Susanna Kearsley will be my guest on my forum Gail's Kitchen on Saturday, May 31 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST. Bring a cuppa and listen in, or join the chat by clicking on "register" at the top of the forum. To ensure your participation, please register a day or two ahead of time.

Susanna and I will be talking about the differences between writing literary and "commercial" fiction (those definitions are always tricky!), about her new book The Winter Sea, just out in Canada in May, and about the writing life in general.

Susanna Kearsley's novels of suspense have been translated into several languages, selected by the Mystery Guild, condensed by Readers' Digest, and optioned for film. Her second book, Mariana, won a major English prize and last year her debut thriller, Every Secret Thing (written under her pen name Emma Cole) was a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for best novel.

A lover of history and travel, she spent two years living with her family in South Korea as a teenager, and still travels widely to research her settings, which are mostly European. She's also a stay-at-home mom to two young children who, she says, keep her very busy when she isn't writing! Her ninth book, The Winter Sea, set on the west coast of Scotland, arrives in Canadian bookstores this May.

For more on Susanna and her work, visit her two websites:

http://www.susannakearsley.com/
http://www.emmacole.ca/

For early reader's reaction to her new novel (already released in the UK) go to:

http://rosario.blogspot.com/2008/03/winter-sea-by-susanna-kearsley.html

To see a trailer of The Winter Sea, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SzIiH1RCn4