Ocean House Author Series
A glass of wine, a delicious bite, and fascinating conversations with exceptional authors! Join Ocean House owner, actress, and bestselling author Deborah Goodrich Royce for this ongoing series which brings you the best and the brightest of the literary world in a spectacular setting overlooking the sea.
Episodes

Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Join Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce as she moderates a conversation with featured authors. New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White will discuss their new novel, An Author's Guide To Murder.
About An Author’s Guide to Murder:
Agatha Christie meets Murder, She Wrote in this witty locked room mystery and literary satire by New York Times bestselling team of novelists: Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White.
There’s been a sensational murder at historic Castle Kinloch, a gothic fantasy of grey granite on a remote island in the Highlands of Scotland. Literary superstar Brett Saffron Presley has been found dead–under bizarre circumstances–in the castle tower’s book-lined study. Years ago, Presley purchased the castle as a showpiece for his brand and to lure paying guests with a taste for writerly glamour.
Now it seems, the castle has done him in…or, possibly, one of the castle’s guests has. Detective Chief Inspector Euan McIntosh, a local with no love for literary Americans, finds himself with the unenviable task of extracting statements from three American lady novelists. The prime suspects are Kat de Noir, a slinky erotica writer; Cassie Pringle, a Southern mom of six juggling multiple cozy mystery series; and Emma Endicott, a New England blue blood and author of critically acclaimed historical fiction. The women claim to be best friends writing a book together, but the authors’ stories about how they know Brett Saffron Presley don’t quite line up, and the detective is getting increasingly suspicious. Why did the authors really come to Castle Kinloch? And what really happened the night of the great Kinloch ceilidh, when Brett Saffron Presley skipped the folk dancing for a rendezvous with death? A crafty locked-room mystery, a pointed satire about the literary world, and a tale of unexpected friendship and romance–this novel has it all, as only three bestselling authors can tell it!
About Beatriz Williams: Beatriz Williams is the bestselling author of over a dozen novels, including Husbands and Lovers, The Summer Wives, and The Secret Life of Violet Grant, as well as four other novels cowritten with Lauren Willig and Karen White. A native of Seattle, she graduated from Stanford University and earned an MBA in finance from Columbia University. She lives with her husband and four children near the Connecticut shore, where she divides her time between writing and laundry.
About Lauren Willig: Lauren Willig is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels, including Band of Sisters and the RITA Award winning Pink Carnation series. An alumna of Yale University, she has a graduate degree in history from Harvard and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She lives in New York City with her husband, two young children, and vast quantities of coffee.
About Karen White: Karen White is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thirty-four novels, including The Last Night in London and The House on Prytania, as well as the Tradd Street mystery series. She currently writes what she refers to as “grit lit”—Southern women’s fiction. She is a graduate of the American School in London and has a BS in management from Tulane University. When not writing, she spends her time reading, singing, and avoiding cooking. She has two grown children and currently lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and a spoiled Havanese dog.
For more information about the authors on this panel, visit oceanhouseevents.com/events. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Wednesday Feb 19, 2025
Wednesday Feb 19, 2025
Join Deborah Goodrich Royce and a panel of fantastic thriller fiction novelists for a talk about their books, their writing process, and the thriller genre.
About the Authors:
Sara DiVello is a mystery writer and the creator/host of Mystery and Thriller Mavens, a popular author series. Sara loves connecting with fellow mystery-lovers on her social media platforms. She also serves as the director of social media strategy for the International Thriller Writers association. Sara’s first book, “Where in the OM Am I?” was the NIEA-winner, selected by SHAPE Magazine as a best book, and named a must-read for anyone considering a career change by Working Mother. Her articles have been published in Marie Claire, Elle, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Woman’s Day, among others. In her spare time, she loves to teach yoga, cook (and eat!), garden, and go for leisurely walks with her husband and their beloved rescue mutt, Pelu.
