Appearing at St. Peter’s Parish Hall | 3:40 pm – 4:30 pm
In discussion with Lynda Cohen Loigman, moderated by Sarah Cantin.
About the author
Laurie Lico Albanese has mastered writing across genres, publishing fiction, poetry, journalism, travel writing, creative nonfiction, and memoir. Her books include Stolen Beauty, Blue Suburbia: Almost a Memoir, Lynelle by the Sea, and The Miracles of Prato, co-written with art historian Laura Morowitz. Albanese is married to a publishing executive and is the mother of two children.
MFOB featured book: Hester
Who is the real Hester Prynne? Meticulously researched yet evocatively imagined, Laurie Lico Albanese’s Hester is a timeless tale of art, ambition, and desire that examines the roots of female creative power and the men who try to shut it down. It is a vivid reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the tragic heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and a journey into the enduring legacy of New England’s witchcraft trials.
Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his debts have forced them to flee for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after arriving in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic—leaving Isobel penniless and forced to make her way by any means possible.
When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, they are instantly drawn to each other: he is haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows, while she is an unusually gifted needleworker, troubled by her own strange talents. As weeks pass and Edward’s safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer: a muse and a dark storyteller, the enchanter and the enchanted. But which is which?
