An Evening with Ashley Winstead in conversation with Samantha Downing

Join us Tuesday, September 27th at 6pm for an evening with Ashley Winstead, author of The Last Housewife.

She will be in conversation with author, Samantha Downing

A pitch-black thriller about a woman determined to destroy a powerful cult, no matter the cost.

While in college in upstate New York, Shay Evans and her best friends met a captivating man who seduced them with a web of lies about the way the world works, bringing them under his thrall. By senior year, Shay and her friend Laurel were the only ones who managed to escape. Now, eight years later, Shay’s built a new life in a tony Texas suburb. But when she hears the horrifying news of Laurel’s death—delivered, of all ways, by her favorite true-crime podcast crusader—she begins to suspect the past she thought she buried is still very much alive, the predators more dangerous than ever.

Recruiting the help of the podcast host, Shay goes back to the place she vowed never to return to in search of answers. As she follows the threads of her friend’s life, she’s pulled into a dark, seductive world, where wealth and privilege shield brutal philosophies that feel all too familiar. When Shay’s obsession with uncovering the truth becomes so consuming she can no longer separate her desire for justice from darker desires newly reawakened, she must confront the depths of her own complicity and conditioning. But in a world built for men to rule it—both inside the cult and outside of it—is justice even possible, and if so, how far will Shay go to get it?

Ashley Winstead is an academic turned novelist with a Ph.D. in contemporary American literature. She’s the author of THE LAST HOUSEWIFE, IN MY DREAMS I HOLD A KNIFE, and FOOL ME ONCE, and lives in Houston with her husband, two cats, and beloved wine fridge.

Samantha Downing is the author of the bestselling My Lovely Wife, nominated for the Edgar, ITW, Macavity awards in the US, the CWA award in the UK, and the winner of the Prix des Lectrices award in France. Her latest novel, For Your Own Good, was released on July 20, 2021. It has been optioned by Robert Downey Jr. and Greg Berlanti for HBO Max.

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