It’s not uncommon for writers to be occasionally outgoing introverts, and that’s definitely the bucket I’m in, personally. While I need long stretches of solo time, I also love to meet readers (my Events page for the WOMAN 99 paperback is filling up!) and I especially love to meet other authors. Conferences are great places for both, and at last summer’s Historical Novel Society Conference, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on World War II fiction and getting to know several authors doing really cool work in that time period.

One of those really cool authors was today’s guest, Kip Wilson. Her amazing YA novel-in-verse WHITE ROSE, about anti-Nazi political activist Sophie Scholl, received starred reviews from Kirkus, School Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, and Booklist. WHITE ROSE won the 2017 PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children's Book Discovery Award and was a 2019 Winter/Spring Indies Introduce and Spring Indie Next title. Kip holds a Ph.D. in German Literature, was the poetry editor at YARN (Young Adult Review Network) for five years, and wrote her doctoral dissertation about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. She's lived in Germany, Austria, and Spain, and currently calls Boston home.

The book Kip recommends is the latest from Sherri L. Smith (who was also on that World War II panel I mentioned), THE BLOSSOM AND THE FIREFLY, about the relationship between a teenage kamikaze pilot and a young woman he meets on the air base just days before his final mission. Here’s the lead-in to Kip’s recommendation: “Written in gorgeous, lyrical prose, THE BLOSSOM AND THE FIREFLY transports readers to the impending doom hovering over an air base in Japan during the final days of World War II. This little-known slice of history comes alive through the voices of Nadeshiko girl Hana and tokkō pilot Taro, two teenagers whose sense of duty to their country is equal only to their shared feelings of loss as they hover between life and death.”

Click here to read the full review on BookBub.

You can also click here to follow Kip Wilson on BookBub or click here to follow Sherri L. Smith and find out more about their books and other recommendations.