The Reading Corner Newsletter

Hello Readers!

Happy November . . . and yes, you read that right. For some of us, me included, the results of the recent election in the U.S. were devastating, but for others, that is not the case. After a week of mulling over reasons why one candidate prevailed and one fell short, I have my own thoughts, as you have yours.

One of the founding tenets of America is that we can be divided, but not fall. My hope is that we can seek common ground on issues and not continue to point fingers at one another. And, above all, to be kind and considerate to all, especially those less fortunate than we are.

Which brings me to Thanksgiving. Years ago, my family chose to serve Thanksgiving Dinner at a local shelter for the unhoused. What an experience. It’s often said that when we volunteer, we are the ones blessed by our actions, and this adage proved true that day. As I served an elderly man, he tapped on my arm and asked if I could sit beside him for a moment and hold hands for a blessing.

Was that the first human touch he had had in a long time? I will never know. But my faith asks me to be Christ’s hands and His feet out in the world. I pray that every Sunday at Mass, that I can be used for His will. Even if you don’t subscribe to Catholicism, or a different religion, or any religion at all, the basic doctrines of human decency dictate that we help those less fortunate.

I will be forever changed by doing the simple act of serving dinner to those who had nowhere to go one long-ago Thanksgiving Day. So, this year, I encourage you to share a smile, a hand, a plate. We may not be able to right all the wrongs in the world, but one simple act of kindness can make a difference.

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Publishing Update

Just a few weeks now until the release of The Irish Girl . . . with more trade reviews coming in. The novel, which follows 13-year-old Mary Agnes Coyne from western Ireland to America in the late 19^th century, has been named “one of the top 24 historical fiction novels of the second half of 2024” by BookBub.

Other blurbs:

“Poignant . . . vivid and compelling.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A novel imbued with hope.” —Booklist

“The novel’s strength lies in its deep, emotionally charged descriptions of Irish immigrants’ quest to become established in America.” —Historical Novels Review

As I wrote in a recent blog:

Think back to being thirteen. What hopes did you have at that time? To go to college? To travel? To have a family? To be financially independent? To be loved?

These are the hopes Mary Agnes had as a young girl in Ireland, and no doubt the hopes of your grandmothers and great-grandmothers as they traveled to America from Italy or Russia or Sweden or France or wherever they traveled from for a new life in America. When Mary Agnes arrives in America, she faces obstacles and prejudice, disappointment and tragedy, also akin to what your foremothers might have experienced as they arrived in a foreign land. But hope prevails, and the novel ends on an anticipatory note—although I never wrap everything up in a perfect bow for readers.

It’s like life, often messy and complicated, with unknowns at every dawn. But what gets us through is our through-line of ancestry, deep resolve for a better future, and, ever and always, hope.

The Irish Girl is available for preorder now at your favorite indie bookstore or online.

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Zoom Launch Date for The Irish Girl

Please join me and my wonderful critique partners, Gretchen Cherington, Shelley Blanton-Stroud, and Debra Thomas for a celebratory pre-launch ZOOM for The Irish Girl on at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT/6 p.m. MT/5 p.m. PT on Tuesday, December 3.

For just under an hour, we’ll be talking all things The Irish Girl with questions/answers, trivia, and giveaways. This is the only virtual event for this launch, so if you’re outside of Washington State, this is the only chance we’ll get to interface this year. I’ll look forward to seeing you online!

Here is the link:

Pre-Launch For Ashley E. Sweeney’s The Irish Girl

Time: Dec 3, 2024 05:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81478305813

Meeting ID: 814 7830 5813

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Full Schedule for Launch Events in Washington State

In early December, I’ll send out an email blast of the full event schedule for the launch of The Irish Girl.

So far, you can catch me at signings at the following book stores:

Seaport Books in La Conner (12/11/2024),

Darvill’s on Orcas Island (12/14/2024),

Watermark Books in Anacortes 12/20/2024),

Village Books in Bellingham (1/4/2025), and

Griffin Bay Books on San Juan Island (1/12/2025),

with signed copies available at Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, by launch date, December 10.

Books make great holiday gifts!

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Contest

Last month, I offered five copies of my second novel, Answer Creek, to entrants who told me one or more items you would have taken with you if you had been traveling West in the mid 1800s, as Ada Weeks did as a member of The Donner Party in the novel.

I received about 75 answers and chose the following:

A sewing kit and a Bible – Susan Perkins

Guns and traps – Gail Perkins

Cooking pots – Lena Bredin

Diary and Pencil – Susan Benedict

Paints, Paintbrushes, and Paper – Jackie Wisherd

Congratulations to the winners!

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Books on My Holiday List

Time of the Child, by Niall Williams

The Wildes, by Louis Bayard

All the Broken Places, by John Boyne

The Lion Women of Tehran, by Marjan Kamali

By Any Other Name, by Jodi Picoult

The Glass Maker, by Tracy Chevalier

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New Contest

What books are on your holiday wish list? Tell me one or more titles and I’ll pick one lucky winner out of the hat to win a signed copy of The Irish Girl! Enter Here

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In Closing

Hope you are enjoying this special time of year and that your Thanksgiving is filled with family, food, and football. And love.

To my international friends, sorry that Thanksgiving Day is a regular workday for you! Here are a few pics of me and my housemates on Thanksgiving Day in 1977 in York, England, as we served a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner to our English classmates. (pictures below)

Until next month, Happy Reading!

Ashley