Jean Kwok is the international bestselling author of Girl in Translation, Mambo in Chinatown, and Searching for Sylvie Lee, which was a Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club pick and an instant New York Times bestseller. Her work has been published in twenty countries and is taught in schools across the world. She has been selected for numerous honors, including the American Library Association Alex Award, the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award and the Sunday Times Short Story Award international shortlist. She immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was five and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood. She received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and earned an MFA from Columbia University. She currently lives in the Netherlands.
Liv Constantine is the pen name of sisters Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine. Lynne and Valerie are national and international bestselling authors with over one and a half million copies sold worldwide. Their books have been translated into 29 languages, are available in 34 countries, and are in development for both television and film. Their novels have been praised by The Washington Post, USA Today, The Sunday Times, People Magazine, and Good Morning America, among many others. Their debut novel, THE LAST MRS. PARRISH, is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection.
Luanne Rice is the New York Times bestselling author of 35 novels including Last Day, Dream Country, Beach Girls, Pretend She’s Here and others, Rice often writes about love, family, nature, and the sea. She received the 2014 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award for excellence and lifetime achievement in the Literary Arts category. Several of Rice’s novels have been adapted for television, including Crazy in Love for TNT, Blue Moon for CBS, Follow the Stars Home and Silver Bells for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, and Beach Girls for Lifetime.
Juliet Grames was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in history from Columbia College. For the last twenty years she has worked in book publishing and is currently Editorial Director at Soho Press in New York. She is the recipient of the Mystery Writers of America’s Ellery Queen Award and Italy’s Premio Cetraro for contributions to Southern Italian literature. She is the author of two novels, THE SEVEN OR EIGHT DEATHS OF STELLA FORTUNA and THE LOST BOY OF SANTA CHIONIA.
Elise Hart Kipness is a television sports reporter turned crime fiction writer. The KATE GREEN series is based on Elise’s experience in the high-pressure, adrenaline-pumping world of live TV. Like her main character, Elise chased marquee athletes through the tunnels of Madison Square Garden and stood before glaring lights reporting to national audiences. She is currently Co-President of Sisters in Crime Connecticut.
For more information about the authors on this panel, visit oceanhouseevents.com/events. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Wednesday Feb 12, 2025
Wednesday Feb 12, 2025
Join us as Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce moderates a conversation with New York Times bestselling authors Meghan Riordan Jarvis and Catherine Newman as they discuss their novels End of the Hour and Sandwich.
About Meghan Riordan Jarvis is a podcast host (Grief Is My Side Hustle), two-time TEDx Speaker, and psychotherapist specializing in trauma and grief and loss. After experiencing PTSD following the deaths of both of her parents, Jarvis founded Talking Point Partners to help employers address complex emotions such as grief in the workplace. Jarvis is currently at work on Can Anyone Tell Me Why: 25 Essential Questions About Grief and Loss, which publishes with Sounds True Media in 2024. Originally from New England, Jarvis currently lives in Maryland with her husband and their three children, where competing piles of LEGO bricks and books cover most surfaces of their house.
About End of the Hour “A frank chronicle of healing.”—Kirkus Reviews Esteemed trauma therapist Meghan Riordan Jarvis knew how to help her patients process grief. For nearly twenty years, Meghan expected that this clinical training would inoculate her against the effects of personal trauma. But when her father died after a year-long battle with cancer, followed by her mother’s unexpected passing while on their family vacation, she came undone. Thrown into a maelstrom of grief, with long-buried childhood tragedy rising to the surface, Meghan knew what she had to do―check herself into the same trauma facility to which she often sent her clients. In treatment, trading the therapist’s chair for the patient’s couch, Meghan took her first steps toward healing. A brave story of confronting life’s hardest moments with emotional honesty, End of the Hour is for anyone who has experienced the unpredictable, lasting power of grief―and wondered how they’d ever get through it.
