THE WARBLER comes out today!!!

Today is the book birthday for my newest book, THE WARBLER! It's book club fiction, out today from Lake Union, about three generations of women and how one person's choice can become another's curse. It is also about a woman who may or may not turn into a tree.

Writing this book was such an extraordinary experience! Right from the beginning, it surprised me. Almost all of my stories are born at my desk, while my fingers tap at my keyboard, but this one... It came out of nowhere. One afternoon, I was taking a walk by my house, and as I reached the stump of the late great tree that splits my street, words popped into my head:

"My mother is a willow. She stands by a stream that burbles like a toddler's kisses, and her leaves dip into the water whenever the wind blows, to be nibbled by fish who don't know any better... Perhaps I will be a pear tree."

I kept repeating the words over and over as I hurried home to type them up before I forgot them. But there was no way I was going to forget them -- I couldn't stop thinking about my tree woman, wondering who she was, worrying about her. She became Elisa, a woman who has never stayed anywhere for longer than ten months. She's constantly propelled by her fear that if she puts down roots, a family curse will turn her into a tree. But she's grown tired of flitting from town to town and in and out of relationships. When she discovers a small town in Massachusetts with residents who claim they can never leave, she hopes she can change her fate.

THE WARBLER is about mothers and daughters, choices and consequences, and the real meaning of home when every place feels like a cage.

If you'd like to learn more about this book or read the first chapter, please visit my website: http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/Warbler.htm

Also, if you like to listen to audiobooks, the audiobook edition of The Warbler has three amazing narrators -- Caitlin Davies, Sara Sheckells, and Marni Penning -- and they're spectacular!

Thanks so much to everyone at Lake Union for bringing this book to life! I'm so excited it's out in the world!

Happy reading!!!