Moonlight Healers with Elizabeth Becker

Book People welcomes Pushcart Prize nominee Elizabeth Becker on Saturday, June 21st at 11 am.

Elizabeth with discuss her new book Moonlight Healers.

An emotionally powerful debut with a magical twist, set between WWII France and present-day Appalachia, about generations of women in a family, their secret healing abilities, and the mysterious consequences they must contend with when they use their skills on someone they love.

For generations, the Winston women have possessed an unspoken magical gift: they can heal with the touch of a hand. It’s a tradition they’ve always had to practice in secret, in the moonlight hours, when the fireflies dance and the whippoorwill birds sing.

But not every healer has rightfully passed on this knowledge to her descendants, and for young Louise Winston, the discovery of her abilities comes in less-than-ideal circumstances—she brings her best friend back from death following an accident, the day after he professed his long-held feelings for her, five days before she’s supposed to move away.

Desperate for answers, and to avoid this new reality between them, Louise escapes to her grandmother’s lush Appalachian orchard. There, she uncovers her family’s hidden history in a tattered journal, stemming back to her brave great-grandmother who illicitly healed Allied soldiers in war-torn France. But just as Louise begins to embrace her unique legacy, she learns that it can also come with a mysterious cost. And with a life hanging in the balance, she’ll be forced to make the most impossible of choices…

Spanning eighty years, The Moonlight Healers is a deeply empathetic, heartfelt novel about mothers and daughters, life and death, and the beautiful resilience of love.

Elizabeth Becker is a former pediatric nurse and Pushcart Prize-nominated writer.

She has worked as a correspondent for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times Dispatch, and her award-winning essays have been featured on national sites including Motherwell, Scary Mommy, Motherly, Swamp Pink (formerly Crazy Horse), and Winning Writers.

She received a degree in creative writing from the College of Charleston before earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband and four young children.