Karen White, author of The Beach Trees, on tour May 2011

About The Beach Trees

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: NAL Trade (May 3, 2011)

In her new novel, White, the national bestselling author of On Folly Beach and the award-winning author of thirteen previous books, weaves together themes of Southern culture, the powerful bond of family, to courage to rebuild in the face of destruction and personal triumph to create an incredibly moving story her fans are sure to embrace.

In the aftermath of tragedy, life goes on—painful and forever altered, but ripe with new beginnings. For Julie Holt, traveling to the beautiful but ravaged coast of Biloxi, Mississippi, is a journey into a secret past and a life she never expected. Julie first knew loss at the age of twelve when her sister disappeared, never to be found. As her once close-knit family grew apart, Julie’s mother obsessively searched for the girl and when her mother died, Julie took up the search, never letting go of the hope.

Then at an art exhibition in New York she meets Monica—a struggling artist and single mother who reminds Julie so much of her sister that she can’t help feeling drawn to her. Monica paints a vivid picture of her family, but never says why or how she lost contact with them. She has another secret: a heart condition that will soon take her life.

When Monica dies, Julie inherits from her an antique portrait as well as custody of her young son, Beau. Taking him back to Biloxi and New Orleans to see the family he has never met, Julie discovers a connection of her own. The portrait, of an old relative, was done by her great-grandfather—and unlocks a family history she never knew.

About Karen White

From her first moments on the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, novelist Karen White was in love. Was it the history—especially that of Charleston and Savannah—the architecture, the sound of the sea, the light, the traditions, the people, the food, the lore? Check all of the above. Add Karen’s storytelling talent, her endless curiosity about relationships and emotions, and her sensitivity to the rhythms of the south, and it seems inevitable that this mix of passions would find its way into her work.

Known for award-winning novels such as Learning to Breathe, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance 2009 Book of the Year Award finalist The House on Tradd Street, the highly praised The Memory of Water, the four-week SIBA bestseller The Lost Hours, Pieces of the Heart, and her IndieBound national bestseller The Color of Light, Karen has shared her appreciation of the coastal Low country with readers in four of her last six novels.

Italian and French by ancestry, a southerner and a storyteller by birth, Karen has made her home in many different places.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she has also lived in Texas, New Jersey, Louisiana, Georgia, Venezuela and England, where she attended the American School in London. She returned to the states for college and graduated from New Orleans’ Tulane University. Hailing from a family with roots firmly set in Mississippi (the Delta and Biloxi), Karen notes that “searching for home brings me to the south again and again.”

Visit the author at her website, and become a fan on Facebook.