“If My Book” is an entertaining feature of the literary journal Monkeybicycle. I thought you might enjoy these two pieces by authors you should know, and they were kind enough to give me permission to re-post them here.

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If Geographies of the Heart were a song, it would be country, full of twang and heartache and a dash of hope. The song would be more a croon than with a beat, and there would be references to loss, broken down cars, and beer. The song would be all about the lyrics and the singer’s clear voice.

If Geographies of the Heart were a dessert, it would be a chocolate bar with sea salt, that mix of sweet and salty, the taste of hope mixed with tears.

If Geographies of the Heart were a sport, it would be the hurdles. But my book would win the race no matter its placement because my book is all about learning what a win in life really is and sometimes it doesn’t mean coming in first.

If Geographies of the Heart were a season it would be fall. A time of changing colors, collecting leaves, and huddling against the cold and yet also a time of being cozy in front of a fireplace and of everyone coming together.

If Geographies of the Heart were a job, it would be a book publicist because sharing our stories matters.

If Geographies of the Heart were a location, it would be Minnesota, just before Christmas, after a long, steady snow. There would be sledding and hot chocolate and family around, as many as we could gather.

If Geographies of the Heart were a ghost, it would move like a gentle breeze and whisper, be bold, say what you mean, have no regrets, love fully and without any conditions, forgive.

Caitlin Hamilton Summie earned an MFA with Distinction from Colorado State University. Her story collection, To Lay to Rest Our Ghosts (Fomite Press, 2017), won the fourth annual Phillip H. McMath Book Award, Silver in the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Short Stories, and was a Pulpwood Queens Book Club Bonus Book. Her debut novel, Geographies of the Heart (Fomite Press, 2022), was inspired by three stories in her collection. She spent many years in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Colorado before settling with her family in Knoxville, Tennessee. She co-owns the book marketing firm, Caitlin Hamilton Marketing & Publicity, founded in 2003. Find her online at caitlinhamiltonsummie.com.

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If The Good Luck Stone were the afternoon sky, it would herald the approaching end of summer, a ways off yet, but you see it on the distant horizon where all deaths linger. Instead of looking away, you’ll shade your hand over your eyes, the air still thick with humidity. The kind of sky an artist would paint, layering white upon cerulean until the canvas ripples like ocean waves. But the expanse of genteel placid blue is ruffled by gathering clouds, smudges of charcoal gray that foretell secrets, betrayal, war. Every hour, every minute, they drift closer.

If this book were a storm, it would rumble in the night and wake you from slumber. In the four poster heirloom bed you’ll reach across the lavender-scented sheets for the friend, the lover, someone, anyone, who ought to be beside you. But you’ll find them gone. You’ll worry you’re to blame, that this is your legacy, that it’s built on a lie, that no one will ever know the real you.

If the story were a good luck charm, it would be a brooch carved from jade, the hazy green stone still as smooth as when you first held it so long ago. A tiny seed pearl glimmers from its center. A promise. You’ll clutch the brooch in your palm, its weight a stubborn reminder, until the storm passes.

If the morning after the storm breaks calm, the sunrise as rosy as Degas’ dancers, this book would arrive as flowers blooming—raspberry pink hibiscus as large as dinner plates and trailing vines of coral frangipani, their throats striped with yellow, their tropical scent as sweet as sugar, as enduring as memory. 

If the story finds you on the first walk of the day, you’ll stroll through an elegant courtyard garden, its verdant heart encircled by lacy wrought iron. Your journey will meander in the way of tales told by Southern grandmothers. The path ahead is marked by uneven moss-covered cobblestones, past and present shifting until a decades-old decision, as momentous as it was irreversible, is unearthed. 

If The Good Luck Stone were a gathering, it would be an intimate luncheon beneath an ivy-covered bower, a respite from the midday sun. You do not need—you’ve never really wanted—a large crowd. Your handful of friends, new and old, as close as sisters, are here. The swish of linen dresses, the crispness of chilled rosé. You’ll pick up the story again as though at a loose thread. The cool surprise of an easy breeze. Tangles of Spanish moss brushed back like a curtain rising. A flash of recognition, of understanding. You’ve waited years upon years for this. The truth like a fragile hothouse bloom passed from one hand to another, carefully cultivated, easily bruised, its startling color flashing in the light. 

Heather Bell Adams is the author of two novels, Maranatha Road (West Virginia University Press 2017), and The Good Luck Stone (Haywire Books 2020). Maranatha Road won the gold medal for the Southeast region in the Independent Publisher Book Awards. The Good Luck Stone appeared on Summer Reading Lists for Deep South Magazine, Writer’s Bone, The Big Other and Buzz Feed and won Best Historical Novel post-1900 in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her work appears in the North Carolina Literary Review, Still: The Journal, Parentheses, Atticus Review, The Thomas Wolfe Review, Raleigh Review, The Petigru Review, Pembroke Magazine, Broad River Review, and elsewhere.

Heather graduated from Duke University and Duke University School of Law and now lives in Raleigh, where she works as a lawyer. She served as North Carolina’s 2022 Piedmont Laureate. Most recently, she was the 2023 Pat Conroy Writer-in-Residence in Beaufort, South Carolina.

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Monkeybicycle is an online literary journal which is updated almost daily. Founded in 2002 in Seattle, Monkeybicycle has continued to publish work of the highest quality in a wide range of literary categories. Find out more at https://monkeybicycle.net/.