![\"Author](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/sut-l-books-beatriz-williams-01.jpg\")
Author Beatriz Williams will discuss her new novel \u201cUnder the Stars\u201d Sept. 15 and 16 at two events hosted by Warwick\u2019s bookstore in La Jolla. (Sydney Williams)<\/p>\nBy design, Beatriz Williams lives mostly in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel more comfortable in the past than in the present day,\u201d the New York Times bestselling-author said, speaking in August from the lush backyard of her Connecticut home.<\/p>\n
Author Beatriz Williams will discuss her new novel \u201cUnder the Stars\u201d Sept. 15 and 16 at two events hosted by Warwick\u2019s bookstore in La Jolla. (Sydney Williams)<\/p>\n
She\u2019s now in the midst cross-country tour forher latest book \u201cUnder the Stars,\u201d which will bring her to the Coronado Public Library on Monday and a lunch event with Warwick\u2019s bookstore on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Williams has written dozens of historical fiction novels, featuring characters from America\u2019s Gilded Age in the late 1800s to the tumultuous Cold War in the late 1940s.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the Stars,\u201d published July 29, follows two timelines: one in 1846, the other in 2024. It is set on the fictional Winthrop Island in New England, and features a disgruntled daughter and her famous mother who are connected to a young woman on a steamboat from 200 years in the past. The island in the novel was inspired by Fishers Island in New York, where the very real steamship Atlantic went adrift and veered into the rocky shore in 1846, resulting in an estimated loss of 50 lives \u2014 which is the central event in Williams\u2019 novel.<\/p>\n
Williams recently answered several questions about \u201cUnder the Stars\u201d and other projects. These are excerpts from that conversation.<\/p>\n
Q:<\/strong> Where did the initial idea for this novel come from?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong> This is my fourth novel that I\u2019ve set on Winthrop Island, loosely inspired by the real-life Fishers Island. It\u2019s a very discreet island. I like to say that it\u2019s a bit like \u201cFight Club\u201d \u2014 the first rule of Fishers Island is, we don\u2019t talk about Fishers Island. There\u2019s a theme that runs through all of my books, which is this dialogue between past and present. I\u2019m a history nerd, a history native. Most people would probably agree I feel more comfortable in the past than in the present day. What really interests me is how the choices and the mistakes, the actions that our earlier generations took, kind of reverberate down the generations to affect us in ways seen and unseen. So I was like, OK, if we\u2019re going to return to Winthrop in the modern day, we need to find an interesting historical incident that happened that reverberated down a generation. I discovered this long forgotten but very dramatic steamship accident, the wreck of the steamship Atlantic.<\/p>\n Q:\u00a0<\/strong>In part one, you introduce one of the main characters, writing: \u201cYou will not find my name on any list of passengers aboard the final voyage of the steamship Atlantic, either among the survivors or those who perished. No trace of a woman called Providence Dare exists beyond Thanksgiving of 1846. Nor shall it, except for these pages you now hold in your hands.\u201d So, who is Providence? Is she a real person?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong> She\u2019s a fictional figure. I have a rather large imagination. In the case of Providence Dare, she is a housemaid employed by a very prominent yet fictional artist. He is kind of loosely inspired by this wonderful biography I read about Longfellow, the poet, who is now very, very much forgotten. But I decided I needed some tension on board this ship. So, Providence has fled her household after her employer, the artist, has been found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs. She\u2019s going to start a new life elsewhere, under a new name. But also on board the ship that night is this detective who is charged with apprehending Providence. So there\u2019s this kind of cat and mouse game that goes on.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> Why do you write historical fiction?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong> It was always historical fiction for me. My father is British, and I grew up with, you know, the canon. We bought our clothes in the Sears catalog and saved our money to go to the opera and to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland (Oregon) every year. I was really steeped in these stories about the past. I love trying to understand what made us tick then, and how much of that shared humanity we still hold on to.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> Do you have any current reads that are keeping you motivated?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong> My current read is actually a re-read. It\u2019s from Patrick O\u2019Brian\u2019s Aubrey\/Maturin novels, which is an extraordinary series of 20 books about a Royal Navy captain and his best friend, who\u2019s the ship surgeon. I foolishly have it on my bedside table, thinking I\u2019ll just read a couple chapters before I go to bed, but it\u2019s so compelling.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> Is there anything that you can tease about your book coming out next year?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong> It is also set in the present day on Winthrop Island. The historical part of it \u2014 this is why I was re-reading Patrick O\u2019Brian \u2014 is a pirate story. It\u2019s a buried treasure story taking place during the Great Snow in New England in the winter of 1717, their biggest snowfall ever. The present-day part is inspired by the time I was a football manager (as an undergrad) at Stanford. I happened to be a football manager during the years that Bill Walsh came out of retirement. So I have a story about a football player who commits a shocking act on the field and needs somewhere to hide. I\u2019m very excited for that one.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> Do you have any places on your book tour that you\u2019re particularly excited to visit?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong> There\u2019s definitely places that I love to return to every year. There\u2019s a hotel in Watch Hill, R.I., that overlooks Napatree Beach, which is this point that I loosely based my book \u201cA Hundred Summers\u201d on. It came out 10 or 12 years ago, based during the hurricane of 1938. You can see that from the hotel. You can also see the tip of Fishers Island. But I\u2019m also really excited to return west. I don\u2019t usually go out west on book tour, maybe once every couple of years, so it\u2019s neat to do that. I grew up near Seattle and my mother is from Southern California, like my grandpa was. I went to college in California, so it\u2019s always a pleasure to return. That whole I-5 corridor is like home.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder the Stars\u201d by Beatriz Williams (2025, Ballantine; 368 pages)<\/p>\n Coronado Library and Warwick\u2019s present Beatriz Williams discussing \u2018Under the Stars\u2019<\/p>\n When:<\/strong> 7 p.m. Monday <\/p>\n Where:<\/strong> Coronado Public Library, 640 Orange Ave., Coronado.<\/p>\n Online:<\/strong> Free to attend, preferred seating available with book purchase. warwicks.com\/event\/williams-2025<\/a><\/p>\n Warwicks\u2019 presents Booked for Lunch with Beatriz Williams<\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/sut-l-books-beatriz-williams-02.jpg\")
Book cover for \u201cUnder the Stars\u201d by Beatriz Williams. (Random House)<\/p>\n