Authors Kate Broad and Sara Maurer have the same editor at St. Martin’s Press, Claire Cheek.
“I was the editor’s first acquisition and Sara was her second, so we’ve gotten to go through a lot of this together. We connected online and then met for the first time in person when Sara came to New York City and we had lunch with our editor. We’ve kept in touch. It means a lot when you not only admire someone’s book but also get to count them as a friend,” said Broad, of the Bronx.
Broad and Maurer, of Sault Ste. Marie, will speak about and sign copies of their respective novels, “Greenwich” (St. Martin’s Press $28) and “A Good Animal” (St. Martin’s Press $29), at “An Evening with Kate Broad and Sara Maurer,” which will be held at Schuler Books in Ann Arbor on Thursday, Oct. 8, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. RSVP for this free event.
“I’ve wanted to do an event with Sara ever since I first got to read an early copy of ‘A Good Animal.’ It might seem like our books are so different – mine is about family secrets in a tony Connecticut town, and Sara’s is about a sheep farm in the UP. But it’s almost uncanny how much the books speak to each other. They’re both coming-of-age novels set in the 1990s, about adults looking back on when they were seventeen and had to make a pivotal choice that changed their futures forever. There’s going to be so much to talk about,” explained Broad.
Added Maurer: “Kate’s going to be in the Ann Arbor area visiting a friend and reached out to me to do a Michigan event. I said absolutely! I’ve talked to Kate several times throughout my debut year to ask publishing questions and she has always been willing to offer her insight and advice. The book world is filled with such generous individuals.”
“Greenwich”
“Greenwich” occurs in 1999. Rachel Fiske, 17, arrives at her aunt and uncle’s mansion in Greenwich, CT. Her aunt is recovering from an injury, and Rachel wants to help – as well as escape her own troubles back home. But her relatives are distant. Rachel feels lonely and adrift, excluded from the world of adults and their secrets. The only bright spot is Claudia, a recent college graduate, aspiring artist and the live-in babysitter for Rachel’s cousin. As summer deepens, Rachel eagerly hopes their friendship might grow into more. But when a tragic accident occurs, Rachel must make a pivotal choice. Caught between her desire to do the right thing and to protect her future, she’s the only one who knows what really happened – and her decision has consequences far beyond what she could have predicted.
“I was driving through that part of Connecticut, looking at all these unbelievable houses, when I started imagining what it would be like if one of those gates opened up and let me in. What would it be like inside?” recalled Broad. “I’m certainly not the only person fascinated by stories about rich people behaving badly, but I wanted to get past the beautiful facades and look at the real lives and complicated power structures underneath them. Ultimately, it became a book about memory, complicity, and what it can cost to tell the truth.”
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Once Broad imagined those gates opening, she envisioned someone who didn’t belong to that world yet still had access to it. Enter Rachel.
“Rachel is 17, visiting her aunt and uncle, and learning how to navigate this world of wealth and unspoken rules. She’s old enough to understand more than people give her credit for, but young enough to misunderstand things, too – or to pretend that she does. I knew she’d be a difficult character to write, but I had no idea how far she was going to test me,” said Broad. “The book is told entirely from Rachel’s perspective, which means every other character gets described through her particular – and sometimes very limited – way of seeing the world. Those characters always need to feel like full, complicated people even when Rachel doesn’t fully see them that way. I was constantly figuring out what Rachel knows, what she thinks she knows, and what the reader might understand before she does – all while staying true to her voice.”
Broad spoke about how “Greenwich” stands out from other books.
“‘Greenwich” starts out like a summer coming-of-age novel – an outsider leaving home and entering this seductive new world – but the adult Rachel is telling the story decades later, after something has gone terribly wrong,” she explained. “I wanted the reader constantly questioning the gap between what seventeen-year-old Rachel saw, what she understood, and what she’s willing to admit now. It’s a book about secrets, but also about the stories we tell ourselves in order to live with them.”
People Magazine named “Greenwich” to its list of Best New Books.
“My publicist casually mentioned that People was reading it, but this industry is full of messages that someone is reading or loving your book and then crickets, so I didn’t take it too seriously,” said Broad. “When I got the follow-up that it was happening, it was such a shock, and an unbelievable honor. Things were pretty quiet for me leading up to publication, and then all of a sudden, I found out ‘Greenwich’ was in People, in Vanity Fair, and that Amazon had selected it as an Editors’ Pick – I basically had to lie down, my nervous system had no way of absorbing that much good news.”
Broad earned her bachelor’s degree in English and political science from Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA. She later earned her doctoral degree in English at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.
