Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray - The Personal Librarian

About THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN:

In THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, Belle da Costa Greene is given the opportunity of a lifetime, to be the personal librarian to prominent financier and banker John Pierpont Morgan. The newly built Pierpont Morgan Library is hers to curate, and she soon becomes a fixture in the art world and J.P. Morgan’s personal confidant. With impeccable taste, shrewd negotiation skills, and an unparalleled fashion sense, Belle takes New York City by storm and helps Morgan build a world-class collection.

All the while, Belle is hiding a secret that has the power to destroy the reputation she worked so hard to forge—a secret that would bar her from the very institution she ran. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener, daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. In order to protect herself from post-Civil War society, which was still gripped by rampant racism, she abandons her name and fabricates a white identity that will allow her to access the opportunities she deserves.

But as she gets closer to J.P. Morgan, experiences her first romance with a fellow curator, and builds the Morgan Library to international prominence, Belle finds herself torn between her desire for success and her yearning to be herself. Surrounded by the expectations of others and the harsh realities of American society, Belle must decide, once and for all, who she will be.

www.authormariebenedict.com

www.victoriachristophermurray.com

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator. A graduate of Boston College and the Boston University School of Law, she is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. All have been translated into multiple languages. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Victoria Christopher Murray is an acclaimed author with more than one million books in print. She has written more than twenty novels, including Stand Your Ground, an NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Fiction and a Library Journal Best Book of the Year. She holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.