Today's the day 🌲

THE FUNERAL LADIES OF ELLERIE COUNTY is available now. ❤️

G’morning, my friends.

I’m so excited that today is the day. The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County is on bookshelves now—and not just digital ones! The book is going to be in some airports, which makes me squee. Please, please take a picture if you spot it in the wild.

Buy the book: IndieBound, Barnes and Noble, Bezos-land, Walmart

When I scribbled the first chapter of this story longhand, on a boat, while keeping half an eye up at the deck in case someone came out to yell down to me that my kids had woken up, I had no idea if it would ever wind up as a story you could hold in your hands. I’m so thankful that it did.

Like many authors (and millennial women ones in particular), I have a sliiiightly hard time ever getting into celebration mode. My brain is almost always focused on what’s next, what’s next, what’s next. (I have copyedits for Take It From the Top I’m supposed to be working on. I should really be thinking through a self promo plan for that book. I’m supposed to get a new synopsis into my adult editor ASAP. I’m still drafting my historical fiction middle grade, and I had to get an extension from my sweet kidlit editor which makes me snarly because I am never late to anything in my entire life.)

But I really, really want to celebrate this precious project. This tall tale. This book of my heart.

So! I’m getting breakfast with a friend, and I’m going to treat myself to a Bloody Mary at ten AM just like Esther would want. I’m finishing stuffing the gift bags for our shindig, slamming my laptop closed, and hanging out with friends, family, and readers tonight at Books and Company in Oconomowoc, WI. 6:00! Be there or be square! Bring your littles and snack on some charcuterie and browse world’s most adorable bookstore! It’s not a fancy-shmancy-formal book reading but I’m happy to sign books and make new friends.

If you’d be so kind:

My husband works at an insurance company. He helps design the software the agents use. And you know what? He literally never has to go on the internet asking people to pay him compliments so that he can keep going to work. Nobody ever leaves one-star reviews of him on the company website. Taxes just disappear from his paycheck like whoosh and he doesn’t have to squint at forms to understand how much money he owes the government. And juuuust as my little heart starts to whisper must be nice I also remember that he doesn’t get to throw delightful parties at bookstores when a new iteration of his software comes out, either! So there!

Because here I come, Bernie-Sanders-meme style, once again asking for your support. Here are a few ways to help your favorite local author. 😉

-Buy the book. DUH. If you want me to sign it, make sure to order it from Books & Company.

-Reviews truly are so, so helpful, and I’m working very hard on not reading them so don’t worry about hurting my feelings. GoodReads and Amazon are the best places to do this.

-Asking your library to order a book they don’t currently stock is helpful for you (you get to read it for free), the author (another copy sold), the librarian (they know what their patrons are hoping to read), and the community (access to a book at no cost). It’s a quadruple win! So if Funeral Ladies isn’t on your library shelves, could you help it get there by asking your librarian?

-Social media doesn’t sell books but it does make me smile. If you got a copy of the book and share a photo to Instagram, please tag me @claireswinarski so I can see it and reshare!

“Swinarski handles [the plot] with sensitivity and tact. Readers will root for the characters and get swept up in the small-town Wisconsin setting. This is a great pick for anyone who liked J. Ryan Stradel’s Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club.” - Booklist

“The Funeral Ladies is a tender, lovely book about complex topics - PTSD, the continued utility and infantilization of the elderly - swirled with the simple: love, community, hope.” - GoodReads reviewer

I’m really terrible at the elevator pitch for books you’re supposed to have. That one-liner that sums up your book? Yeah, no. That’s why there are marketing people in the world. I get all weirdly fidgety and start looking for a window to climb through when someone asks me what’s your book about?

I could say this book is about grace, grit, and grandmas on a mission, the sweet tagline we came up with early on. I could say it’s about trauma, and about how loving a traumatized person is traumatizing. I could say it’s about sisterhood, and women bonding together over shared domestic tasks and visions of a better world. I could say it’s about God. I could say it’s about brandy old-fashioneds. I could say it’s about community. (Bea, from the book, would say it’s about a hot guy moving to town, and Esther would reach over and smack her upside the head.)

But I think the real answer is this: The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County is a book about love. It’s a book about what love looks like, when it requires dirt under your fingernails and boots on the ground. It’s about the nitty gritty nature of loving day in and day out, when it isn’t glamorized or idealized. Loving your family. Loving your neighbor. Loving yourself.

I hope you like what I made for you.

Love, love, love,

Claire