What Rachel's Doing Now

Winter and Spring of 2010

What a great start to 2010! My new novel, tentatively titled The Story of Beautiful Girl, was acquired by Grand Central Press, at the Hachette Group, and is expected to come out in the spring or summer of 2011.

The book has already gotten some press. Click here to see the Deals column of Publishers Weekly for the week of Feb. 1, 2010

Here's a description of the book.

The Story of Beautiful Girl begins in the mid-1960's, and is about Lynnie, a beautiful young white woman with an intellectual disability and selective mutism, and her sweetheart Homan, an African American deaf man with only his home sign language to guide him. Both are institutionalized, like so many people with disabilities in that era, who were routinely shut off from society.

One night they escape, and find refuge in the farmhouse of the widow Martha, a retired schoolteacher. The couple, however, is not alone; Lynnie has just borne a child. That same night, the authories catch up to them; Homan escapes into the darkness and Lynnie is caught. But just before she is forcibly returned to The School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, she manages to whisper two words to Martha: "Hide her." And so begins the tale of three lives desperate to reconnect, yet kept apart by seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

So this spring, I'll be working on revisions for this novel, as well as preparing for the June release of the paperback of Building A Home With My Husband. I'll also be attending the ceremony for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, for which I was a jurist. In addition, I'll be traveling to Carver County, Minnesota and Buffalo, New York for events related to Riding The Bus With My Sister. See my appearance page for details.

If I'm lucky, I'll get some new writing done, too!