avg_rating: 3.66
name: Susan  Sherman
about: Susan Sherman is a former Chairman of the Art Department of Whittier College, a small liberal arts university. She is also the co-creator of “That’s So Raven,” Chosen for "Great New Reads in Fiction" by People Magazine, Susan Sherman's debut novel, The Little Russian, has garnered starred reviews in Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, and has captured the hearts of readers with its tribute to the too-often unsung heroines of history. Her second book, IF YOU ARE THERE, set in the early 1900's is about a young Polish girl, Lucia Rutkowska, who escapes the textile mills in Warsaw and sets off for Paris to make something of herself. Through a series of bizarre events she finds work in a home run by two scientists consumed by their Susan Sherman is a former Chairman of the Art Department of Whittier College, a small liberal arts university. She is also the co-creator of “That’s So Raven,” Chosen for "Great New Reads in Fiction" by People Magazine, Susan Sherman's debut novel, The Little Russian, has garnered starred reviews in Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, and has captured the hearts of readers with its tribute to the too-often unsung heroines of history. Her second book, IF YOU ARE THERE, set in the early 1900's is about a young Polish girl, Lucia Rutkowska, who escapes the textile mills in Warsaw and sets off for Paris to make something of herself. Through a series of bizarre events she finds work in a home run by two scientists consumed by their groundbreaking research, Marie and Pierre Curie. Lucia soon bonds with her eccentric employers, watching as their work with radioactive materials draws interest first from the scientific community and then from the whole world. Soon, all of Paris is alight with the news of an impending visit from Eusapia Palladino, the world’s most famous medium. Spiritualism and the series of sittings offered by Palladino draw great interest from the Parisian scientific community. It is through her now famous employers that Lucia attends Eusapia’s gatherings and eventually falls under the medium’s spell, leaving the Curie household to travel with her to Italy. Ultimately, Lucia is placed directly in the cross hairs of faith versus science–which is more real, the glowing substances of the Curie laboratory or the glowing visions that surround the medium during her séance? Lucia’s journey will threaten her faith, her allegiance to the Curies, and her budding love with a muckraking journalist seeking to expose them all. If You Are There is a compelling, page turning novel that draws upon real characters and events to detail its examination of a young woman torn between the beliefs she was born with and the scientific realities blooming all around her. If You Are There has been named a must read in January by purewow.com and one of the top seven books to read in January by the Chicago Review of Book ...more