About Catherine Newman has written numerous columns, articles, and canned-bean recipes for magazines and newspapers, and her essays have been widely anthologized. She is the author of the novel We All Want Impossible Things; the memoirs Waiting for Birdy and Catastrophic Happiness; the middle-grade novel One Mixed-Up Night; and the bestselling kids’ life-skills books How to Be a Person and What Can I Say? She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
About Sandwich “Sandwich is joy in book form. I laughed continuously, except for the parts that made me cry. Catherine Newman does a miraculous job reminding us of all the wonder there is to be found in life.”–Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake. “A total delight.”–Kate Christensen, author of The Great Man and Welcome Home, Stranger. From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.
For more information about author Meghan Riordan Jarvis, visit meghanriordanjarvis.com, and for Catherine Newman, visit www.catherinenewmanwriter.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Wednesday Jan 22, 2025
Wednesday Jan 22, 2025
Join Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce for a conversation with authors Annabel Monaghan and Alix Strauss as they discuss their books Summer Romance (Annabel Monaghan) and The Joy of Funerals (Alix Strauss).
About Annabel Monaghan: Annabel Monaghan is the author of LibraryReads pick Same Time Next Summer and Indie Next and LibraryReads pick Nora Goes Off Script, as well as two young adult novels and Does This Volvo Make My Butt Look Big?, a selection of laugh-out-loud columns that appeared in the Huffington Post, the Week, and the Rye Record. She lives in Rye, New York, with her family.
About Summer Romance: The heart-tugging and hilarious story of a professional organizer whose life is a mess, and the summer she gets unstuck with the help of someone unexpected from her past, by the bestselling author of Same Time Next Summer and Nora Goes Off Script.
Benefits of a summer romance: It’s always fun, always brief, and no one gets their heart broken.
Ali Morris is a professional organizer whose own life is a mess. Her mom died two years ago, then her husband left, and she hasn’t worn pants with a zipper in longer than she cares to remember.
No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware—overalls count, right?—she meets someone. Or rather, her dog claims a man for her in the same way he claimed his favorite of her three children: by peeing on him. Ethan smiles at Ali like her pants are just right—like he likes what he sees. He looks at her as if she’s a version of herself she hasn’t been in a long while. The last thing newly single mom Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little summer romance. Is there?
About Alix Strauss: Alix Strauss is a trend, culture and lifestyle journalist; an award-winning, four-time published author; speaker; and frequent contributor to The New York Times. Her books include: The Joy of Funerals (St. Martin’s Press & Palagram Press), Based Upon Availability (Harper Collins), and Death Becomes Them: Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous and the Notorious (Harper Collins). She is also the editor of Have I Got a Guy for You (Simon & Schuster), an anthology of mother-coordinated dating horror stories. Her work has been optioned for several TV and film projects. A media-savvy social satirist, she has been a featured lifestyle, travel, and trend writer on national morning and talk shows including ABC, CBS, CNN, and the Today Show. During the past 25 years she has written over 1500 articles. Her articles, which have appeared in Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Conde Nast Traveler, the Financial Times, Time Magazine, and Departures, among others, and cover a range of topics from trends in beauty, travel, and food to celebrity interviews. The Joy of Funerals is an Ingram Award winner and was named Best Debut Novel by The New York Resident. Alix was the inaugural “First Chapters” pick, Cosmopolitan Magazine’s new launchpad of fiction excerpts, giving readers exclusive sneak peeks of gripping new work. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in the Primavera Literary Journal, Hampton Shorts Literary Journal, The Idaho Review, Quality Women’s Fiction, The Blue Moon Café III, Sex, Drugs & Gefilte Fish: The Heeb Storytelling Collection, and A Kudzu Christmas. Her short story, “Shrinking Away”, won the David Dornstein Creative Writing Award. She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships from programs such as the Wesleyan Writers Conference, the Skidmore College Writerʼs Institute, the Sarah Lawrence Summer Program, and the Squaw Valleyʼs Screenwritersʼ Summer Program. Alix lectures extensively and has been a keynote speaker, moderator, or panelist at over 200 conferences, symposiums, seminars, and summits including The Southern Festival of Books, The Northwest Bookfest, The New England’s Writer’s Conference, Wesleyan Writer’s Conference, The 92nd Street Y, New York University, Center for Communications, University of Connecticut, and Columbia University. She was chosen to speak at the National Jewish Book Festival and is on the National Speakers Bureau for Israeli Bonds. Alix Lives in Manhattan. You can connect with her at alixstrauss.com or @alixstrauss.
