“What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writer’s life seemed the most inclusive.”
—Susan Sontag
DEBORAH REED is the author of seven novels, most recently Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan, and The Days When Birds Come Back, both published with Mariner, now an imprint of Harper Collins. Her novel, Things We Set On Fire, sold over 100,000 copies in the first six months, and another, Carry Yourself Back To Me, was an Amazon Editors’ Pick of the Year.
She has taught novel writing at the Hellenic American University in Athens, Greece, the UCLA extension program in Los Angeles, and was previously the co-director of the Black Forest Writing Seminars at Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany. Until June of 2022, she was the owner of Cloud & Leaf Bookstore in Manzanita, Oregon. She now lives and writes in Berlin. Her forthcoming novel will be announced soon.
“Deborah Reed’s novel, Carry Yourself Back to Me, marries gorgeous and wise prose with a can’t-help-but-read-one-more- chapter plot. In it, Reed weaves a complex story of love and longing that’s mysterious, intelligent and full of heart. She had me from page one.” — Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
“This ain’t no simple love story. It’s more like the story of our lives, rendered up close and very personal. It’s also remarkably akin to how our lives have been put to song by traditional American troubadours, primarily of the Southern variety. That’s not to say Reed’s forlorn tale is the mere literary equivalent of a country song, mind you. But it isn’t very difficult to imagine Patsy Cline or June Carter Cash voicing the sentiments that make this such a compelling debut.” — Sun Post Weekly
“What a finely made, complex, and wholly engrossing novel this is. The people who inhabit Things We Set on Fire seem to be squeezed into some catastrophic critical mass, like the Big Bang in reverse, and yet the prose is completely under control, precise and lucid, sometimes electric with nuance, sometimes strangely musical, and always convincing. The moral pressures on these characters become almost unbearable, yet the radiance of grace and pardon and understanding shines on. Reed has given us a beautiful book.”— Tim O’ Brien, author of The Things They Carried, and winner of The National Book Award
“Deborah’s writing is complex, layered, diverse, and, much like the writer herself, a bit paradoxical. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on what’s happening, everything falls out from under you…At times, her works seem reminiscent of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone or Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine. Her characters are complicated and flawed, but that’s precisely what makes them real, likable, and human.” — VICE Magazine
“In Reed’s achingly exquisite latest, two scarred-by-life souls-- a divorcee and a man toppled by tragedy—hide from their pasts by together renovating an old Oregon house. About the love we’ve lost, the mistakes and secrets we're afraid to reveal, and a haunting reminder that second chances aren’t just given—we have to be brave enough to earn them. A blindingly beautiful book.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World
“Reed's painterly descriptions of the Oregon Coast are so vivid and real, so beautiful and lyrical that her writing is more like a visual art form. So, approach this book less as a collection of words on a white page and more like a painting.”—Portland Tribune
“A beautiful, shimmering, heart-lifting testament to the power of memory and love and art.” —Margaret Renkl, New York Times columnist and best-selling author of Late Migrations and The Wisdom of Crows
“Gorgeous, luminescent, and imbued with hope…be prepared to be spellbound.” — Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Enchanted
“A poignant and evocative portrait of an artist who transforms loss into tenderness, brush stroke by brush stroke.” — Apricot Irving, Oregon Book Award winner, and author of The Gospel of Trees
Praise for Deborah Reed's Work
“A character-driven narrative that focuses on the grief her two protagonists suffer. It's a sad tale in which grief almost becomes overwhelming but in which the reader is saved by Reed's lyrical and elegant prose and a sense of redemption at the end.” The Oregonian
“Highly recommended… One of the images Reed uses repeatedly and to good effect is that of things being scrubbed clean, refreshed, renewed with a clean(er) slate. And a version of that is what the reader feels upon finishing this book: the mind is filled, yes, but expanded. Reed nudges outward the mind’s corners, broadening the space to fit a new good story.” — Bookslut
“Deborah Reed's story of two people struggling to integrate past pain with a tantalizing future is as misty and heart-stopping as the Oregon coast itself. And in the wonderful, difficult June Byrne, she has created one of the most complex and relatable portraits of a recovering alcoholic in memory.”
—Kristi Coulter, author of No Good Can Come From This
“Reed [writes] beautifully, with a gift for revealing her characters’ pain and strength in equal measures.” —Orlando Sentinel
“Deborah Reed takes a long look at love in this graceful novel. The kind of love that ravages and lays waste to her characters, and the kind of love that might finally save us all.” —Bonnie Jo Campbell, National Book Award Finalist, and author of Once Upon A River
“Reed finely balances the cavalcade of revelations with a poised, multilayered portrait of a complex life.” —Booklist
“Deborah Reed’s The Days When Birds Come Back haunted me every day I read it, and has continued to ever since. There were moments of reading when I both could not bear to turn the page and was absolutely compelled. I don’t believe I’ve ever read such an exquisitely painful story that has on a daily basis so affected the way I interact with other humans, especially my dearest loved ones. This is a novel that makes me want to pay better attention.” —Bonnie Nadzam, author of Lions and Lamb
“A haunting story of love and loss, The Days When Birds Come Back is the kind of book that you sink into on the first page and don’t want to leave. Deborah Reed’s characters are both flawed and sympathetic, and their struggle to make terms with the past gives this novel a wonderful urgency.” —Jane Delury, author of The Balcony
“The lovely, lyrical prose of Reed’s novel is as rare as snowfall in Florida. And when snow, indeed, does fall in the rural Florida community depicted in the narrative, this melancholy mystery, featuring a cast of very appealing characters, evolves into an introspective study on the power of memory… Verdict: Reed, who also writes suspense fiction as Audrey Braun (A Small Fortune), is a writer to watch.” — Library Journal
“Reed finely balances the cavalcade of revelations with a poised, multilayered portrait of a complex life.” —Booklist
“Reed is skilled at unraveling their stories gradually, and is particularly adept at both drawing parallels between June and Jameson and depicting how the two help each other through their pain....An emotionally satisfying novel about the lingering effects of trauma and how people deal with guilt.” —Publishers Weekly
“Author Deborah Reed (Things We Set on Fire) plies the reader with beautiful sentence after beautiful sentence. Her descriptions of coastal Oregon’s trees and wildlife are as lush as the landscape itself. But these lovely words aren’t strung together with more regard for the individual than the whole. In Reed’s capable hands, they are building blocks of a story that will capture readers’ imaginations.”—BookPage