USCB Lunch with Author series begins with novelist Katherine Reay
From staff reports
The USC Beaufort Lunch with Author series for 2022-2023 begins at noon, Wednesday, Oct. 5 at The Belfair Clubhouse, where author Katherine Rea will be discussing her historical fiction novel The London House. Rea is a national bestselling and award-winning author of Dear Mr. Knightley, Lizzy and Jane, The Brontë Plot, A Portrait of Emily Price, The Austen Escape, and The Printed Letter Bookshop.
In “The London House,” uncovering a dark family secret sends one woman through the history of Britain’s World War II spy network and glamorous 1930s Paris to save her family’s reputation.
Caroline Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian. But pleasantries are cut short. Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover.
Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London. She and Mat discover diaries and letters that reveal her grandmother and great-aunt were known as the “Waite sisters.”
Popular and witty, they came of age during the interwar years, a time of peace and luxury filled with dances, jazz clubs, and romance. The buoyant tone of the correspondence soon yields to sadder revelations as the sisters grow apart, and one leaves home for the glittering fashion scene of Paris, despite rumblings of a coming world war.
Each letter brings more questions. Was Caroline’s great-aunt a traitor and Nazi collaborator, or is there a more complex truth buried in the past? Together, Caroline and Mat uncover stories of spies and secrets, love and heartbreak, and the events of one fateful evening in 1941 that changed everything.
Reay holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and is a wife, mother, former marketer, and avid chocolate consumer. She now happily resides outside Chicago.
Books will be available for purchase and the author will be signing books. Tickets are $50. The Lunch With Author series will continue on Nov. 22, with Karen Grassle and her new book Bright Lights, Prairie Dust. For additional information go to USCBCenterForTheArts.com or call 843-521-4145.
Want to Go?
What: USCB Lunch with Author series featuring Katherine Reay
When: Noon, Wednesday, Oct. 5
Where: Belfair Clubhouse, 200 Belfair Oaks Blvd, Bluffton, S.C. 29910
Tickets: Tickets are $50. Go to USCBCenterForTheArts.com
