KATHERINE HALL PAGE
Monday, Nov 2, 2009 from 2PM to 4PM at Just Books - Katherine Hall Page "The Body in The Sleigh" - Book Signing
The Fairchild family is spending Christmas on Sanpere Island in Maine's Penobscot Bay while the Reverend Thomas Fairchild recuperates from surgery. His wife, Faith, is rejoicing in the rare holiday family time together, watching ice boaters, snowshoeing, and doing plenty of reading in front of the fire. But her high spirits are dampened when she discovers the body of a young woman in an antique sleigh in front of the Sanpere Historical Society. The teenage victim, Norah, was a drug addict who apparently died by her own hand. Meanwhile, Mary Bethany, a local spinster who raises goats, happens upon a newborn baby boy lying in the manger of her barn on Christmas Eve. The only clue to his identity is a note in the basket asking her to take care of him. Although she wishes to keep the infant, Mary enlists Faith's help in finding the mother. As Faith seeks answers, she soon finds that the truth behind Norah's troubled existence is connected to what appears to be a timeless Christmas story - and that just as death and life are intertwined on Sanpere, so are evil and redemptive goodness.
Katherine Hall Page was born and grew up in New Jersey , graduating from Livingston High School . Her father was the Executive Director of The Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation and her mother was an artist. Page has an older brother and a younger sister. Early on the family developed a love of the Maine coast, spending summer vacations on Deer Isle. She received her BA from Wellesley College , majoring in English and went on to a Masters in Secondary Education from Tufts and a Doctorate in Administration, Public Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard. College had brought her to Massachusetts and she continues to reside there. Before her career as a full-time writer, Ms. Page taught at the high school level for many years. She developed a program for adolescents with special emotional needs, a school within a school model, that dealt with issues of truancy, substance abuse, and family relationships. Those five years in particular were rich ones for her. This interest in individuals and human behavior later informed her writing.
Married for thirty-two years to Professor Alan Hein, an experimental psychologist at MIT, the couple have a twenty-four-year-old son. It was during her husband's sabbatical year in France after the birth of their son that Ms. Page wrote her first mystery, The Body in the Belfry, 1991 Agatha Award winner for Best First Mystery Novel. The fifteenth in the series, The Body in the Snowdrift , won the 2006 Agatha Award for Best Mystery Novel. Ms. Page was also awarded the 2001 Agatha for Best Short Story for "The Would-Be Widower" in the Malice Domestic X collection (Avon Books). She was an Edgar nominee for her juvenile mystery, Christie & Company Down East. The Body in the Bonfire was an Agatha nominee in 2003. Page's short story, "The Two Mary's" was an Agatha nominee in 2004. The Body in the Lighthouse (2003) was one of three nominees for The Mary Higgins Clark Award. The seventeenth in the series, The Body in the Gallery, will be published by William Morrow in April, 2008.
Descended from Norwegian-Americans on her mother's side and New Englanders on her father's, Ms. Page grew up listening to all sorts of stories. She remains an unabashed eavesdropper and will even watch your slides or home movies to hear your narration. Her books are the product of all the strands of her life and she plans to keep weaving.
