Novelist Cheryl Grey Bostrom chats with me today about her new book, What the River Keeps.
Bio:
A keen student of the natural world and the workings of the human heart, Pacific Northwest author Cheryl Grey Bostrom captures the mystery and wonder of both in her lyrical, riveting fiction. Her novels Sugar Birds (Christy finalist, Amazon bestseller, and Book of the Year) and Leaning on Air have won more than two dozen industry honors, among which are CT’s Fiction Award of Merit and American Fiction, Reader’s Favorite, Carol, Nautilus, Best Book, Foreword Indies, and International Book Awards.
An avid birder and nature photographer, Cheryl lives in rural Washington State with her husband and three irrepressible Gordon setters.
Welcome, Cheryl. Please tell us about your current release.
Sure! Here’s the gist:
Hildy Nybo is a successful biologist, her study of the Pacific Northwest’s wild fish both a passion and a career. But behind her professional brilliance, Hildy’s reclusive private life reflects a childhood fraught with uncertainty. Haunted by the confusion of her early years, she now records her life in detailed diaries and clings to memory-prompting keepsakes.
Then her mother’s health fails, and Hildy accepts a job near her childhood home, joining a team of scientists who will help restore her beloved Elwha River after two century-old dams fall. There Hildy settles into a cabin on her family’s rustic resort—a place she both loves and dreads, though she can’t explain why.
When a local artist rents an adjacent cabin for her pottery studio, Hildy resists the intrusion—until intriguing Luke Rimmer arrives to help with the cabin’s renovation. Now a few years beyond a tragedy that brought him to his knees, Luke recognizes a kindred soul in Hildy. As the two draw closer, they uncover her mysterious history and Hildy dares to wonder if she can banish her shadows and follow her river’s course to freedom.
What inspired you to write this book?
I grew up a few miles from the Elwha and hiked that river both before and after the dams fell, so the ecosystem has always been in my sights. The Elwha’s remarkable rebirth after the largest dam removal in U.S. history moved me deeply and mirrored the kind of interior restoration that many people long for. I wanted to write a novel where the wild, recovering river became both setting and metaphor—a place where broken people, like fractured ecosystems, might find hope again.
In this excerpt, readers get an early look at Hildy before she returns to the Elwha Valley, where her own healing begins:
Excerpt from What the River Keeps:
Chapter 1 – Underground
Seattle, 1999
Even if not wedged under her bed, Hildy wouldn’t have answered the door. Instead, she shrank as the clapper struck the metal bell outside her basement apartment. One clang. Two. Loud enough to alert the too-close residents of her Seattle neighborhood that someone stood in the concrete well at the foot of her stairs, bugging her.
Again.
Mouse-like, she peeked from beneath the bedrail, studying the window well closest to the door. Unlikely whoever was ringing would crouch and peer through the slatted blinds, but one never knew.
Something thunked the door. Footsteps scuffed a quick ascent. A truck rumbled and departed.
UPS. Why couldn’t they deliver a package without ringing? They had to know she wouldn’t answer. She never answered. Bad enough that she lived smack in the sightline of all those houses, their windows full of eyes. But a knock or ring at her door? A trespass.
She exhaled and wiggled deeper into the cramped space, where she extracted her latest stone from a row of rocks beneath her headboard. The diameter of a driveway cobble, it size-matched hundreds more crowding the space under her sofa and along her baseboards. Pebbles, both polished and rough, overflowed from galvanized buckets in three corners of her living space. Large or small, she’d assigned a number and a memory to each.
She smiled at this new one—river-smoothed chert, formed in the magic concoction of silica and sediment and time. When this stone had called to her from shore, she’d answered, tucked it in her pack, and returned to count coho smolt heading to sea.
Squirming free of the narrow slot, she opened her bedside notebook, confirmed the rock’s black Sharpie ID on its underside, and jotted more details about the day she found it. Then she squinted into the empty stairwell through the door’s wide-angle peephole and slid the chain from its hasp. Quickly she toed the package inside, relocked the deadbolt and chain, and opened a small box of bagged powders.
“Grit for the tumbler, Butterness.”
Sun through a tilted blind lit the cage on the table, where a canary chirped, cocked his head, and flapped to a higher perch. . . .
In the bathroom, she snipped open a small packet from the UPS box and scooped a tablespoon of gray grit into a pitcher-sized rubber barrel filled with small stones—twenty-one of them—from her three-week stint on the Nisqually River. She spritzed the rocks and grit with water from a spray bottle, seated the pliable barrel and its lid in the rock tumbler’s metal frame, checked the screws anchoring the polisher to a plywood base, and plugged it in.
The motor hummed. The platform vibrated. Butterness, his throat feathers fluffed and trembling, sang accompaniment. She swayed to his rolling trills and bursts, imbibing their froth like a dessert.
What exciting project are you working on next?
This next book is a dual-timeline mystery/love story—again set in the Pacific Northwest. I had a couple of false starts on this one, but those tossed chapters gave me terrific insight into the motivations of two resilient women whose stories originate on a tiny island in the Salish Sea’s San Juan archipelago. Generations apart, both are bound together by heartbreak, hope, and their shared love of foxes. The story intrigues and surprises me at every turn; I can’t wait for you to read it!
