Literary

I decided when I was 16 that I was going to be a novelist. I sold my first book when I was 46, so I’ve been chasing this dream for a while. My mom was a librarian, and so we had a very book-friendly culture. My mom and I still do this when I go home to visit: One of us will put down a book and the other one will pick it up and start reading it. We’re just constantly reading books and talking about them—and giving each other books. I grew up in rural Maine, which, at that point, was very closed-minded. I got completely ostracized. If I had been a guy, I would’ve been beat up all throughout high school. 
― Sarah Tomlinson, Interview, The Creative Independent

What booksellers are saying about The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers

• With the plethora of Rock n’ Roll fiction that has come out these past few years it’s so nice to see a new take on the bad boy/scenester plotline so prevalent in pretty much all of them. Not that there isn’t some of that here but it comes early and quickly evolves into a novel of family, warts and all (what else? It is a rock n’ roll novel after all,) that turns the hedonism on its head as seen through the eyes of a most original narrator, a ghost writer hired to write the memoirs of two of the principal characters. Excellent!
    ― Pete Mock, McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro, North Carolina | Buy from Bookmiser
  
  
• Perfect for fans of Daisy Jones and The Six and Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Loved the perspective of a ghost writer!
    ― Jessica Nock, Main Street Books, Davidson, North Carolina | Buy from Main Street Books
  
• Sex, drugs, rock and roll, and so much more! A super fun gallop through the shady history of a famous rock band and the mysterious death at the center of their rise to long term fame and adoration. The insights into the ghost writer’s craft and the complications of our own personal histories with the ultra famous and the songs that form the soundtrack to our lives make this more than a glossy read.
    ― Susan Williams, M. Judson, Booksellers, Greenville, South Carolina | Buy from M. Judson, Booksellers
  

About Sarah Tomlinson

The stories in The Storm We Made definitely have their foundations in some of the stories that my grandmother and family have told me. But some stories are also drawn and dramatized from history, while other parts are built from the imagination, as novels do. As the eldest grandchild on my father’s side, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, and over the years, I would glean fascinating and often horrible anecdotes from my grandmother, delivered in a matter-of-fact way….When I finally started writing this book, during the earliest days of 2020 (the part of the pandemic when things were at their worst), no libraries and archives were open. Instead, I relied on my memory, and the stories I had heard before from my family, that I had internalized but never really put to paper. In doing so, I realized I knew more than I thought I did. 
― Vanessa Chan, Interview, Bookweb

What booksellers are saying about The Storm We Made

• It’s Malaya in WWII during the Japanese invasion and one family is being torn apart. The son, Abel has disappeared. Jasmin, the youngest daughter, is hiding in the basement in order to avoid being pressed into service at a comfort station. And Jujube, the oldest daughter, is barely holding the family together. Meanwhile, their mom, Cecily has a secret: she’s been spying for the Japanese and she’s afraid she’s the cause of all their current strife. Sweeping back and forth between 1937 and 1945, The Storm We Made is a beautifully crafted, but brutal historical novel.
    ― Jennifer Jones, Bookmiser, Inc., Marietta, Georgia | Buy from Bookmiser
  
  
• The Storm We Made is perfect for readers of literary historical fiction. I loved the writing and Vanessa Chan wrote about survival, the terror of war and colonization in a way that captivated me from the beginning to end of this story.
    ― Jessica Nock, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina | Buy from Main Street Books
  

About Vanessa Chan

The first label that I wrote is almost at the very end of the book – at that point she’s 91 years old – which is a very speech-writery thing to do. I was a speech-writer at the Met for eight years and you very often are writing to an ending. There were times in which words, like the definition of ‘garniture’ at the very beginning of the book, seemed so well-suited for a woman who I was referring to in terms of porcelain and her social group. Then other times I found myself looking back at old Met guidebooks. I would almost go shopping for words. I would find some great entry for a medieval chalice that would drive my thinking about how a label could work. So it worked both ways: the language supported the idea, but the idea was really fueled by the language.
― Christine Coulson, Interview, Apollo Magazine

What booksellers are saying about One Woman Show

• This book is so creative and thoughtful — it is told entirely through museum wall labels! It’s totally intriguing and allows the author (who used to write wall labels for the Metropolitan Museum of Art) to play with ideas about womanhood and identity in a time when women were still most often viewed as men’s property. I love books set in museums and this was a very fun twist on that concept.
    ― Kate Storhoff from Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina | Buy from Bookmarks
  
  
• A brilliant twist of a novel. Sparest of prose, driest of wit. One woman and the people in her gilded world winnowed down to a series of museum labels and occasional eavesdropped conversations. With layers of meaning in the words and spaces, this is a reader’s delight.
    ― Jan Blodgett from Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina | Buy from Main Street Books
  
  
• So clever and poignant! I read this book in one sitting. Telling a story through exhibit descriptions was so smart and captivating. Learning about Kitty’s life and what is to be a woman of a particular socio-economic class, during a certain time period in this country was a read I didn’t know I wanted. But once I started reading, I couldn’t put the book down. Excellent read!
    ― Kim Brock from Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Kentucky | Buy from Joseph-Beth Booksellers
  
  
• Loved this one. Spare prose gives room for the reader to fill in the life of Kitty – a very particular sort of woman existing in very particular times. Sparks of humor and tragedy that hits all the harder for being described in such a brief, matter-of-fact way. Reads like Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo as written by Olga Ravn.
    ― Ellen Woodall, Blacksburg Books, Blacksburg, Virginia | Buy from Blacksburg Books
  
  

About Christine Coulson