HISTORICAL FICTION AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION - Jennifer N. Brown, Emily Franklin, & Juliet Faithfull - AUGUST 13, 6 PM
Meet and mingle with the authors and find your next great read!
Join an incredible conversation with Jennifer N. Brown, Emily Franklin, and Juliet Faithfull inspired by three new historical novels!
SPECIAL WORKSHOP OPPORTUNITY
The Secret Art of Letterlocking: Regency Papers, Quills, & Sealing Wax
A hands-on workshop with Heather Caldwell
Step back into the nineteenth century and learn the secret art of letterlocking. How did people protect their words from prying eyes before envelopes became common? Enter the “locked” letter - a letter that was folded and tucked into the shape of a small packet. Additional privacy was ensured by a variety of sealing methods.
You'll begin the workshop by learning three different letterlocking styles, each based on an actual locked letter sent by a beloved author: Jane Austen, Phillis Wheatley, and John Keats. Time permitting, we'll explore a fourth. Then, quill in hand, you'll write your own letters on decorated paper, fold each one, and seal it by pressing your chosen insignia into hot wax from Herbin, supplier of fine writing essentials to no less than Napoleon himself. You'll leave with a small parcel: your quill, practice samples, folded and sealed letters, and the know-how to make many more.
Tickets include light refreshments, a meet-and-greet with the authors, followed by an author discussion, audience Q&A, and book signing. Books will be available for purchase at the event.
ABOUT THE BOOKS
THE LOST BOOK OF ELIZABETH BARTON - Historian Alison Sage has made a groundbreaking archival discovery—she found a manuscript containing the prophecies of a 16th century nun, Elizabeth Barton. Barton’s prophecy condemning Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn led to her execution and the destruction of all copies of her prophecies—or so the world believed.
Alison’s cutthroat world of academia is almost as dangerous as Elizabeth Barton’s sixteenth-century England, where heretics are beheaded, visions can kill, and knowing who to trust is a deadly art. The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton is a thrilling novel, crackling with the voices of the past and propelled by a mystery that will leave readers in suspense until the very last page.
Praise
"THE LOST BOOK OF ELIZABETH BARTON hits the sweet spot of historical fiction: whip-smart yet accessible, and propulsive from start to finish. A masterclass on the power of a dual-timeline story, Brown’s fiction debut will tug on your heartstrings with the emotional impact that brave women of the past have on brilliant women of the present." – Karin Tanabe, author of A Woman of Intelligence
LOVE & OTHER MONSTERS From the bestselling author of The Lioness of Boston comes LOVE & OTHER MONSTERS, historical fiction based on the life of Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s forgotten stepsister, who forever changed the course of literature. With the release of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Mary Shelley is on people’s minds. But what about Claire Clairmont? This is the origin story of Frankenstein that hasn’t been told.
In the stormy, scandalous summer of 1816, daring eighteen-year-old Claire Clairmont changed the course of literature forever. But then—unlike her stepsister Mary Shelley—she was forgotten, until now.
With searing relevance to our here and now—of celebrity worship, climate disaster, of complicated femininity, Love & Other Monsters is the untold origin story of Frankenstein, a feminist reckoning of sisters, survival, and the creation of monsters—both those on the page and those who walk among us.
Praise
“Delicious, spot-on… The prose is lush and Franklin’s descriptions and attention to detail and carefully drawn characters will delight fans of British period dramas and readers of historical fiction.” –Library Journal, Starred Review
LIAR’S DICE Dolores and Mita grow up in rural Brazil, identical and inseparable. But Mita develops a mysterious illness that challenges the family. One day, Dolores wakes up to find her sister gone—sent to a hospital in their father’s native London. There is no Dolores without Mita. And now Mita is gone.
Liar’s Dice captures the precarious intensity of coming of age in a volatile time—when repression and silence are the fabric of everyday life—and the cost of family secrets. Heartrending and tender, Juliet Faithfull’s debut novel is a testament to the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
Praise
“Pitch-perfect and full of heart, with language so evocative you can feel the heat of the summer and hear the rattle of gambling dice and envision the flash of sequins as the girls dance, for the last time, as a twosome.” —Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of By Any Other Name
ABOUT THE authors
JENNIFER N. BROWN is from New York City and after falling in love with Chaucer in college, pursued a Ph.D. in medieval literature. Her dissertation and subsequent books and articles have mostly been about devotional literature and medieval women as authors, subjects, and patrons of literary culture in medieval Europe. She has taught medieval literature at several institutions, most recently at Marymount Manhattan College where she taught in the English and World Literatures department for over 15 years. She is currently serving as the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University in Boston, where she lives with her husband, two children and two miniature dachshunds: Athena and Apollo.
EMILY FRANKLIN is the bestselling author of twenty-five books including The Lioness of Boston, based on the life of trailblazer Isabella Stewart Gardner, now in its eleventh printing and recently featured as a clue on Jeopardy! Her fiction, poetry, essays, and photos have been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, Guernica, and The Journal of the American Medical Association, among many other places, as well as featured and read aloud on National Public Radio, longlisted for the London Sunday Times Short Story Award and named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries. She grew up half in the UK and half in Boston where she lives now with her spouse and four children. Her new novel is Love & Other Monsters, the untold origin story of Frankenstein told from the perspective Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s forgotten stepsister who changed the course of literature forever.
JULIET FAITHFULL is a Spanish-British-American writer who grew up in Brazil. Her debut novel, Liar’s Dice, was recently published by Jenna Bush Hager’s imprint Thousand Voices in partnership with Random House; it was also a winner of the 2024 Irish Writers Centre’s Novel Fair and a semifinalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. A graduate of Harvard University and Smith College School for Social Work, she works as a trilingual psychotherapist and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her two sons.
