Chapter 4 - More Than You Know

It's that time of year when I am up gearing for the Savannah Book Festival. In case you don't know, this marvelous event takes place yearly and will occur February 16 - 19 in Savannah, Georgia. There will be over 50 authors talking about their books and telling us their stories. Some of the events require tickets but...the best event, in my opinion, takes place on Saturday. All day Saturday there will be 42 authors, whose books touch many different genres, talking about their books in various locations in historic Savannah. Of course, I can't see them all and, as luck would have it, three of the authors I'd like to see/hear are all scheduled at the same time slot.

This year my two daughters will be joining me for the Saturday event. Carina teaches 3rd graders in New Hampshire and Claire teaches AP 12 English in Baltimore. Not only do we get to be together and geek out over books but we also get to hang out in one of our favorite cities.

For more information about the Savannah Book Festival, use this link - https://www.savannahbookfestival.org/ , otherwise here are the books and authors I am looking forward to seeing at this event.

Rachel Hawkins - The Villa - Rachel Hawkins writes thrillers and this one is a terrific one. It has elements of Fleetwood Mac, the Manson murders, and the infamous summer Percy and Mary Shelley spent with Lord Byron at a Lake Geneva castle––the birthplace of Frankenstein––The Villa goes back and forth between present and 1974 when a rock musician invites three friends to visit him in his Villa in Italy.

Louis Bayard - Jackie & Me - This is a novelized account of Jackie Bouvier and Lem Billings, a closeted gay man who has been instructed by the Kennedy family to seal the deal on the romance of Jackie and John F. Kennedy.

Shelby Van Pelt - Remarkably Bright Creatures - I mentioned this a few weeks back as one of our book club books this year. The story is about a woman who becomes friends with a giant Pacific octopus there, Marcellus. They become friends and he helps to solve the mysterious disappearance of her son thirty years earlier.

Katie Gutierrez - More Than You'll Ever Know - A story of a woman with two families, a murder, and a true crime reporter who may learn just enough about the murder to get herself killed. What's not to like? Sadly this author speaks in the same time slot as Shelby Van Pelt and John Scalzi. I'm hoping between the three of us we can divide and conquer.

John Scalzi - The Kaiju Preservation Society - I learned about John Scalzi when Claire told me to read Old Man's War. His latest, The Kaiju Preservation Society, is about an alternate universe where large monsters live and an animal rights group takes care of their world. Of course, bad people are out to make these monsters their own.

Marcel Theroux - The Sorcerer of Pyongyang- A story of North Korea and a boy who encounters new worlds when he comes across a Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. It is a love story and a tale of survival against all odds.

Dani Shapiro - Signal Fires - I read Dani Shapiro's memoir Inheritance which was about her finding out that the man she always assumed was her biological father was not. Signal Fires is about three drunk teenagers whose lives change forever one night in 1985. Their actions have a domino effect on their families and friends.

Have you every been to a book festival? If so, which one(s)? Please share.