Author Beckie Weinheimer, above, had her very first signing at Sherman’s Book Store on July 20. - MELINDA RICE PHOTO

Her agent took on Ms. Weinheimer as a client on the strength of that, still-not-published, first book. But by the time she got an agent, she had already completed a draft of “Converting Kate,” which is racking up favorable reader and critical reviews.

“It was a little bonus for him,” said the author, on Mount Desert Island for her yearly summer sojourn here. She had her very first booksigning at Sherman’s Book Store on July 20, and did a writing workshop for children at the Southwest Harbor Public Library on July 24.

“Converting Kate” deals with a teen’s struggle to come to grips with her father’s death and her rejection of the very conservative church her mother embraces. After the death of 15-year-old Kate’s father, she moves with her mother from Phoenix to the small town in coastal Maine – the fictional Puffin Cove – where her father grew up.

Ultimately, “Converting Kate,” inspired by the author’s own experiences with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is about a young woman finding her voice, coming to terms with the fact that parents aren’t always who we’d like them to be, and exploring the difference between religion and faith.

A longtime summer visitor to Maine, Ms. Weinheimer says the Down East setting is almost another character in the book.

“I don’t think this story would be half the story it is without the setting. I was so passionate, not just about some of the religious issues, but I just think having a place to feel safe, having a place where there’s beauty, having a place that’s not full of Wal-Marts … it’s so important,” she said.

When they move to Maine it’s for symbolism … everything in Maine is alive, which is different from where she had been living, where everything was dead,” she said.

It’s a bit of symbolism she understands very well from her own life. She first visited about 15 years ago after her oldest daughter died at age 12 while the family was living in Ohio.

“I found life in Maine after my daughter died and kept going back every summer since,” she said.

Now living in Queens (after a stint in northern Virginia), she is at work on a third book, one for middle graders this time, based on an ancestor’s adventures in Wales.

“My other two books are kind of sad and serious and this is just a lark,” she said.

Discuss this article in the Mount Desert Islander forums. (0 posts)