“I had a full shock of dark hair and long legs like the rest of the women on Freddie’s side of the family, but no one noticed these things.
“I had a full shock of dark hair and long legs like the rest of the women on Freddie’s side of the family, but no one noticed these things. No one saw anything but the wings, which were heart-shaped, crinkled like a paper fan.”
Richmond native Michele Young-Stone is releasing her second novel, Above Us Only Sky. Chop Suey Books is sponsoring a book launch party for Young-Stone at Northside Grill, March 1.
Prudence Eleanor Vilkas was born with wings. Everyone considered them a birth defect and they were removed. But when Prudence meets her Lithuanian grandfather, she hears stories about four generations of winged Vilkas women from 1863 to 1991. This is a story that spans several decades and crosses cultural divides.
Stone’s debut novel, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, is similar to her second in that they are both books encompassing stories about a variety of characters.
Lydia Netzer, bestselling author of Shine Shine Shine and How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky raved about Young-Stone’s newest work.
“Above Us Only Sky is a raw, beautiful, unforgettable book that folds unfathomable horrors and unfathomable love into a story of incredible power,” Netzer said in a review.
As fantastical as the subject of winged humans may seem, the core of this tale holds true, sobering emotion.
“VERDICT Young-Stone has written a novel that’s both fanciful and brutally realistic, soaring as it does between angelic beings and heartless dictators,” the Library Journal wrote in an online review.
The feelings evoked in reviewers from Young-Stone’s novels echo her own ideas about life perseverance.
“I’ve set goals for myself, often unspoken, and I’ve decided as I’ve gotten older and wiser, to be nice to myself,” Young-Stone wrote in her website biography. “The world isn’t such a nice place sometimes. We’d better be good to ourselves.”
Young-Stone, who currently lives in Outer Banks, NC, has garnered a lot of life experience to bolster her writing.
“I used to think that writers were quiet people who hid and typed at all hours of the night, but now I understand that any writer worth her salt has to live first and write second.”
Chop Suey Books will be selling signed copies of Above Us Only Sky two days before the book launching or readers can attend the signing from 2-5 p.m. this Sunday.
The Facebook page for this event can be found here.
