Earnest (26 page)

 

The following discussion questions are included to enhance your group's reading of
Earnest.

Kristin von Kreisler will be happy to meet with your reading group by Skype, or in person if you're in the Seattle area. Contact her at
www.kristinvonkreisler.com

Kristin von Kreisler is the author of the acclaimed novel
An Unexpected Grace
. Her passion in life is writing and speaking about animals. To get stories for her work, she followed a grizzly bear for a week, went hang gliding to see how an eagle felt soaring through the sky, and watched in awe as millions of bats emerged from a cave at dusk like clouds of smoke. Twice she talked about animals for three hours in the middle of the night on the popular radio program
Coast to Coast
. In five minutes, anyone who meets her for the first time knows of her concern for animal welfare.

Kristin's first two books,
The Compassion of Animals
and
Beauty in the Beasts,
pioneered the topics of animal emotion and morality. To research, she collected thousands of stories of animals who had performed acts of kindness, generosity, and courage. Her third book,
For Bea,
a memoir about a beagle freed from a medical lab, received warm praise from fellow animal lovers. “Bea is unforgettable,” said Mary Tyler Moore, and Betty White called the book “a lovely story.” Kristin's books have been translated into twelve languages, and
The Compassion of Animals
was a Book of the Month Club selection. With her first novel,
An Unexpected Grace
, Kristin expanded her readership into the world of fiction.

Before her books about animals, Kristin spent ten years writing art and drama reviews and feature articles on subjects ranging from edible flowers to the trafficking of Eastern European women. Her articles have appeared in anthologies and textbooks and in the
Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Woman's Day, Family Circle
, and
Reader's Digest
, where she was a staff writer. She has taught English at the University of Hawaii and journalism at California State University at San Jose.

She lives on an island in Washington, where, she says, she'd rather work in her garden than breathe. Her kale grows to looming giants, and her lavender and catmint are sirens calling bees. From her desk she watches ospreys and seals, and every hour a ferry passes by. She and her husband, John, renovated a historic Victorian farmhouse, where the island's first postmistress and sheriff once lived with their seven children. During the renovation, newspapers dating from 1879 were found under layers of wallpaper, and the yard yielded up a long-buried rusty revolver.

Since childhood, Kristin has shared her life with cherished cats, dogs, birds, and fish. Her current animal companion is Bridget, a frisky German shepherd adopted through Washington German Shepherd Rescue. Kristin's husband and Bridget are her family, and her plants are some of her many friends. She welcomes all creatures to her peaceable kingdom, including an otter who wanders through the yard each day after her swim.

You are invited to visit her on Facebook or at
www.kristinvonkreisler.com
.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

 

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

 

Copyright © 2016 by Kristin von Kreisler

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

 

 

Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

 

eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0044-5
eISBN-10: 1-4967-0044-9
First Kensington Electronic Edition: February 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4967-0043-8