Henriette Lazaridis at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes HENRIETTE LAZARIDIS—Boston Globe bestselling author of The Clover House—for a discussion of her new book Terra Nova: A Novel. She will be joined in conversation by award-winning local author MARJAN KAMALI.

A Return to In-Person Events

Harvard Book Store is excited to be back to in-person programming. To ensure the safety and comfort of everyone in attendance, the following Covid-19 safety protocols will be in place at all of our Harvard Book Store events until further notice:

• Face coverings are required of all staff and attendees when inside the store. Masks must snugly cover nose and mouth.

About Terra Nova

The year is 1910, and two Antarctic explorers, Watts and Heywoud, are racing to the South Pole. Back in London, Viola, a photo-journalist, harbors love for them both. In Terra Nova, Henriette Lazaridis seamlessly ushers the reader back and forth between the austere, forbidding, yet intoxicating polar landscape of Antarctica to the bustle of early twentieth century London.

Though anxious for both men, Viola has little time to pine. She is photographing hunger strikers in the suffrage movement, capturing the female nude in challenging and politically powerful ways. As she comes into her own as an artist, she's eager for recognition and to fulfill her ambitions. And then the men return, eager to share news of their triumph.

But in her darkroom, Viola discovers a lie. Watts and Heywoud have doctored their photos of the Pole to fake their success. Viola must now decide whether to betray her husband and her lover, or keep their secret and use their fame to help her pursue her artistic ambitions.

Rich and moving, Terra Nova is a novel that challenges us to consider how love and lies, adventure and art, can intersect.

Praise for Terra Nova

"Terra Nova is just plain fantastic. From Viola, willing to risk all for women’s suffrage, to her husband—traveling with her secret lover—who risks all to be the first to reach the South Pole, this novel is an intelligent, literary page-turner of the best type. Full of human frailty, heartbreak, lies and deceit, yet also adventure, love and self-sacrifice while exploring the human drive to become more than we are. Bravo.” —B.A. Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Metropolis

"From the blinding ice of Antarctica to the boisterous rallies of London’s suffragettes, this is a novel of muscular prose and indelible vividness. It is also a gripping examination of the differences between male and female heroism: how men and women explore, take risks and muster courage. With strong-willed characters caught in impossible circumstances, Terra Nova examines uncharted lands and shows a way to many new worlds." ―Stephen Kiernan, author of The Baker’s Secret

"I read this brilliant novel in one sitting. Dazzling, intimate, and spare, Terra Nova is a story of love and adventure, ambition and betrayal, artfully told with a taut suspenseful power." —Dawn Tripp, nationally bestselling author of Georgia: a Novel of Georgia O’Keeffe