Books by Julianna Baggott

The Prince of Fenway Park

by Julianna Baggott

It's been eighty-six years since the Red Sox won a World Series. Eighty-six years cursed.
Twelve-year-old Oscar Egg be-lieves he is cursed, just like the Red Sox. His real parents didn't want him, and now his adopted mom has dumped him off to live with his strange, sickly dad.
But there's something Oscar doesn't know. The Boston Red Sox really are cursed, and not just because they sold Babe Ruth in 1919. Someone deliberately jinxed the team, and the secret to breaking the Curse lies deep below Fenway Park, with Oscar's dad and the Cursed Creatures, a group that has been doomed to live out their miserable lives below Fenway until the Curse is broken.
Oscar knows he can be the one to break the Curse, allowing the Red Sox to finally win the World Series and setting the Cursed Creatures free. But some of the creatures are angry. Some don't want the Curse broken. Some want Oscar, and the Red Sox, to fail and remain cursed forever.

Compulsions of Silkworms and Bees: Poems

by Julianna Baggott

“Part primer, part credo, part arm-swinging gambol, this wonderful book is resonant with wit and insight.”―Linda Bierds

Compulsions of Silkworms and Bees takes up the tradition of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, but on poetry's own terms. At first glance, Baggott's candid counsel can be seen as a manual on writing poetry, written in poems. As the book unfolds, however, these poems take on the larger landscape of love and loss, the rigors of living fully, and the intricate, mysterious territory of our fragile, hardworking souls.

Pure

by Julianna Baggott, Andrew Miller

Julianna Baggott presents her beautifully written, riveting, breakout novel, PURE, the first volume in her new post-apocalypse thriller trilogy.

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Pure

by Julianna Baggott, Andrew Miller

The clearing of a cemetery stokes the fires of revolution in eighteenth-century France in this Costa Prize–winning “novel of ideas disguised as a ghost story” (The New York Times).

Paris, 1785. An ambitious young engineer, Jean-Baptiste Baratte arrives in Paris charged with emptying the overflowing cemetery of Les Innocents, an ancient site whose stench is poisoning the neighborhood’s air and water. A self-styled modern man of reason, Baratte sees his work as a chance to clear away the burden of history. But he soon suspects that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own fate―and the demise of the social order. As unrest against the court of Louis XVI mounts, the engineer realizes that the future he had planned may no longer be the one he wants. His assignment sets him on a path of discovery and desire, as well as relentless labor, assault, and sudden death.

“Pure is a compelling, timely novel―with its throb of revolution, of ordinary people arising in anger―a narrative that takes death as its subject yet races with life.”―The Guardian

Pure

by Julianna Baggott, Andrew Miller

Julianna Baggott presents her beautifully written, riveting, breakout novel, PURE, the first volume in her new post-apocalypse thriller trilogy.

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Which Brings Me to You: A Novel in Confessions

by Julianna Baggott, Steve Almond

Two rambunctious, romantic flameouts. One boring wedding. One heated embrace in a quiet coatroom. This is not exactly the recipe for true love. John and Jane’s lusty encounter at a friend’s wedding isn’t really the beginning of anything with any weight to it; even they know that. When they manage to pull back, it occurs to them that they might start this whole thing over properly. They might try getting to know one another first, through letters.

What follows is a series of traded confessions—of their messy histories, their past errors, their big loves, their flaws, and their passions. Each love affair, confessed as honestly as possible, reveals the ways in which Jane and John have grown and changed—or not changed—over the years; the people they’ve hurt, the ones still bruised. The ones who bruised them. Where all of this soul-baring will take them is the burning question behind every letter—a question that can only be answered when they meet again, finally, in the flesh.

Burn

by Julianna Baggott

The stunning conclusion to the trilogy that began with Pure, recommended by People for those who loved The Hunger Games

With his father now dead, Partridge has assumed leadership of the Dome, one of the last few refuges from the ravaged wastelands of the outside world. At first, Partridge is intent on exposing his father's lies, taking down the rigid order of the Dome, and uniting its citizens with the disfigured Wretches on the outside. But from his new position of power, things are far more complex and potentially dangerous than he could have ever imagined.

On the outside, a band of survivors faces a treacherous journey to Dome. Pressia carries with her the key to salvation. If she can get it to the Dome, the Wretches could one day be healed and everyone might be able to put the horrors of the past behind them. Bradwell, the revolutionary, cannot forgive so easily. Despite Pressia's pleas, he is determined to bring down the Dome and hold its citizens accountable for leaving the rest of the world to burn. El Capitan, the former rebel leader, wants to help Pressia save as many lives as possible--but he's struggling to reconcile his newfound compassion with his vicious past.

