Lunch with Joyce Maynard

Description

Join us at Froggy's French Cafe for a luncheon with author Joyce Maynard as she discusses her new novel:

IN WONDERLAND

Wednesday, April 15th, 2026, 11:30am-1:30pm

306 Green Bay Road

Highwood, IL 60040

$75 includes lunch and a copy of the book (additional copies on hand for sale)

Please call to RSVP: 847-234-4420

In one golden summer, Frances trades her working-class world for an elite Maine lakeside estate—where privilege and betrayal turn into a deadly game.

Frances believes she’s found a ticket to paradise when a wealthy couple hires her for the summer as their mother’s helper at their lakefront summer home in Maine. The vintage wooden boats, the days at the country club, a shiny new bicycle, and a tennis racquet—suddenly Frances has everything her modest childhood lacked. Best of all, she gets to spend the summer with Forrest Emerson, her father's charismatic childhood friend who escaped their neighborhood when he married into money.

But below the glittering surface of Lake Catherine, nothing is what it seems. When Forrest’s wife, Regina, pulls Frances into her private obsession, the girl finds herself witness to the intimate secrets of adult lives. As the summer heat builds, so do the tensions within Wonderland’s walls. By Labor Day, a death will shatter the seemingly perfect family, leaving Frances to question everything she thought she knew about privilege, power, and the price of belonging.

Joyce Maynard is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen previous novels and five books of nonfiction, as well as the syndicated column Domestic Affairs. Her memoir, At Home in the World, has been translated into eighteen languages. Her novels To Die For and Labor Day were both adapted for film. She is a fellow of MacDowell and Yaddo artists' residencies.

When not running her hotel/retreat center, Casa Paloma, in Guatemala—where she mentors women in the telling of their stories—she makes her home in Northern California and in the state of New Hampshire.