Juliette Fay—a Boston College graduate and author known for her “well-drawn characters and vibrant historical backdrops” (Library Journal)—transports readers to 1920s America with her new book, The Harvey Girls (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster, 2025). The novel tells the stories of Charlotte Crowninshield and Billie MacTavish, two very different women, each carrying a secret. The women meet when they are hired on the same days as Harvey Girls, waitresses who serve in America’s first hospitality chain on the Santa Fe railroad. The novel received a starred review from Library Journal. Fay is a bestselling author of historical and contemporary fiction. Her other novels include Shelter Me, The Half of It, and City of Flickering Light.
Harvey Girls
BC grad’s debut novel
A young woman must confront her abuser in She Used to Be Nice (Alcove Press/Penguin RandomHouse, 2025), a debut novel from 2015 Boston College graduate Alexia LaFata. The book tells the story of Avery, whose rapist resurfaces as the best man at her best friend’s wedding. As maid of honor, Avery can’t avoid him. As the wedding nears, Avery must decide whether to finally tell her truth or risk spiraling toward a darkness she may never be able to recover from.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Leave a comment
Genie at the mall
Seventeen-year-old Alex Delmore needs a miracle. She wants out of her dead-end suburban town, but her parents are broke and NYU seems like a distant dream. Good thing there’s a genie in town—and he’s hiring at the Wellspring Mall. If Wishes Were Retail (Tachyon Publications, 2025), a new book by Boston College graduate Auston Habershaw, tells the story Alex and a genie (Jinn, formerly of the Ring of Khorad) who set up a wishing kiosk at the mall. What could go wrong? Publishers Weekly calls If Wishes were Retail a “cozy, comical confection.” Habershaw is also the author of the fantasy book series The Saga of the Redeemed. Learn more in this Q&A with the author.
Fraud detective Harry Bartlett
After a career spent working as a chief financial officer and controller, Boston College graduate Robert Ainsworth ’75 decided to write mysteries. He created the character of Harry Bartlett, a financial executive turned fraud detective. Bartlett has appeared in four books written by Ainsworth: Conned, Duped, Scammed, and Ponzi’d. In Conned, Harry’s best friend is murdered on Nantucket and the trail leads to a world of scams and con artists. Duped brings Harry and his ex-mobster uncle together in a search for stolen artwork. Scammed finds Harry on a simple missing persons case, that’s not so simple. In the fourth book, Ponzi’d, readers go back to 1920s Boston when Harry’s grandfather encountered infamous swindler Charles Ponzi. Ainsworth, who graduated from the Carroll School of Management with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, says he uncovered several embezzlement schemes during the course of his career.
Attorney Jane Smith
Bestselling authors Mike Lupica, a Boston College alumnus, and James Patterson have teamed up again for a new thriller: The Hamptons Lawyer (Little, Brown and Company, 2025). According to the publisher: “Undefeated criminal defense attorney Jane Smith—known as the Hamptons Lawyer—never fails to make her case. When Smith takes on a famous celebrity client, she’s armed and ready: with brilliant arguments, hard evidence—and two Glocks. Yet she’s chased down, shot at, and risks contempt of court. That’s when mounting a legal defense turns into self-defense.” Lupica and Patterson first introduced readers to Jane Smith in their 2023 novel 12 Months to Live, which was followed by Hard to Kill in 2024.
Learning about Joan Mitchell
American artist Joan Mitchell (1925-92), who created abstract oil paintings, drawings, and prints, is the subject of a new children’s picture book by Boston College graduate Lisa Rogers. Joan Mitchell Paints a Symphony (Calkins Creek, 2025) focuses on the artist’s “La Grande Vallée,” a suite of 21 large-scale paintings she created in a studio outside Paris. Inspired by her friend’s description of an idyllic hidden valley in France, Mitchell paints the valley, not as a collection of flowers and meadows, but a harmonious, color-drenched blend of drips, splashes, and brush strokes. Joan Mitchell Paints a Symphony is illustrated by Stacy Innerst. Kirkus Reviews called the book “simply marvelous.” Rogers is an award-winning author whose other publications include Beautiful Noise: The Music of John Cage and 16 Words: William Carlos Williams and “The Red Wheelbarrow.”
Father Greg’s vision
Gregory Boyle, S.J., a Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries—the largest gang-intervention program in the world—offers a transformative vision of community and compassion in his latest book, Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2024). Homeboy Industries runs on two unwavering principles: 1) We are all inherently good (no exceptions), and 2) we belong to each other (no exceptions). Fr. Boyle believes that these two ideas allow for a new way of seeing the world. Rather than the tribalism that excludes and punishes, his narrative proposes a village that cherishes, a space for people to join together and heal one another in a new collective living dedicated to kindness. A Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Fr. Boyle is an alumnus of the Clough School of Theology and Ministry. He also is the author of
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Jesuit author
Leave a comment
A framework for literacy instruction
Lynch School of Education and Human Development Professor C. Patrick Proctor and Lynch School alumna Renata Love Jones, Ph.D. ’20 have written a book that provides a guide for K-12 educators to design curriculum focused on literacy and metalinguistics. Metalinguistics is the ability to evaluate language as a process or system, reflecting on its rules, nature, and ability to connect people. The framework presented in Pursuing Language and Metalinguistics in K–12 Classrooms (Routledge) was developed by Proctor, in collaboration with Jones. The book emphasizes the importance of honoring and valuing the linguistic diversity of students within the classroom and includes contributions from Lynch School faculty Lillie Albert, Kristen Bottema-Beutel, and Kate McNeill as well as graduate Sam Lee, Ph.D. ’24. Read more from the Lynch School.
Marvelous Marvin
Boston College graduate Dave Wedge has written the definitive chronicle of Marvelous Marvin Hagler (1954-2021), the undisputed middleweight boxing champion from 1980-87. In Blood & Hate: The Untold Story of Marvelous Marvin Hagler’s Battle for Glory (Hamilcar Publications, 2025), Wedge delves deep into Hagler’s escape from riot-torn Newark in the late 1960s, the unbreakable bond he built with the Petronelli brothers, and his 1980 title fight against Britain’s Alan Minter—with its deep racial overtones—to tell what Wedge calls the real story of Hagler. A radio host, journalist, and award-winning writer, Wedge is co-author of Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph Over Tragedy; Ice Bucket Challenge: Pete Frates and the Fight Against ALS; 12: The Inside Story of Tom Brady’s Fight for Redemption; and Hunting Whitey: The Inside Story of the Capture and Killing of America’s Most Wanted Crime Boss, among other titles.
The Carousel Man
The dreams and visions are getting worse for crime writer Jack Rainne. He can’t shake the childhood memory of a haunting carousel ride in a desolate Missouri cornfield. His only hope for answers is to return to where it all began. There, he uncovers a shocking truth—and a long-forgotten promise he’s condemned to fulfill. That’s the teaser for The Carousel Man (Hellbender Books, 2024), a thriller written by 1988 Boston College graduate Stephen Paul Sayers. He also is the author of the Caretakers horror trilogy (A Taker of Morrows, The Soul Dweller, and The Immortal Force). Sayers is an associate professor at the University of Missouri.
BC Bookmarks 