The Charleston Library Society and Buxton Books present: An Author Talk with Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
celebrating the release of The First Ladies!

The Charleston Library Society and Buxton Books are honored to welcome Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray to Charleston to celebrate the release of their new joint title, The First Ladies! After the success of their first title together, The Personal Librarian, we could not be more excited for this new release! Lucky for us, they will be at the Charleston Library Society on Thursday, June 29 - just two days after the book comes out - for an author talk and signing!

Please join us as they discuss the writing of the book, the often unspoken presence of women in history, and the partnership between Eleanor Roosevelt and one of the most notable historical figures to come out of South Carolina - Mary McLeod Bethune. After the event, Marie and Victoria will hang around to answer your questions and sign and personalize books! 

Tickets are available for 1 Person, 1 Book or as a 2 People, 1 Book package. Both ticket options include a signed hardcover copy of The First Ladies.

We hope to see you there!    

NOTE: Tickets to this event are non-refundable. If you have purchased a ticket but can no longer make it, your signed and personalized copy of The First Ladies will be sent to you by mail, or be available for pick-up at Buxton Books, the day following the event. 

ABOUT THE FIRST LADIES:

A novel about the extraordinary partnership between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune—an unlikely friendship that changed the world, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian.

The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune refuses to back down as white supremacists attempt to thwart her work. She marches on as an activist and an educator, and as her reputation grows she becomes a celebrity, revered by titans of business and recognized by U.S. Presidents. Eleanor Roosevelt herself is awestruck and eager to make her acquaintance. Initially drawn together because of their shared belief in women’s rights and the power of education, Mary and Eleanor become fast friends confiding their secrets, hopes and dreams—and holding each other’s hands through tragedy and triumph.
 
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president, the two women begin to collaborate more closely, particularly as Eleanor moves toward her own agenda separate from FDR, a consequence of the devastating discovery of her husband’s secret love affair. Eleanor becomes a controversial First Lady for her outspokenness, particularly on civil rights. And when she receives threats because of her strong ties to Mary, it only fuels the women’s desire to fight together for justice and equality.
 
This is the story of two different, yet equally formidable, passionate, and committed women, and the way in which their singular friendship helped form the foundation for the modern civil rights movement.

ABOUT MARIE BENEDICT:

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms, who found her calling unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. Her mission is to excavate from the past the most important, complex and fascinating women of history and bring them into the light of present-day where we can finally perceive the breadth of their contributions as well as the insights they bring to modern day issues. She embarked on a new, thematically connected series of historical novels with The Other Einstein, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein's first wife, a physicist herself, and the role she might have played in his theories. The next novel in this series is the USA Today bestselling Carnegie's Maid - which released in January of 2018 - and the book that followed is the New York Times bestseller and Barnes & Noble Book Club Pick The Only Woman in the Room, the story of the brilliant inventor Hedy Lamarr, which published in January of 2019. In January of 2020, Lady Clementine, the story of the incredible Clementine Churchill, was released, and became an international bestseller. Her next novel, the Instant NYTimes and USAToday bestselling The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, was published on December 29, 2020, and her first co-written book with the talented Victoria Christopher Murray, the instant NYTimes bestseller and Good Morning America Book Club Pick The Personal Librarian, was released on June 29, 2021. Her latest novel, Her Hidden Genius, about the brilliant British scientist Rosalind Franklin who discovered the structure of DNA but whose research was used without her permission by Crick and Watson to win the Nobel Prize. And, in January of 2023, she will release The Mitford Affair, which explores the role that history's most notorious sisters — the beautiful, brilliant, eccentric Mitfords — played in the rise of World War II, both for and against the Nazis. Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, and Brigid of Kildare. Marie's novels have been translated into twenty-nine languages.
 

ABOUT VICTORIA CHRISTOPHER MURRAY:

Victoria Christopher Murray is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including Stand Your Ground, a Library Journal Best Book of the Year and NAACP Image Award Winner. Her novel, The Personal Librarian, which she cowrote with Marie Benedict was a Good Morning America Book Club pick.  Visit her website at VictoriaChristopherMurray.com.