SOLD OUT!!

All free tickets to this event are sold out. There still remain a handful of tickets available with a book purchase. Just purchase any of the books below and you will automatically receive admission to the event, only while supplies last.

About the Virtual Event

We are pleased to partner with the Amery Area Public Library in Wisconsin for another fun Book Bingo (Celebrating Women): A Virtual Adventure! If you are already familiar with our popular Southern California series that features NovelNetwork® authors, you will understand why we receive so many requests to expand the program nationwide. Pivoting to virtual events has made this not only possible, but offers up fun opportunities for exciting partnerships, participation by more of our over 125 book club favorite authors, and space to accommodate many more readers!

 The event features book club favorite historical fiction authors: Carrie Callaghan, Christina Chiu, Ginger Eager, Sadeqa Johnson, Laura Morelli, and Laura Zam, in conversation with Heather Wiarda, Adult Programming Coordinator for the Amery Area Public Library and Adventures by the Book® and NovelNetwork® founder Susan McBeth.

Join us at this free event, where we will bring you six fabulous authors, an interactive virtual game of bingo, and fun prizes, and all you have to do is show up (and why not invite your book club friends and fellow readers to join in as well) to learn about great new reads to add to your to be read list).

While this event is free, your purchase of a book(s) below (to be shipped to you within the U.S.) provides much-needed support to these authors whose book tours and events have been cancelled due to COVID-19.

Your Adventure includes a book discussion with all six authors, an interactive virtual game of Book Bingo, Q&A, prizes, and the opportunity to meet the authors via Zoom. Books may be ordered below for shipping within the U.S. and will include a signed bookplate. See below for registration information.

About the Authors

Carrie Callaghan is the author of the historical novels A Light of Her Own (2018) and Salt the Snow (2020). Her short stories have been published in multiple literary journals, and she is a senior editor with the Washington Independent Review of Books. She lives in Maryland with her family and three “ridiculous” cats. She loves seasons of all kinds, history, and tea..

In Carrie’s most recent novel, Salt the Snow, American journalist Milly Bennett has covered murders in San Francisco, fires in Hawaii, and a civil war in China, but 1930’s Moscow presents her greatest challenge yet. When her young Russian husband is suddenly arrested by the secret police, Milly tries to get him released. But his arrest reveals both painful secrets about her marriage and hard truths about the Soviet state she has been working to serve. Disillusioned, and pulled toward the front lines of a captivating new conflict, Milly must find a way to do the right thing for her husband, her conscience, and her heart.

To schedule a book club visit with Carrie or any of our authors on NovelNetwork:

 

Christina Chiu is the grand-prize winner of the James Alan McPherson Award for her novel, Beauty. She is also author of Other Saints and Troublemaker, winner of multiple awards, including winner of the Asian American Literary Award. Christina has published in magazines and anthologies, and her stories have won awards and honorable mention in literary contests such as Playboy, Glimmer Train, New Millennium, New York Stories, World Wide Writers, Explorations, and El Dorado Writers’ Guild. Chiu curates and co-hosts the Pen Parentis Literary Salons in New York City. She received her MFA in writing from Columbia University.

In Beauty, Millions “Most Anticipated Book of 2020,” Amy Wong is an up-and-coming designer in the New York fashion industry; she is young, beautiful, and has it all. But she finds herself at odds with rival designers in a world rife with chauvinism and prejudice. In her personal life, she struggles with marriage and motherhood, finding that her choices often fall short of her traditional family’s expectations. Derailed again and again, Amy must confront her own limitations to succeed as the designer and person she wants to be.

To schedule a book club visit with Christina or any of our authors on NovelNetwork:

 

Ginger Eager’s short fiction, reviews, and personal essays have been published in The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Jabberwock Review and elsewhere. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and shortlisted in The Best American Nonrequired Reading series. Born and raised in Georgia, Ginger lives now in Decatur, just outside of Atlanta. She has a BSEd in Secondary English Education from the University of Georgia and an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington Writing Seminars. She teaches in college and community settings, and she enjoys working with both teens and adults.

Her first novel, The Nature of Remains, which won the 2018 AWP Prize for the Novel, is set during the 2009 recession, and rests at the intersection of class, gender, education and place. Through extended geological metaphor, readers witness the orogeny, crystallization, and weathering of the human soul. Doreen’s journey reveals the ways even a woman’s most precious connections—her children, her grandchildren, her lover—operate within larger social structures capable of challenging her sovereignty.

To schedule a book club visit with Ginger or any of our authors on NovelNetwork:

 

Sadeqa Johnson is an international best-selling author of four novels. As a former public relations manager, she spent several years working with well-known authors such as JK Rowling, Bebe Moore Campbell, Amy Tan and Bishop TD Jakes before becoming an author herself. Her debut novel, Love in a Carry-on Bag, is the recipient of the 2013 Phillis Wheatley award for best fiction, OOSA best book award, and USA best book award for African-American fiction. Second House From the Corner was a Go on Girl! Book club selection for 2017. And Then There Was Me, won the 2018 National Book Club Conference fiction book of the year award, and was a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley award.

Her most recent book, Yellow Wife, a Globe and Mail best-seller and one of O Magazine’s “2021 Most Anticipated Historical Fiction Novels,” tells the harrowing story of Pheby Delores Brown. Born on a plantation in Virginia, she has lived a privileged life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the plantation’s medicine woman, and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others, belonging to neither world. Freedom on her 18th birthday has been promised to her, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known and unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous “Devil’s Half-Acre” jail, where she is exposed to her jailor’s cruelty. To survive, she will have to outwit him but soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.

To schedule a book club visit with Sadeqa or any of our authors on NovelNetwork:

 

Laura Morelli earned a Ph.D. in art history from Yale University and began her career teaching art history at the college level, where she captured stories of traditional artisans. She has been a Contributing Editor to National Geographic Traveler and has written for USA Today, Departures, and other travel publications. She also contributes art history lessons to TED-Ed, and now teaches exclusively online. She has earned numerous awards for her historical fiction, as well as reviews in Writer’s Digest, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, the Historical Novels Review, the Eric Hoffer Awards, National Indie Excellence, and others, and has enriched the experiences of many travelers over two decades with my Authentic Arts shopping guidebook series

Her blockbuster novel, a USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller, The Night Portrait, is an exciting, dual-timeline historical novel about the creation of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous paintings, Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine, and the woman who fought to save it from Nazi destruction during World War II. Milan, 1492: When a 16-year old beauty becomes the mistress of the Duke of Milan, she must fight for her place in the palace—and against those who want her out. Soon, she finds herself sitting before Leonardo da Vinci, who wants to ensure his own place in the ducal palace by painting his most ambitious portrait to date. Munich, World War II: After a modest conservator unwittingly places a priceless Italian Renaissance portrait into the hands of a high-ranking Nazi leader, she risks her life to recover it, working with an American soldier, part of the famed Monuments Men team, to get it back. Two women, separated by 500 years, are swept up in the tide of history as one painting stands at the center of their quests for their own destinies.

To schedule a book club visit with Laura or any of our authors on NovelNetwork:

 

Laura Zam is an author, speaker, certified trauma professional, and sexuality educator whose work focuses on sexual healing and preventing violation. Her writing appears in The New York Times, Salon, The Huffington Post, among others. In 2013, Laura’s one-person play about healing in the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse, Married Sex, was presented at the New York International Fringe Festival and Off-Broadway. Other one-person plays, keynotes, and speeches have been presented at The Kennedy Center, the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, The National Theatre, Columbia University, American Psychological Association, and many other venues in the U.S. and abroad.  As an extension of her art practice, Laura has been conducting storytelling workshops with trauma survivors for the past 20 years, working with post-war teens from Bosnia, young adults from the Middle East, wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and victims of sexual violation. Workshop venues include the Omega Center, Walter Reed Army Hospital, and the DC Rape Crisis Center.

Her book, The Pleasure Plan, is based on popular essays in New York Times’ Modern Love and Salon, as well as an Off-Broadway one-person play, The Pleasure Plan is a sexual healing odyssey, a manifesto for women to claim pleasure as a priority, and a love story all at once. Fifty percent of adult women have some form of sexual dysfunction at some point of their lives, preventing them from enjoying vibrant, soul-satisfying sex. Such was the case with Laura Zam, who suffered the blame, shame, and embarrassment of feeling bedroom broken. The Pleasure Plan is what happened when she decided to challenge her hopelessness in partnership with her initially reluctant husband. Packed with humor, heart, and a healthy dose of prescriptive advice, this book chronicles Zam’s insights as she confronts many issues. Fearlessly honest and full of inspiration, Zam peels back the layers—or covers—and exposes her foibles, insecurities, and eventual wisdom as she excavates past traumas, accepts and embraces her worth, and claims her right to be completely alive. 

To schedule a book club visit with Laura or any of our authors on NovelNetwork:

 

 

For Book Clubs or Author Live Chats

Are you in a book club, library reading group, or is your group of friends, colleagues, family members seeking fabulous authors who are excited and available to meet with you? Then you will be delighted to know that Carrie Callaghan, Christina Chiu, Ginger Eager, Sadeqa Johnson, Laura Morelli, and Laura Zam are all members of our wonderful community of over 125 NovelNetwork authors available to meet with small groups via video chat.

NovelNetwork is the nation’s first and only match(dot)com for authors and book clubs to find each other, so check it out today. Book clubs join for free and gain access to our database of dozens of authors, from NYT and international bestsellers, to debut authors, cookbook authors, mystery and non-fiction authors, and representing various regions of the United States, and even Alaska and Hawaii, all of whom want to meet with you!

To schedule a visit with Carrie, Christina, Ginger, Sadeqa, Laura M., Laura Z., or any of our authors, join FOR FREE  here.

Event Registration

This event is free and open to the public (on a first-come, first-served basis); however, registration below or thru the Amery Area Public Library is necessary in order to receive your Zoom invite and your virtual bingo card (bingo cards will only be available to those who register before March 1, 2021). You may attend the event without playing bingo, but will still need to register to receive your Zoom invite. While the event is free, your purchase of a book(s) below offers support to these authors whose book tours and events have been cancelled. Book prices below include shipping within the U.S. and will include signed bookplates.

Please note that only one registration per email address is offered, so if you have friends or family who also wish to play book bingo with us, make sure to have them register with their own email address so they won’t miss out on the fun!