In collaboration with the History Book Festival, join us for a talk with Lisa Scottoline, author of Eternal, the Fiction Keynote event for the 2021 virtual History Book Festival. Scottoline will be in conversation with novelist Martha Hall Kelly.

Eternal tells the tale of a love triangle that unfolds in the heart of Rome, in the creeping shadow of fascism. Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco, the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro, a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta’s heart.

But in the autumn of 1937, Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy’s Fascists with Hitler’s Nazis and altering the laws that govern Rome. As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. In 1943, after Italy aligns itself with the Allies, the Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city’s Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.

Lisa Scottoline is the bestselling author of 32 novels that have been published in 35 countries. She is best known for her mystery thrillers, but Eternal — her first historical novel — is the culmination of a lifetime of interest in the Italian Holocaust that began when she took a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania led by Philip Roth called “The Literature of the Holocaust,” studying the work of Italian Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, among others. Following that course Scottoline knew that one day she’d write about Fascism and the Holocaust in Italy, a story that remains untold in popular fiction. Her background as an Italian American, lawyer, and adjunct law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School fueled her interest in the subject, and after decades of research, including many trips to Italy, Eternal was born.

Martha Hall Kelly is the author of three bestselling works of historical fiction: her debut novel set during World War II, Lilac Girls, and the prequels Lost Roses and Sunflower Sisters. Never an enthusiastic history student, Kelly developed a passion for it when she discovered the long-buried story of Caroline Ferriday, a New York socialite and philanthropist who championed the cause of a group of Polish women nicknamed “the rabbits” who were experimented upon by Nazi doctors at the all-female Ravensbruck concentration camp. Her interest in Ferriday led to the writing of Lilac Girls.

We invite you to support the authors by purchasing copy of their books from Browseabout Books: Eternal (Scottoline) and Sunflower Sisters (Kelly). Call-in orders are accepted at (302) 226-2665 or you can stop by the store to purchase a copy. For store hours, please visit their website. Each copy purchased is signed.

NOTE: this meeting is being conducted through Zoom. You MUST REGISTER to receive instructions for joining the meeting.

If you have need assistance with registration or getting your Zoom invitation, please email the History Book Festival.

Basic written instructions for using Zoom may be found here and a brief video tutorial may be found here. Closed captioning is available for this session. Information on enabling closed captioning in Zoom may be found here.