Allison Buccola

Allison Buccola is the author of The Ascent and Catch Her When She Falls.

She has a JD from the University of Chicago and lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and their two young children.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Buccola's reply:

I just finished reading The Felons’ Ball by Polly Stewart, which was great. It’s about a family who made their fortune running moonshine. They now make their money in legitimate ways, but every year they host a huge party called the Felons’ Ball, and this year something goes terribly wrong. Stewart really knows how to conjure a setting, and her description of this small Southern townimmediately drew me in. So much of this book is set on the water—on houseboats and motorboats and dock bars—and the specter of the family’s past hangs over everything.

And I’m currently reading Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall, which also has rich, immersive setting: an English farming village in the 1960’s. I didn’t know much about the plot going into it—I had heard it described as a love triangle with some mystery elements—but it’s a much more beautiful story than I was expecting. The setting and the two love interests (a steady, loyal farmer and the narrator’s first love who rocketed to fame as an author) remind me, in some ways, of Tom Lake—but it’s much more fraught, with the relationships woven into a mystery. I’m really enjoying it!

Visit Allison Buccola's website.

Q&A with Allison Buccola.

The Page 69 Test: Catch Her When She Falls.

--Marshal Zeringue