Arts

Romance and pot etiquette featured at Village Square Booksellers

BELLOWS FALLS — Village Square Booksellers in Bellows Falls is set to welcome a romance novelist and a maven of marijuana etiquette.

Local novelist Eileen Charbonneau will share her knowledge of and love for romance novels on Aug. 17 - Bookstore Romance Day - at 11 a.m.

This is a day designed to give independent bookstores an opportunity to celebrate romance fiction - its books, readers, and writers - and to strengthen the relationships between bookstores and the romance community.

Charbonneau's historical novels are infused with the struggles of lovers. Her first novel, The Ghosts of Stony Clove, won the Rita Award from Romance Writers of America as Young Adult Novel of the Year.

Two of her adult historical romances, The Randolph Legacy and Rachel LeMoyne, were Rita Award finalists as well as winning acclaim as The Washington Post's “Best 5 Romances of the Year” and a Hearts of the West Award.

Her recent romantic suspense novel Watch Over Me, set during World War II, won a Chatelaine Award for Women's Fiction. Charbonneau will talk about why she's a romance novel reader and offer suggestions for making life more romantic.

Then, at 2 p.m., Village Square Booksellers will welcome Vermont author Lizzie Post - great-great-granddaughter of Emily Post and co-president of America's most respected etiquette brand - to discuss her latest book, Higher Etiquette.

In Higher Etiquette, Post explores and celebrates the wide world of legalized marijuana, combining cannabis culture's long-established norms with the Emily Post Institute's tried-and-true principles.

Post is co-president of The Emily Post Institute. She has been an Emily Post etiquette author and spokesperson for 10 years and a cannabis supporter for 20 years. She co-hosts the Awesome Etiquette podcast, and produces both EPI's e-learning program and the Etiquette Bites video series.

As a member of the youngest generation of Posts, Lizzie is a popular source of advice on modern manners for millennials.

For book and event reservations, call 802-463-9404.

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