Roundabout Books is excited to host bestselling author Lily Brooks-Dalton, heralded for her rich, powerful fiction, at an in-store event on April 4 at 5:30 pm, to discuss and read from her new novel. Ruins is a powerful, deeply resonant novel about an ambitious archaeologist in pursuit of a rare artifact from an ancient civilization that would not only change her life but potentially society at large.
Brooks-Dalton’s last novel has sold almost 60K copies across formats, was a GMA Book Club Selection, a BOTM pick, a #1 Indie Next pick, a LibraryReads pick, a Marie Claire #ReadWithMC book club selection, a 2022 NPR “Book We Love,” a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was the Fiction Runner-Up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Brooks-Dalton’s writing is the perfect cross between commercial and literary with slight speculative elements, in the vein of novels by Emily St. John Mandel.
Buzz has built around Brooks-Dalton’s work recently, as an adaptation of Good Morning, Midnight, retitled The Midnight Sky, starring George Clooney, Felicity Jones, Kyle Chandler, and David Oyelowo, was released on Netflix in December 2020, which caused an uptick in trade paperback sales.
In Ruins, Professor Ember Agni is a rising star in archeology, trying to balance an unfulfilling career in academia and a crumbling marriage, all while pursuing her true passion: unearthing a lost empire that no one else believes existed. Just as she’s about to give up on the ambitious expedition she spent a decade trying to fund, a message arrives from overseas. A former student claims to have found something extraordinary—an artifact that hints at the forgotten world lying beneath history’s tidy surface.
With vindication finally within reach, Ember risks everything for the sake of discovery and undertakes an odyssey that will either make her name or ruin her. Driven by unwavering faith in her vision of the past, she challenges the limits of her nation, her colleagues, and herself in order to exhume the missing pieces of how humanity began. But as she journeys deep into an untouched wilderness, in dogged pursuit of a dead civilization, she collides with the wreckage of her own life.
On the brink of either discovery or destruction, Ember must choose who she wants to be, and to what kind of world she wants to belong. In Ruins, Brooks-Dalton takes readers on a journey across civilizations, weaving and piecing together pieces of the plot in ways that are both dynamic and unpredictable.
Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel Good Morning, Midnighthas been translated into seventeen languages and is the inspiration for the film adaptation, The Midnight Sky. Her memoir, Motorcycles I’ve Loved, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. A former writer-in-residence at The Kerouac House and The Studios of Key West, she currently lives in Los Angeles.
Tickets are $5 or the purchase of a copy of Ruins. Books and tickets can be purchased through the Roundabout Books website here, via telephone at 541-306-6564, or in the store. For further information, please contact Roundabout Books’ Event Manager, Julie Swearingen, at julie@roundaboutbookshop.com.
Roundabout Books is a full-service independent bookstore, located in the heart of Bend’s Northwest Crossing Community. The staff takes tremendous pride in their highly curated selection of new adult and children’s books. Local Bend resident, Cassie Clemans, founded Roundabout Books with a vision of enhancing the life of our community by providing a warm and comfortable literary space where people of all ages are welcome to read, browse, shop for books, meet a friend, or enjoy an event.
This story is based on submitted information and has not been verified by our news team.
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