Kissing the Sky

A Novel

From the bestselling author of Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’easter comes a soulful, nostalgic novel about a young woman coming of age in the ‘60s to the blare of the music that shaped a generation.

It’s the summer of ’69. While her peers revel in free love and rock and roll, Suzannah is home from college, sequestered inside her conservative Southern home. Her domineering father has condemned rock music and driven away her best friend. She’s counting the days until fall.

But everything changes when her free-spirited best friend, Livy, resurfaces, urging Suzannah, a talented singer, to join her for three days of peace and music in upstate New York. Fed up with her father’s rules and fearful for her brother’s fate in Vietnam, Suzannah agrees to the road trip, sneaking off without her parents’ knowledge.

Miles outside her comfort zone, the electrifying bedlam of Woodstock jolts her into a journey of self-transformation. But it’s not all incense and peppermints. Suzannah’s falling hard for Leon, a boy she meets at the festival, and the seductive bud of first love conceals a thorn of heartache. Lies uncover betrayal, and Livy’s wild behavior leads to a startling revelation.

A nostalgic trip through the turbulent ’60s, this is the story of a lovable heroine who lets go of the girl she was to embrace the woman she’s becoming while she learns to lift her voice—for herself and perhaps for the world.