about the book
It is the 1950s, and seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine of New Orleans is the daughter of a prostitute. She works in a book store and dreams of going on to college, but no one in her acquaintance believes she can do it. How could she? She’s the daughter of a prostitute.
Josie’s mom has delusions of grandeur, too, wanting to go to Hollywood and become a star. But the men she attracts to her “business” will never be able to give her what she wants.
Just as Josie begins working on a plan to realize her dream, a murder investigation in the Big Easy finds its way to her bookstore. Josie’s loyalty to her mother and her own conscience have embroiled her in the underworld of the city.
A quest for the truth is underway in Josie’s world, and she won’t rest until she finds it.
about the author
Ruta Sepetys (pronounced Roota Suh-pettys) was raised in Michigan, the youngest of three kids in a home of artists, music lovers, and readers. She headed off to college to become an opera singer, but ended up studying international finance at Hillsdale College as well as at the Centre d’etudes Europeannes and the Institute Commercial de Nancy in France.
After graduation, Ruta moved to Los Angeles where she launched Sepetys Entertainment Group, a business that managed big-name musicians. After thirteen years of coping with fires, earthquakes, and horrible traffic, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
There she met a “beautiful” man whom she married and who later convinced her to write a novel—after all she loves to sit, can be very melodramatic, and is passionate about paper!
Between Shades of Gray was her first novel, and it was inspired by her grandfather who, as a young boy, escaped Stalin’s Baltic genocide. For research, she traveled to Lithuania where she discovered her grandfather’s family all thought he had perished during Stalin’s rampage. Ruta interviewed survivors, psychologists, historians, and government officials. She even spent time on a deportation train and was locked into a Soviet Prison! For her work, the president of Lithuania bestowed on her the Cross of the Knight, making her “Lady Ruta.”
Out of the Easy, her second novel, was inspired by her love of New Orleans, her interest in historical scandals, and the idea that our imperfections make us most perfect. Her two books have been published in 45 countries and she plans to tour all of them!
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : Thirst of Fiction
Also by Ruta Sepetys:
Between Shades of Gray. Philomel. 2011.
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