An Evening Chat with Polly Stewart

Join Polly Stewart at Birch Tree Bookstore for a cozy evening of conversation about her debut thriller that will be a perfect poolside read for summer!

We invite you to join a small group of fellow readers in our room with sangria and conversation with Polly Stewart alongside for an evening chat about her debut thriller, The Good Ones.

Afterward, Polly will sign books as guests enjoy private shopping time in Birch Tree Bookstore—without the crowds!

About the Author:

Polly Stewart grew up in the small town of Radford, Virginia. She graduated from Hollins University and has an MFA in fiction and a Ph.D. in British literature from Washington University of St. Louis. She runs the Craft of Crime Fiction interview series where she talks to writers of thrillers, mysteries, and literary fiction about how they keep the pages turning. Her short fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices and Best American Mystery Stories, and in Epoch, Alaska Quarterly Review, as well as other journals. She writes a new monthly interview column for Crime Reads called The Backlist, and her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times and Poets & Writers, among other publications.

About the Book:

An engrossing work of literary suspense that illuminates the push and pull of female friendship and the costs of being “good” when the rules for women begin to chafe.

The last time Nicola saw Lauren Ballard, she was scraping a key along the side of a new cherry-red Chevy Silverado. The next morning, Nicola discovers that Lauren has disappeared from her home, leaving a blood stained towel and signs of a struggle, as well as her grieving husband and young daughter, behind.

Nearly twenty years later, newly unemployed, and still haunted by the disappearance of her childhood friend, Nicola returns to her Appalachian hometown. For Nicola, Tyndall County has remained frozen in time, and she’s shocked to see how her former friends and neighbors have moved on, when all she sees is Lauren’s absence. Drawn to stories of missing girls, Nicola obsessively reads and rereads all she can find online, hoping to discover a clue to Lauren’s ultimate fate.

Driven by a desperate need to know what happened to her friend, Nicola takes a job in her hometown, hoping to discover what remains unknown about Lauren. The answers to what happened seem tucked in the hollows and valleys of the small Blue Ridge county and she is determined to find them. As secrets come to light and the truth unravels, she becomes more and more entwined with the unanswered questions from her adolescence.