Rhody Reader Box Book Signing with Christa Carmen of Beneath the Poet’s House on Saturday, December 14 from 2 to 4 pm
The Rhody Reader Box is a celebration of all things Rhode Island and it’s back for 2024, featuring Christa Carmen’s psychological suspense novel Beneath the Poet’s House, along with locally made products by Juniper Hill Apothecary, Jaffal Chocolates, and The Black Leaf Tea.
Meet the Author and Purchase signed copies! They make a great gift for the reader in your life.
About the Book
Unmoored by her husband’s death and suffering from writer’s block, novelist Saoirse White moves to Providence, and into the historic home of Sarah Helen Whitman, the nineteenth-century poet and spiritualist once courted by Edgar Allan Poe. Saoirse’s certain she’ll find inspiration in the quiet rooms, as well as in the tucked-away rose garden and forgotten cemetery at the back of the property.
Saoirse is immediately welcomed by an effusive trio of transcendentalists obsessed with Whitman, the house, and Whitman’s mystic beliefs. Saoirse, emerging from grief and loneliness, welcomes the idea of new friends taking her mind off the past—even as they hope to summon it. When she meets Emmit Powell, a charismatic and charming prize-winning author, Saoirse thinks she’s finally turned a corner.
Emboldened by new romance, Saoirse begins to write again and, through her writing, rediscover herself. But as old fears return, she finds that nothing about her new life is what it seems—and a secret she’s tried so hard to bury may not be the only thing that comes back to haunt her.
Praise
Beneath the Poet’s House is creepy and addictive. Carmen uses a gothic New England setting to explore art and magic and left me thinking that the things men do to women are far more terrifying than any conjuring.
―Jessa Maxwell, author of The Golden Spoon and I Need You to Read This
Haunting and gorgeously told, Beneath the Poet’s House brings new life to the tumultuous romance and compelling lives of Edgar Allan Poe and Sarah Helen Whitman, all within a modern psychological suspense with a riveting plot that will enthrall readers.
―Vanessa Lillie, USA Today bestselling author of Blood Sisters
Bram Stoker Award winner [Christa] Carmen weaves a captivating web of psychological suspense in her latest spine-tingler…For gothic mystery fans, this is a treat.
―Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Christa Carmen lives in Rhode Island. She is the author of The Daughters of Block Island, winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a Shirley Jackson Award nominee, the Indie Horror Book Award-winning Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated “Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell” (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror). She has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from Boston College, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine. When she’s not writing, she keeps chickens; uses a Ouija board to ghost-hug her dear, departed beagle; and sets out on adventures with her husband, daughter, and bloodhound–golden retriever mix. Visit her at christacarmen.com.
At the Event
Copies will be available for purchase at the event and in store, or purchase from our online shop.
The Rhody Reader Box features:
Beneath the Poet’s House and The Daughter’s of Block Island