Kathleen Shoop

Kathleen Shoop is a Language Arts Coach with a PhD in Reading Education whose work has appeared in The Tribune Review, four Chicken Soup for the Soul books and Pittsburgh Parent Magazine. She lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children. The Last Letter is her debut novel.

About After the Fog

After the Fog by Kathleen Shoop

The sins of the mother…

In the steel mill town of Donora, Pennsylvania, siteof the infamous 1948 “killing smog,” headstrong nurse Rose Pavlesic tends toher family and neighbors. Controlling and demanding, she’s created a life thatreflects everything she missed growing up as an orphan. She’s even managed tokeep her painful secrets hidden from her loving husband, dutiful children, andlarge extended family.

When astagnant weather pattern traps poisonous mill gasses in the valley, neighborsgrow sicker and Rose’s nursing obligations thrust her into conflict she nevercould have fathomed. Consequences from her past collide with her present life,making her once clear decisions as gray as the suffocating smog. As pressuremounts, Rose finds she’s not the only one harboring lies. When the deadly fogfinally clears, the loss of trust and faith leaves the Pavlesic family—and the wholetown—splintered and shocked. With her new perspective, can Rose finally forgiveherself and let her family’s healing begin?

About The Last Letter

The Last Letter by Kathleen Shoop

For any daughter who thinks she knows her mother’s story…

Katherine Arthur’s mother arrives on her doorstep, dying, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she did her best to make a go of it on a domain of natural disasters, temptation, hatred, even death.

Ten-year-old Katherine had loved her mother fiercely, put her trust in her completely, but when there was no other choice, and Jeanie resorted to extreme measures on the prairie to save her family, she tore Katherine’s world apart. Now, seventeen years later, and far from the prairie, Katherine has found the truth – she has discovered the last letter.