BOOK LAUNCH: YOUR BELOVED REMAINS by Quinn Connor

As fascination turns to obsession, two women drag each other into an academic horror of forgery, murder, and rage. For fans of Plain Bad Heroines and If We Were Villains. We're thrilled to welcome Quinn Connor in coversation with Ryan La Sala (THE DEAD OF SUMMER) to The Twisted Spine on October 15! About YOUR BELOVED REMAINS: Archivist Celia Kiel has spent her life on the remote campus of Basin College in the Southern Ozarks. Once a jewel of women’s higher education in the South, the school now molders on its mountaintop, its endowment thinly supported by the bequeathed estate of 19th century writer, Beatrice Donahue. Celia guards the legacy of this venerated, yet scandalous author, who has been the object of her illicit desire since childhood. When the administration announces the college's imminent closure, Celia discovers a manuscript pickled in formaldehyde, and with it, a chance to save the only home she's ever known. She will forge Beatrice's infamous lost work, a spellbinding horror written toward her life's tumultuous end. To do it, she is forced to recruit her professional rival, literature postdoc Joan Harriot, who has both an astounding talent for mimicry and a dark secret of her own. As their world closes in and the ghosts of the Victorian past encroach, their creative collaboration spirals into an obsession more twisted than even their beloved Beatrice could have penned. Quinn Connor is one pen in two hands: Robyn Barrow and Alex Cronin. Both writers from a young age, Robyn and Alex met at Rhodes College in Memphis and together developed their unique co-writing voice. They are thankful that no matter what, there’s always another person in the world who cares about their characters as much as they do. An Arkansan and a Texan, when they aren’t writing, they’re arguing about the differences between queso and cheese dip. Robyn is an art historian of the medieval Nordic world, and a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. Though often abroad, clambering around in medieval church roofs, Robyn loves writing about her home state of Arkansas. Alex is a Texan living under a Brooklyn zip code, working in PR to fund her writing habit. In her free time, she can be found exploring the city, topping off her tea, and amassing a collection of winter coats. Whether Robyn is wandering the Far North, or Alex is chasing down homemade pasta in Prospect Heights, they write all the time. It’s their preferred form of conversation. Ryan La Sala is a bestselling and award-winning author known for his genre-defying, queer-centered horror and fantasy, including The Honeys, which is in development to become a major motion picture, and The Dead of Summer duology. He is also the author of Beholder, Reverie and Be Dazzled. He has been featured in The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and more. He writes to you from New York, overseen by his cat, Haunted Little Girl. Event Guidelines: Each ticket includes either a hardcover copy of YOUR BELOVED REMAINS or a $15 Twisted Spine gift card. Limited additional copies of the books will be available for purchase at the event. A signing will follow the discussion. If you have any questions about the guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].