Last event blog of the year! Hannah Morrissey for The Widowmaker, Rachel Kapelke-Dale at Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, Olena Jennings for Ukrainian-American Poets Respond, Sarah Winman for Still Life (virtual), and John Gurda signing at Boswell

Conversation, conversation, conversation, conversation, signing! 

Hannah Morrissey, author of The Widowmaker
in conversation with Carissa Greve, in-person at Boswell
Monday, December 12, 6:30 pm - click here to register. 

Boswell welcomes the return of Wisconsin thriller author Hannah Morrissey, who joins us for a Thrillwaukee evening featuring her new novel, The Widowmaker, in which a wealthy family shrouded in scandal, a detective with an impossible cold case and a woman with a dark past collide in Black Harbor, Wisconsin. In conversation with Carissa Greve, The Grim Readers Bookstagrammer and BookToker.

Ever since business mogul Clive Reynolds disappeared, the name Reynolds has become synonymous with murder and mystery. Lured by a cryptic note, Morgan Mori returns home to Black Harbor and into a web of their family secrets and double lives. As Morgan exposes her own dark demons, could her sordid history be the key to unlocking more than one mystery?

How about this praise from The House Across the Lake author Riley Sager: "The Widowmaker confirms Hannah Morrisey's status as one of the brightest new voices in crime fiction. An unflinching look at two damaged people trying to do right in a world full of wrong, told in scalpel-sharp prose with a poet's eye for detail."

Wisconsin’s Hannah Morrissey is author of Hello, Transcriber. She studied writing at UW-Madison.

Daniel: How crazy is it that our two author's with local ties publish their second books on the same day from the same publisher - Minotaur is the mystery imprint of St. Martin's Press. 

Rachel Kapelke-Dale, author of The Ingenue

in conversation with Brynn Teaman, in-person at Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, 1584 N Prospect Ave
Tuesday, December 13, 6:30 pm - click here to register. 

Boswell hosts a special event featuring Milwaukee native Rachel Kapelke-Dale, author of The Ingenue, in conversation with Brynn Teaman. My Dark Vanessa meets The Queen's Gambit in Kapelke-Dale’s novel of suspense about piano prodigy who returns home to Milwaukee and discovers the risks of ambition, and the rewards of revenge.

For this special event, St. Martin's Press has rented the lot at 1684 N. Prospect Ave. (Milwaukee Eye Care Associates) for attendees. 

When former piano prodigy Saskia Kreis returns to Milwaukee after her mother's unexpected death, she expects to inherit the family estate, the Elf House. But with the discovery that her mother's will bequeathed the Elf House to a man that Saskia shares a complicated history with, she is forced to reexamine her own past - and the romantic relationship that changed the course of her life - for answers. Can she find a way to claim her heritage while keeping her secrets buried, or will the fallout from digging too deep destroy her?

Set against a post #MeToo landscape, The Ingenue delves into mother-daughter relationships, the expectations of talent, the stories we tell ourselves, and what happens when the things that once made you special are taken from you. Moving between Saskia's childhood and the present day, this dark, contemporary fairy tale pulses with desire, longing, and uncertainty, as it builds to its spectacular, shocking climax.

Rachel Kapelke-Dale is author of The Ballerinas and co-author of Graduates in Wonderland. Kapelke-Dale spent years in intensive ballet training before receiving a BA from Brown University, an MA from the Université de Paris VII, and a PhD from University College London.

A note from Daniel: This mansion in this book is inspired by a real house on Lake Drive, but the story surrounding it is completely made up.

Olena Jennings, editor of Ukrainian-American Poets Respond
in conversation with Krystia Nora, in-person at Boswell
Wednesday, December 14, 6:30 pm - click here to register. 

Boswell hosts Olena Jennings, editor of Ukrainian American Poets Respond, a book that encompasses 29 poets' responses to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in the spring of 2022. In conversation with Krystia Nora, of Wisconsin Ukrainians, our event cosponsor. Wisconsin Ukrainians is a nonprofit organization founded to help connect Ukrainians in our state, share and celebrate the Ukrainian culture, and help provide support to important causes in Ukraine. They will be joined by anthology contributor Valya Dudycz Lupescu.

