Third Place Books is delighted to welcome Portland author Chelsea Bieker to our Seward Park store! Bieker will be launching her new novel, Madwoman, called “the rare kind of book that lives in your bones, as riveting as it is intimate” by Ashley Audrain (The Push). This event is free and open to the public.

For important updates, registration is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

For accessibility inquiries, please contact [email protected]

Having trouble registering? See Eventbrite’s troubleshooting FAQ here.

About Madwoman. . .

The world is not made for mothers.
Yet mothers made the world…

Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to breach the surface, Clove (if that is really her name) focuses on finding the right supplement, the right gratitude meditation.

But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun. As we race between her precarious present-day life in Portland, Oregon and her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise with her mother and father, Clove is forced to finally unravel the defining day of her life. How did she survive that day, and what will it take to end the cycle of violence? Will the truth undo her, or could it ultimately save her?

Chelsea Bieker is the author of the debut novel Godshot, which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and named a Barnes & Noble Pick of the Month. Her story collection, Heartbroke, won the California Book Award and was a New York Times “Best California Book of 2022.” She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, as well as residencies at MacDowell and Tin House. Raised in Hawaii and California, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children. (Photo credit: Wondra)

About Third Place Books

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle’s Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.