The Boston College Class of 1975 recently celebrated its 50th Reunion. One of those Golden Eagles is Joan Luise Hill, who is the author of two books about miracles. Her first book, The Miracle Chase, co-authored with Katie Mahon and Mary Beth Phillips, tells the story of the authors’ friendship, the miracles that happened in their lives, and the journey of discovery these events sent them on. In Hill’s case, her miracle was the survival of her 13-year-old child from a dangerous cardiac event. Hill and Mahon followed up that book with The Miracle Collectors (Worthy Books/Hachette, 2021), based on the outpouring of stories of other miracles, offered from their readers and others. As part of their own spiritual quest, Hill and Mahon have become unofficial miracle experts and have discovered that when people are truly present, miracles abound. The authors say that “the stories of courage, forgiveness, gratitude, faith, hope, and love allow us to notice and appreciate the miracles that are available to each one of us, while opening us up to a part of the Divine mystery we can absorb and understand.” Shortly after The Miracle Collectors was released, Hill and Mahon were interviewed for a Boston College Church in the 21st Century Center God Pods segment. Learn more about Joan Luise Hill and her books at themiraclecollectors.com.
Miracles can happen
Grace
A new scholarly publication by Boston College Assistant Professor of Theology Henry Shea, S.J., proposes a deeply grounded investigation of grace and a robustly balanced impetus for advancing the gospel in the 21st century. In An Analogy of Grace (University of Notre Dame Press, 2025), Fr. Shea engages with the works of theologians Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Erich Przywara, and others. From this analysis, he advances a new framework that, according to the publisher, “posits that grace is best understood as a moving Trinitarian analogy that begins in the heart and advances through the incarnate Word in the Spirit toward the whole Christ. This new analogy of grace is radically universal and inclusive while also wholly informed by the distinct form of Jesus Christ.”
Pooling the financial risk
In her latest book, Sharing Risk: The Path to Economic Well-Being for All (University of California Press, 2025) Liberty Mutual Insurance Professor of Law Patricia McCoy probes explanations as to why financial burdens have shifted onto the backs of individual U.S. families over the past 60 years. She examines how businesses and governments have slowly widened the wealth gap, and presents policy recommendations on risk sharing that would build a more equitable financial system. McCoy’s research is at the intersections of financial regulation, consumer protection, and economic justice. She is a founder of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. More from Boston College Law School Magazine.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Boston College Law School, economic inequality
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What’s your sign?
After a distressing astrology reading, science-minded skeptic Leah Lockhart is on a mission to prove that her horoscope is wrong in the latest novel by Boston College graduate Jessie Rosen. In All the Signs (G.P. Putnam’s Sons/Penguin Random House, 2025), Lockhart sets off to find people born under her exact same star map, in order to compare their lives and choices. Her journey takes her to Venice, Istanbul, New Orleans, and beyond. Along the way, Lockhart starts to question everything she believes in. Rosen is a writer, producer, educator, and speaker. Her previous novel was the USA Today bestseller The Heirloom.
Girls with Goals
Girls and women have always found a way to play soccer, in spite of bans, challenges, rules, and backward-looking attitudes. Today, soccer is the most popular women’s sport in the world. A new YA book by Boston College alumna Clelia Castro-Malaspina chronicles the history of women’s soccer from its birth in 19th century England to its rise as a global powerhouse. Girls with Goals (Holler/Quarto, 2025) has been described as “a love letter” to women’s soccer and the female athletes who have inspired girls all over the world. Kirkus Reviews calls Girls with Goals “a spirited, well-told success story” with a “vivid narrative.” Castro-Malaspina is the founder of Mossy Pines Creative, a children’s book editorial business, and the author of Your Freedom, Your Power: A Kid’s Guide to the First Amendment.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged athletes, nonfiction, soccer, sports, women's history
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‘Parallel Letters’
Parallel Letters (Parallel’noe Pis’mo) (Sandermoen Publishing, 2025), a new bilingual collection of poems by Boston College Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies Maxim D. Shrayer, showcases twin texts that were born from the same sources, but occupy different linguistic and cultural spaces: Russian and English. The title of the collection was drawn from Shrayer’s “parallel writing” process: his principal method of creating literary texts over the past three years. The volume’s 38 poems—written from 2020–2024—primarily focus on immigrant memory among those from the former Soviet Union now living in the United States, Israel, and Europe; the Soviet legacy; and the wars in Ukraine and Israel. Read more from BC News.
A fortune and a curse
The latest book from bestselling author Jen Calonita is about a girl who will inherit a mysterious fortune if she can break a centuries-old curse. In Isle of Ever, Everly “Benny” Benedict learns she’s the heir to a fortune, but to collect the inheritance she first has to play―and win―a game. If she fails, the fortune will be forfeited. Isle of Ever is book one of an expected series. Calonita is a Boston College graduate whose popular books for middle grade readers and young adults have been translated into 15 languages. Her publications include Fairy Godmother, 12 to 22, and many titles in Disney’s Twisted Tale series and the Fairy Tale Reform School series. Isle of Ever received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal.
Coercive Commerce
In 1842, the Qing Empire signed a watershed commercial treaty with Great Britain, beginning a century-long period in which geopolitical and global economic entanglements intruded on Qing territory and governance. Previously understood as an era of “semi-colonialism,” Boston College Assistant Professor of History Stacie A. Kent reframes this “treaty period” by shedding light on the generative force of global capital. Based on extensive research conducted with British and Chinese government archives, Kent’s book, Coercive Commerce: Global Capital and Imperial Governance at the End of the Qing Empire (Hong Kong University Press, 2024), shows how commercial treaties and the regulatory regime that grew out of them catalyzed a revised arts of governance in Qing-administered China. Kent contends that Qing administrators alternately resisted and adapted to this new reality by reorganizing Chinese territory into a space where global circuits of capital could circulate and reproduce at an ever greater scale. Kent, who teaches in the University’ International Studies program, specializes in global capitalism in imperial and post-colonial contexts.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Asian history, capitalism, China, History Department
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McAleer’s Henry von Stray is on the case
Late Boston College alumnus and Professor of English John McAleer ’45 created the literary characters Henry von Stray, a London private detective, and his collaborator, Professor John Dilpate, during the 1930s—a period known as Golden Age of detective fiction. A surviving Henry von Stray story, “The Case of the Illustrious Banker,” was discovered after McAleer’s death and published for the first time in 2022. One of McAleer’s sons, Andrew McAleer, has extended the Henry von Stray stories, with three new mysteries: “The Big Push and Legend of Sir Morleans’ Lost Pearls”; “A Little Birdie Tells Von Stray”; and “Von Stray and the Five-Fingered Fraudster.” The stories by both McAleers (father and son) have been published in the first full-book collection of von Stray stories titled, A Casebook of Crime (Level Best Books, 2025). John McAleer was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for his biography of Rex Stout. An author and editor, Andrew McAleer is a 1990 Boston College alumnus who also taught at Boston College. Learn more in this blog post by Andrew McAleer.
Spenser is back
Spenser, considered Boston’s most famous fictional private investigator, takes on a new case that hits close to home in Robert B. Parker’s Hot Property (G.P. Putnam’s Sons/Penguin Random House, 2024), written by Boston College alumnus Mike Lupica. The novel opens with news that Rita Fiore, a lawyer and friend of Spenser, has been shot. There’s no shortage of suspects who might want to enact revenge on Fiore. Spenser must get to the bottom of things, even if it means unearthing some unsavory secrets. Hot Property is the 52nd book in the Spenser series, which was originated by the late Robert B. Parker. Lupica is a sports journalist and bestselling author of more than 40 works of fiction and nonfiction. He was interviewed about Hot Property and his love of Boston by MassLive.
BC Bookmarks 