It’s sweater weather, and with it comes a bevy of new books that will keep you glued to the pages for hours at a time. Two of these five novels are set in Rhode Island, and Lauren Willig will be part of the Ocean House Author Series Thriller Panel on Sunday, October 25, along with Wendy Walker, Laura Zigman, and Rhody’s own Diane Josefowicz. Tickets, which include brunch, are available at OceanHouseEvents.com. Listen to previous panels, including recent OHAS guests Donna Freitas and Jodi Picoult at Classical959.com.
In Jodi Picoult’s Hollow Bones (released September 15), Molly Fitzgerald runs the Rhode Island Department of Emergency Preparedness, planning for the survival of storms, epidemics, and other disasters. Molly lost her mother as a baby when she never returned from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Molly’s husband is a police polygraph expert with his own history of disaster. Together, they navigate past, present, and the lies we tell ourselves in this epic novel.
In a massive and globe-spanning novel – her first since Pachinko – National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestseller Min Jin Lee’s American Hagwon (released September 29), traces the life of a contemporary Korean family pursuing security and social advancement through the time-honored path of education. That path is not always a straight one, delivering less of what was once a predictable way to hard-won success and more disappointment and missteps along the way.
October 6 brings Lauren Willig’s gothic twister, What Happens at Nightfall. When Jess Waters gets lost on a nighttime tour of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, she finds a group of frightened boys, an ancient key, and the cemetery’s widowed arborist, Adam Chervinsky. Together, they face an old curse and dark forces gathered around the Vanderwilt mausoleum. Billed as “a supernatural cemetery romance of Gilded Age curses and second chances,” it takes us on a wild New York ride.
Partitia by Barbara Kingsolver also arrives on October 6. Livia Cable lives a quiet and solitary life on a remote farm. She likes it that way. When she receives a sudden phone call from an old lover, she confronts her past as a promising music conservatory student, a long-ago time when she had a different name and a different life. Old memories, childhood losses, and abandoned ambitions rise to the surface, set against the backdrop of the world of music.
Coming November 3 is Wolves of Summer by Donna Freitas. When a 12-year-old girl goes missing from a Rhode Island beach community, everyone is horrified and shows up to look for her. But they all are left wondering if there is a monster among them. Freitas’s second novel set in the Ocean State (Her One Regret came out last year) examines the same themes of violence against women, female friendships, familial relationships, and deep questions of responsibility.
Deborah Goodrich Royce novel Best Boy is both a USA Today and an Indie Press bestseller. Reef Road, a Publishers Weekly bestseller, was named one of the best books of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews and an Indie Next pick by the ABA. Her Ocean House Author Series – in partnership with Martin House Books and WCRI – brings world-class authors like Emma Straub, Chris Bohjalian, and Katie Couric to Watch Hill. With fellow authors, Luanne Rice, and Amy Scheibe, Royce hosts the Deer Mountain Writers’ Retreat in the Catskills. She began as an actress on All My Children and in multiple films before transitioning to the role of story editor at Miramax Films, developing Emma and early versions of Chicago and A Wrinkle in Time. Royce holds a bachelor’s degree and two honorary doctorates, from both Lake Erie College and the University of Rhode Island. With her husband, Chuck, she restored the Avon Theatre, Ocean House Hotel, Deer Mountain Inn, United Theatre, Martin House Books, and numerous Main Street revitalization projects in Rhode Island and the Catskills. She serves on multiple governing and advisory boards. Royce writes the Hey Rhody Media Co. reading recommendation column quarterly.
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