MICHAEL BOURNE & ANNE BELDEN

PETALUMA --

Copperfield's Books welcomes Canadian author Michael Bourne to Petaluma in celebration of his gripping new eco-mystery novel - .

Michael will be joined in conversation by celebrated journalist and local author Anne Belden.

Join us for a spooky reading and discussion followed by an audience Q&A and book signing.

A little bit creepy, a whole lot cozy to usher in All Hallows' Eve!

This is a free event, registration recommended for seating.

A CAPTIVATING SMALL-TOWN MYSTERY AND A BAND OF JOURNALISTS DETERMINED TO UNCOVER THE TRUTH.

The endangered lynx is at the center of an eco-terrorist plot gripping a small ski town, but newspaper publisher Tish Threadgill's insider information about a local literary malcontent leaves her upstart newspaper in a unique position to crack the case.

"We Bring You an Hour of Darkness is my favorite kind of thriller - one that combines urgent social themes with smart dialogue and a page-turning mystery." --Lauren Nossett, author of The Resemblance and The Professor

Greedy developers and underhanded businessmen are pitted against a shadowy band of environmental activists willing to stop at nothing to save pristine mountain wilderness. With the local police force melting down and the FBI stymied by the town's power brokers, Editor Tish Threadgill and her intrepid reporters at a struggling small-town newspaper are the only hope to stop the attacks, expose injustices, and crack the case.

Inspired in part by a real-life 1998 arson at the Vail ski resort and with echoes of more recent events, We Bring You an Hour of Darkness probes the morality of activism that aims to save the planet but risks human lives. A gripping story of a town under siege and a newspaper editor who pushes her reporters to the grey areas of the law in order to solve the riddle of the attacks, Bourne's second novel features a witch's brew of charismatic, independently-minded characters, some radicals, and the small town dysfunction that often defines local politics.

Zyzzyva notes that Bourne "has the ability to narrate a character’s deepest struggles and sincerest hopes with a clarity nearer to biography than fiction. […He] understands people, and perhaps most particularly, those living on the ragged edge of hope." Bourne draws on his decades-long experience as a reporter in Rocky Mountain ski towns that are famous world-wide but only known at their core by a select few.

"We Bring You an Hour of Darkness is a page-turner with the precision plot-making of a procedural mystery and the richly drawn characterization of a literary novel.” —Kirsten Lunstrum, author of What We Do With the Wreckage and Swimming With Strangers.

Author:

Michael Bourne has been a contributor to The New York Times, The Economist, Tin House, and Literary Hub, among other publications and has had his stories published widely in literary magazines. His debut novel Blithedale Canyon received rave reviews in Publishers Weekly, Zyzzyva, and Rain Taxi, which called it, “A clever blend of literary fiction with elements of crime and noir … [whose] cinematic quality comes from characters that demand a performance.” He lives in Vancouver with his wife and son.

Anne Belden runs the journalism program and advises the newsroom at Santa Rosa Junior College. During the 2017 Wine Country fires, she drove students into devastated fire zones to report on the disaster. Their work won numerous state and national awards and saw global syndication; Anne now instructs on how to cover wildfires. Before teaching, she spent eighteen years as a journalist, working as a reporter and editor on the San Francisco Peninsula where her news, feature, and investigative articles were recognized by the California Newspaper Publishers Association, San Francisco Peninsula Press Club, and Parenting Publications of America. Anne holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communication from UCLA and a master’s degree in media studies from Stanford University. She lives with her family on a Sebastopol ridgeline, from where she’s had clear view of six past fires and has only had to evacuate once.

Event Venue

Copperfield's Books Petaluma, 140 Kentucky Street, Petaluma, United States

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