Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher

Becky Thatcher wants to set the record straight. She was never the weeping ninny Mark Twain made her out to be in his famous novel. She knew Samuel Clemens before he was “Mark Twain,” when he was a wide-eyed dreamer who never could get his facts straight. Yes, she was Tom’s childhood sweetheart, but the true story of their love, and the dark secret that tore it apart, never made it into Twain’s novel. 
Now married to Tom’s cousin Sid Hopkins, Becky has children of her own to protect while the men of Missouri are off fighting their “un-Civil” War. But when tragedy strikes at home, Becky embarks on a phenomenal quest to find her husband and save her family---a life journey that takes her from the Mississippi River’s steamboats to Ozark rebel camps, from Nevada’s silver mines to the gilded streets of San Francisco. 
Time and again, stubborn but levelheaded Becky must reconcile her independent spirit and thirst for adventure with the era’s narrow notions of marriage and motherhood. As she seeks to find a compromise between fulfillment and security, she also grapples with ghosts of her past. Can she forgive herself, or be forgiven, for the lies she’s told to the men she’s loved? Will she ever forget the maddening, sweet-talking, irresponsible Tom Sawyer, the boy who stole her heart as a little girl? And when she is old, and Huck and Tom and Twain only memories, whose shadow will still lie beside her?

Literature & Fiction

Hart, Lenore

United States

St.Martin's Press

Becky Thatcher wants to set the record straight. She was never the weeping ninny Mark Twain made her out to be in his famous novel. She knew Samuel Clemens before he was "Mark Twain," when he was a wide-eyed dreamer who never could get his facts straight. Yes, she was Tom's childhood sweetheart, but the true story of their love, and the dark secret that tore it apart, never made it into Twain's novel. 
Now married to Tom's cousin Sid Hopkins, Becky has children of her own to protect while the men of Missouri are off fighting their "un-Civil" War. But when tragedy strikes at home, Becky embarks on a phenomenal quest to find her husband and save her family---a life journey that takes her from the Mississippi River's steamboats to Ozark rebel camps, from Nevada's silver mines to the gilded streets of San Francisco. 
Time and again, stubborn but levelheaded Becky must reconcile her independent spirit and thirst for adventure with the era's narrow notions of marriage and motherhood. As she seeks to find a compromise between fulfillment and security, she also grapples with ghosts of her past. Can she forgive herself, or be forgiven, for the lies she's told to the men she's loved? Will she ever forget the maddening, sweet-talking, irresponsible Tom Sawyer, the boy who stole her heart as a little girl? And when she is old, and Huck and Tom and Twain only memories, whose shadow will still lie beside her?

St. Martin's: Griffin

When eight-year-old Virginia "Sissy" Clemm meets her handsome cousin, Eddy, she sees the perfect husband she's conjured up in childhood games. Thirteen years her elder, he's soft-spoken, brooding, and handsome. Eddy fails his way through West Point and the army yet each time he returns to Baltimore, their friendship grows. As Sissy trains for a musical career, her childhood crush turns to love. When she's thirteen, Eddy proposes. But as their happy life darkens, Sissy endures Poe's abrupt disappearances, self-destructive moods, and alcoholic binges. When she falls ill, his greatest fear– that he'll lose the woman he loves– drives him both madness, and to his greatest literary achievement. 
Part ghost story, part love story, this provocative novel explores the mysterious, shocking relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and young Sissy Clemm, his cousin, muse and great love. Lenore Hart, author of Becky, imagines the beating heart of the woman who inspired American literature's most demonized literary figure– and who ultimately destroyed him.

The Raven's Bride

When eight-year-old Virginia "Sissy" Clemm meets her handsome cousin, Eddy,Â she seesÂ theÂ perfect husband she's conjured up in childhood games. Thirteen years her elder,Â he's soft-spoken,Â brooding, andÂ handsome. Eddy fails his way through West Point and the army yet each time he returns to Baltimore, their friendship grows. As Sissy trains for a musical career, her childhood crush turns to love. When she's thirteen, Eddy proposes. But as their happy life darkens, Sissy enduresÂ Poe's abrupt disappearances, self-destructive moods, and alcoholic binges. When she falls ill, his greatest fearâ€“ that heâ€™ll lose the woman he lovesâ€“ drives him both madness, and to his greatest literary achievement. Part ghost story, part love story, this provocative novel explores the mysterious, shocking relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and young Sissy Clemm, his cousin, muse and great love. Lenore Hart, author of Becky,Â imagines theÂ beating heart of the woman who inspired American literature's most demonized literary figureâ€“ and who ultimately destroyed him.Â Â 

The Raven's Bride: A Novel

Feeling out of place with her family and her role in the world, Annie Revels gets a chance for a whole new life when her father suddenly dies, she is forced to take his place aboard the family oyster boat, and she finds a comfortable new role as a waterwoman, until she meets Nathan. A first novel.

Waterwoman

Contemporary

Berkley Hardcover

Feeling out of place with her family and her role in the world, Annie Revels gets a chance for a whole new life when her father suddenly dies, she is forced to take his place aboard the family oyster boat, and she finds a comfortable new role as a waterwoman, until she meets Nathan. A first novel. Reprint.

Parenting & Relationships

Berkley Trade

Still struggling to overcome her feelings of betrayal over the abandonment of her mother, Dory Gamble finds her life turned upside down once again by the arrival of strangers next door, an ailing man dependent on his beautiful and sophisticated wife, and her father's growing feelings for his new female neighbor. By the author of Waterwoman. Original.

Ordinary Springs

Befriended by thirteen-year-old Molly, a poor island girl, after being stranded on an island, Rafe, an escaped slave, must help his new companion fight off the picaroons who have come to raid Savage Island, in an exciting adventure featuring pirates, traitors, and hidden treasures.

The Treasure of Savage Island

Children's Books

Dutton Juvenile

Tired of being on display at the Natural History Museum, T. Rex, a dinosaur skeleton, makes her escape and decides to follow her dream, which is to dance on stage in a production of Swan Lake!

T. Rex at Swan Lake

Carrier, Lisa

Animals

Dutton Children's Books

"Hart invites readers to return to the delightfully inventive setting of the Night Bizarre with this second anthology of fantastical short stories featuring a magical traveling market that visits any given city only once . . . Together the tales form a sumptuous carnival, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the mystical underworld of plague-ridden Europe. These dark flights of fancy delight." - Publishers WeeklyThe Night Bazaar is a secret marketplace of the rare, strange, occult, and dangerous. Its curious vendors specialize in services or objects which simply cannot be had elsewhere, for any price. This forbidden market has operated throughout history at various locales - but only for one week. It cannot simply be stumbled upon; you must be Invited. But how did it begin? This collection of thirteen eerie, fantastic, and magical works by various authors recounts the origin story of the Bazaar's first appearance, in St. Mark's Square, Venice, in the plague year of 1348. Some take place in those medieval days of fear, witchcraft, pandemic, and murder. Other, more contemporary tales center on objects from that first bazaar - inherited, found, purchased, or stolen during the dark centuries since by the unsuspecting, foolish, and greedy (though seldom the completely innocent.) Together the linked stories take readers on a fantastical journey into astonishment, dread, and dark delight.

The Night Bazaar: Venice

Genre Fiction

Northampton House

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hart, Lenore. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hart, Lenore

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hart, Lenore. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher

Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher

The Raven's Bride

The Raven's Bride: A Novel

Waterwoman

Waterwoman

Ordinary Springs

The Treasure of Savage Island

T. Rex at Swan Lake

The Night Bazaar: Venice