Lauren Belfer grew up in Buffalo, where she was educated at the school that forms the model for her heroine's establishment. She has an MFA from Columbia University, and now lives in New York with her husband and son.
A Northern Light in Provence (2024) Elizabeth Birkelund "With its heart-stopping lyricism and immersive story, this intensely moving, vivid, and evocative novel stayed with me long after I finished it. The questions it poses about life, and love, continue to haunt me."
The Frozen River (2023) Ariel Lawhon "With exquisite prose and gripping immediacy, Ariel Lawhon recreates the extraordinary story of Martha Ballard, a real-life yet little-known midwife and healer in Maine who kept a diary in the years after the American Revolution. The Frozen River is so vivid, so textured and multilayered, that I felt I'd opened a door and entered post-revolutionary America, walking beside Lawhon's compelling characters in a time and place riven by hardship, disease, and misogyny, but also intense love and searing natural beauty. This novel was unlike anything I'd read before, and it left me awe-struck."
The Daughters of Madurai (2023) Rajasree Variyar "Bursting with the vivid colors, sounds, and scents of India past and present, The Daughters of Madurai is a searing, heartrending story about the fierce love between mothers and daughters. This novel gripped me from the opening page. It continues to haunt me."
Those Who Are Saved (2021) Alexis Landau "With poetic, mesmerizing prose, Alexis Landau creates a heartrending story of the unbreakable bond of maternal love. Those Who Are Saved brings to life a moment in history when all that is familiar disappears and every choice is potentially tragic. This gripping and compassionate novel continues to haunt me."
The Paris Hours (2020) Alex George "A thrilling, irresistible marvel. In lyrical prose, George weaves together memory, loss, and yearning, portraying his characters with such vivid immediacy that I could imagine myself walking beside them along the winding streets of Paris, sharing their stories. Riveting, heartbreaking, and compassionate."
The Henna Artist (2020) (Jaipur Trilogy, book 1) Alka Joshi "Like a brilliant, magical kaleidoscope, bursting with color...The Henna Artist kept me riveted from start to finish."
Not Our Kind (2018) Kitty Zeldis "Kitty Zeldis has a gift for making even the smallest details of the past shine with vivid color. The story she tells in NOT OUR KIND—of two women in post-World War II New York trying to forge lives of integrity and purpose—resonates with the struggles of women today. Compelling, frank, and all too real, NOT OUR KIND kept me reading long into the night."
House of Gold (2018) Natasha Solomons "Once again, Natasha Solomons brings the past alive with vivid immediacy. House of Gold is a sweeping, heartbreaking story of love, war, and duty. I will long remember the poetry of its evocative details and the striking complexity of its characters."
All the Beautiful Girls (2018) Elizabeth J Church "A brave and powerful novel that captures the very soul of a young woman coming of age . . . With heart-wrenching immediacy and gorgeous prose, Elizabeth Church examines the often desperate choices women must confront, and the secrets they must protect."
The Girls in the Picture (2018) Melanie Benjamin "Actress Mary Pickford and screenwriter Frances Marion are Hollywood legends, and I thought I knew them well--until I read The Girls in the Picture. With riveting subtlety, Melanie Benjamin reveals the texture of their daily lives and the complexity of their decadeslong friendship. In the process, Benjamin creates an astonishing portrait of the early days of Hollywood, when innovation ruled and women wielded power alongside men. The Girls in the Picture is a fascinating, fast-paced, and ultimately heartbreaking story about two kindred spirits and their struggle for professional and personal fulfillment."
Strangers in Budapest (2017) Jessica Keener "In the Budapest of Jessica Keener's gripping new novel, menace lurks down every street and infuses every interaction, until the city itself becomes a brooding, sinister presence. With lyrical prose, Keener examines grief and guilt, deception and hatred, and the search for an elusive redemption. Strangers in Budapest is a remarkable novel that continues to haunt me, weeks after I reached its powerful, unexpected conclusion."
The Ruined House (2017) Ruby Namdar "With richly poetic prose, Ruby Namdar portrays a man who leads a successful, comfortable secular life--until he finds himself haunted by religious visions. The Ruined House is shocking, insightful, and deeply disturbing."
The Jane Austen Project (2017) Kathleen A Flynn "What lover of literature hasn’t dreamed of going back in time to meet Jane Austen? In her debut novel, Kathleen A. Flynn brings this dream to life, creating a vivid portrait of Regency England in all its glory and squalor."
Loving Frank (2007) Nancy Horan "Loving Frank is one of those novels that takes over your life. It's mesmerizing and fascinating - filled with complex characters, deep passions, tactile descriptions of astonishing architecture, and the colorful immediacy of daily life a hundred years ago - all gathered into a story that unfolds with riveting urgency."
Mina (2004) Jonatha Ceely "Absorbing and suspenseful...filled with vivid and surprising characters struggling to find their way amid the social turmoil of the time."
