Join New York Times bestselling author Lily King for a virtual author talk and Q&A about her latest book “Writers & Lovers” on Wednesday, August 5 at 7 p.m. with the Jesup Memorial Library. “Writers & Lovers” was a New York Times Book Club Pick of the Month, an Indie Next List March pick, the Amazon Spotlight of the Month, the Today Show’s Read with Jenna March pick and number eight on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

 “Writers & Lovers” follows Casey Peabody at a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. She waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink. King says that this is the novel that she wished she could have read as a young, struggling writer.

The Wall Street Journal writes that “Writers & Lovers” is “a comic and compassionate novel… With wit and what reads like deep insider wisdom, Ms. King captures the chronic low-level panic of taking a leap into the artsy unknown and finding yourself adrift, without land or rescue in sight.” NPR says “Among the elements that make ‘Writers & Lovers’ so winning are the perfectly calibrated little details, convincing conversations, and droll wit . . . [It] is a book about passion, desire, grief, determination, and finding one’s way.”

King is the award-winning author of five novels. “The Pleasing Hour” won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award, a Whiting Writer’s Award, was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. It was followed by “The English Teacher” which was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award. Her third novel, “Father of the Rain,” was a New York Times Editors Choice, a Publishers Weekly Best Novel of the Year and winner of both the New England Book Award for Fiction and the Maine Fiction Award. Her fourth novel, “Euphoria,” won the Kirkus Award for Fiction 2014, the New England Book Award for Fiction 2014 and was a finalist in the National Book Critics Circle Awards. “Euphoria” was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review. It was included in TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014 and the Amazon Best Books of 2014. Reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review, Emily Eakin called “Euphoria”, “a taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace.” It has been optioned by the BBC as a limited series. King lives in Maine.

Books will be on sale for this virtual event from co-sponsor Sherman’s Books. Attendees can purchase the book through their website shermans.com, or by calling 207-288-3161 as well as at their Bar Harbor location at 56 Main St., Bar Harbor. Registration for this event is required. To register fill out the form on the calendar listing of this event at https://jesuplibrary.org/event/king or email kchagnon@jesuplibrary.org.