Meet author Jeffrey L. Richards at the PRIDE Block Party!

We Are Only Ghosts: A stunning, lyrical, and emotionally powerful novel of historical fiction spanning World War II-era Europe to 1960s New York City, We Are Only Ghosts is a haunting portrait of survival, loss, love, and redemption in all its human complexity.

New York City, 1968: The customers at Café Marie don’t come just for the excellent coffee and pastries. They come for the sophisticated ambiance, and the illusion of being somewhere other than a bustling, exhausting city. Headwaiter Charles Ward helps create that illusion through impeccable service-unobtrusive, nearly invisible, yet always watchful. It’s a skill Charles honed as a young Jewish boy in war-torn Europe, when avoiding attention might mean the difference between life and death. But even then, one man saw him all too clearly-a Nazi officer who was both his savior and tormentor. At seventeen, Charles was deported to Auschwitz with his family. There he was singled out by Obersturmführer Berthold Werden, who hid him in his home. Their entanglement produced a tortured affection mixed with hatred that flares to life again, decades later, when Berthold walks into Café Marie. Drawn back into Berthold’s orbit, Charles is forced to revisit the pain and the brief, undeniable pleasures of the life he once knew. And if he acts on his growing hunger for revenge, will he lose his only tether to the past-the only other witness to who he was and everything he endured-or find peace at last?

Jeffrey L. Richards is an author and playwright. Originally from Oklahoma, he moved to New York nearly three decades ago and began writing seriously while enrolled in New York University. He now lives in New Jersey with his rescue dog, Andi, and can be found online at JeffreyLRichards.com.

Books will be for sale at this event. Please register!

The PRIDE Block Party is held at the West Avon Congregational Church, 280 County Club Rd., Avon CT 06001–directly across the street from the library.