I may have already mentioned this in a #read99women intro — we’re more than 20 authors in! — but one of the things I love most about being an author is the opportunity to read forthcoming books long before they hit shelves. One I really delighted in last year was Kris Waldherr’s moody Gothic debut THE LOST HISTORY OF DREAMS. It’s coming out in paperback from Atria in just a few days, and you’ll want to pick it up if you haven’t already. In my blurb I called it “a dark, shimmering gem of a novel, glittering with love lost, secrets kept, and long-buried truths revealed.” You can read more about it here.

So I thought it was the perfect time to invite Kris to participate in #read99women. Kris Waldherr’s books for adults and children include Bad Princess, Doomed Queens, and The Book of Goddesses. The New Yorker praised Doomed Queens as “utterly satisfying” and “deliciously perverse.” The Book of Goddesses was a One Spirit/Book-of-the-Month Club’s Top Ten Most Popular Book. Her picture book Persephone and the Pomegranate was noted by the New York Times Book Review for its “quality of myth and magic.” Her fiction has won fellowships from the Virginia Center of the Creative Arts, and a works-in-progress reading grant from Poets & Writers.

Kris says: “My recommendation is Erika Swyler’s LIGHT FROM OTHER STARS, a tour de force that intermingles magical realism and science fiction into a 1980s family saga unlike anything else I’ve read. Though the official description for LIGHT FROM OTHER STARS plays up the relationship between eleven-year-old future astronaut Nedda and her ‘mad scientist’ father Theo amid the backdrop of the Challenger disaster, it’s Nedda’s mother Betheen who steals the show. Betheen is just as brilliant a scientist as her husband—perhaps even more so—but has put her career on hold to raise a family; she instead funnels her ambitions into competitive baking. I loved that, when it all goes to pieces, it’s the mother-daughter relationship that ultimately saves the day. LIGHT FROM OTHER STARS received six starred trade reviews when first published last year. It also moved me to tears—it’s a novel that wears a huge heart on its exquisitely written sleeve.”

Sounds gorgeous, doesn’t it? I’m sold. It’s another busy week in publishing — stay tuned for recommendations from, and of, authors launching new books in the next few days!