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AuthorsLive: The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grames

In celebration of Italian-American Heritage Month, AuthorsLive welcomes Connecticut-born writer and editor Juliet Grames, national and international bestselling author of The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia and The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna.

She will discuss The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia, her suspenseful puzzle mystery about a young starry-eyed American woman-turned-amateur detective in a small, 1960s Southern Italian village who is tasked with opening a nursery school, but drawn into the mystery surrounding the identity of a recently discovered human skeleton. 

Grames's debut novel, set in Calabria and Connecticut, was shortlisted for the New England Book Award and the Connecticut Book Award, and received Italy's Premio Centraro for contribution to Southern Italian literature. Both The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna and The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia were selected for LibraryReads, the monthly nationwide library staff picks list for adult fiction and non-fiction.

Fans of Agatha Christie and Elena Ferrante, and any readers who enjoy immersive worldbuilding, join us!

Resources to enhance your reading experience:

  • Book Club Dinner Party Guide: complete with recipes, discussion questions and topics, plus a dining playlist. 
  • Further Reading: compiled by Juliet Grames, an annotated list of works available at Greenwich Library relating to her novels, Southern Italy, and Italian-American immigration.

Copies of the new paperback for The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia will be available for purchase and signing with thanks to Diane's Books. 

Date:
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Time:
7:00pm - 8:30pm
Location:
Marx Family Black Box Theater
Audience:
  Adult  
Categories:
  Author Talk  
Registrations open at 7:00pm Thursday, September 25, 2025

Juliet Grames is the national and international bestselling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna and The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia. Her debut novel was shortlisted for the New England Book Award and the Connecticut Book Award, and received Italy’s Premio Cetraro for contribution to Southern Italian literature. It has been translated into nine languages. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Best American Mystery & Suspense, Real Simple, Parade, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and the Boston Globe, among other venues. 

Grames was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and raised in the Farmington Valley. She attended Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia College with a degree in history before embarking on a career in book publishing. Since 2010 she has worked at Soho Press, where she is Editorial Director. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Mystery Writers of America Ellery Queen Award for her editorial work in the crime fiction genre. She lives in New England.