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Chicago Gold Coast Meets Small-Town Kansas in New
Youth Novel
Opulence, Kansas, by Julie Stielstra
Opulence, Kansas, by Julie Stielstra
[Emporia, Kansas, June 2020] Daughter of privilege, private-school
student Katie Myrdal’s world is rocked when her finance-wizard father is found
dead in his Porsche—a suicide. There’s more wreckage to clean up than she could
have imagined. Katie escapes to the Kansas farmstead of her barely-known aunt
and uncle near the small town of Opulence. Plummeting from a high-rise, big
city condo to a tree-shrouded, yellow house on the prairie, Katie discovers
other kinds of richness—the wealth of friendship, hidden gifts, tragic secrets,
and how the balm of time will help her turn her life in a new direction.
What people are saying about Opulence, Kansas:
"Julie Stielstra captured the essence of an adolescent from Chicago who visits a small Kansas community ... Stielstra explores the dynamic and complicated connections among people ... Opulence is complete with heartache, romance, conflict, and resolution. Unpredictable events exhilarate the reader with delightful developments."
Carmaine Ternes, Librarian, Author, Presenter,
and Book Reviewer
"Opulence, Kansas has good tension and keeps the reader turning the pages. It’s a heartwarming book of a girl who learns to look for opportunities in the world around her and begins to create a life of her own."
Cheryl Unruh, Flyover People Essayist and Kansas Book Enthusiast
Send us your comments! We'd love to hear what you think of Opulence.
Julie Stielstra’s short fiction has
appeared in a dozen literary journals and collections. Her historical novel, Pilgrim,
was published by Minerva Rising Press as the winner of their 2016 novella
contest. Like her protagonist, Stielstra inhabits
the Chicago area where she works as a professional librarian, but fell in love
with the Kansas prairie, and now spends her time between the two. Visit her at juliestielstra.com.
I'm loving Opulence! Actually, my wife and I are loving Julie Stielstra's YA novel. We'd be done reading the book by now if it wasn't so good. We're only reading two chapters a day. We don't want it to end. We're guarding the remaining chapters as though we're doctors at a hospital in short supply of PPE. The book is fantastic! I love the characters, setting, and story. The dialogue is delicious. Most of all, the voice is so real. It feels just right.
ReplyDeleteJim Potter--author of Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery