Bestselling author Emily Franklin will discuss her new historical fiction novel, Love & Other Monsters, in conversation with bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

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About The Book: Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet meets Jane Austen in this historical fiction based on the life of daring eighteen-year-old Claire Clairmont who in 1816 changed the course of literature forever. But then—unlike her stepsister Mary Shelley—was forgotten, until now. During the dangerous storms of The Year Without Summer, a group of famous young writers gathered at a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her fiery fiancé Percy Shelley, the famously promiscuous Lord Byron, and John Polidori, his sexually tormented personal physician. At the group’s center was Claire Clairmont, Mary’s impressionable, clever, and dangerously loyal stepsister. Those months of desire, betrayal, and creative passion gave the world the works of Frankenstein, the modern vampire, and the mythic image of these Romantic literary giants. In this intense and propulsive story of love, lust, art and betrayal, Claire tells her story, trying to solve the mystery of why she was all but erased from history.

About Emily: Emily Franklin is the bestselling author of more than twenty books including a poetry collection, Tell Me How You Got Here. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Journal of the American Medical Association, among many other places, as well as featured and read aloud on National Public Radio, named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries, and longlisted for the London Sunday Times Short Story Award. Her novel The Lioness of Boston, based on the life of trailblazer Isabella Stewart Gardner, is in its ninth printing and was recently featured as a clue on Jeopardy. She grew up half in Boston and half in the UK.

About Marjan: Marjan Kamali is the New York Times bestselling author of The Lion Women of Tehran, an instant national bestseller; The Stationery Shop, a national and international bestseller' and Together Tea, a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. Marjan’s novels are published in translation in more than 30 languages. She is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, Marjan spent her childhood in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya, and the U.S. She lives in the Boston area with her family.

RECORDING NOTE: This program will be recorded. All registrants will receive the recording via email within 48 hours of the program.

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