United States

Abbigail N. Rosewood

Abbigail N. Rosewood was born in Vietnam, where she lived until the age of twelve. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. An excerpt from her first novel won first place in the Writers Workshop of Asheville Literary Fiction Contest. She lives in New York. If I Had Two Lives is her first novel.

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Latest reviews

This luminous debut novel follows a young woman from her childhood in Vietnam to her life as an immigrant in the United States – and her necessary return to her homeland. As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother,...

— The Book Divas Reads, Oct 8 2019

As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother, she turns for affection to a sympathetic soldier and to the only other girl in the camp, forming two friendships that will shape the rest of her life. As a young adult in New...

— Chick Lit Central, Oct 7 2019

I like to think that I’ve become more whole having written my first novel If I Had Two Lives. After moving to the United States at twelve years old, I’ve not lived anywhere for longer than five years, moving from one state to another. My connection to place is tenuous, my...

— Electric Lit, Jun 18 2019

If I Had Two Lives is a brilliant debut novel in two parts. Abbigail, like the heroine in the book, was brought up in Vietnam until the age of twelve and then moved to the United States. The first half of the book describes life in Vietnam for our nameless heroine (the book is...

— TripFiction, May 14 2019

Some of you may have noticed that I’m attracted to novels about immigrants. The theme has an entry all to itself in my occasional Five Books I’ve Read series. I’ve lived my life in just one country which is perhaps why I’m so curious about how it might feel to leave your...

— A life in books, May 12 2019

It’s an amazing journey and a very unique one. Imagine leaving your homeland when young, moving to the USA and then having to return to a country you’ve never known…and for painful personal reasons.

— The Book Trail, Apr 26 2019

“More than storytelling, despite being fiction, this novel is about what happens to those who leave their homeland, a victim in ways to what they have left, how some are able to manage their past experience, using it to try to improve the situation for others, while others...

— Word by Word, Apr 24 2019

A wise, moving debut about a woman who grew up in a compound in Vietnam and was sent to New York as a young adult. She confronts her past when she decides to return to her homeland.

— iNews, Apr 11 2019