About The Joy of Funerals: From the very first page, readers are drawn into the strange, often humorous world where nine women grapple with sex, power, love, and death. Meet a widow who lusts…a daughter who aches…a lover who obsesses…a shopaholic who hungers… a daredevil who desires…a single woman who longs…an outsider who hopes…an artist who craves…and a funeral-junkie who needs. These are the women who inhabit the eerily honest, often heartbreaking world Alix Strauss has created in The Joy of Funerals.
Throughout this powerful and provocative collection, these characters explore the basic need for human connection while seeking to understand themselves better. It is the ‘where do I belong’ and the ‘how do I fit in’ that these sad, bright and amazingly strong women seek to answer.
In “Recovering Larry,” a woman mourns for her dead husband by having sex with grieving men. In “Shrinking Away,” a woman pays a daring shiva call on her psychiatrist’s widow. “Swimming Without Annette” explores a woman’s obsession with her wife’s killer, while “Still Life” peers into the life of a pregnant artist who wishes to paint herself out of a bad marriage and into a prettier world. In “Post-Dated,” a single woman wonders if her recently defunct date was perhaps the perfect man.
Read independently, these vivid and raw stories stand on their own. When read as a collection, they are anchored together by the novella, “The Joy of Funerals,” which follows the life of Nina, a lonely, single thirty-something woman who attends the funerals of the deceased characters in the previous stories.
Begun as an essay in the Lives column of The New York Times magazine, The Joy of Funerals is written with raw wit, mordant humor and a uniquely penetrating voice as Strauss turns the spotlight on the unattractive subjects of loss, grief and loneliness.
For more information about author Annabel Monaghan, visit annabelmonaghan.com and for Alix Strauss, visit alixstrauss.com For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Thursday Jan 16, 2025
Thursday Jan 16, 2025
Join Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce for a conversation with author Jenny Jackson, who will discuss her New York Times bestselling novel Pineapple Street, new in paperback.
About Pineapple Street: A New York Times bestseller | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick
Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected old money Stockton family, followed her heart, trading her job and her inheritance for motherhood but giving up far too much in the process; Sasha, a middle-class New England girl, has married into the Brooklyn Heights family, and finds herself cast as the arriviste outsider; and Georgiana, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can’t have, and must decide what kind of person she wants to be.
Rife with the indulgent pleasures of life among New York’s one-percenters, Pineapple Street is a smart, escapist novel that sparkles with wit. Full of recognizable, loveable—if fallible—characters, it’s about the peculiar unknowability of someone else’s family, the miles between the haves and have-nots, and the insanity of first love—all wrapped in a story that is a sheer delight.
About Jenny Jackson: Jenny Jackson is a Vice President and Executive Editor at Alfred A. Knopf. A graduate of Williams College and the Columbia Publishing Course, she lives in Brooklyn Heights with her family. Pineapple Street is her first novel.
For more information about author Jenny Jackson, visit penguinrandomhouse.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Monday Dec 23, 2024
Monday Dec 23, 2024
Join Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce for a conversation with author Patricia Chadwick about her new book, Breaking Glass.
