My friend Holly Payne, author of The Virgin’s Knot and The Sound of Blue, has a new novel coming out in July, Kingdom of Simplicity. Payne wrote the novel in response to a letter she received from the drunk driver who struck her when she was 22 years old. It took her a year to walk again. Fifteen years after the accident, she responds to the driver’s plea for forgiveness with this book. You can read an excerpt here. Or join Holly and the band Blame Sally for the West Coast book launch on July 9 at Fort Mason in San Francisco, with proceeds to benefit Litquake.

About the book, from the author’s website: “How do you forgive the person who takes your family? Eli Yoder, a misguided Amish youth, has struggled with this question every day since he was nine. True to Amish tradition, everyone he knows has moved on with their lives except him. Shamed by his unwillingness to forgive, Eli leaves home during rumspringa, the time of ‘running around’ for Amish youth before they accept their faith, and searches for acceptance from the Outside World. Here a surprising friendship teaches Eli how to laugh again and prepares him to confront the biggest questions of his life.”