Laura Wiley: 3 books

Hannah Kirkwood, a frustrated painter and writer, has been teaching at Keefer Community College in California for ten years. On her fortieth birthday, and the anniversary of her father’s death, she is visited by his disapproving ghost during a class discussion of Hamlet. She then experiences a panic...

After her boyfriend dumps her for the singer in his jazz band, teacher and trumpet player Jill Sarton leaves San Francisco and moves back home to take care of her dying mother. She finds herself surrounded by the familiar world of Lemon Springs, the sleepy suburb where she grew up and fantasized about...

Things are going well for Violet Bloomquist. She’s spending the summer housesitting in the wealthy suburb of Bellavista with her husband and teaching a literature class at Knowlton College. The eccentric inhabitants of Bellavista provide a dramatic contrast to those in the grittier community of Knowlton,...