Buxton Books Presents Michelle Maryk in conversation with Stacy Willingham

Buxton Books is excited to welcome Michelle Maryk to the bookstore to celebrate her debut novel, The Found Object Society. Maryk will be in conversation with New York Times bestselling (and local!) author Stacy Willingham.

On Wednesday, February 18, debut novelist Michelle Maryk joins us in the bookstore for a conversation with beloved local New York Times bestselling author Stacy Willingham. Together, they will discuss the writing of Maryk's first book, The Found Object Society, just a week after it publishes. 

Part time-travel, part suspense, The Found Object Society follows Greta Davenport, a woman who is invited to a mysterious society whose members can select an object and relive the final moments of the person who died holding it. What follows is an exploration of how grief and the choices we make in its aftermath can change the course of our lives.

This is a multi-POV, episodic novel, perfect for fans of Matt Haig's The Midnight Library and genre-bending fiction.

Get your tickets now to join us! 

About The Found Object Society:

An atmospheric speculative suspense novel following a mysterious society offering its members the chance to relive the death of another person—and the self-destructive woman determined to uncover its secrets

This ambitious, genre-bending debut is perfect for fans of time-travel fiction including Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library and Gareth Brown’s The Book of Doors

For twenty years, Greta Davenport has lived with the guilt of surviving the accident that killed her parents. She’s tested the limits of her own mortality ever since, but little gives her the dopamine rush she craves. Not until the night she almost drunkenly crashes her car into a tree, and a peculiar blank card slides under her front door—an invitation to the Found Object Society. What she discovers there is beyond comprehension: an opulent, subterranean playground filled with aisles of objects from different eras and regions of the world. Pick an object and go on a voyage to relive the final moments of the person who died holding it, along with an unparalleled, irreplicable high. Greta’s hooked, but she can't quiet her questions about the society and its enigmatic creators, the answers to which have implications far beyond her growing dependence on the voyages. Death is addictive, and what she uncovers will put her entire life into question.

A fever dream of a novel with episodic, time-traveling chapters told from multiple points of view, The Found Object Society examines the depraved whims of the ultrarich and the breadth of unresolved trauma—all while asking how grief and the choices we make in its aftermath can change the course of our lives. Michelle Maryk’s wholly original and ambitious debut opens an impeccably wrought speculative world of greed, power, and destiny.

About Michelle Maryk:

Michelle Maryk graduated from Cornell University with a degree in English and attended the Yale Writer’s Workshop. For the better part of twenty-five years, she’s been a successful voiceover, on-camera commercial, and comedic actor, and she is a dual Swedish and US citizen. The Found Object Society is her debut novel.

About Stacy Willingham: 

Stacy Willingham is the New York Times, USA Today and internationally bestselling author of psychological suspense. Her books include A Flicker in the Dark, All the Dangerous Things, Only If You're Lucky and Forget Me Not.

Her debut, A Flicker in the Dark, has sold over one million copies in North America alone. It was the winner of Strand Magazine's Best Debut Award and a finalist for the Book of the Month's Book of the Year award, Goodreads Choice Best Debut award, Goodreads Choice Best Mystery & Thriller award, and ITW's Best First Novel award. Her work has been translated in more than thirty languages.

Before turning to fiction, she was a copywriter and brand strategist for various marketing agencies. She earned her B.A. in magazine journalism from the University of Georgia and M.F.A. in writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

She currently lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with her husband, daughter, and dog.