Cape News: First Fiction at Falmouth Public Library featuring Jennifer Tseng +more!

The public is invited to Falmouth Public Library, 300 Main Street, on Saturday, September 19, at 10 AM for First Fiction, a talk by three debut novelists who all feature the Cape and islands in their novels.

Ellen Herrick, author of “The Sparrow Sisters,” Sarah Ann Johnson, author of “The Lightkeeper’s Wife,” and Jennifer Tseng, author of “Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness” will all read from their new books, discuss how they got their first novels published, and share their connections to the Cape and islands. Books will be available for sale by Eight Cousins Books.

In “The Sparrow Sisters,” readers will meet Sorrel, Nettie and Patience, three sisters who “are as tightly woven into the seaside New England town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor.” Set in the present but deeply entwined with the past, this novel tells the tale of what happens to three sisters when a new doctor arrives in this fictional Cape Cod town.

“The Lightkeeper’s Wife” intertwines the tales of Hannah Snow, the titular lighthouse keeper’s widow, and Annie, a sea captain’s runaway wife, who are entangled in 19th-century Cape Cod’s social restrictions, and experience the transformative power of grief and the resurrecting power of love.

“Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness” is set on Martha’s Vineyard, where Mayumi Saito’s greatest love and her one source of true pleasure is books. Mayumi is 41 years old, a disenchanted wife and a dutiful mother. Her work as a librarian feeds her passion for reading and provides her with many occasions for wry observations on human nature, but it does little to remedy the mundanity of her days. That is, until the day she issues a library card to a shy 17-year-old boy and swiftly succumbs to a sexual obsession that subverts the way she sees the library, her family, the island she lives on, and ultimately herself.

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Falmouth Public Library.