About Patricia Chadwick: Patricia Walsh Chadwick was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1948. She received her BA in Economics from Boston University and had a thirty-year career in the investment business, culminating as a Global Partner at Invesco. Today she sits on a number of corporate boards, and she blogs on issues social, economic, and political. She also mentors middle school girls at Our Lady Queen of Angels School in Harlem. In 2016, she founded and is the CEO of Anchor Health Initiative, a health care company that serves the needs of the LGBTQ community in Connecticut. She is married and lives in Connecticut with her husband. They have a daughter and a son.
About Breaking Glass: Kicked out of a cult at seventeen, Patricia Walsh Chadwick started on the bottom rung of the ladder in the world of business and worked her way to the top—breaking through the glass ceiling to become a global partner at Invesco.
Patricia grew up in a religious community-turned-cult in the Boston area. At the age of seventeen, she was forced out of her home, leaving behind her entire family, and without access to higher education. From her first job as a receptionist at a brokerage firm, she clawed her way up the ladder—rung by rung—in that bastion of male chauvinism: Wall Street. By going to college at night, she achieved her degree in economics from Boston University, and from there, she headed to New York City. With a drive that earned her the moniker “Witch of Wall Street,” she rose from the ranks of research analyst to portfolio manager, where she was responsible for billions of dollars in pension and endowment assets. A turning point in her life was giving birth to twins at the age of forty-five, and she continued forward in her career, becoming a global partner at Invesco. At the turn of the millennium, she left Wall Street behind and embarked on a second career as a corporate board director.
For more information about Patricia Chadwick, visit patriciachadwick.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Wednesday Dec 18, 2024
Wednesday Dec 18, 2024
Join Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce for a conversation with authors Moya Hession-Aiken and Elizabeth Birkelund, who will discuss their books Shoulder and A Northern Light in Provence. Refreshments will
About Moya Hession- Aiken: Moya Hession- Aiken studied art at Manchester Polytechnic (now Manchester University) and the Central School of Art and Design (now Central St. Martins), graduating with a first class honors degree in textile design before moving to New York to work in the garment industry. However, before too long she was working for MTV earning an Emmy Award for her work as a paintbox artist. At MTV she met her future husband, producer Bill Aiken. They had a son, Liam, in 1990, a few years before Bill’s tragic death. She lives in Connecticut and pursues her work as a fine artist, exhibiting frequently.
About Shoulder: Growing up a headstrong Irish Catholic girl in a notoriously tough housing estate in Northern England, Moya has just one goal-to live a rich creative life in America. Shoulder tells the story of the riotous and hilarious path from her boisterous but warm family back home to her education in London and her escape to New York in the 1980s where she finds everything she’s looking for–exciting jobs in the fashion industry and later at MTV–but where she also meets the man of her dreams, only to lose him to cancer following the birth of their son. Told in a voice that is equal parts Alan Bennett and Frank McCourt, this is a story about the thrill of taking chances and the unbearable pain of loss, as well as a profound meditation on what it takes to survive and what it means to care for others.
About Elizabeth Birkelund: Elizabeth graduated from the Hewitt School in New York City, from Brown University with honors in Comparative literature, and from the Radcliffe Publishing Program. After college, she worked for a literary agent and was a member of the editorial staff for a start-up magazine, European Travel and Life. She began her fifteen-year freelance writing career as a monthly personal finance columnist for Cosmopolitan magazine, and has written for over fifteen publications, including The Runaway Wife, Glamour, Self, Working Woman, Victoria, and her first novel: The Dressmaker. She lives in New York City.
About A Northern Light in Provence: Ilse Erlund is a translator who lives in a house on stilts along the west coast of Greenland. Isolated and restless in her world by the sea, she convinces her publisher to pay for a trip to the country she has never visited but whose language she speaks fluently: France. Her mission is to translate the verses of Geoffrey “Po” Labaye, a charismatic poet known as “the last living troubadour of Provence.” Upon arrival in the medieval hilltop village of Belle Rivière, Ilse falls under the spell of the Provençal way of life, captivated by the air, the sun, the vibrant spring colors, and the dulcet sounds of the dialect. Soon enough, Ilse is captivated by the poet, too, and she and Po develop a daily rhythm and warm camaraderie—which is disrupted by the arrival of the poet’s son, Frey. Though he has a fiancée back in Paris, Frey turns his attentions to Ilse, and suddenly she is forced to learn another language, one her translation skills have not prepared her to decode. Where—and with whom—does her future lie? With an eye and ear attuned to the sensibilities of French life, Elizabeth Birkelund has created a love story about a woman forced to choose between the security of her quiet northern home and the possibility of the life of her dreams.
