CHASING THE HEARTLAND
CHASING THE HEARTLAND
Chasing the Heartland
This endearing and hopeful road trip adventure of being lost and found is my first full length novel. I am dead excited to send Wendy and Rosie on their way into the big wide world: from years in my head space, finally onto the page, and now, I hope, into your hearts.
Published in the Netherlands and available NOW from this website, which will support me directly. Available from any good Dutch (online) bookshop or via bol.com too.
In the rest of the world? Chasing the Heartland can be bought here if you want to support me directly. The paperback is also available from your local Amazon bookstore. The Ebook & listening book option is coming soon.
At 15, Wendy’s heart was full of open roads and adventure. Then life takes over. Twenty years later she packs her suitcase and heads off to the promised land of the Jersey Shore to reconnect with herself.
At 15, Rosie’s heart is full of doubts. Then her mother ups and leaves. As Rosie starts to dig into her mother’s past to figure out where she could have gone, her own life is turned up-side-down.
Chasing the Heartland is a road-trip novel fuelled by Springsteen lore, about a mother who learns how to live again and a daughter who has yet to start.
incl. 2 original songs and chapter-playlist.
Reviews Chasing the Heartland
Don’t take it from me - here are some of the wonderful things my readers have been saying about the book (for the whole reviews - see my media page)
I love reading and I must have read somewhere between half a thousand and a thousand books through my lifetime. Sometimes I come across books I can’t stop reading, because they are so exciting. Those are the good books. More rarely, I come across books I never want to stop reading - those are the really great ones! Chasing the Heartland is one of those! (Ninja - Norway)
After reading this novel, there are three things I want to do: actually listen to Springsteen lyrics (rather than just singing along to the chorus), plan a road trip to the eastern half of the United States, and make several post-it notes of some of the insightful gems from this novel and stick them on the mirror or office door to inspire me to keep on exploring my own meandering path, regardless of what society says I "should be" doing. Definitely recommend. (Kristin - The Netherlands)
Heerlijke pageturner, in één ruk uitgelezen op een luie zomerdag. Ik werd helemaal mee-genomen in de reis van Wendy op zoek naar onafhankelijkheid en verbinding.
(Femmeke - The Netherlands)
Paulina Vanderbilt is a linguaphile: she loves anything to do with words and language.
Paulina has been a Bruce Springsteen fan for 40 years. That passion for the music, the many concerts trips and the people she met along the way sparked Chasing the Heartland. She knew from the start that the book had to be about the fine line between freedom and being trapped, between being lost and being found. She would like the story to be one of recognition and hope. We are all riders on this train: grab your ticket and join the ride.
Paulina lives in Delft, in a small house dating from 1872, an idyllic courtyard. She is in a happy LAT relation with Bill, and is proud mum of two grown-up children. The last family member is Pippin, a rather dimwitted but gorgeous white cat.
