN GC.
4 Comments
Thanks for hosting!
Thank you for sharing your Q&A, bio and book details, I have enjoyed reading about you and your work and I am looking forward to reading My Dead True Love, it sounds like a story that will tug at my heartstrings
Sounds like a great read.
I enjoyed reading your favorite things and I enjoyed the excerpt, My Dead True Love sounds like an excellent book for me to read!
Thanks for sharing it with me and have a fabulous weekend!