124 E. Washington Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
USA
Literati is pleased to welcome Kristina Riggle and Jacquelyn Vincenta in support of their recent novels.
About Kristina’s Vivian in Red: Famed Broadway producer Milo Short may be eighty-eight but that doesn’t stop him from going to the office every day. So when he steps out of his Upper West Side brownstone on one exceptionally hot morning, he’s not expecting to see the impossible: a woman from his life sixty years ago, cherry red lips, bright red hat, winking at him on a New York sidewalk, looking just as beautiful as she did back in 1934.
The sight causes him to suffer a stroke. And when he comes to, the renowned lyricist discovers he has lost the ability to communicate. Milo believes he must unravel his complicated history with Vivian Adair in order to win back his words. But he needs help—in the form of his granddaughter Eleanor— failed journalist and family misfit. Tapped to write her grandfather’s definitive biography, Eleanor must dig into Milo’s colorful past to discover the real story behind Milo’s greatest song Love Me, I Guess, and the mysterious woman who inspired an amazing life.
A sweeping love story, family mystery and historical drama set eighty years apart, Vivian in Red will swell your heart like a favorite song while illuminating Broadway like you’ve never seen before.
Kristina Riggle lives and writes in West Michigan. Her debut novel, Real Life & Liars, was a Target “Breakout” pick and a “Great Lakes, Great Reads” selection by the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association. Her other novels have been honored by independent booksellers, including an IndieNext Notable designation for The Life You’ve Imagined. Kristina has published short stories in the Cimarron Review, Literary Mama, Espresso Fiction, and elsewhere, and is a former co-editor for fiction at Literary Mama. Kristina was a full-time newspaper reporter before turning her attention to creative writing. She likes to run and read, though not at the same time.
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About Jacquelyn’s The Lake and the Lost Girl: On a stormy night in 1939, Mary Stone Walker disappears from her home in White Hill, Michigan. Everyone knew the talented poet was desperate to escape her demons, but when Mary goes missing without a trace, one question lingers in the small town: Did Mary successfully break free of her troubled past and flee, or did her life end that night?
Sixty years later, Lydia Carroll’s husband is still fixated on the local mystery. English Professor Frank Carroll has invested years in the search for local poet Mary Stone Walker and her lost works, sacrificing his family, his reputation, and even Lydia for the ever-more unlikely discovery. As Frank’s behavior grows more erratic, Lydia sees that his interest in Mary has evolved into an obsession-one that threatens to destroy the family they have built together, and which can only be undone by solving the mystery of what happened to Mary on that rainy night in 1939.
The Lake and the Lost Girl tells the riveting story of secrets from the past unraveling one family from the inside out, and two women, separated by sixty years of history, determined to pursue their dreams.
Jacquelyn Vincenta spent her childhood in the suburbs of Washington, DC where she discovered the alchemy of language and imagination at a young age. After graduating from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in English Literature she started her writing life as a police beat reporter for a daily newspaper near New Orleans. While raising a family in Texas and Michigan she worked as managing editor of the publishing company she and her then-husband owned, wrote magazine articles, and became involved with non-profit organizations dedicated to the arts and environmental issues. Jacquelyn works part-time for a translation company based in Prague, and devotes herself to her writing. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she is currently at work on her next novel.
