What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?

The Promise of Lost Things – Winner of the YA Silver IPPY medal. A medium desperate to save his town, a grieving brother wanting revenge, and a girl who’s decided to end ghosts once and for all, converge in the town of St. Hilaire, where the spirits of the dead roam the streets and there’s no such thing as resting in peace.

Prelude for Lost Souls – Three friends must define themselves in a town where everyone speaks to spirits. A story of choosing your own path, the families we create for ourselves, and facing the ghosts of your past.

We Are Lost and Found – A multiple award winner (including Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children’s Books of the Year, American Library Association’s Best Books of 2020),, We Are Lost and Found is a music-soaked dive into New York City in 1983 in which 16 year-old Michael must navigate friendship and first love under the growing storm of the earliest days of the AIDS crisis. A poignant, heartbreaking, uplifting, and compelling story about three friends coming-of-age in the early 1980’s as they struggle to forge their own paths in the face of fear of the unknown.

Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?

The Promise of Lost Things is for those readers who want to connect with introspective characters, be immersed in an atmospheric world (close to our own only with ghosts) and explore the intersection of love and loss. It’s the companion book to Prelude for Lost Souls (although you don’t need to have read that first) and set in the same town filled with those who spend their lives as mediums.

Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?

Promise of Lost Things is set in a fictionalized version of a town in upstate New York where people make their living contacting ghosts for curious visitors. The idea came from an episode of the tv show Mysteries at the Museum.

Is this your first time participating in Kentucky Book Festival? If yes – what are you looking forward to the most? If you’ve participated before – what was your favorite experience at the Festival?

The Kentucky Book Festival always offers a wonderful opportunity to hear from a diverse group of authors in a lovely and energized setting.

Over the years, Helene Dunbar has worked as a drama critic, journalist, and marketing manager, and has written articles on diverse topics. In The Promise of Lost Things, the spirits of the dead roam the streets and there’s no such thing as resting in peace.