Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Faye Jones

Love and Death in Venice

Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily looks to the past to solve a mystery in nineteenth-century Italy

October 22, 2012 When Lady Emily Hargreaves heads to Italy, it’s a fair bet that she isn’t on vacation. In fact, Emily—the heroine of Death in the Floating City, Tasha Alexander’s seventh Victorian mystery—arrives in Venice to solve a murder. To find the killer, she must investigate not only those around her but also the lives of star-crossed lovers who lived centuries before. Fans of Alexander, a former Franklin resident, know Emily will manage it all with charm, intelligence, and ladylike decorum. Tasha Alexander will discuss Death in the Floating City at Parnassus Books on October 24 at 6:30 p.m.

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Defining a Life Through Books

Journalist Frye Gaillard pays tribute to the books that have shaped his life

August 29, 2012 Perhaps all avid readers mark their lives by the books they’ve read and by the way those books have influenced them. Frye Gaillard certainly does, and as a journalist he also has a strong sense of how books show us pictures of the world at a certain time and place. More than just a memoir, The Books That Mattered is a fascinating blend of personal, cultural, and literary history. Gaillard takes readers to a segregated courtroom in Alabama, a prison in Argentina, the dust bowl of Oklahoma, and a small attic hideout in Europe. As disparate as those books and places are, they all live on in Gaillard, who will appear at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

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The Passion of Edith Wharton

Novelist Jennie Fields imagines the story behind a troubled period in the life of Edith Wharton

August 20, 2012 If your picture of Edwardian novelist Edith Wharton tends to feature veiled conversations in drawing rooms, you may well be shocked at the passionate and vulnerable woman who comes to life in The Age of Desire by Nashvillian Jennie Fields. This novel is set during the year when the married Wharton embarked on an affair with a younger man. Fields will read from The Age of Desire on August 23 at 6:30 p.m. at Parnassus Books in Nashville, on September 20 at 6:15 p.m. at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series, and at the Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

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How Much Pain Should One Person Endure?

Nashvillian J.T. Ellison begins a new suspense series

May 7, 2012 Nashville medical examiner Samantha Owens lost her husband and children in the 2010 flood. Since then, she has managed to survive by keeping her world small and by containing her grief in a series of compulsive behaviors. But that control is shattered when she’s asked to come to Washington DC to do a second autopsy on the body of a former boyfriend. So begins A Deeper Darkness, the first book in a new suspense series by J.T. Ellison, author of the popular Taylor Jackson mysteries. J.T. Ellison will discuss A Deeper Darkness on May 12 at Mysteries & More in Nashville at 2 p.m.

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A Titanic Love Story that Actually Happened

June Hall McCash tells the true story of Ida and Isidor Straus, soul mates who died together on history’s most famous ship

April 16, 2012 For most readers, a title like A Titanic Love Story will immediately bring to mind the image of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet embracing to a sound track by Celine Dion. These fictional characters may embody doomed shipboard love today, but at the time of the Titanic’s actual sinking, the public was gripped by a real-life love story that is now mostly forgotten: Ida Straus refused to leave Isidor, her husband of more than forty years, to take her place in a lifeboat, while he refused to leave the ship until all the women and children on board were safe. In A Titanic Love Story, Murfreesboro’s June Hall McCash writes their joint biography.

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Not On Miss Julia’s Watch

In her latest madcap adventure, Ann B. Ross’s popular heroine has no intention of letting a cult win the soul of her handyman

April 5, 2012 While a major home-renovation project would keep most people busy, Miss Julia finds time to run to West Virginia to break a man out of the hospital and crash a snake-handling worship service. But in this thirteenth outing for Ann B. Ross’s popular heroine, things aren’t much quieter back home, where she must battle some New Age cultists for the body and soul of her carpenter. Ann B. Ross will discuss Miss Julia to the Rescue at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 9 at 6 p.m., at Books-A-Million in Nashville on April 10 at 7 p.m., and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on April 14 at 1 p.m.

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