Kristen Loesch won the third prize in our 2021 Award with her brilliant short story, ‘Important Letters’, which you can read in our 2021 Anthology, available from Ad Hoc Fiction and Amazon. This month (February 2022), her debut novel The Porcelain Doll, shortlisted in the Caledonian Novel Award and The Bath Novel Award is published in the UK and sounds fascinating:

Here’s a short synopsis:

In a faraway kingdom, in a long-ago land …
… Rosie lived peacefully in Moscow and her mother told her fairy tales. One summer night, all that came abruptly to an end when her father and sister were gunned down. Now, Rosie’s only inheritance from her reclusive mother is a notebook full of eerie, handwritten tales, but there is another story lurking between the lines. Currently studying at Oxford University, Rosie has a fiance who knows nothing of her former life. Desperate for answers to the questions that have tormented her, Rosie returns to her homeland and uncovers a devastating family history which spans the 1917 Revolution, the siege of Leningrad, Stalin’s purges and beyond. At the heart of those answers stands a young noblewoman, Tonya, as pretty as a porcelain doll, whose actions reverberate across the century …

You can preorder from Amazon or Waterstones

As well as short fiction and novels, Kristen writes Flash Fiction and her stunning micro story Tapeworm first published in Flash Back Fiction last year, was recently selected for Best Micro Fictions 2022. Click on the story title to hear Kristen reading it.

All of us in the BSSA Team offer our congratulations and very best wishes for A Porcelain Doll, which will be added to the BSSA author shelves. We’re very much looking forward to reading it.