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Loretta Nyhan

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Loretta Nyhan

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Influences
The Beats, Jack Kerouac, John Irving, Audrey Niffenegger, Liane Moriar ...more

Member Since
December 2008

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I was a reader before I was a writer, devouring everything I could get my hands on, including the backs of cereal boxes and the instructions booklet for building the Barbie dream house. Later, my obsession with reading evolved into an absolute need to write. After college, I wrote for national trade magazines, taught writing to college freshmen, and eventually found the guts to try fiction.

I'm the author of the upcoming All the Good Parts (Lake Union, 2016) and Digging In (Lake Union, 2017). Previous published novels include I’ll Be Seeing You and Empire Girls (MIRA Books).

When I'm not writing, I can be found knitting, baking, and doing all kinds of things my high school self would have found hilarious.

I live in the Chicago area with my two
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Loretta Nyhan We did! It happened in New York City, about a week after the book was published. We hugged and cried, and then had the most amazing time!
Average rating: 3.82 · 37,173 ratings · 3,523 reviews · 14 distinct worksSimilar authors
Digging In

3.82 avg rating — 19,558 ratings — published 2018 — 11 editions
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The Other Family

3.70 avg rating — 7,371 ratings — published 2020 — 6 editions
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All the Good Parts

3.81 avg rating — 2,664 ratings — published 2016 — 6 editions
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The New Person

4.01 avg rating — 448 ratings6 editions
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This Heart of Mine

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3.67 avg rating — 202 ratings — published 2013 — 4 editions
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The Witch Collector Part I

3.60 avg rating — 182 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions
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The Witch Collector Part II

3.57 avg rating — 88 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions
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More books by Loretta Nyhan…

THE OTHER FAMILY--out April 1, 2020!!

I still can't rate my books--it doesn't feel right. What I can do is explain why I wrote THE OTHER FAMILY, and why I hope you'll want to read it...

So...I was at a party (shocker, I know) a few years ago. A group of us were discussing the now ubiquitous 23andMe DNA test--it was fairly new then, and people were curious. How did it work? If you did it, what did you find out? Were you surprised? Well, Read more of this blog post »
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Published on November 18, 2019 13:12

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She's just so good! Lost sleep to finish this one. ...more
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Quotes by Loretta Nyhan  (?)
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“She'd come running up the driveway and into the kitchen, bringing the spring morning behind her like a trail of hope.”
Loretta Nyhan, Empire Girls

“It occurred to me that grief is like a tunnel. You enter it without a choice because you must get to the other side. The darkness of it plays tricks on you and sometimes you can even forget where you are or what your purpose is. I believe that people, now and again, get lost or stuck in that tunnel and never find their way out.”
Loretta Nyhan, Empire Girls

“What do you think people should say to someone who’s just lost a loved one? I don’t think there are many options.” Petra thought for a moment. “If you knew the person who died, I think you should share a memory, something you don’t think they’d know about. The wilder the better.” “And if you didn’t know the person who died?” “Then you should ask for a good memory that best describes him or her. Let the grieving person have a moment with that person again.”
Loretta Nyhan, Digging In

Polls

Vote For One Book For June 2018

The Identicals The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand by Elin Hilderbrand
From New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand, a summertime story about identical twins who couldn't be any less alike.

Nantucket is only two and a half hours away from Martha's Vineyard by ferry. But the two islands might as well be worlds apart for a set of identical twin sisters who have been at odds for years. When a family crisis forces them to band together — or at least appear to — the twins slowly come to realize that the special bond that they share is more important than the sibling rivalry that's driven them apart for the better part of their lives. A touching depiction of all the pleasures and annoyances of the sibling relationship, Elin Hilderbrand's next New York Times bestseller, THE IDENTICALS proves once and for all that just because twins look exactly the same doesn't mean they're anything alike.
 
  3 votes 33.3%

Digging In Digging In by Loretta Nyhan by Loretta Nyhan
In author Loretta Nyhan’s warm, witty, and wonderful novel, a widow discovers an unexpected chance to start over—right in her own backyard.

Paige Moresco found her true love in eighth grade—and lost him two years ago. Since his death, she’s been sleepwalking through life, barely holding on for the sake of her teenage son. Her house is a wreck, the grass is overrun with weeds, and she’s at risk of losing her job. As Paige stares at her neglected lawn, she knows she’s hit rock bottom. So she does something entirely unexpected: she begins to dig.
 
  2 votes 22.2%

The Secret Life of Violet Grant The Secret Life of Violet Grant (Schuyler Sisters #1) by Beatriz Williams by Beatriz Williams
Passion, redemption, and a battered suitcase full of secrets: the New York Times-bestselling author of A Hundred Summers returns with another engrossing tale.
 
  2 votes 22.2%

Love & Gelato Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch by Jenna Evans Welch

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is get back home.
 
  1 vote 11.1%

The Wife The Wife by Alafair Burke by Alafair Burke
His scandal. Her secret.

When Angela met Jason Powell while catering a dinner party in East Hampton, she assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling, like so many relationships between locals and summer visitors. To her surprise, Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, had other plans, and they married the following summer. For Angela, the marriage turned out to be a chance to reboot her life. She and her son were finally able to move out of her mother’s home to Manhattan, where no one knew about her tragic past.
 
  1 vote 11.1%

The Perfect Couple The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand by Elin Hilderbrand
From New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand, comes a novel about the many ways family can fill our lives with love...if they don't kill us first.

It's wedding season on Nantucket. The beautiful island is overrun with summer people--an annual source of aggravation for year-round residents. And that's not the only tension brewing offshore. When one lavish wedding ends in disaster before it can even begin--with the bride-to-be discovered dead in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony--everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash digs into the best man, the maid of honor, the groom's famous mystery novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, the chief discovers that every wedding is a minefield--and no couple is perfect.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

9 total votes
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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Ask Suzanne Palmieri: Pen name: Suzanne Hayes 1 22 Mar 08, 2013 02:44PM  
The Reading Chall...: Jackie's 2018 Reading Challenges 6 22 Jan 19, 2018 11:56AM  
Play Book Tag: Booknblues 2018 Reading Challenges 24 39 Feb 08, 2018 09:30PM  
Play Book Tag: Digging In by Loretta Nyhan -3.5 stars rounded up 7 23 Mar 15, 2018 11:16PM  
Game Night: This topic has been closed to new comments. June Challenge of the Month: Are We There Yet? 71 130 Jul 01, 2018 01:06AM  
Precinct 81: This topic has been closed to new comments. Round 5 - Task 5 27 19 Jul 26, 2018 01:29PM  
Game Night: This topic has been closed to new comments. Carmen the Bootyshaker Temptress 16 11 Jul 31, 2018 05:36AM  
Nothing But Readi...: BOOKS READ: Filius Flitwick 753 264 Aug 31, 2018 06:24PM  
“[...]the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.”
Walt Whitman

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is.”
Jim Morrison

“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
Joan Didion

“People don’t get what they deserve; they get what they work for.”
Barbara Delinsky, Before and Again

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Loretta Nyhan Thanks for asking!


Christine wrote: "Thanks for being my friend Loretta"


Christine Hatfield Thanks for being my friend Loretta


Loretta Nyhan Anna wrote: "I love your photo!!! "

My son loves taking photos of the inside of his mouth. Go figure!


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