Mazewood

The Thrushcross Chronicles #3

by Emma Burns

In Mazewood, the final installment of The Thrushcross Chronicles , Harriet returns to Thrushcross Grange with plans in progress with Finn to develop the property into a film studio, but her friends are going through serious crises and the long-term issues with her parents are threatening to blow up and ruin everything. Harriet navigates the complexities of real commitment and acceptance while she and the most important people in her life renegotiate their difficult childhoods from an adult perspective. In the process, Harriet finally builds herself a real and permanent home.

343 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 22, 2023

About the author

Did you know I have a podcast? It's true! Look for Sacred Cheese of Life on Apple Podcasts, or go to http://emmaburns.org and click on Sacred Cheese of Life. You can also see a lot of essays about fiction on the Story on the Brain link.

My favorite things are reading, writing, watching things, and putting them all together to analyze fiction as a whole in a fun and energetic way in order to improve my own writing. Sacred Cheese of Life!

This refers to something Stephen Crane mentions in a very weird narrator comment in a short story called "The Open Boat," where he's mulling the meaning of life and how it's possible these people could just up and die when they're so close to shore. How is that fair? Are they getting yanked away just as they reach the sacred cheese of life? What on earth is he talking about there?

I think it's about all those things we love so much that they make life worth living. For me that's a lot of things, but life would be empty without fiction, for sure. So I love to dig into what makes fiction work and use that to improve my own writing.