The wonderful Brookline Booksmith helped me celebrate the launch of my debut novel, Night Swim, last January, and since then it’s been a dizzy and happy whirl of readings locally and afar. I took a break this summer to focus on my new novel, but surprises keep happening. This week, Amazon selected Night Swim’s ebook for its daily deal, which rocketed it to the #9 position on the entire list! It’s still enjoying a place on Kindle’s top 100 bestsellers list. I hope you’ll check out Night Swim, praised by The Boston Globe and New York Times. Set in a Boston suburb in 1970, the story of Night Swim delves behind the scenes of a family falling apart. Narrated by the oldest daughter, Sarah Kunitz, a gifted singer looks back on the tragedy that changed her family’s life when she was coming of age. It’s also about the mask of affluence; how wealth cannot protect us from our private turmoil. The book is available at brookline booksmith on the “Books We Love” table. www.jessicakeener.com

Jessica Keener’s writing career was launched when her story, “Recovery” won second prize in Redbook magazine’s fiction contest. Her work has since been recognized in The Pushcart Prize under “Outstanding Writers,” and has appeared in scores of publications, most recently in Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Huffington Post and The Nervous Breakdown. She is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist’s Grant and was a finalist in Breadloaf’s Bakeless novel competition. Her debut novel, Night Swim, has been widely praised by reviewers and book bloggers including The New York Times, which called Night Swim “an earnest debut” and “moving.” The Boston Globe said “Keener perfectly captures a certain kind of 1970s adolescence,” and Booklist, said “this memorable debut will strike a universal chord with readers.”

For more than a dozen years, Keener’s feature articles have appeared in The Boston Globe; O, The Oprah Magazine, Coastal Living, Design New England and many other national publications. She co-authored Time to Make the Donuts with William Rosenberg, founder of the worldwide coffee and donut franchise.