Juliette Fay

• “Juliette Fay can hit the high notes of emotion with unexpected moments of redemption and wry humor.” —Jacqueline Sheehan, New York Times bestselling author

  “Fay writes with vivid dialog and conjures up characters that feel real enough to be sitting in your kitchen.” —Lee Woodruff, New York Times bestselling author

• Biography

  Juliette Fay earned her BA from Boston College and her MA from Harvard University. Shelter Me, her first novel, was a 2009 Massachusetts Book Award Book of the Year. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and four children.

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• Praise for Books

  “In the end Fay gives us hope and that’s what makes this novel so very special.” —M. J. Rose, New York Times bestselling author

  “Filled with energetic prose and colorful characters—you won’t soon forget the Turner girls!” —Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Inspired by historic buildings, events, silent films, and real-life figures…a fascinating glimpse into Tinseltown’s storied—and sometimes scandalous—past.” —Toronto Star (Canada)

  “This novel of love, dreams, and the everlasting strength of family perfectly encapsulates the social mores and pressures of the early twentieth century. The Turner sisters dare to dream big—don’t miss this page turner!” —Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author

  “Fay vividly captures the grit and glamour of 1920s Hollywood…A dishy but never salacious tale, chock full of details that will delight readers fascinated with silent films and what goes on behind the scenes.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Like vaudeville itself, The Tumbling Turner Sisters will delight, amaze, and surprise you. With a captivating cast of characters, Juliette Fay brings vaudeville, its players and theaters, customs and trickery to raucous life. You will smell the greasepaint, hear the music, and feel the cold, all while cheering for The Tumbling Turner Sisters to survive and thrive.” —Laura Harrington, bestselling author of Alice Bliss

  “The descendant of a vaudevillian, Fay follows her tale of traveling acrobats, The Tumbling Turner Sisters, with this atmospheric portrait of early Tinseltown, peppering her characters’ escapades with real people and places and creating a buoyant tale of friendship and loyalty.” —Booklist

  “As colorful as its vaudeville setting, The Tumbling Turner Sisters made me laugh, cry, and clap my hands with delight as I cheered on these four lovable and spunky sisters. A big-hearted tale of adventure.” —Ann Mah, author of Mastering the Art of French Eating

  “Listeners will be richly entertained by this historical audiobook, set in early 1920s Hollywood…Narrator Lisa Flanagan infuses each character with a compelling personality as she keeps the pace of the story moving. She employs a warm tone and steady pace to portray screenwriter Irene’s practicality and big-sister attitude. Actress Millie’s vivacious and caring nature comes through in Flanagan’s lighter pitch and spirited tone. In portraying leading man Henry, she shades the contrast between his secrets and his noble, steady personality. Unique voices are also created for several memorable supporting characters.” —AudioFile

  “The Tumbling Turner Sisters takes you on a wild ride through the glory days of vaudeville, following Winnie and Gert as they hit the gritty floorboards of backwater theaters, pick themselves up, and strive again toward laughter-filled heights. The prose is riveting as the sisters carry their family out of poverty in a time of racially charged political turmoil. Through Juliette Fay’s multilayered characters, I feel the sisters’ entanglements and passions as if they were my own.” —E. B. Moore, author of An Unseemly Wife

  “Brings to life the wicked glamour of 1920s Tinseltown—and its story of friendship, love, and acceptance melts your heart.” —Ann Mah, author of The Lost Vintage

  “An absorbing and heartfelt tale of four sisters in desperate contortions to keep their family aloft. I loved this slice of theatrical history, and Fay’s meticulous research brings to life the vivid playhouses and costumed performers—ingénues and divas, swindlers and sots. I stayed awake far too late wondering whether the girls would come in for a safe landing.” —Nichole Bernier, author of The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.

  “Book clubs are sure to fall for The Tumbling Turner Sisters. Through this band of charming young women—and their stage mother, of course—Juliette Fay delivers the history, mystery, and prejudice of vaudeville in a story that is ultimately about the possibility of practice making something perfect (or perfect enough, anyway), the benefits of humor and ambition, and the redemptive power of love.” —Meg Waite Clayton, New York Times bestselling author

  “The Turner sisters come tumbling out of this terrific story, full of life, passion, and trouble. Forced into a life in vaudeville, the four young girls and their mother push the boundaries of propriety to achieve their dreams in a world that doesn’t often allow women to have dreams. Gert and Winnie shine as each, in her own way, fights for her right to be who she is. A great piece of historical fiction that rings true one hundred years later.” —B. A. Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author

  “Readers who delight in books set in 1920 or feature the theater will adore Fay’s spunky coming-of-age tale….This wonderfully evocative story charms…The delightful quotes from famous vaudeville performers, along with colorful details of life on stage, are a testament to Fay’s meticulous research. The pace is as rapid as their tumbling, and the appealing characters add to the enjoyment readers will feel from a story with gumption.” —RT Book Reviews (4 stars)

  “All four Turner daughters and their mother are forces to be reckoned with…Their lively personalities bring to life Fay’s outlandishly enjoyable premise. With humor, affection, ambition, and a talent for weaving in history, Fay brings the world of 1910s vaudeville vividly to life through the travails of the tenacious Turner family.” —Publishers Weekly

  “The great-granddaughter of a vaudevillian, Fay brings an unrivaled verisimilitude to the community of hardworking, resilient, and spirited entertainers who created their performing lives out of both desperation and desire.” —Booklist

  “Readers will applaud these hardworking sisters. Fay’s charming fourth novel pulls back the curtains to reveal the colorful lives in vaudeville.” —Library Journal

  “Packed with lively characters and charming detail, Juliette Fay’s thoughtful prose sheds light on an almost forgotten part of entertainment history.” —Allie Larkin, bestselling author of Stay

  “The Tumbling Turner Sisters explores vaudeville with stunning humanity and sharp humor. Juliette Fay’s novel of sisters forced by their ultimate stage mother into this show business world of fanciful facade hiding cutthroat innards reveals America—from Jim Crow laws to skirting prohibition. Like Little Women, these four sisters, facing loss and poverty, reveal a family with an unbreakable core of fortitude and love.” —Randy Susan Meyers, bestselling author of Accidents of Marriage

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  • City of Flickering Light

  • By Juliette Fay

    Read by Lisa Flanagan

  • Release Date: 4/16/19

  • Formats: Digital Audy

  Juliette Fay—“one of the best authors of women’s fiction” (Library Journal)—transports us back to the Golden Age of Hollywood and the raucous Roaring Twenties, as three friends struggle to earn their places among the stars of the silent screen—perfect for fans of La La Land and Rules of Civility.

  It’s July 1921, “flickers” are all the rage, and Irene Van Beck has just declared her own independence by jumping off a moving train to escape her fate in a traveling burlesque show. When her friends, fellow dancer Millie Martin and comedian Henry Weiss, leap after her, the trio finds their way to the bright lights of Hollywood with hopes of making it big in the burgeoning silent film industry.

  At first glance, Hollywood in the 1920s is like no other place on earth—iridescent, scandalous, and utterly exhilarating—and the three friends yearn for a life they could only have dreamed of before. But despite the glamour and seduction of Tinseltown, success doesn’t come easy, and nothing can prepare Irene, Millie, and Henry for the poverty, temptation, and heartbreak that lie ahead. With their ambitions challenged by both the men above them and the prejudice surrounding them, their friendship is the only constant through desperate times, as each struggles to find their true calling in an uncertain world. What begins as a quest for fame and fortune soon becomes a collective search for love, acceptance, and fulfillment as they navigate the backlots and stage sets where the illusions of the silver screen are brought to life.

  With her “trademark wit and grace” (Randy Susan Meyers, author of The Murderer’s Daughters), Juliette Fay crafts another radiant and fascinating historical novel as thrilling as the bygone era of Hollywood itself.

  • City of Flickering Light

  • By Juliette Fay

    Read by Lisa Flanagan

  • Release Date: 4/16/19

  • Formats: Digital Audy

  Learn More
• 

  • The Tumbling Turner Sisters

  • By Juliette Fay

    Read by Katie Schorr and Eileen Stevens

  • Release Date: 6/14/16

  • Formats: Digital Audy

  Set against the turbulent backdrop of American Vaudeville, four sisters embark on an unexpected adventure—and a last-ditch effort to save their family.

  In 1919, the Turner sisters and their parents are barely scraping by. Their father is a low-paid boot stitcher in Johnson City, New York, and the family is always one paycheck away from eviction. When their father’s hand is crushed and he can no longer work, their irrepressible mother decides that the vaudeville stage is their best—and only—chance for survival.

  Traveling by train from town to town, teenagers Gert, Winnie, and Kit, and recent widow Nell soon find a new kind of freedom in the company of performers who are as diverse as their acts. There is a seamier side to the business, however, and the young women face dangers and turns of fate they never could have anticipated.

  Heartwarming and surprising, The Tumbling Turner Sisters is ultimately a story of awakening—to unexpected possibilities, to love and heartbreak, and to the dawn of a new American era.

  • The Tumbling Turner Sisters

  • By Juliette Fay

    Read by Katie Schorr and Eileen Stevens

  • Release Date: 6/14/16

  • Formats: Digital Audy

  Learn More

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