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Keweenaw native Kristin Neva released her second novel, “Copper Country,” just a few weeks ago.
“Copper Country” is a story about family and forgiveness that’s set in the Keweenaw.
The story follows a young Yooper named Aimee who is working her way through college and working on her relationship with her father, who has returned after leaving several years prior, and with her long-term boyfriend, who wants to live in an off-the-grid cabin, a dream Aimee does not share.
Neva said she writes about topics she enjoys reading.
“I like to write small town fiction because that’s what I like to read and what better place to set it than here in the Keweenaw? So, just like one of the characters in my book, Toivo Maki, who’s an aspiring writer, he gets inspiration from the area and from the characters as do I,” said Neva. “There’s a lot of quirky characters in our small town area and so it just is a starting point for ideas for writing.”
In fact, Neva said many of the characters in “Copper Country” appear as secondary characters in her first novel, “Snow Country,” which has been out since November 2016.
“It’s gotten a lot of good feedback from locals, who say it represents our area well and it reminds them of their own families and others from outside the area want to know ‘Is it really like that? Do you really celebrate Finnish culture that much?’ And the answer is ‘yes, we do!'” said Neva. “The sauna that I grew up with is behind me here and it was the inspiration for the sauna scenes in both books. I have sauna scenes in both books, where great conversations occur and a little bit of humor.”
In addition to the area, Neva said her family serves as an inspiration to her writing.
“My husband has a terminal disease, ALS, and, so I think a lot about suffering and how we interact with suffering, how we overcome, how we persevere,” said Neva, who also has two children.
Neva is planning on writing a third novel in her Copper Island series, which she has already entitled “God’s Country.”
Both “Snow Country” and “Copper Country” are available at various local bookstores and online through Amazon.
