BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. – Three New England novelists who love to weave stories with strong characters who prevail against the odds will be visiting Village Square Booksellers in Bellows Falls Thursday, July 22 at 5 p.m.
Reverend Jane Willan is the author of the Sister Agatha and Father Selwyn Mystery series. She is also the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Paxton, Mass., where she preaches from a 300-year-old pulpit once occupied by Puritans. When not working at the church or creating new adventures for Sister Agatha, Jane hikes through the New England woods with her husband and two rescue dogs.
In Jane’s cozy mysteries, the Anglican order of nuns at the Welsh Abbey Gwenafwy find a murder for every liturgical season. Sister Agatha is often joined by her confidant Father Selwyn. Jane says of him, “I created Sister Agatha, then Father Selwyn crashed the party when he drove up in his 1968 BMW Mini. And it was love at first sight – for me anyway!”
The nuns have a cheese-making business, and church ladies run the kitchen “like a ship of the British navy.” Look out for heroic animals, too, who might just come to the rescue by story’s end. Throughout, a cozy atmosphere of a quintessential Welsh presides over justice served.
Eileen O’Finlan is a New Englander to the core, currently calling Massachusetts home. Both of her parents were Vermonters and many members of her extended family still live here. “I consider Vermont my home-away-from-home and would be delighted to call it just plain ‘home,’ one day,” says Eileen. She has a degree in history and worked for three years as a museum assistant at Old Sturbridge Village. “Books are a great joy in my life, right up there with cats,” Eileen says. “Curling up with a book and cats nestled close by is pure heaven.”
Eileen’s first novel “Kelegeen” tells the story of two families of the 1840s trying to survive the blight that wiped out Ireland’s entire potato crop – the only food source for the country’s peasants. “Kelegeen” illuminates love, family, faith, courage, and sacrifice.
Eileen’s latest novel, “Erin’s Children,” is a continuation of the family saga as sisters immigrate to New England, has been selected as a finalist in the Goethe Award for Historical Fiction.
Eileen Charbonneau lives in Bellows Falls and is the author of the multiple award-winning Code Talker Chronicles and American Civil War Brides series as well as historical novels for adults and young people. Her stories explore America through eyes of her immigrants, her native peoples, her women. Eileen is a member of the Bellows Falls Women’s Club and Friends of the Rockingham Library.
Eileen is happy to announce the first of a 1990s set young adult series: The Linda Tassel Mysteries. “It was born out of my childhood love of Nancy Drew and my frustration that she stayed the same age!” Linda, a daughter of the Eastern Cherokee Nation, gets older in each book. Her first adventure is “Death at Little Mound.”
Jane and the two Eileens hope you will join them for a talk about their books and their writing process July 22 at 5 p.m. at Village Square Booksellers, 32 The Square in Bellows Falls. For more information, call 802-463-9404.