Topic of the Week for June 1-5: Great Beach Reads June 1, 2009

Ah, the sun on your shoulders, the sand in your toes and a good book open in your lap. It’s summer and this week on LitChat we’re going to talk about what makes a good beach read. Some prefer fluffy romances, others need a compelling plot, still others want character-driven stories. Yet most agree it’s fiction that fuels beach and poolside page-turning.

Kristina Riggle

Joining us on Friday, June 6th is Kristina Riggle, whose debut novel REAL LIFE AND LIARS releases just in time for summer reading. Kristina has published short stories in the Cimarron Review, Literary Mama, Espresso Fiction, and elsewhere. She is also a freelance journalist writing primarily for The Grand Rapids Press, and co-editor for fiction at Literary Mama. Kristina was a full-time newspaper reporter for seven years before turning her attention to creative writing and freelancing. On Mondays, she can be found blogging at The Debutante Ball, a group blog of authors debuting in 2009. As well as writing, she enjoys reading, yoga, dabbling in (very) amateur musical theatre, and spending lots of time with her husband, two kids and dog. Kristina lives in Western Michigan.

Real Life & Liars is set in Charlevoix, Michigan, a town close to Kristina’s heart as the home of her grandparents where she has visited often over the years. Some recognizable Charlevoix landmarks appear in the novel, as well as fictionalized versions of real places. The home of the Zielinski family on Dixon Avenue is based loosely on the house where her grandmother grew up.

Kristina is hard at work on her next novel of complex family relationships, also due from Avon/HarperCollins.

Follow Kristina on Twitter at: @KrisRiggle.