What is Donna Jo Napoli reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Donna Jo Napoli, author of Hidden.

One of the books she tagged:

The Secret Life of Violet Grant by Beatrice Williams.

Williams' book is marvelous in its organization. We are in the heads of two main characters where one is in the 1960s and one is decades earlier. The character in the pre-WWI period winds up united with the one in the 1960s through the shear tenacity of the younger woman. I loved the two points of view -- they gave insights into the sexual and social politics of their time as well as...[read on]

About Hidden, from the publisher:

A young girl must learn to survive and find her family against all odds in this heartbreaking companion to Hush from award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli.

Lost at sea when her sister is taken captive on a marauding slave ship, Brigid is far removed from the only life she knew as a princess and the pampered daughter of an Irish king.

Now Brigid has few choices. Alone and abandoned, she disguises herself as a boy and vows to find her innocent sister taken into slavery. Through her search many years pass and she grows from being a child to a woman, tough Brigid does not give up. She lives from the land, meets friend and foe along the way, and gains a reputation as a woman thought to be fierce enough to conquer men. It is not fierceness that guides her but the love of isster and the longing for her family to be united. One day she finds her way, knowing that her only real power comes from within herself.

Based on the legend of the first Norse woman pirate, award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli has told a remarkable survival story spanning years and continents and one that transports and transforms readers.

Visit Donna Jo Napoli's website.

Writers Read: Donna Jo Napoli.

--Marshal Zeringue