Caroline Woods | Author-Reader Match: THE MESMERIST

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader

Match”; where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Caroline Woods!

Writes:

Historical mysteries with strong female protagonists, perfect for fans of Ariel Lawhon. My latest is a dark and cozy historical thriller with a hint of witchiness, arriving just in time for fall. The Mesmerist is based on a salacious true crime that happened in Minneapolis in 1894. It’s up to three women at the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers—also based on a real place—to catch the killer.

About:

I’m Caroline, age 41, and I live near Chicago, Illinois. I love cuddling up with great fiction in a mashup of genres, especially historical fiction that incorporates mystery, sci-fi, or time travel, which is probably why the books I write can best be described as “historical fiction with a twist.” I also enjoy taking long walks to the library to pick up my holds and visiting the dunes and beaches along Lake Michigan.

My ideal reader MUST love:

• Strong female characters and women helping women
• Mysticism and illusion: think Sarah Penner’s The London Séance Society
• Glamorous settings with darkness at their edges
• True crime melded into fiction
• Heart-stopping twists, mounting tension, and suspense

What to expect if we’re compatible:

If we’re compatible, you’ll want to read my first two historical novels featuring feminist heroines. The Lunar Housewife, set during the Cold War, is a mashup of historical fiction and kitschy ‘50s sci-fi. The book follows a female journalist who sets out to find out why the CIA is censoring writers—and whether they’d kill to get their way. Fräulein M. is about two sisters growing up in pre-war Berlin, one of whom becomes a cabaret cigarette seller, the other a maid in a Nazi household.

THE MESMERIST by Caroline Woods

A tightly plotted page-turner ripped from the headlines of history, as three very different women must work together to stop a killer and save the truest home they've ever known.

Before hypnotism, there was Mesmerism. And in 1894 Minneapolis, in the wake of a national financial crisis, spiritualism of every stripe is all the rage, and women are dying under mysterious circumstances. But until a new guest lands at the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers, refusing to speak or explain her arrival, the sordid stories of unexplained deaths seem unconnected. Faith’s reticence is quickly interpreted as malevolence, setting the house abuzz with whispers of dark magic.

Abby, a staunch Quaker, lifelong supporter of progressive causes, and the Bethany Home’s treasurer, thinks the rumors of mystical powers swirling around Faith are nonsense, but she recognizes the danger of a good story. Unwilling to allow the Home’s important mission to be clouded by scandal, Abby tasks Faith’s roommate, May, with tracing Faith’s path to the Bethany Home.

May is desperate to end her year at Bethany Home engaged and on track to her happily-ever-after—even if her prince charming is Hal, a man she’s not sure she can trust. She uncovers a Minneapolis she never expected as she begins digging into Faith’s shadowy background, and her investigation brings her closer to polite society and Hal than she could have dreamed. The more May learns, the more she’s forced to question the motives of everyone around her, including Abby and Faith, and as more women turn up dead, May must reevaluate the future she wants, and which lies she’s willing to tell, for whom.

Rich with tension, suspicion, and sharply observed characters, Caroline Woods reimagines a classic American genre through the eyes of three bold, unforgettable women. Read less

Thriller Historical [Doubleday, On Sale: September 10, 2024, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780385550161 / ]

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About Caroline Woods

CAROLINE WOODS holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Boston University. She is the author of The Lunar Housewife and the debut novel Fräulein M., hailed as “masterful” by Booklist. Raised in Delaware, she now lives near Chicago with her husband and two daughters.