For more information about Moya Hession-Aiken, visit shoulderbymoyaaiken.com. For more information about Elizabeth Birkelund, visit elizabethbirkelund.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Monday Nov 18, 2024
Monday Nov 18, 2024
Join Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce for a conversation with bestselling authors Hank Phillippi Ryan and Carola Lovering as they discuss their new novels One Wrong Word (Phillipi Ryan) and Bye, Baby (Lovering).
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of thirteen award-winning novels of suspense. National reviews have called her a “master at crafting suspenseful mysteries” and “a superb and gifted storyteller.” Her novel, THE HOUSE GUEST, received a starred review from Library Journal, calling it “Binge-worhty.” The rave review from Publishers Weekly says “Ryan is a master of suspense.” Her work has resulted in new laws, people sent to prison, homes removed from foreclosure, and millions of dollars in refunds and restitution for victims and consumers. She’s been a radio reporter, a legislative aide in the United States Senate and an editorial assistant at Rolling Stone Magazine, working with Hunter S. Thompson, Richard Avedon and Richard Goodwin. Hank is a founding teacher at Mystery Writers of America University and served as 2013 president of national Sisters in Crime. She blogs at Jungle Red Writers and Career Authors. She is a co-host at FIRST CHAPTER FUN and a founder and co-host of THE BACK ROOM, and the host of A Mighty Mystery on A Mighty Blaze.
Carola Lovering is the author of the novels Tell Me Lies, Too Good to Be True, and Can’t Look Away. She attended Colorado College, and her work has appeared in New York Magazine, W Magazine, Marie Claire, National Geographic, Outside, and Yoga Journal, among other publications. Her novel, Tell Me Lies, is now a drama series on Hulu. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two young children.
For more information about Hank Phillipi Ryan, visit hankphillippiryan.com. For more information about Carola Lovering, visit carolalovering.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Tuesday Nov 12, 2024
Tuesday Nov 12, 2024
Join Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce for a conversation with New York Times bestselling authors Martha Hall Kelly and Katherine Reay as they discuss their books The Golden Doves (Martha Hall Kelly) and The Berlin Letters (Katherine Reay).
About Martha Hall Kelly: Martha Hall Kelly’s debut novel LILAC GIRLS, about socialite Caroline Ferriday and her fight to help a group of concentration camp survivors, became an Instant NY Times bestseller in 2016 and sold over two million copies. Once the paperback stayed on the NYT list for fifty-four weeks and became published in fifty countries, she wrote two more novels: LOST ROSES, about Caroline’s mother, and SUNFLOWER SISTERS, about her great grandmother, which also became Instant NY Times bestsellers. Martha grew up in Massachusetts and now splits her time between Connecticut and New York City.
About The Golden Doves: Two female spies risk everything to hunt down an infamous Nazi in this sweeping, profound tale of bravery from the bestselling author of Lilac Girls.
About Katherine Reay: Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author of several novels and one nonfiction work. For her fiction, Katherine writes love letters to books, and her novels are saturated with what she calls the “world of books.” They are character-driven stories that examine the past as a way to find one’s best way forward. In the words of The Bronte Plot’s Lucy Alling, Katherine writes of “that time when you don’t know where you’ll be, but you can’t stay as you are.” Katherine holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University and, after several moves across the globe, lives outside Chicago.
