January 13, 2026
DEFINITELY THRIVING in PEOPLE
This cool news today! Read it here.
And reviews are coming in:
“…a bravado blend of Barbara Pym and Bridget Jones.” —Library Journal
November 10, 2025
A Stack of Pym
Did you know my forthcoming novel, DEFINITELY THRIVING, began with my intention to write a Barbara Pym story, but in a contemporary setting? Which means that my book indeed features a tea brewed with water boiled on a hot plate, church committees, considerations about what it means to be an unmarried woman without children, unsuitable attachments, some questions of indexing, a jumble sale, and many more wondrous things, including a protagonist with a name like Clemence Lathbury.
Rereading all of Barbara Pym has been one of my many 2025 reading projects, one I’m not going to complete before the year is out, but luckily most reading projects don’t have a deadline, and I’d actually be disappointed if I were finished. I’ve finally read up to Quartet in Autumn, her first novel published after 16 years in the literary wilderness and her discovery via recommendations of her by Phillip Larkin and David Cecil as one of the most underrated authors of the 20th century. I’ve never read her in sequence before and it’s interesting to consider what a different book this is than those that came before it—but the continuities as well, the things that make a novel a Barbara Pym novel (nosy people looking up clergymen in Crockford Clerical Directory for certain, a forerunner of Google!) and all the complexity that lies beneath these books’ deceptively simple surfaces.
September 8, 2025
Preorder Rewards
Thanks to everyone who helped celebrate the cover reveal for my novel DEFINITELY THRIVING, coming to Canadian and US readers from House of Anansi on March 17, 2026.
We have created the most adorable reward for everyone who places a preorder… (Preordering=heading to your favourite bookselling place—online or IRL—and ordering the book in advance of publication.)
If you preorder today, you’ll be securing something lovely for future-you(the novel itself!), but I will sweeten the deal for you-right-now with these adorable DEFINITELY THRIVING stickers (based on @melanielambrick’s cover illustrations) to express my thanks for your support.
Preorder DEFINITELY THRIVING wherever books are sold, and then email me a proof of purchase AND your mailing address to klclare AT gmail DOT com, and I will pop these beauties into the post for you. Those books! That cat! That declaration, ironic or otherwise, that you are DEFINITELY THRIVING. You know you want it…
About DEFINITELY THRIVING: The heartening and hilarious story of a woman who doesn’t have it all figured out just yet.
After accidentally-on-purpose exploding her listless marriage by being discovered in bed with the next-door neighbours, Clemence Lathbury returns to her hometown resolved to build a life for herself that is good and substantial, to become the kind of sensible woman who won’t be distracted by frippery and romance. It’s supposed to be Eat, Pray, Love, without the love part. But no woman is an island, and soon Clemence finds herself embroiled in neighbourhood drama; beginning a crusade at the local bookshop; becoming adopted by a well-groomed, one-eyed cat; and being forced to admit her attraction to two very different men—each a romantic lead in his own right. But how to choose? And never mind the complications of her quirky family …
A novel about friendship, community, and church jumble sales, Definitely Thriving is a celebration of people who are perfectly imperfect, and all the love and support that’s required for one woman to make it on her own.
*Thanks to @stuart.lawler for sticker design!
April 14, 2025
Back for More!
The hardest working shirt in my drawer is the House of Anansi 45th anniversary tee that I’ve been wearing since 2012, including through an entire pregnancy, which means it’s stretched and misshapen and these days mainly gets worn to bed, but it’s a great shirt, and now that I’m a House of Anansi author (hooray!), I’m awfully glad that I held onto it. I’ve always been partial to House of Anansi, especially since they moved their office into a former pickle factory, which absolutely on par with my sensibilities.
Definitely Thriving, my fourth novel (!), will arrive in the North America in March 17. It’s a novel I started writing in 2021 when the world was bleak and scary and I was desperate for a diversion. It’s an ode to friendship, community, and unsuitable attachments, in addition to being a tribute to Barbara Pym, with my protagonist, Clemence Lathbury, imagined as a modern day Pym heroine. The story begins when Clemence blows up her marriage and returns to her hometown determined to redeem herself by building a sensible life from scratch. Not for her will be the scrapes and schemes of a Bridget Jones-era heroine, instead she resolves to be a stalwart, one of the excellent women of Pym’s mid-century novels. But no woman is an island, and soon Clemence is tied up in all kinds of neighbourhood shenanigans, and drama ensues. There’s a book shop, a church jumble sale, and a one-eyed cat named Bailey who is actually a real cat belonging to my friend Erin. I’m so excited for readers to meet Clemence and her people (and the cat).
If you’ve been paying attention, you will know I struggled a lot after the publication of my previous novel, and that this whole newsletter/podcast project was born out of my desire to climb out of the creative low in which I’d found myself at that point. I’m interested in what it will be like now to head into publication with the new awareness I’ve acquired since working through some of these issues (who knew that my literary success does not actually hedge on making everybody love me, or that loving me is actually an unreasonable thing to ask of everybody) and avoiding the trap of imagining that now that I’ve got no expectations, this is the moment where all the success I’ve been hoping for will finally unfold.
All along I’ve been looking for redemption. It took me ten years after completing my Creative Writing Masters Degree to finally publish my first novel—and here, I imagined, was the moment where the magic would begin. But that novel was not a success. And then I got a second chance—aha, my heroic sophomore book! But that book didn’t do well either, and neither did my next book, and I started to understand that maybe the story wasn’t going to go like that. That in publishing there’s never a happy-ever-after (alas, the one good thing about never having achieved great success is that at least no one expects the impossible task of replicating it! Phew!). I even started to wonder what the point was in publishing books after all, because it certainly wasn’t doing anything like making me happy or feel good about myself. When I wasn’t sure I’d be able to publish another novel, I started to consider a possible upside to not having my self-esteem decimated every couple of years.
But oooh boy, I’m back for more. And I’m even grateful and lucky to be able to say that, I know, and I’m looking forward to sharing this novel with you, and I’m also anticipating an interesting experiment in releasing a book and not losing my mind.
Is it possible? I will keep you posted!
This post was first published in my Enthusiasms Newsletter. If you’re not signed up yet, please subscribe!
April 3, 2025
New Book News!
This is my big news! It even made Publisher’s Lunch! I’m really really happy and looking forward to sharing this book with you.
