Do you have any hobbies, and if so, do they contribute to your creative work in any way?

Hiking, running, reading, fly-fishing, Dungeons & Dragons, cooking (or, more often, watching my husband cook), house-plants, fantasy football.

My experience has been that nearly everything I do away from my computer has the potential to enrich creative thinking. Solitary outdoor activities are when I’m best able to quiet my mind and focus on one thing for a very long time. Dungeons & Dragons sharpens my understanding of story and helps me approach problem-solving differently. Any scenario where I’m challenged—socially, physically, intellectually, or otherwise—helps me become more adaptable, which is absolutely essential to novel-writing. I’ll concede that fantasy football adds nothing to my creative life but is merely an exercise in weekly self-flagellation.

READING GROUP GUIDE
Questions for Discussion

1. Much of the conflict in this story is centered around wrongful assumptions and/or a fundamental misunderstanding of people who are different. How do characters navigate their misunderstandings successfully, or unsuccessfully? What are the ripple effects of either outcome?

2. How are class, gender, or age differences conveyed in the dialogue and thought processes of each character? How does the author emphasize differences or similarities in perspective?

3. The author includes many memorable physical descriptions of people and places. Talk about the way they’re woven into the text, and how they affected your understanding of the characters.

4. Two very different marriages are represented in this story. How are both of these relationships impacted by the events of the book? How do both relationships affect the lives of their children, and their children’s relationships?

5. “She wanted to know that her life could be her home.” Fripp Island becomes a temporary home to the visitors, but for Keats and Roxie, the island is a home they look forward to leaving. In which ways do the characters find what they think they want in a home and in their lives on the island? In which ways do they feel unsettled?

6. There is a strong current of anxiety throughout the novel. Lisa feels a sense of “doom,” and Poppy is “consumed by thoughts of her husband’s death.” Compare and contrast their worries about themselves and their relationships.

7. Kimmy is keenly interested in issues of faith and seeks information and answers from those around her. How do you see her spirituality change over the course of the book? How does spirituality shift for other characters?

8. “Over time, she accepted the fact that the price for this great love was this great fear. Love’s unfortunate alter ego.” This realization is from Poppy’s perspective, but does the inextricable link between love and fear ring true for other characters as well? If so, which ones, and how?

9. This novel wrestles with the possibility that people are often punished for the wrong acts and/or for the wrong reasons. Which characters suffered on account of events that were not their fault, and which characters evaded punishment for real acts of wrongdoing? What does redemption and forgiveness look like?