Ukrainian American Poets Respond collects work by poets from Boston to Austin, New York to Chicago, including names recognized in Ukraine such as Oksana Lutsyshyna and Serhiy Zhadan as well as rock favorite Eugene Hutz, front man for Gogol Bordello. Many poets work in English and Ukrainian, but included are poets who also work in other languages. The poems range in style from lyrical to narrative to song. Some poems create a dialogue with Ukrainian literature, while others address events in the United States.

Editor Olena Jennings is the author of the poetry collection Songs from an Apartment and the chapbook Memory Project. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and an MA from the University of Alberta. She is the founder and curator of the Poets of Queens reading series.

Sarah Winman, author of Still Life
in conversation with Daniel Goldin and Lisa Baudoin for a virtual event
Friday, December 16, 2 pm - click here to register. 

Readings from Oconomowaukee, the virtual event series we host in partnership with Books & Company of Oconomowoc, features Sarah Winman, who joins us virtually from the UK for the December edition. Winman will chat about her novel Still Life, a captivating, bighearted, richly tapestried novel of people brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of EM Forster. Please note this is a spoiler-friendly event, which means, yes, you can ask about plot twists and the ending.

Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs sink villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian intent on salvaging paintings from the ruins. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy and paint a course of events that will shape Ulysses’s life for the next four decades. With beautiful prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light, Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a deeply drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms.

From Ron Charles in The Washington Post: "A tonic for wanderlust and a cure for loneliness. It’s that rare, affectionate novel that makes one feel grateful to have been carried along. Unfurling with no more hurry than a Saturday night among old friends, the story celebrates the myriad ways love is expressed and families are formed... The novel never feels anything less than captivating because Winman creates such a flawless illusion of spontaneity, an atmosphere capable of sustaining these characters’ macabre wit, comedy of manners and poignant longing."

A special Daniel note: Our book club loved this book (with only one exception)! It starts a bit slow, but don't give up - by the end, you'll love it! It's the perfect holiday gift, celebrating the joy of friendship, family (both the one you're given and the one you find), and artistic creation. 

Sarah Winman is author of the novels Tin Man, A Year of Marvelous Ways, and When God Was a Rabbit.

Book Signing - John Gurda, author of Brewtown Tales: More Stories from Milwaukee and Beyond at Boswell
Saturday, December 17, 2pm

John Gurda, the premier chronicler of Cream City history, will be at Boswell for an afternoon book signing. Get copies of his latest book, Brewtown Tales, autographed along with any other of Gurda’s many Milwaukee titles. The only gift better than a John Gurda book for the Brew City history buff in your life is an autographed John Gurda book!

No registration required, but we highly recommend you purchase a copy of Brewtown Tales (and any other Gurda books you want) in advance to make sure we have a copy for you. You can designate picking it up at the bookstore on the afternoon of the program.

Drawing from Gurda’s long-running Sunday Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column, Brewtown Tales contains an assortment of captivating stories about the city. Readers will find in these pages the biography of a bridge, a requiem for a union, odes to both autumn and spring, a poem about aging, tales of two shipwrecks, a frank take on segregation, a visit to a junkyard, and memories of the summer of ’68, among many other things. With Gurda’s characteristic wit and eye for detail, these essays convey the distinctive flavors of Milwaukee, as well as a few more exotic places, from Vilas County to Vietnam.

John Gurda is author of twenty-three books, including Cream City Chronicles, Milwaukee: A City Built on Water, The Making of Milwaukee, and Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods. Click here to see a full list of available Gurda titles.

A note from Daniel: Don't wait for the event to buy your copy (or copies) of Brewtown Tales. The publisher is out of stock and we may run out at the signing!

Photo credits

Hannah Morrissey by Tracy Koeper Hungry Heart Photography

Olena Jennings by Iryna Sosnovska
Sarah Winman by Patricia Niven
John Gurda by Max Thomsen