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
Always, always, I knew I was a writer—of poetry since I was a first-grader and of non-fiction since high school. But only in the last decade or so have I considered myself a novelist. Fiction previously seemed out of reach for me . . . until I tried it, and the bug bit.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Yes, for the last several years, I’ve been writing full-time—both long and short form, fiction and non-fiction. Besides my novels Sugar Birds, Leaning on Air, and What the River Keeps, I write a quarterly column for the American Scientific Affiliation’s God and Nature Magazine, short form essays for various publications, and my blog Birds in the Hand on Substack.
My workdays are pretty consistent. I rise very early, and after I grab a coffee and orient my heart and mind with a devotional reading and prayer, I dive in. I set word count goals and write five days a week for as long as the day’s assignment takes. Of course real life intervenes and I’m always tweaking those numbers, but I generally reach them—and they motivate me to stay the course.
I also love nature photography, and spend time daily with camera in hand, roving the rural and wild territories that inspire my stories.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?Hm. I guess it is a bit quirky that I begin all my novels with setting. As the natural world speaks to me—through my photos and my physical engagement with nature—characters emerge and show me their passions and needs. The stories take off from there.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I was a pre-teen when I told my grandmother I wanted to write a novel someday. Though my deep wish was to write fiction, the path to that vocation led me through years of teaching, running a small business, and raising a family. Only after accumulated years of experience and personal growth did I finally give myself permission to learn the fiction craft and open my heart to narratives forming inside me.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
A thread that runs through my novels reflects a bedrock belief of mine. It may resonate with your readers, too. It’s this:
Nature . . . hearts . . . Both are created to heal, and it’s often where grief and grace intersect that the healing begins.
Thanks for asking!
Links:
Website | Birds in the Hand (blog) | Facebook | Instagram | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org | Goodreads
Blog Tour Calendar
August 11th @ The Muffin
Join us as we celebrate the launch of Cheryl Grey Bostrom’s nature infused love story What the River Keeps. Read an interview with the author and enter to win a copy of her book. https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com
August 12th @ One Writer’s Journey
Stop by for a post about the Five Birds that Make Life Better and a review of What the River Keeps by Cheryl Grey Bostrom. https://suebe.wordpress.com/
August 13th @ Writer Advice
Novelist Cheryl Grey Bostrom is visiting with her thoughts on The Deliciousness of Book Clubs. https://writeradvice.com/blog/
August 14th @ Knotty Needle
Read a review of What the River Keeps and author Cheryl Grey Bostrom’s guest post: Re-wilding Ourselves Through Nature Novels. http://www.knottyneedle.blogspot.com
August 16th @ Boots, Shoes and Fashion
Enjoy a fun interview with novel writer Cheryl Grey Bostrom. https://bootsshoesandfashion.com
August 18th @ What Is That Book About
Luxuriate in nature with a spotlight on the novel What the River Keeps by Cheryl Grey Bostrom. www.whatisthatbookabout.com
August 19th @ Word Magic
Author Cheryl Grey Bostrom is stopping by to write about Nature as Guide through Wilderness of Heart. https://fionaingramauthor.blogspot.com
August 20th @ Nikki’s Book Reviews
Nikki’s sharing her thoughts on the novel What the River Keeps by Cheryl Grey Bostrom. http://nikkitsbookreviews.wordpress.com
August 21st HERE!
August 25th @ Beverley A. Baird
Need a good read for the waning days of summer? Beverly’s sharing her review of What the River Keeps. https://beverleyabaird.wordpress.com
August 26th @ A Wonderful World of Books
Enter to win a copy of What the River Keeps. Have fun with author Cheryl Grey Bostrom translating Bird Language for Our Inner Lives. https://awonderfulworldofwordsa.blogspot.com/
August 27th @ Create Write Now
Cheryl Grey Bostrom writes about the power of nature in Created to Heal: How Nature Illustrates the Design of Our Hearts. https://www.createwritenow.com/journal-writing-blog
August 28th @ Words by Webb
Jodi reviews a novel that is ideal for nature lover and women’s fiction: What the River Keeps. https://www.jodiwebbwriter.com/blog
August 29th @ Beverley A. Baird
Author Cheryl Grey Bostrom is visiting with a guest post on What’s the Draw to Faith in Women’s Fiction? https://beverleyabaird.wordpress.com
September 2 @ A Storybook World
Novelist Cheryl Grey Bostrom is writing about Three Ways Nature Novels Speak to Our Hearts and recommending a few of her favorites. https://www.astorybookworld.com/
September 4th @ Reading Is My Remedy
Take flight with author Cheryl Grey Bostrom with Bird Lessons – What Winged Creatures Can Teach Us. They’ll also be a review of her latest novel What the River Keeps. https://www.instagram.com/reading_is_my_remedy/
September 5th @ Storeybook Reviews
Check out the spotlight on Cheryl Grey Bostrom and her latest novel What the River Keeps. https://www.storeybookreviews.com
September 9th @ Boys’ Mom Reads!
Looking for a new book for a new month? Karen’s reviewing the novel What the River Keeps by Cheryl Grey Bostrom. https://karensiddall.wordpress.com/
September 10th @ Choices
Cheryl Grey Bostrom shares lessons she’s learned after writing three novels. http://madelinesharples.com
September 12th @ Chapter Break
Today’s guest is Cheryl Grey Bostrom, author of several novels set in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. https://chapterbreak.net/
September 14th @ Jill Sheet’s Blog
Today’s the last day for the blog tour for What the River Keeps! We’re ending on a high note with a post by author Cheryl Grey Bostrom about Improving Your Writing through Photography — and Other Art. https://jillsheets.blogspot.com/
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