Refuge received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Bill VanPatten.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Refuge. Published in January 2024.
What’s the book’s first line?
Jesse padded down the wood stairs in bare feet dressed in a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, night-lights in key locations leading the way. Who had just rung the doorbell at ten o’clock on this early October evening?
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Jesse Pérez’s fifteen-year-old pregnant niece from Texas shows up on his doorstep in Central California seeking help—plunging him into the politics and law of a post-Roe era and a showdown with his estranged family.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
The current political climate was my inspiration. The rise in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and laws, the Dobbs decision and the assault on women’s reproductive freedom–I wanted to bring these together into one story.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
To see how politics affects people in real life. REFUGE may be fiction, but then again, not quite so.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
Jesse Pérez has scars from the rejection by his Texas family. Having left that behind, he must now content with grief from the death of his husband as he raises their ten-year old son alone. He finds strength and courage to do the right thing.