Episode #7: "But She Also Sees Dead People"
with Karen White and Susan Meissner
On this episode, we're excited to bring you Karen White in conversation with Susan Meissner.
Karen White is one of the foremost creators of southern women’s fiction. She is the NY Times best-selling author or the Tradd St. series set in Charleston, SC and her latest novel, The Shop on Royal Street, is set in New Orleans.
Susan Meissner is a USA best-selling author of beloved historical fiction such as The Nature of Fragile Things and The Last Year of the War.
In addition to discussing the inspirations for their popular books, these two friends compare notes on inspirational cemeteries, the power of a good ghost story, and how they got their creative mojo back after the pandemic.
Read Along!
Nola Trenholm is hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past—as well as new ones—in this first book in a spin-off series of Karen White's New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels.
After a difficult detour on her road to adulthood, Nola Trenholm is looking to begin anew in New Orleans, and what better way to start her future than with her first house? But the historic fixer-upper she buys comes with even more work than she anticipated when the house’s previous occupants don’t seem to be ready to depart.
Although she can’t communicate with ghosts like her stepmother can, luckily Nola knows someone in New Orleans who is able to—even if he’s the last person on earth she wants anything to do with ever again. Beau Ryan comes with his own dark past—a past that involves the disappearance of his sister and parents during Hurricane Katrina—and he’s connected to the unsolved murder of a woman who once lived in the old Creole cottage Nola is determined to make her own...whether the resident restless spirits agree or not.
April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed.
Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.
Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved.
The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.
From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity.
We are proudly supported by:
Desert Island Bookshelf
The Book Club
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