Juliet Grames at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes JULIET GRAMES—best-selling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna and editorial director at Soho Press—for a discussion of her new novel The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia. She will be joined in conversation by MARJAN KAMALI—author of The Stationery Shop.

About The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia

Calabria, 1960. Francesca Loftfield, a twenty-seven-year-old, starry-eyed American, arrives in the isolated mountain village of Santa Chionia tasked with opening a nursery school. There is no road, no doctor, no running water or electricity. And thanks to a recent flood that swept away the post office, there’s no mail, either.

Most troubling, though, is the human skeleton that surfaced after the flood waters receded. Who is it? And why don’t the police come and investigate? When the local priest's housekeeper begs Francesca to help determine if the remains are those of her long-missing son, Francesca begins to ask a lot of inconvenient questions. As an outsider, she might be the only person who can uncover the truth. Or she might be getting in over her head. As she attempts to juggle a nosy landlady, a suspiciously dashing shepherd, and a network of local families bound together by a code of silence, Francesca finds herself forced to choose between the charitable mission that brought her to Santa Chionia, and her future happiness, between truth and survival.

Set in the wild heart of Calabria, a land of sheer cliff faces, ancient tradition, dazzling sunlight—and one of the world’s most ruthless criminal syndicates—The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia is a suspenseful puzzle mystery, a captivating romance, and an affecting portrait of a young woman in search of a meaningful life.

Praise for The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia

“Grames shines in this intriguing story of buried secrets in an isolated Southern Italian village...She excels at rendering the experiences of living as a stranger in a close-knit community...and she manages to keep the reader guessing as to the truth about who was murdered and why. This is a superior literary mystery.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)

“A beautiful novel, filled with riches, not the least of which are its evocative setting in the Calabrian hills, and its cast of vivid characters, large and small, who will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page.” —Dan Fesperman, author of Winter Work

Masking Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.