Katie Estill
Author's Homepage
Home
Novels
Dahlia's Gone
Evening Would Find Me
About
Upcoming!
Praise
About Katie
At Home or Abroad
Contact
Go Deeper
Praise for EVENING WOULD FIND ME:
“In modern-day Athens, a passionate affair with a Grecian painter leads a young American woman into a fierce tangle of relationships. A vital, absorbing story, well told.” –Elizabeth Spenser "A young American woman, recently bereaved, comes to Athens, falls in love–and meets her lover’s mad and appealing wife. Written with sensuality and delicacy, 'Evening Would Find Me' explores with poetic intensity a theme drawn from ancient tragedy.” –Edmund White “EVENING WOULD FIND ME is a mesmerizing tale lit by stunning images and peopled by tender, troubled, unforgettable characters. With patience and loving attention to detail, Katie Estill renders the mysterious love between one man and two women, the failure of language to contain or assuage fear, and the ultimate betrayal of madness. The scent of a woman whose skin tastes like the nectar of the goddesses will linger on the fingers long after the reader closes the pages of this haunting book.” –Melanie Rae Thon “As sensual and erotic a portrait of madness and obsessive love as I have ever read. Spellbinding.” –Pinckney Benedict “. .all the right elements are in place to produce an engrossing story–a seductive setting, attractive characters and a dramatic love affair.” –PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY “The whole book seems to glow with golden sunlight, the kind that can seem simultaneously to mock your pain and save you from succumbing to it.” –THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD “EVENING WOULD FIND ME is a very capably written, totally engaging, debut title that fully documents Katie Estill as a major literary talent, and leaves her readers looking eagerly forward to her next novel.” –THE MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW “The friction is deliciously unbearable until the climax, which is wholly unexpected and final.” –THE BLOOMSBURY REVIEW
Praise for DAHLIA'S GONE
“Good books do what nothing else in our lives can do–give full expression to the tender and tempestuous depths of our humanity–and Dahlia’s Gone is a very good book indeed. There’s an expansive sensibility within these pages, a fearless insistence on fusion, the author’s extraordinary capacity to blend the global and provincial, the sacred and profane, the introspective and dramatic, that makes Katie Estill rare among American novelists.” –BobShacochis, National Book Award-Winning Author of Easy in the Islands and The Immaculate Invasion. “In this astonishingly moving novel, Katie Estill takes the pieces of a family, the pieces of a backwater town, the pieces of women’s hard-bitten lives, and sews them together with a fine hand. What was broken is made whole. What cannot be made whole is redeemed. Of this we can be certain: Katie Estill is an inspired writer, this book a thing of passionate beauty.” –Leigh Allison Wilson, Flannery O’Connor Award-Winning Author of From the Bottom Up and Wind: Stories. "Thoughtful, well-crafted. . . The parallels between DAHLIA'S GONE and BROTHERS KARAMAZOV lift Estill's novel above the ranks of formula fiction. Like Dostoevsky's great novel, DAHLIA'S GONE builds the impression that everybody in town shares the guilt for the victim's bedroom death. Estill also links Dahlia Everston's death, as Dostoevsky did with that of another recent fatality, to a puzzling aroma, moving her book into the realm of mysticism . . . Estill's sharp writing has seized us. Her background detail resonates without overwhelming the foreground action. The more her people reveal of themselves, the more they fascinate us . . . Entertaining, thought provoking, and lyrical, DAHLIA'S GONE deserves big sales and a wide readership." -Peter Wolfe NEW LETTERS vol. 73, no. 3 “This novel, Estill’s second, paints a realistic and heartbreaking picture of the violence that is too often a part of women’s lives. . . .This story will stick with readers even after the case is closed.” --ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT GAZETTE “What makes Dahlia’s Gone stand out from the host of literary fiction written by women about women is Estill’s material. She covers ground not often trod upon by, say, Joyce Carol Oates or Toni Morrison. . . . DAHLIA'S GONE revolves around what women want and need. It’s a journey that takes place inside three very different female characters who unwittingly complement each other’s personalities.” –Gregory Holman, 417 MAGAZINE “Though the killer isn’t revealed until late in the story, Estill’s book isn’t a mystery. Instead, it is a graceful exploration of home, faith and what it means to be a woman struggling with middle age. . . . the book’s real story, about faith, forgiveness and friendship, resonates far beyond the Missouri mountains. This is a book that, in the end, celebrates the strength of women everywhere.” --KANSAS CITY STAR “In this highly recommended book, a young, beautiful girl is brutally murdered–and the lives of three women forever changed. . . .This is a story you won’t soon forget.” –Peg Brantley, ARMCHAIR INTERVIEWS “Well-crafted suspense pushes along a perceptive meditation on the bonds of faith and family.” –KIRKUS REVIEW “Simply told, without cliffhangers or sensational revelations, the story focuses on Norah, Sand and Patti as each adapts to the emotional landscape in the aftermath of an outrage that will leave them forever changed.” –PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY