About this Event
About the Book
Two women are separated by fifty years and one dark American secret.
In 1938, aspiring artist Emma Lundgren is hired to paint a mural at a German American youth camp bordering her rural Connecticut home. Seeking a chance to practice her craft, she soon befriends a mistreated young boy inside who doesn't seem to fit the "ideals" the camp demands. With every stroke of her brush, Emma uncovers a chilling devotion to the Third Reich, risking everything to bring attention to the Nazi agenda rooting itself in American soil.
More than half a century later, celebrated chef Lily Milan is picking up the pieces of her fractured life when a shocking revelation threatens to upend everything she knows: Her entire identity is a lie, built on a mysterious adoption. Her quest for answers leads her to Emma-the grandmother who has spent decades searching for her.
As past and present collide, Lily becomes the key to unearthing a sinister history. Together, they face the enduring echoes of fanaticism, proving that even the longest shadows of trauma can be shattered by the resilient power of love.
About Jacqueline Sheehan
Jacqueline Sheehan, psychologist and NYT best-selling author, was captivated by the buried history of the American Nazi party in 1938, and the German-American Bund Camps that openly supported the Third Reich. A New Englander through and through, she spent twenty adventuresome years in Oregon, California, and New Mexico exploring house painting, photography, journalism, and directing a traveling troupe of high school puppeteers. After learning that a German American Bund camp was established in the town where she grew up in Connecticut, she knew that it was the perfect setting for a historical novel. Her six previous novels: The Comet’s Tale, Lost & Found, Now & Then, Picture This, The Center of the World, and The Tiger in the House have sold widely and are translated into eight languages. She has been supported by fellowships at Hawthornden Castle, MacDowell, and Jentel. She teaches writing through Writers in Progress in Massachusetts and in 2026, led a writing retreat in Guatemala where she attempted to learn how to make corn tortillas. She was not successful.
About Ellen Meeropol
Ellen Meeropol is the author of the novels Sometimes an Island, The Lost Women of Azalea Court, Her Sister’s Tattoo, Kinship of Clover, On Hurricane Island, and House Arrest, and guest editor for the anthology Dreams for a Broken World. Essay and story publications include Ms. Magazine, Lilith, The Writer, The Boston Globe, Solstice Magazine, and Guernica. Her work has been a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Prize, long-listed for the Massachusetts Book Award, and selected by the Women’s National Book Association as a Great Group Reads. Ellen is a founding mother of Straw Dog Writers Guild and a member of the WriteAngles Conference planning committee. www.ellenmeeropol.com.
Event venue & nearby stays
Odyssey Bookshop, 9 College Street, South Hadley, United States
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