Kristin Koval w/ Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum

Kristin Koval visits the store to discuss her debut novel Penitence, a poignant exploration of love and forgiveness, and a suspenseful, addictive page-turner filled with literary insight that compels readers to consider whether the worst thing we’ve ever done is all that defines us. She is joined in conversation by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, author of Elita.

When a shocking M**der occurs in the home of Angie and David Sheehan, their lives are shattered. Desperate to defend their family, they turn to small-town lawyer Martine Dumont for help, but Martine isn’t just legal counsel—she’s also the mother of Angie’s first love, Julian, a now-successful New York City criminal defense attorney. As Julian and Angie confront their shared past and long-buried guilt from a tragic accident years ago, they must navigate their own culpability and the unresolved feelings between them.

Spanning decades, from the ski slopes of rural Colorado to the streets of pre-9/11 New York City and back again, Kristin Koval’s debut novel Penitence is an examination of the complexities of familial loyalty, the journey of redemption, and the profound experience of true forgiveness.

Kristin Koval is a former lawyer who always wanted to be a writer but initially wandered down other paths. Her debut novel, Penitence, is a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, a Book of the Month Pick, an Indie Next Pick, an Apple Books Staff Pick, an Apple Audiobooks Must Listen, a People Magazine Book of the Week, and a Goodreads Most Anticipated Pick and Hottest Debut selection. She attended Phillips Exeter Academy, Georgetown University and Columbia Law School. She lives in Boulder, Colorado and Park City, Utah with her husband, two sons and two great danes.

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of the novel Elita (published by TriQuarterly Press/Northwestern University Press in January, 2025) and the story collection Outer Stars, which won the 2025 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction (UNT Press) and will be published in the autumn of 2025. Her three previous collections of short fiction are What We Do with the Wreckage, which won the 2017 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction (University of Georgia Press in 2018); Swimming with Strangers (Chronicle Books, 2008); and This Life She’s Chosen (Chronicle Books, 2005). Kirsten’s short fiction has been honored with a PEN/O. Henry Prize, and her stories have appeared widely in journals, among them The Sun, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, One Story, and McSweeney’s. She has held fellowships from MacDowell, Sewanee, the Jack Straw Writers Program, and the Willa Cather Foundation. Kirsten is a member of the English Department faculty at Seattle’s Bush School.

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