Lochen Debut

Lochen Launches Debut Novel

Author and English instructor Andrea Lochen’s debut novel, The Repeat Year, will be released on Tuesday, May 7.  To celebrate, a launch party is scheduled in the UW-Waukesha Hub (dining area) beginning at 5:30 p.m. Lochen will read from The Repeat Year, have a Q&A session, and sign books. Refreshments will be served at the event which is free and open to the public.

The Repeat Year is the story of Olive Watson, an intensive care nurse, who wakes up on New Year’s Day to find herself reliving the previous year. With this unique insight, she must navigate the prior year’s challenges and mistakes—lost patients, an affair that ended a committed relationship, the remarriage of her mother. Olive’s path intersects with Sherry Witan, an experienced “repeater” and an unlikely mentor with her own demons to face. Given the opportunity of a lifetime, Olive has to decide what she really wants. Should she make different choices, or accept her life as she knows it, flaws and all?

The story, according to Kirkus Reviews offers, “An intriguing premise and some surprising twists make this an engaging, satisfying read that explores friendship, love and who we really are when it truly matters….A debut novel that offers a fascinating glimpse into one woman’s opportunity to rewrite her past and change her future.”

Lochen wrote the rough draft for The Repeat Year while she was in graduate school at the University of Michigan where she received a Hopwood Award for her work. The first chapter of the book is available on her web site at www.andrealochen.com.

Lochen will also be appearing at the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books scheduled for Friday, Sept. 20- Sunday, Sept. 22 on the UW-Waukesha campus. UW-Waukesha is located at 1500 N. University Drive, Waukesha, WI.