This week we welcome special guest Rachel Harper to Perks. Rachel is on the faculty at Spalding University’s Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing in Lousiville, KY and is the author of three novels. Her most recent, The Other Mother, was published in 2022 and has racked up the accolades. It was named one of Amazon’s Best Books of 2022, was a Good Morning America Buzz Pick, and has been awarded the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Award for Excellence in LGBTQIA fiction.

We chat with Rachel about how her book is like an onion, with many layers to peel back and explore. While it deals with motherhood, it also deals with father-child relationships, identity, race, and how our past affects our present.

You can find Rachel on Instagram @harpsincali and her website www.rachelmharper.com

For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. We are also on Instagram @perksofbeingabookloverpod and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover.

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

1- The Other Mother by Rachel Harper

2- This Side of Providence by Rachel Harper

3- Brass Ankle Blues by Rachel Harper

4- Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

5- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

6- The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

7- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

8- The Secret History by Donna Tartt

9- Long ass books by Jonathan Franzen

10- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

11- The Case of the Missing Moonstone (The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency) by Jordan Stratford

12- Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer

13- Women Talk Money: Breaking the Taboo edited by Rebecca Walker

14- Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

15- The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Tove Bailey

16- Shutter by Ramona Emerson