July 23, 2014, Wednesday - Murder and Mayhem with Kate Racculia at The Loft

Time: 7:00pm

Location: The Loft at Open Book (Performance Hall), 1011 Washington Ave S

Murder and Mayhem with Kate Racculia

About Bellweather Rhapsody: Fifteen years ago, a murder/suicide in room 712 rocked the grand old Bellweather Hotel and the young bridesmaid who witnessed it. Now hundreds of high school musicians, including quiet bassoonist Rabbit Hatmaker and his brassy diva twin, Alice, have gathered in its cavernous, crumbling halls for the annual Statewide festival; the grown-up bridesmaid has returned to face her demons; and a snowstorm is forecast that will trap everyone on the grounds. Then one of the orchestra’s stars disappears—from room 712. Is it a prank, or has murder struck the Bellweather once again?

The search for answers entwines a hilariously eccentric cast of characters—conductors and caretakers, failures and stars, teenagers on the verge and adults trapped in memories. For everyone has come to the Bellweather with a secret, and everyone is haunted.

Full of knowing nods to the shivery pleasures of suspense and the transporting power of music, this is a wholly winning new novel from a writer lauded as “charming” (Los Angeles Times), “witty” (O, The Oprah Magazine), and “whimsical” (People).

Kate Racculia is a writer and researcher living in Boston, Massachusetts. Her first novel, This Must Be the Place, was published by Henry Holt & Company in 2010. Her second, Bellweather Rhapsody, was just published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in May 2014. Kate studied illustration, design, Jane Austen, and Canada at the University of Buffalo. She has her MFA from Emerson College, and teaches novel and genre-fiction workshops at Grub Street, Boston’s nonprofit creative writing community. She has been a bookseller, a planetarium operator, a coffee jerk, a designer, and a proposal writer. She posts many pictures of her cat on the Internet, is a total sucker for a saxophone solo, and has every intention of growing up to be Jessica Fletcher.