Please join us for an author talk and Q&A with Deborah Goodrich Royce and her newest thriller, Best Boy! Deborah will be in conversation with Mary Weiss. Weiss is a retired lawyer and inveterate reader, who enjoys sharing conversations with well-known and acclaimed authors, both in Westerly and Palm Beach, FL, with local audiences. Mary has interviewed Deborah for her three previous books and is excited to discuss her latest novel with the Westerly community.

About the book:

A gripping psychological thriller, Best Boy teeters on the knife-edge of memory and identity when the arrival of a shocking letter threatens the carefully constructed life of a woman desperate to outrun her past.

Viveca Stevenson has it all: a handsome and successful husband, an adorable ten-year-old son, and a coastal dream house in Greenwich, Connecticut. She has a solid group of girlfriends and is content with the afterglow of the film career she’s left behind. But when a threatening letter arrives—from a man she does not remember—it cracks open a part of her past she thought was buried for good.

A terrifying chain of events is set in motion, forcing Viveca to confront what happened on a shattering Halloween night in high school when she had a different name, a different face, a different voice. Who is the man contacting her now and was he really the best boy on her most famous film, Misty? Why can’t she remember him—or that night? A taut psychological thriller, Best Boy explores identity, memory, and the dangerous power of forgetting.

About the author:

Deborah Goodrich Royce's thrillers examine puzzles of identity. Reef Road, a Publishers Weekly’s Bestseller, was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews, an Indie Next Pick by the American Bookseller’s Association, and one of Good Morning America’s Top 15 for January 2023. Ruby Falls won the Zibby Award for Best Plot Twist in 2021, and Finding Mrs. Ford was hailed by Forbes, Book Riot, and Good Morning America’s “best of” lists in 2019. Her newest, Best Boy, was an instant Indie Press Besteller! She began as an actress on All My Children and in multiple films, before transitioning to the role of story editor at Miramax Films, developing Emma and early versions of Chicago and A Wrinkle in Time. With her husband, Chuck, Deborah restored the Avon Theatre, Ocean House Hotel, Deer Mountain Inn, the United Theatre, and numerous Main Street revitalization projects in Rhode Island and the Catskills.