Jessica Shattuck lives with her husband and three children in Brookline, MA. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Glamour, Open City, and The Tampa Review among other publications. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Mother Jones, Wired, The Believer Magazine, and The Boston Globe.
Her novel, The Women in the Castle is a New York Times Bestseller, and The Hazards of Good Breeding was a New York Times Notable Book, a Boston Globe best book of the year, and a finalist for the 2003 PEN/Winship Award.
33 Place Brugmann (2025) Alice Austen "33 Place Brugmann is a riveting portrait of community during a time when the very notion of community was under siege. A master of time and place, Austen has a historian's grasp of detail and a storyteller's command of suspense. This is a beautiful and important novel."
We Would Never (2025) Tova Mirvis "Mirvis writes with deep psychological insight into family dynamics and the sometimes fine line between love and desperation. We Would Never is not only a gripping murder mystery, but a moving and thought-provoking exploration of morality. This is a tour de force you will devour in one sitting."
The Lioness of Boston (2023) Emily Franklin "This beautiful, sensitively written novel explores the fascinating life of Isabella Stewart Gardner--feminist before feminism, celebrity before celebrity. Captivating and evocative, The Lioness of Boston transported me to America's Golden Age. I couldn't put it down."
The Soviet Sisters (2022) Anika Scott "Meticulously researched and plotted like a noir thriller, The German Heiress tells a different story of WWII-- of characters grappling with their own guilt and driven by the question of what they could have done to change the past."
Impersonation (2020) Heidi Pitlor "Smart, funny, and provocative, Impersonation tunnels through our current politically-charged American landscape with humor and empathy. It's a story of parenting--and surviving--in a time when the messy realities of everyday life often clash with ideology. As page-turningly readable as it is relatable. I'll be recommending to my book group."
Hieroglyphics (2020) Jill McCorkle "A beautiful, heart piercing meditation on life and death and the marks we leave on this world...a wonderful writer at her finest and most profound."
The Guest Book (2019) Sarah Blake "I loved The Guest Book. Sarah Blake has managed the extraordinary feat of writing both an intimate family saga and an ambitious excavation of the subterranean currents of race, class, and power that have shaped America. This is a vivid, transporting novel, written by a master conjuror of time and place."
Annelies (2019) David R Gillham "To imagine the could-have-been life of Anne Frank, one of the real-life pillars of our understanding of the Holocaust, is a risky undertaking, but David Gilham delivers his story with sensitivity and grace. The result is not only a poignant reminder of all that was lost during the war, but a vivid, searching exploration of what it meant to exist in the aftermath."
If You Leave Me (2018) Crystal Hana Kim "A gripping, heartrending tale of the birth of modern Korea filtered through the prism of an intimate love story. In fresh, often astonishing prose, Kim brings her characters to life: complicated, flawed, and hard not to fall in love with. A strikingly original work."
The Lost Girls Of Paris (2018) Pam Jenoff "A smart, suspenseful, and morally complicated spy novel for our time. Eleanor Trigg and her girls are every bit as human as they are brave. I couldn’t put this down."
Love and Other Consolation Prizes (2017) Jamie Ford "Ford is a master at shining light into dark, forgotten corners of history and revealing the most unexpected and relatable human threads. Love and Other Consolation Prizes is a beautiful and enthralling story of resilience and the many permutations of love."
The View from Stalin's Head (2004) Aaron Hamburger "With a sharp eye for outlandish details, absurd turns of phrase, and quiet but monumental moments of realization, Aaron Hamburger lures you into the most intimate worlds of young Czech schoolboys and jaded ex-pats alike. This is a marvelous and honest collection of stories about people searching for identity in a country searching for the same."
