T. GREENWOOD
T. GREENWOOD is the author of eleven novels. She has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Maryland State Arts Council. Five of her novels have been BookSense76/IndieBound picks; Her eighth novel, Bodies of Water, was a 2014 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. Where I Lost Her was a Globe and Mail bestseller in 2016 and is currently a nominee for an RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award. Her novels have been translated into five languages.
She teaches creative writing for San Diego Writer’s Ink, Grossmont College, and online for The Writer’s Center. She and her husband, Patrick, live in San Diego, CA with their two teenage daughters.
KEEPING LUCY
St. Martin's Press - August 6, 2019
From the author of Rust & Stardust comes this heartbreaking story, inspired by true events, of how far one mother must go to protect her daughter.
Dover, Massachusetts, 1969. Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the “feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. That they should grieve for their daughter as though she were dead. That they should try to move on.
But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth--its squalid hallways filled with neglected children--she knows she can't leave her daughter there. With Ginny's six-year-old son in tow, Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves. What they find sets their course on a heart-racing journey across state lines―turning Ginny into a fugitive.
For the first time, Ginny must test her own strength and face the world head-on as she fights Ab and his domineering father for the right to keep Lucy. Racing from Massachusetts to the beaches of Atlantic City, through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to a roadside mermaid show in Florida, Keeping Lucy is a searing portrait of just how far a mother’s love can take her.
Praise for keeping lucy
PopSugar's 30 Must-Read Books of 2019
Good Housekeeping's 25 Best New Books for Summer 2019
Better Homes & Gardens 13 New Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer
"A baby born less than perfect in the world's eyes, a mother persuaded that giving up her child is for the best, a lingering bond that pulls and tugs yet will not break. Keeping Lucy follows a mother willing to give up everything to save the child she's been told she must forget. This story will have readers not only rooting for Ginny and Lucy, but thinking about them long after the last page is turned."―Lisa Wingate, New York Times Bestselling Author of Before We Were Yours
“With Keeping Lucy, Greenwood once again mines emotional depths that have become the hallmark of her writing. In fighting for the right to raise her daughter with Down Syndrome, a mother in the late 1960s harnesses the courage and confidence she didn’t know she’d possessed. Readers can’t help but be drawn into her heartbreaking and uplifting journey.”―Mandy Mikulencak, author of Forgiveness Road and The Last Suppers
“In T. Greenwood’s latest page-turner, a betrayed mother discovers just how much she is willing to sacrifice for the safety of her child, deemed unwanted by even those most trusted. Keeping Lucy is a wholly absorbing tale in which the bonds of marriage, friendship, and family are pushed to the ultimate limit. A heartrending yet inspiring novel that kept me reading late into the night.”―Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday and The Edge of Lost
"How much would you be willing to sacrifice for a child you didn’t know? This is the question posed in T. Greenwood’s Keeping Lucy, the story of a young mother betrayed by those who claim to know best―including her husband―and the harrowing journey she must take to find her voice and take a stand―even if taking a stand means losing everything. Compassionate, clear-eyed, and often wrenching, Keeping Lucy is the kind of story that’s meant to be read with the heart, and one that will resonate long after the reading is done."―Barbara Davis, bestselling author of When Never Comes
“This incredible story, based on true events, will give you all the feels about the power of motherhood.”―Better Homes & Gardens
"Greenwood’s heart-wrenching, emotional roller coaster of a read also seamlessly captures the transformation of women’s roles in the early 1970s. A heartfelt tale of true friendship, a mother’s unstoppable love, and the immeasurable fortitude of women.”―Booklist
“Greenwood delivers an unabashed heart-tugger…This is a moving depiction of the primal power of a mother’s love.”―Publishers Weekly
RUST & STARDUST
St. Martin's Press - August 7, 2018
Camden, NJ, 1948. When 11 year-old Sally Horner steals a notebook from the local Woolworth's, she has no way of knowing that 52 year-old Frank LaSalle, fresh out of prison, is watching her, preparing to make his move. Accosting her outside the store, Frank convinces Sally that he’s an FBI agent who can have her arrested in a minute―unless she does as he says.
This chilling novel traces the next two harrowing years as Frank mentally and physically assaults Sally while the two of them travel westward from Camden to San Jose, forever altering not only her life, but the lives of her family, friends, and those she meets along the way.
Based on the experiences of real-life kidnapping victim Sally Horner and her captor, whose story shocked the nation and inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write his controversial and iconic Lolita, this heart-pounding story by award-winning author T. Greenwood at last gives a voice to Sally herself.
PRAISE FOR RUST & STARDUST
An August 2018 LibraryReads Pick
“Greenwood’s glowing dark ruby of a novel brilliantly transforms the true crime story that inspired Nabokov’s Lolita. Shatteringly original and eloquently written....So ferociously suspenseful, I found myself holding my breath.”―Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
“Heartrending... Readers who relish novels based on true events will be both riveted and disturbed by this retelling of one of America’s most famous abduction cases.”―Library journal, starred review
“A beautifully written, unnerving tragedy woven from equal measures of hope and menace.”―Booklist, starred review
“With Rust and Stardust, T. Greenwood delves tragically and masterfully into a harrowing, ripped-from-the-headlines story of lives altered in the blink of an eye, once again proving her eloquence and dexterity as an author.”―Mary Kubica, best-selling author of The Good Girl, Pretty Baby and Don’t You Cry
“Rust and Stardust is a beautifully written historical reimagining of what happened to the real girl who inspired Lolita, Sally Horner. A lyrical and haunting meditation on family, love, and survival, this novel—and Sally Horner—stayed with me long after I turned the last page.”―Jillian Cantor, author of Margot, The Hours Count, and The Lost Letter
“Greenwood in unmatched in her innate ability to weave lush, poetic language into a riveting story that hooks the reader from page one.”―Amy Hatvany, author of Best Kept Secret and It Happens All the Time
“Unflinching but compassionate, Greenwood deftly unravels the devastating layers of malice and carelessness that tore Sally from her family, but also the love and perseverance that eventually brought her home.”―Bryn Greenwood, author of the New York Times bestseller All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
"Grace touches this dark tale, too, in the form of genuinely kind characters whose concern is a balm to the difficult events of the book... Greenwood’s story will spellbind readers as the terror mounts."―Publishers Weekly
"A chilling read."―Bustle
"Greenwood reportedly spent more than two years researching Sally’s abduction and years drafting Rust & Stardust. The result is an unflinching portrait of a vile criminal and his helpless victim."―Book Page
"Readers without extensive knowledge of the case, nor of Nabokov’s Lolita, will likely meet a thoughtfully rendered [...] version of Sally, whose ordeal is shown for the proper horror that it was, rather than exploited for entertainment."―Vanity Fair
“Melancholy, yet strangely luminous, Rust & Stardust is a beautiful feat.”―BookBrowse
"Fast-moving....T. Greenwood has clearly done her research."―New York Review of Books