Help support Bookmarks at our Fundraiser Breakfast featuring New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry.

Bookmarks hosted 177 authors in 126 events in 2022. The majority of the events we host are free. In order to continue to provide free events with books and authors who educate, inspire, challenge, and entertain, we need your help. Bookmarks annual fund supports all aspects of our year-round programming in the bookstore and in the community. In 2022, 43 schools received free author visits impacting 7,641 students of all ages. We donated 8,059 books to our community for a total value of $105,996 and we saved nonprofits and local businesses $34,922 on books.

Help us reach our spring fundraising goal of $30,000 by joining us for a talk with New York Times bestselling novelist Patti Callahan Henry. She will be in conversation with Bookmarks Executive Director Jamie Rogers Southern about her new book The Secret Book of Flora Lea, the importance of books, and how we can share the love of reading with the next generation.

Individual tickets are $65 (+ tax and fees) per person and include a signed first edition of The Secret Book of Flora Lea.

Table of 8 Sponsorships are available for $550(+ tax and fees). For additional sponsorship opportunities, please contact Jamie Rogers Southern at jamie@bookmarksnc.org.

Click here to purchase tickets. 

Details

• When: Tuesday May, 9 at 7:30am   
• Where: Footnote Coffee & Cocktails
• Cost: Individual Ticket: $65(+tax and fees) Table of 8: $550(+tax and fees) Please purchase tickets on Eventbrite.
• Book: The Secret Book of Flora Lea

Breakfast begins at 7:30 am. The program will begin at 8:00 and conclude promptly at 9:00 am. All books will be pre-signed; please note there will not be a signing line at this event.

Please let us know if you have any food allergies by completing the order form at checkout when purchasing your tickets on Eventbrite.

To ask questions about accessibility or request accommodations, please contact Bookmarks at info@bookmarksnc.org or (336) 747-1471 x1001. At least two weeks' notice will allow us to provide the best experience possible for you and your guests.

About the Author

Patti Callahan Henry is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of several novels, including Surviving Savannah and Becoming Mrs. Lewis. She is the recipient of the Christy Award, the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year Award, and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year. She is the cohost and cocreator of the popular weekly online live web show and podcast Friends and Fiction. A full-time author and mother of three, she lives in Alabama and South Carolina with her family. Find out more at PattiCallahanHenry.com.

About the Book

When a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed.

In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.

But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.

Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?

As Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling.