Join us as Ocean House owner and award-winning author Deborah Goodrich Royce moderates a conversation with our featured author, New York Times bestselling author Victoria Christopher Murray.

About the Author: Victoria Christopher Murray is the best-selling author of more than 30 novels, including the New York Times Instant Best Sellers, The Personal Librarian, and The First Ladies. In both novels, Victoria co-wrote with Marie Benedict. A native New Yorker, Victoria Christopher Murray attended Hampton University, where she majored in Communication Disorders. After graduating, Victoria attended New York University’s Stern Business School, where she received her MBA in Marketing. Victoria spent ten years in Corporate America before she tested her entrepreneurial spirit. She opened a Financial Services Agency for Aegon, USA, where she managed the number one division for nine consecutive years. However, Victoria always dreamed of writing, and in 1997, she pursued her dream.

About The Book: She found the literary voices that would inspire the world…. The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.

In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all.

W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Amidst rumors of their tumultuous affair, Jessie is determined to prove herself. She attacks the challenge of discovering young writers with fervor, finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives…every African American writer in the country wants their work published there.

When her first novel is released to great acclaim, it’s clear that Jessie is at the heart of a renaissance in Black music, theater, and the arts. She has shaped a generation of literary legends, but as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.

Find out more about Victoria Christopher Murray and her books at victoriachristophermurray.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Join us as Ocean House owner and award-winning author Deborah Goodrich Royce moderates a conversation with our featured author, New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe.

About the Author: Mary Alice Monroe is based in Charleston, South Carolina, is the New York Times best-selling author of thirty books–and counting. Richly layered and rooted to place her Lowcountry-set novels defy literary labels. More than feel-good escapism or traditional beach reads, her engrossing stories deftly explore the intersections and parallels between Mother Nature and human nature, hooking readers emotionally and introducing them to characters and causes that live in their hearts and minds. Her robust library of work–from the popular Beach House series to her compelling fiction, to her newer middle grade series, The Islanders–engages readers across generational lines, inspiring them to take a harder look at the environment–and our impact on it. To ask the important questions. To seek answers. To create connections–both with nature and in our personal lives.

About Where the Rivers Merge: The Rivers End, Monroe brings the compelling family saga to an emotional conclusion that will resonate with readers. The novels’ timely topics of friendship, feminism, parent/child relationships, and the environment make each book of the duology perfect for book clubs.

1908: The Lowcountry of South Carolina is at the cusp of change. Mayfield, the grand estate held for generations by the Rivers family, is the treasured home of young Eliza. Free spirited, she refuses to be confined by societal norms. Instead, Eliza revels in exploring the golden fields and sparkling ponds of Mayfield, observing wildlife, and riding horses.

But her halcyon days are cut short by the Great War, coastal storms, and unexpected challenges to Mayfield. As Eliza battles personal pains and the ravages of family turmoil over the years, her love and devotion for the natural world puts her on a collision course with the patriarchal traditions of a bygone era.

1988: At 88, Eliza is the scion of the Rivers/DeLancey family. She’s fought a lifetime to save her beloved Mayfield and is too independent and committed to quietly retire and leave the fate of the estate to her greedy son. She must make decisions that will assure the future of the land and her family—or watch them both be split apart.

Set against the evocative landscape of the twentieth-century American South, Where the Rivers Merge is a dramatic and sweeping multigenerational family story of unyielding love, lessons learned, profound sacrifices, and the indomitable spirit of a woman determined to persevere in the face of change to protect her family legacy and the land she loves.

For more information about Mary Alice Monroe, visit maryalicemonroe.com. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com

Join us as Ocean House owner and award-winning author Deborah Goodrich Royce moderates a conversation with our featured author, Jim Pierce.

About the Author: Jim Pierce is a retired insurance executive. His political roots include family ties to three American Presidents.

“Treachery” is historical fiction about the first eighteen months of America’s “War between the States”. The Northern troops were hapless and results amazingly lopsided in the early days of the conflagration. The story develops a theory as to why that may have been the case.

"The Beginning" places the reader next to Prime Minister Winston Churchill as he steers England through its darkest hours in 1940 and 1941. This is a story you will not want to miss!

Historical fiction serves two purposes; the reader can learn about a past time, place, and people, while simultaneously enjoying the story being told.

About The Beginning: "The Beginning" takes readers on a journey into Winston Churchill's world, set in the tumultuous years of 1940 and 1941. From the very first day he became prime minister, Churchill faced relentless challenges. Through historical fiction, the author skillfully transports readers back to these pivotal events, personalizing the experience and bringing history to life.

For more information about Jim Pierce, visit www.amazon.com/Beginning-Jim-Pierce. For details on Deborah Goodrich Royce and the Ocean House Author Series, visit deborahgoodrichroyce.com