About The Berlin Letters: Bestselling author Katherine Reay returns with an unforgettable tale of the Cold War and a CIA code-breaker who risks everything to free her father from an East German prison.
For more information about Martha Hall Kelly, visit penguinrandomhouse.com. For more information about Katherine Reay, visit katherinereay.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Monday Oct 21, 2024
Monday Oct 21, 2024
Join Ocean House owner and author Deborah Goodrich Royce for a conversation with author Terah Shelton Harris to discuss her novel Long After We Are Gone.
About Long After We Are Gone: “A big, beautiful, devastating, and ultimately hopeful novel.” – Erica Bauermeister, New York Times bestselling author of No Two Persons
An explosive and emotional story of four siblings–each fighting their own personal battle–who return home in the wake of their father’s death in order to save their family’s home from being sold out from under them, from the author of One Summer in Savannah.
“Don’t let the white man take the house.”
These are the last words King Solomon says to his son before he dies. Now all four Solomon siblings must return to North Carolina to save the Kingdom, their ancestral home and 200 acres of land, from a development company, who has their sights set on turning the valuable waterfront property into a luxury resort.
While fighting to save the Kingdom, the siblings must also save themselves from the secrets they’ve been holding onto. Junior, the oldest son and married to his wife for eleven years, is secretly in love with another man. Second son Mance can’t control his temper, which has landed him in prison more than once. CeCe, the oldest daughter and a lawyer in New York City, has embezzled thousands of dollars from her firm’s clients. Youngest daughter Tokey wonders why she doesn’t seem to fit into this family, which has left an aching hole in her heart that she tries to fill in harmful ways. As the Solomons come together to fight for the Kingdom, each of their façades begins to crumble and collide in unexpected ways.
Told in alternating viewpoints, Long After We Are Gone is a searing portrait on the power of family and letting go of things that no longer serve you, exploring the burden of familial expectations, the detriment of miscommunication, and the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children.
About Terah Shelton Harris: Terah Shelton Harris is a collection development librarian based in Alabama and a freelance writer. She has been published in Women’s Health, Natural Solutions, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Backpacker, Draft, and Women’s Adventure.
For more information about Terah Shelton Harris, visit terahsharris.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Deborah Goodrich Royce
Deborah Goodrich Royce’s thrillers examine puzzles of identity. Reef Road hit Publishers Weekly’s Bestseller list, Good Morning America’s Top 15 list, and was an Indie Next pick by the American Bookseller’s Association for January 2023. Ruby Falls won the Zibby Award for Best Plot Twist in 2021 and Finding Mrs. Ford was hailed by Forbes, Book Riot, and Good Morning America’s “best of” lists in 2019.
She began as an actress on All My Children and in multiple films, before transitioning to the role of story editor at Miramax Films, developing Emma and early versions of Chicago and A Wrinkle in Time. With her husband, Chuck, Deborah restored the 1939 Avon Theatre in Stamford, CT. Under her leadership, the Avon hosts an ongoing series of film luminaries, most recently, Mira Nair, Richard Gere and Chloe Sevigny. Together, Deborah and Chuck have restored the Ocean House Hotel, Deer Mountain Inn, United Theatre, Savoy Bookstore, and numerous Main Street revitalization projects in Rhode Island and the Catskills.
The Ocean House Author Series—a salon style conversation that Deborah created in partnership with The Savoy Bookshop & Café—brings world-class authors to readers in the stunning seaside location of Watch Hill, RI. This year, Deborah will talk there with two dozen writers ranging from Chris Bohjalian to Katie Couric. Past authors have included Zibby Owens, Emma Straub, Annabel Monaghan, Zain Asher, and many more.
She serves on the governing and/or advisory boards of the American Film Institute, Avon Theatre, Greenwich International Film Festival, New York Botanical Garden, Greenwich Historical Society, the Preservation Society of Newport, the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach, and the PRASAD Project. Deborah holds a bachelor’s degree in modern foreign languages and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Lake Erie College.