Southern Women Author Panel Talk and Signing on Sept. 30th

Meet Emily Colin, Dorothy St. James, and Nicole Seitz at an upcoming book talk on Saturday, September 30th, at 2:00 pm at Fiction Addiction.

*Note: Tickets are $10 each. Each ticket admits one and can be redeemed for $10 off the featured authors’ books. Tickets and books can be purchased online, at the store, or by calling us at 864-675-0540.

Emily Colin

A woman discovers an impossible connection that transcends time and place in The Dream Keeper’s Daughter, a stirring, unforgettable novel from Emily Colin, the New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Thief.

Isabel Griffin has done her best to move on since her boyfriend, Max Adair, vanished without a trace eight years ago, leaving her heartbroken — and pregnant. Eerily enough, this isn’t the first time someone Isabel loves has gone missing. When she was sixteen, her mother disappeared, and her father became obsessed with finding his long-lost wife — at the expense of parenting Isabel.

Determined not to repeat her father’s mistakes, Isabel works hard to become a respected archaeologist and a loving mother to her daughter, Finn, a little girl with very unusual abilities. But while Isabel is on a dig in Barbados, she receives a disturbing phone call. The hauntingly familiar voice on the other end speaks just four words — “Isabel. Keep her safe.” — before they’re disconnected.

Isabel tries to convince herself that the caller can’t possibly be Max. But what if it is, and Finn is in danger? As one mysterious event after another occurs, she can’t shake the feeling that, despite what everyone else believes, Finn’s father is alive — and he’s desperately trying to reach her.

Dorothy St. James

When Charity Penn receives a letter saying she won a trip to Camellia Beach, South Carolina, complete with free cooking lessons at the town’s seaside chocolate shop, The Chocolate Box, she’s immediately skeptical. She never entered any contest. Her former prep school friend offers to look into the phony prize — only to end up drowned in a vat of chocolate.

Struck with guilt, Penn heads to the southern beach town to investigate why he was killed. But as wary as she is of the locals, she finds herself lured into their eccentric vibe, letting her defenses melt away and even learning the art of crafting delicious chocolates. That is, until delight turns bittersweet as she steps straight into the midst of a deadly plot to destroy the seaside town. Now, only Penn’s quick thinking and a mysterious cask of rare chocolate can save the town she’s learning to love.

Rich and decadent, Asking for Truffle, the first in a new cozy series by Dorothy St. James, is sure to be a delectable read for fans of JoAnna Carl and Joanne Fluke.

Nicole Seitz

Bringing the New Orleans of the late 1800s and early 1900s vividly to life, Nicole Seitz’s latest novel, The Cage-Maker, unfolds as a series of letters, journal entries, and newspaper articles discovered in the secret compartment of an enormous and exquisitely detailed birdcage that Trish, a twenty-first-century blogger, has inherited from a heretofore unknown relative. As she peruses the documents, Trish finds herself irresistibly drawn into the history of her family — a tale that is, as one letter puts it, “part love story and part horror and madness.”

In 1906, Dr. René Le Monnier is ready to retire after a lengthy career as the New Orleans coroner and physician for the insane asylum. Still mourning his wife’s death, the Civil War veteran wants nothing more than to finally write his account of the Battle of Shiloh. But when a sixteen-year-old girl, Carmelite Kurucar, enlists his aid in saving her brother from a death sentence, the good doctor has to reckon with old ghosts and dusty, long-forgotten files — in particular the case of a patient to whom he may not have given sufficient treatment and consideration.

Le Monnier’s efforts to help Carmelite lead him to Bertrand Saloy, one of the richest men in all New Orleans; to the Le Monnier mansion, which still haunts him; and down a dark family lineage “cursed” by a succession of wealth. Amid the mysteries and suspenseful intrigue, a French birdcage maker’s obsessive love for Madame Saloy emerges at the heart of the story.

Based in part on real people and events and featuring illustrations by the author, this engrossing epistolary novel offers fresh twists on the Southern Gothic genre. It reveals much about criminal justice, about early-twentieth-century notions of care for the mentally ill, and, most important, about the many ways in which the weight of history hangs over the present from one generation to the next.

Visit www.fiction-addiction.com for additional information.