Fiction

Long Fiction:

Coming in May 2021 from Alcove Press: THE LOST SONG

Cheryl Strayed’s Wild meets Katherine Center’s How to Walk Away in Kathleen Basi’s debut novel about an unconventional road trip and what it means to honor the ones we love.

It’s one year after the death of her husband and twin teenagers. Miriam Tedesco has lost faith in humanity and herself. When a bouquet of flowers that her husband usually sends her on their anniversary shows up at her work place, she completely unravels. With the help of her best friend, she realizes that it’s time to move past these deaths. Step one is not even cleaning out her family’s possessions, but just to take inventory starting with her daughter’s room. But when she opens up her daughter’s computer, she stumbles across a program written by her daughter to embark on an automated cross country road trip, for her and her husband to take when they would have begun their empty-nesting in a few more months.

Seeing and hearing the video clips of her kids embedded in the program, Miriam is determined to take this trip for her children. Armed with her husband’s guitar, her daughter’s cello, and her son’s unfinished piano sonata, she embarks on a musical pilgrimage to grieve the family she fears she never loved enough. Along the way she meets a young, pregnant hitchhiker Dicey whose boisterous and spunky attitude reminds Miriam of her own daughter and forces her to look harder at what she had rather than what she’s lost.

Tornadoes, impromptu concerts, and an unlikely friendship… whether she’s prepared for it or not, Miriam’s world is coming back to life. But as she struggles to keep her focus on the reason she initially set out on this journey, she has to confront the possibility that the best way to honor her family may be to accept the truths she never wanted to face.

Hopeful, honest, and tender, The Lost Song is about courage, vulnerability, and forgiveness, even of yourself, when it really matters.

Advance Praise for The Lost Song:
“An emotionally complex story about reconciling love with loss, and the healing power of music…I loved every scene from the first to the last.”
—Barbara Claypole White, bestselling author of The Perfect Son and The Promise Between Us

“A nuanced grief journey whose final moments will push [our heroine] to face the depths of her shame and loss—and, scarier, the love that may help her emerge stronger on the other side. A truly panoramic view of human frailty and resilience.”
—Kathryn Craft, award-winning author of The Far End of Happy and The Art of Falling

“A heartachingly beautiful book about grief and guilt, family and friendship, love and loss. Readers will be swept away with the lyrical descriptions and charmed by the characters. I wanted to race through the book to see what happened at the same time that I wanted to savor every page.”
—Orly Konig, author of The Distance Home and Carousel Beach

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Since the morning stage actress Charley Dupree woke up smelling like sex, with a sore body and no memory of how she got that way, she hasn’t trusted anyone, least of all herself. She took refuge from her self-destructive past on her family’s mid-Missouri Christmas tree farm, which she now runs with the help of her childhood friend Julian, who has Down syndrome, and his cousin Mark, a former baseball star who may be the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

When the bank threatens to foreclose, Charley doesn’t see a way out—until she lands a gig as the public stand-in for the press-shy fiancée of a modern-day royal who is studying at a nearby university.

Her new job could earn her the money to save her sanctuary, but returning to the spotlight resurrects old temptations. Charley must learn to reconcile the woman she once was with the woman she has become, or she could lose not only the farm, but everything that makes it worth keeping.

Winners Badge — 2016 (under the title “The Substitute Princess”)

Growing up in Napa Valley, Nicole Summerhill knew about “wine widows.” She just never expected to be one.

No longer available:

The Beggars’ Queen, e-novel published May 2007 by The Wild Rose Press

Published Short Fiction:

“The Prison at the Edge of Forever,” on Mindflights (no longer available)
“Epitaph,” in The Storyteller Magazine, June 2013
“Hatchet Job,” on Page & Spine, Nov. 22, 2013
“The Third Day,” Apeiron Review, Issue 5, p. 12 (previously top ten finalist in the Fall 2011 Glass Woman Prize)
“Wedding Day,” The Story Shack, Mar. 7, 2014
“Alligator Tale,” Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Issue #9 (Jan. 17, 2014), p. 33 (no longer available)
“Rescue,” final round of WOW’s Fall 2013 flash fiction contest
“As Mercy Upon The Tongue,” Page & Spine, Dec. 2, 2016
“Unraveled,” Spark IX, Sept. 2019

Long Fiction:

Published Short Fiction:

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