Boston Book Festival

In these three novels, the protagonists make decisions that alter their life trajectory and spark new creative awakenings. In Ann Hood’s page-turning novel, The Stolen Child, an elderly Rhode Island man, haunted by a choice he made during World War I, seeks to make amends with the help of a college dropout. This unlikely duo embark on a journey through France and Italy to find out what happened to the French artist who thrust her paintings and baby in the young soldier's arms. In J. Courtney Sullivan’s “capacious and engaging sixth novel,” (NYTimes) The Cliffs, Jane Flanagan returns to her childhood home in Maine after a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and marriage. While there, she is hired to research the history of a house that has always enchanted her. Jane uncovers the stories of the house’s inhabitants, which tell a larger and more complicated tale of forbidden love, colonialism, and stolen historic artifacts. The book “makes the case that knowing what came before offers us our best chance to truly understand our connections to one another, and what we owe to the land we inhabit” (NYTimes). Diane Richards’ debut novel, Ella, examines the teenage years of Ella Fitzgerald and how she struggled to escape her abusive stepfather, poverty, and racism. During her struggles, she comes to the realization that it is her voice, and not the dancing career she had embarked on, that would set her on the path to fame, success and renown. Richards, who was a former background vocalist for Whitney Houston, “conducted extensive research, resulting in bringing the sights and sounds of 1930s Harlem to vivid life” (PW, Starred Review). Hood, Sullivan and Richards are joined by Katherine Sherbrooke, the award winning author of three novels including NYTimes notable and MA Book Award finalist, Leaving Coy's Hill.  Sponsored by Lesley University.