Overview

"Award winning author, Susan K. Field has released her debut novel, Eleanor's Song. A coming of age. A thriller. Above all, a story of redemption and hope. A car crash in 1927 finds three-month-old Eleanor Owens wailing on the floorboard of a Ford Model T. Amid the menacing torrents of rain, her mother lies dead along a Washington highway, as the vehicle that caused the accident speeds away, and leaves Eleanor orphaned. Placed in the care of her stern and poverty-stricken grandmother, Eleanor endures the challenge of growing up in small rural towns, yearning for her mother and another life. By age seventeen, Eleanor devises a plan. She intends to join the US Army Nurse Corps. Get an education. And climb out of poverty. But her brilliant plan crumbles. In her despair, she impulsively makes a series of calamitous decisions and becomes entrapped in terror, abuse, and homelessness. Inspired by true events and set amid the backdrop of the Great Depression, World War II, and the western migration, Eleanor Owens learns lessons about the ties that make a family strong, how to endure, and about her own resolve. ""The release of Eleanor's Song is bittersweet for me,"" says Field. ""While the book is fiction, it is inspired by pieces of my mother's life. In September, I wanted to give her a finished book, but she passed in early July of 2023 at the age of ninety-five before I had a chance to. My mother knew I was writing this novel. I interviewed her extensively over the years. Thus, this is dedicated to her and the women who have survived, and the women who haven't. May their stories endure."" Susan K. Field is an author of stories celebrating women. Before she started writing fiction full-time, Susan worked in organizational communications, championing the voices of those who could not advocate for themselves: homeless and abused animals, children with special needs, and victims of domestic violence. Based on these experiences, she felt called to write Eleanor's Song, her debut novel. Susan holds a master's degree in writing. Her nonfiction, poetry, articles, and essays have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, commercial magazines, trade journals, and blogs. An excerpt from Eleanor's Song, entitled, A Shadow of a Decision, won a Kay Snow Writing Award, Short Story category in 2021."

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Reviews

"Jane Kirkpatrick, best-selling, award-winning author: ""Susan K. Field in Eleanor's Song has written the classic novel: a character we can cheer for, who has talents and flaws, who makes mistakes but we understand because she's young and she's lived with terrible wounds. It's a compelling read, a true page turner that unveils a strong woman resilient through trauma. Bravo to Eleanor and to her creator! May we see more from this debut author."" Jane Kirkpatrick, award-winning author of Beneath the Bending Skies Kirkus Reviews: ""... the evocative prose and several scenes of intense action make the narrative addictive ... culminating in a thrillingly explosive life-and-death battle. A ... period piece with moments of grace and a sturdy hero."" - Kirkus Reviews BookLife Reviews: ""Field brings forth an historical tale of family, trauma, love, and determination ... The prose sings, and Field offers welcome insight into life's most vulnerable moments. Historical fiction readers will find this compelling novel of growth and perseverance one to treasure."" - BookLife Reviews ""The full spectrum of the human condition lies at the heart of Susan Field's debut novel, Eleanor's Song. This is both its triumph and its heartache. Eleanor Owens, the book's central character, is at once both fragile and vulnerable and then, in a heartbeat, forceful and unstoppable. A child of the Great Depression, she enters young adulthood having survived a sense of alienation from most members of her inherited immediate family upon her mother's death, constant poverty and relocation, a sexual assault by her own father and, in the closing pages of her story, an abusive marriage that comes closer to destroying her life than all the hardscrabble realities that preceded it. The truth, though, is that Eleanor is much more than a survivor. She's strong, but also weak. Thoughtful and, yet again, occasionally vengeful. Caring and, to a degree, self-absorbed. In other words, she represents all of us at our best and worst moments and that is what makes her story so relatable and captivating."" -- Laurie Baker, archivist ""Eleanor's Song, is powerful and intense with the emotions of women and children battered in the poverty of the Great Depression. While never excusing the abuse, Ms. Field refuses to fall into stereotypes by showing compassion for the men twisted by despair and the horrors of World War II."" MaryJane Nordgren, author of Nandria's War, Float, Caged, and more"

Author Information

Award winning author Susan K. Field has released her debut novel, Eleanor's Song. A coming of age. A thriller. Above all, a story of redemption and hope. She is an author of stories celebrating women. An excerpt from Eleanor's Song won a Kay Snow Writing Award, Short Story category in 2021. Before she started writing fiction full-time, Susan worked in organizational communications, championing the voices of those who could not advocate for themselves: homeless and abused animals, children with special needs, and victims of domestic violence. Based on these experiences, she felt called to write Eleanor's Song. Susan holds a master's degree in writing. Her nonfiction, poetry, articles, and essays have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, commercial magazines, trade journals, and blogs. Susan lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and has a penchant for hiking woodland trails.

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