Amy Garvey

Amy Garvey is a former editor who now works on the other side of the desk as an author. She grew up reading everything she could get her hands on, watching too much TV, and wishing she was Samantha Stephens from Bewitched. (She still wishes that, actually.) She is the author of Cold Kiss. Garvey lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with her family.

Her new novel is Glass Heart.

Late last month I asked the author what she was reading.  Garvey's reply:

I just finished Small Damages by Beth Kephart, and it was beautiful. Beth’s writing always is, but for a novel about a teenage girl getting pregnant, it just knocked me out. Her facility with language is incredible, so every line reads more like poetry than prose. It’s set mostly in Spain, and the descriptions are so vivid, I really could picture everything, but she doesn’t stint on emotion. I cried though the last chapter, which is always a mark of a book that got under my skin in the right way.

Right now I’m reading Chris Bohjalian’s The Night Strangers and Gayle Forman’s If I Stay, neither of which are particularly light-hearted, either. (I might need to sneak in something funny or romantic to give myself a break.) I’ve been a fan of Bohjalian’s since Midwives, and this seems like a little bit of a departure for him, but he still draws his characters and their situation with real clarity. Plus, there’s the possibility of ghosts, or at least something not altogether right bumping around in the basement. This time of year, I always itch to read horror.

If I Stay is really thought-provoking—a teenager is the only survivor of a car crash, and as she hovers between life and death she has one momentous decision to make, stay or go. The idea of trying to figure that out at seventeen is mind-blowing to me. I’m loving the way Forman has drawn Mia and her family, too. They feel like people you actually might live next door to.

I’m also reading an old favorite of mine, Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp, with my daughter. It’s a classic ghost story, and I’ve loved it since I bought my first copy at the school book fair in fourth grade. My daughter is gasping and laughing and frowning in all the right places, too, which makes me really happy.

Visit Amy Garvey's website.

--Marshal Zeringue