Area resident Hester Young will be launching The Gates of Evangeline (G.P. Putnam’s $29.95), her debut novel, Wednesday, September 2, at 7 p.m., at the Princeton Public Library. The first in a planned trilogy, the book is about a grieving mother whose dark visions bring to light secrets that affect those around her. 

In a starred review Publishers Weekly called The Gates of Evangeline “haunting, heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful….Young handles the spectral elements with restraint as her tremendously sympathetic heroine seeks to build a new life after death.” According to Kirkus Reviews, “the hothouse atmosphere of Evangeline and the tortuous and tangled motives of its denizens make for an enjoyable puzzle box of a mystery. An eerie but inviting debut.”

Jedediah Berry, author of the Hammett-prize winning The Manual of Detection, writes, “In Hester Young’s haunted Louisiana, the ghostly labyrinth of the past opens its great doors to deliver up a lush gothic thriller. The Gates of Evangeline is a darkly marvelous debut, a classic whodunnit stitched with otherworldly chills.”

Ms. Young, who often writes at the library, holds a master’s degree in English with a creative writing concentration from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Before turning to writing full-time, she worked as a teacher in Arizona and New Hampshire. She lives in Lawrenceville, with her husband and their two children.

All Princeton Public Library programs are free and open to the public. If programs require registration, preference is given to library cardholders. The physically challenged should contact the library at (609) 924-9529 48 hours before any program with questions about special accommodations.

For more information, visit www.princetonlibrary.org.