Betsy Carter

From the bestselling author of We Were Strangers Once, a quirky, charming, and darkly comic historical novel set in the 1950s about three generations of women whose lives are changed when a mysterious stranger comes to town--for fans of Fannie Flagg and Edward Kelsey Moore. As a young woman, Geraldine Wingo was a fiery beauty, turning heads in her small upstate New York town where she and her husband, Earle, run a popular bakery. All that changed, however, once she became pregnant with Emilia Mae, a difficult baby Geraldine is convinced is marked by the devil's tongue. Emilia Mae spends her life seeking and losing love in all the wrong places, so she never expects it to come sailing into town one day on a breeze when she's a thirty-three-year-old single mother. But Dillard Fox is no ordinary stranger--Emilia Mae and her daughter, Alice, are immediately drawn to his quiet friendliness, the brown tweed cap he never removes, his slow North Carolina drawl, and his talent for music. There's no question he's hiding a mysterious past, but will that stop them from building a new family together? Lost Souls at the Neptune Inn is a love story about creating a family where there was none, and about the enduring power of the human spirit. It is about impossible love and building a self when you start out empty. With all the charm and brightness and wisdom that Carter is known for, Lost Souls at the Neptune Inn is an unforgettable, magical new book from a beloved author.

Lost Souls at the Neptune Inn

"Carter's warm and beautiful prose brings us love, tragedy, mystery and hope in a moving celebration of America and the people who have come to it."--Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of Lucky Us and Away For fans of The Nightingale and Brooklyn comes an exquisite and unforgettable novel about friendship, love, and redemption in a circle of immigrants who flee Europe for 1930s-era New York City. On the eve of World War II Egon Schneider--a gallant and successful Jewish doctor, son of two world-famous naturalists--escapes Germany to an uncertain future across the sea. Settling into the unfamiliar rhythms of upper Manhattan, he finds solace among a tight-knit group of fellow immigrants, tenacious men and women drawn together as much by their differences as by their memories of the world they left behind. They each suffer degradations and triumphs large and small: Egon's terminally acerbic lifelong friend, bestselling author Meyer Leavitt, now wears a sandwich board on a New York street corner; Catrina Harty, the headstrong daughter of a dirt-poor Irish trolley driver, survives heartbreak and loss to forge an unlikely alliance; and Egon himself is forced to abandon his thriving medical practice to become the "Cheese Man" at a Washington Heights grocery. But their spirits remain unbroken, and when their little community is faced with an existential threat, these strangers rise up together in hopes of creating a permanent home. With her uncanny ability to create indelible characters in unforgettable circumstances, bestselling author Betsy Carter has crafted a gorgeous novel that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt adrift and longed for home.

We Were Strangers Once

A Novel

Swim to Me

With a light and compassionate touch, the author depicts a mother and daughter who create a family out of the people living at the crossroads during the social upheaval that shook the 1960s.

The Orange Blossom Special

Here’s a memorable tale of two unlikely heroes: the lively, beautiful Flora and her husband, the brooding, studious Simon, two immigrants, both sent to America by their families to find a better life. An improbable match, they meet in New York City and fall in love. Simon—inventor of the jigsaw puzzle—eventually makes his fortune. Now wealthy, Flora and Simon become obsessed with rescuing those they left behind in Europe, loved ones whose fates will be determined by growing anti-Semitism on both sides of the Atlantic. The Puzzle King explores a fascinating moment in history with a cast of characters who endure with dignity, grace, and hope for the future.

The Puzzle King

When an elusive Southern stranger arrives in 1960s New Rochelle, three generations of women are forever changed. When the heart finds its home, anything is possible. Geraldine, Emilia Mae, and Alice Wingo couldn't be more different from each other. Geraldine is a fiery beauty, turning heads while running the local bakery with her devoted husband, Earle-but she never quite takes to motherhood. Her daughter, Emilia Mae, spends her life chasing her mother's affection and goes looking for love in all the wrong places. So when she gives birth to her own daughter, Alice-the girl with the quick laugh and music running through her veins-she vows to do things differently. Then, Dillard Fox, a handsome stranger with a Southern drawl sails into town, bringing with him a gentle warmth that draws in all three of the Wingo women. Emilia Mae, never thinking she'd find true love, builds the kind of happy life with Dillard that neither of them ever expected. Geraldine slowly learns to be kinder to her difficult daughter, and young Alice may have found the father figure she always wanted. But everyone has their secrets, and the one that Dillard has been carrying all of these years threatens to upend their idyllic family. Over the course of their lives, these three women navigate their relationships with each other and the changing world around them. Filled with Carter's characteristic wit, this charming, wise novel is a paean to love-any way you can find it.

Betsy Carter

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