About the Event

"Not your typical vampire tale. We follow Annie/Anya/Collette through centuries and across continents in chapters alternating between the present and significant points in her past. A thought-provoking exploration of connections, loss, despair, and hope, this is a book about decisions, about endings and beginnings." —Raven Bookseller Nancy

"In turns enchanting and exquisitely painful to read, you don't know where The God of Endings will take you until the final page. As each chapter alternates between the narrator's past and present, every new scene feels fresh and rejuvenated. While Holland plants hundreds of rhetorical questions throughout the book, I can’t help returning to the question of how we cherish life: whether we condone the lives of imperfect adults, or what we can do in the lives of children who deserve so much more than they are given. If you enjoyed the philosophical existentialism of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire but wish the plotting had held more energy and that the writing was technically cleaner—this is the book for you." —Raven Bookseller Wulfe

Prepare to be swept away by the story of Collete LeSange: preschool teacher, artist, vampire, and main character of The God of Endings, a new and masterful historical fiction title. Author Jacqueline Holland will be visiting us on March 14 at 7 p.m. to enchant us with a reading from her debut novel, which Raven bookseller Nancy calls, “Not your typical vampire tale.” The reading will be followed by a conversation between Holland and Dr. Giselle Anatol from KU's Gunn Center for the Study of SF, with time for audience Q&A and book signings at the end.

The Raven kindly requests that all event attendees wear a mask for the duration of the event. If you have any accessibility questions or requests, please contact us here. Thank you!

About the Speakers

Jacqueline Holland holds an MFA from the University of Kansas. Her work has appeared in Hotel Amerika and Big Fiction magazine, among others. She lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and two sons. The God of Endings is her first novel.

Headshot by C. Zea Corrinne

Giselle Liza Anatol (Professor, University of Kansas) specializes in Caribbean and African diaspora literature and multicultural works for young readers. She has edited three collections of essays on popular fantasy series: Reading Harry Potter (2003), the follow-up Reading Harry Potter Again (2009), and Bringing Light to Twilight: Perspectives on the Pop Culture Phenomenon (2011). She also authored The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora (2015), which explores the skin-shedding, bloodsucking soucouyant figure of Trinidadian folklore, and contemporary incarnations of Black female vampires in fiction. Anatol currently serves as Director at the Gunn Center for the Study of SF and the interim director of KU's Hall Center for the Humanities.

About the Book

Collette LeSange is a lonely artist who heads an elite fine arts school for children in upstate New York. Her youthful beauty masks the dark truth of her life: she has endured centuries of turmoil and heartache in the wake of her grandfather’s long-ago decision to make her immortal like himself. Now in 1984, Collette finds her life upended by the arrival of a gifted child from a troubled home, the return of a stalking presence from her past, and her own mysteriously growing hunger.

Combining brilliant prose with breathtaking suspense, The God of Endings serves as a larger exploration of the human condition in all its complexity, asking us the most fundamental question: is life in this world a gift or a curse?