As former allies become potential enemies, the fate of the world is more uncertain than ever. Will humanity fall to destruction? Or will a new world rise from the ashes?

Lizzie Borden in Love Poems in Women's Voices

by Julianna Baggott

Women’s voices offering an intimate view into women’s lives

Lizzie Borden in Love, a collection of poems by national bestselling author Julianna Baggott, offers poignant commentary in the voices of women as varied as Mary Todd Lincoln and Monica Lewinsky. The poems often focus on a particular moment in life: Katherine Hepburn discovers the dead body of her brother in an attic, or painter Mary Cassatt mourns the failure of her eyesight. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes ecstatic, the poems in this collection never fail the trust of the subjects of their intimate portrayals

Fuse (Pure Trilogy)

by Julianna Baggott

Bestselling author Julianna Baggott presents the second volume in her new post-apocalyptic, dystopian thriller trilogy.

We want our son returned.

This girl is proof that we can save you all. If you ignore our plea, we will kill our hostages one at a time.

To be a Pure is to be perfect, untouched by Detonations that scarred the earth, and sheltered inside the paradise that is the Dome. But Partridge escaped to the outside world, where Wretches struggle to survive amid smoke and ash. Now, at the command of Partridge's father, the Dome is unleashing nightmare after nightmare upon the Wretches in an effort to get him back.

At Partridge's side is a small band of those united against the Dome: Lyda, the warrior; Bradwell, the revolutionary; El Capitan, the guard; and Pressia, the young woman whose mysterious past ties her to Partridge in ways she never could have imagined. Long ago a plan was hatched that could mean the earth's ultimate doom. Now only Partridge and Pressia can set things right.

To save millions of innocent lives, Partridge must risk his own by returning to the Dome and facing his most terrifying challenge. And Pressia, armed only with a mysterious Black Box containing a set of cryptic clues, must travel to the very ends of the earth, to a place where no map can guide her. If they succeed, the world will be saved. But should they fail, humankind will pay a terrible price . . .

The Seventh Book of Wonders: A Novel

by Julianna Baggott

"A mesmerizing tale of star-crossed love and of the dark secrets in a fracturing family . . . This novel is so full of wonders that it leaves you haunted, amazed, and, like every great read, irrevocably changed." -- Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

The reclusive Harriet Wolf, revered author and family matriarch, has a final confession: a love story. Years after her death, as her family comes together one last time, the mystery of Harriet's life hangs in the balance. Does the truth lie in the rumored final book of the series that made Harriet a world-famous writer, or will her final confession be lost forever?

Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders tells the moving story of the unforgettable Wolf women in four distinct voices: the mysterious Harriet, who, until now, has never revealed the secrets of her past; her fiery, overprotective daughter, Eleanor; and her two grown granddaughters -- Tilton, the fragile yet exuberant younger sister, who's become a housebound hermit, and Ruth, the older sister, who ran away at sixteen and never looked back.

When Eleanor is hospitalized, Ruth decides it's time to do right by a pact she made with Tilton long ago: to return home and save her sister. Meanwhile, Harriet whispers her true life story to the reader. It's a story that spans the entire twentieth century and is filled with mobsters, outcasts, a lonesome lion, and a home for wayward women. It's also a tribute to her lifelong love of the boy she met at the Maryland School for Feeble-minded Children.

Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders, Julianna Baggott's most sweeping and mesmerizing novel yet, offers a profound meditation on motherhood and sisterhood, as well as on the central importance of stories. It is a novel that affords its characters that rare chance we all long for -- the chance to reimagine the stories of our lives while there's still time.

Instructions, Abject & Fuming (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry)

by Julianna Baggott

In this inventive collection, Julianna Baggott invites readers to reconsider basic assumptions about language, faith, motherhood, and love. With a sharply honed voice featuring parentheticals that often comment on and sometimes undercut what has come before, these poems whirl through contemporary America, engaging with topics as diverse and timely as Russian mail-order brides, Internet bullying, and school shootings.

Alongside her cultural commentary, the speaker frankly confronts love and sex, as well as the beauty and brutality of having children. Still other poems reflect questions and considerations of faith: the speaker ponders St. Thomas in a pet store and imagines Jesus explaining to God how it feels to have a body.

Baggott’s use of obsolete Old English words subverts common language and creates new ways of interrogating the world around us. There is heartache on these pages, but Baggott also offers humor, such as a complaint about a lover’s eating habits or an extended discourse on a baby’s rattle. Baggott’s latest proves to be a rollicking book sui generis.