While “Greenwich” is Broad’s first novel under her own name, she’s been writing and publishing in one form or another for almost 20 years, having written 10 romance novels under the pen name Rebecca Brooks. Her next novel (as herself) is “Vanishing Points,” which will be released in August of 2027.
“I hope I don’t jinx myself with this, but I genuinely love writing,” said Broad. “I love the problem-solving, and the feeling when something finally clicks. There’s a dinner scene between Rachel and her aunt where they’re both keeping enormous secrets and neither will say what they mean. I was essentially writing two scenes at once – what was being said and what wasn’t – and the whole thing came out in one sitting and barely changed afterward. That almost never happens, which is probably why I remember it so clearly. Now that the book is out, though, the best part has been hearing from readers who tell me they can’t stop thinking about it or that they’ve never read anything quite like it. It makes all the difficult parts feel worth it.”
“A Good Animal”
“A Good Animal” is Maurer’s debut novel. Set in rural Michigan, it’s a coming-of-age story about Everett Lindt, 17, who loves his family’s sheep farm and wants to stay. This puts him at odds with Mary, a new girl who dreams of leaving for art school in California. The novel explores their intense first love, the conflict between staying and leaving, and the difficult choices that shape their futures, blending the realities of farm life with raw, emotional teenage angst.
“The image of a young couple in a truck at the Sugar Island Ferry dock (in Sault Ste. Marie) came to me in 2019,” recalled Maurer. “A few months later, another scene came to me. This was of two young men watching a horse show. These characters and scenes rolled around in my head for about a year, making connections and eventually forming the story of ‘A Good Animal.’”
She spoke about the creation of Everett and Mary.
“Everett came to my mind pretty whole,” said Maurer. “I felt I knew him immediately and that I was writing his story. I wanted to create a character who loved his family’s land and his life and had no desire to leave it.”
However, Mary was much more difficult.
“My editor helped me bring her more solidly to the page by asking very specific questions about what she was wearing or doing in each scene, what her voice sounded like, what her facial expressions were. All of these attributes came quite naturally to the other female characters in the book, such as Katie and Kylie, who seemed so inhabited from the start. Mary, however, has never had time to learn who she is, and so because of that, she was more challenging to render,” explained Maurer.
It took Maurer two years to write “A Good Animal.” She spoke about her journey to publication.
“When I completed the online writing certificate program in the spring of 2022, my manuscript was just about complete and I began querying agents. Then in the fall, I noticed that one of the agents I had been following was going to be at a writing conference in Michigan, so I drove down from the (Upper Peninsula) to Auburn Hills to pitch her. She was intrigued by the story and the main character’s voice and asked me for 25 pages. A few weeks later, she asked for the full manuscript. I signed with her early in 2023,” explained Maurer.
She’s pleased with how “A Good Animal” is selling.
“It’s already earned out its advance, which is not something a lot of debut books do, especially so quickly,” said Maurer. “I’m so grateful to all the readers who have purchased a copy, whether print, digital, or audio, all the booksellers who have stocked it on their shelves, and to all the libraries who have offered it to their patrons.”
Maurer earned her undergraduate degree in English and French from Albion College and her master’s degree in written communications from Eastern Michigan University. In 2022, she completed Stanford University‘s Continuing Studies Novel Writing Certificate program. Maurer had short stories and poems published in various publications prior to the release of “A Good Animal,” her love letter to the U.P.
“I’ve lived here almost all my life, but even so, I had to learn about the geography, the soil, the plants and trees I see every day. Writing the book forced me to slow down and look around,” she said. “The best part has been my own personal growth. I’ve learned so many things since starting this journey and I’ve met so many talented people. I’m doing things I never imagined I’d get the chance to do.”
Maurer’s upcoming signing is her first in Ann Arbor.
“I’m so grateful to Schuler Books for hosting us!” she said.
Added Broad: “I’m really looking forward to being in Ann Arbor and talking with Sara. ‘Greenwich’ and ‘A Good Animal’ both approach the 1990s, adolescence, family, and memory from such different perspectives. I think it’s going to be a really fun conversation, and I hope people will come join us and bring their questions.”
Visit Broad at katebroad.com. Visit Maurer at saramaurerwrites.com.
Book signing at Schuler Books
“An Evening with Kate Broad and Sara Maurer” will be held at Schuler Books, located in the Westgate Shopping Center at 2513 Jackson Ave. in Ann Arbor, on Thursday, Oct. 8, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Please RSVP today for this free event. For questions or more information, contact Schuler Books at (734) 662-0600.
