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Katie O’Rourke is a hybrid author, which means she has both traditionally published and self-published books. Her debut novel, Monsoon Season, is being published through LittleBrown and Finding Charlie won Kindle Scout and is published through Kindle Press. A Long Thaw was traditionally published and then rereleased on her own. She’s releasing her fourth novel, Blood & Water, in 2017.
Katie writes family sagas with overlapping characters, so they're all connected. The stories in these books exist on their own and can be read in any order, independently from each other. They’re not sequels, but because all of the characters live in the same world, there's an opportunity to revisit the past. Readers of Monsoon Season will find a familiar face in Finding Charlie; if you’re still wondering about Juliet when you finish A Long Thaw, look for her in Blood & Water.
Katie grew up in New Hampshire, went to college in Massachusetts, and has settled down in Arizona. These are the environments you’ll find in her stories because she thinks having an authentic sense of place is so important. Her work has been called women’s fiction, contemporary fiction, and literary fiction. She tries not to get hung up on genre labels and just writes the kind of stories she likes to read.
Reviewed by Samantha March for Readers' Favorite
This is the first novel I have read by Katie O’Rourke, and I’ll be sure Blood & Water is not the last. At first I started to worry about how well I could connect with the story, since we do get to follow five different characters and get their POVs. Sometimes too many characters and their insights cause me to have a disconnect with the story, but I am happy to say that I could jump from one character to another without any issue, and still highly enjoyed this story.
We have Delilah, who is running away from her problems to her big brother’s house in Tucson, Arizona. Her brother, David, is a single father, trying his best to raise his high school daughter by himself. David’s friend, Tim, and his girlfriend, Sarah, also lend us their points of view, and a look at their unique relationship. And then finally we have Ally, best friend to Sarah, who is trying to raise her family amidst many complications. Each story intertwines in a way that makes sense with the next one, and I was kept fully engaged throughout the book.
This is a story focused very much on family, as the synopsis states “the one you're born into, the one you choose and the one you create.” Katie O’Rourke builds up a story that is fast-moving, heart-warming, emotional, and pleasing to this reader. The ending was so interesting when we got little tidbits of what the future will hold for some of the characters, and I appreciated that touch. Blood & Water is an emotionally engaging story and one I would recommend for women’s fiction readers.
