In-Store Reading: Sher Davidson: Dark Secrets

Annie Bloom's welcomes Portland author Sher Davidson for an in-store reading from her new novel, Dark Secrets: A Legacy of Memories from 1939 Sweden.

This in-store reading is first come, first served. Please be mindful of any store health policies that might be in effect on the night of the reading.

Signed and personalized copies available for pre-order! Please, please, please include the name for personalization in the order notes; all orders without a name specified in the order notes will be signed only.

About Dark Secrets: A Legacy of Memories from 1939 Sweden:

One family’s tragic pre-World War II event in Sweden affects three generations of women. When light shines on something, it casts a shadow. This novel is about the shadow cast on a family and a country when light shines on its past. Lena Larsson, a young American student and aspiring writer, at the Sorbonne in Paris, was raised by her domineering Swedish immigrant Grandmother, Helga, and her stoic mother, Sofia, in the small Pacific Northwest coastal town of Astoria, Oregon. Most of their neighbors were Scandinavian immigrants. As a child, Lena, shy and withdrawn, spent much of her time with her writing journal and her cat at her side while following orders from her dominant grandmother. Lena passed many tormented nights awakened by her grandmother’s screams in her sleep. Though a good student, Lena is troubled by unrelenting insomnia which interferes with her studies and her first romance. When her mother Sofia’s sudden illness forces Lena to return to Astoria, she is urged by her dying mother to go to Sweden to try to uncover what could have caused Helga’s nocturnal outcries and a sad ending to her life. Could it have been something which occurred on the family farm when she visited Sweden the summer of 1939, just before Hitler invaded Poland? Carefully researched and rich with beautifully drawn characters that bring mid-twentieth century Astoria and Paris alive, Lena’s story lays bare some lesser known details about Sweden’s role in World War II and the tragic effects of Nazism on one fictional Swedish family for three generations.

Sher Davidson was born in the California Bay Area and attended UC, Berkeley, during the sixties. She graduated with a degree in political science and French, then spent two years working in France, where she realized her dream of traveling, experiencing other cultures and meeting her Swedish cousins. Her first book Europe with Two Kids and a Van was inspired by travels with her husband and two children camping in Europe in the early seventies. Post retirement, she and her husband moved to the literary town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where she was inspired to write her first novel Under the Salvadoran Sun. She now resides with her husband in Portland, Oregon near their daughters and grandchildren. Find her at sherdavidson.com

Event date: 
Monday, July 25, 2022 - 7:00pm to 8:00pm
7834 SW Capitol Hwy
Portland, OR 97219
Dark Secrets: A Legacy of Memories from 1939 Sweden By Sher Davidson Cover Image
$19.95
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9781977253286
Published: Outskirts Press - June 11th, 2022