HEATHER FRESE
Heather Frese is the author of The Baddest Girl on the Planet, winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize. She has published numerous short stories, essays, and the occasional poem. Her work has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Review, Front Porch, the Barely South Review, Switchback, and elsewhere, earning notable mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Essays.
THE SADDEST GIRL ON THE BEACH
Blair Publishing, 2024
Grieving after her father’s death, a young woman seeks solace in an Outer Banks beach town of North Carolina where her best friend’s family runs a small inn.
The family welcomes Charlotte with chowder dinners and a cozy room, but her friend Evie has a looming life change of her own, and soon Charlotte seeks other attractions to navigate her grief. Will she, like in some television movie, find her way back through a romance, or are there larger forces at play? Heather Frese, winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize and author of The Baddest Girl on the Planet, sets Charlotte on a beautifully rendered course through human frailty, unrelenting science, and the awesome forces of the Carolina coast.