Books by Virginia Pye
The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann
Set in Gilded Age Boston,The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann tells the story of a successful woman author of romance and adventure novels who becomes a champion of women’s rights as she takes on the literary establishment and finds her true voice, both on and off the page. Everything changes for Victoria when she goes against her publisher’s expectations and abandons her frivolous style to tell her own story. She loses her income, her husband, and her standing with her publisher as she joins the legions of hard-working women who have been her most faithful readers. As she fights on behalf of these women, her new young Harvard-educated editor becomes her unexpected ally, while he himself dares to become a more liberated, modern gentleman. The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann shows writing and reading as acts of defiance that can liberate us from narrow, constrained lives—and how revision in life and revision on the page are intimately entwined. READ MORE
Shelf Life of Happiness
In these bittersweet, compelling stories, Virginia Pye’s characters long for that most elusive of states: happiness. A young skateboarder reaches across an awesome gap to reconnect with his disapproving father; an elderly painter executes one final, violent gesture to memorialize his work; a newly married writer battles the urge to implode his happy marriage; and a confused young man falls for his best friend’s bride and finally learns to love. In each story, Pye’s characters aim to be better people as they strive for happiness—and some even reap the sweet reward of achieving it. READ MORE
2019 Independent Publisher Book Award
Gold Medal Short Fiction
Dreams of the Red Phoenix
Taking her grandmother’s life as inspiration, the author of the critically acclaimed River of Dust returns with a story set in the dangerous summer of 1937. Widowed American missionary and now single mother Shirley Carson finds herself caught up in the Japanese invasion of North China and the rise of Communism. At first, she finds renewed purpose helping the injured. But as the Japanese take their village, a charismatic Red Army officer requests her help for his soldiers. As other Americans make plans to flee, Shirley must choose: between helping the Chinese Reds by serving as a nurse or escaping the war-ravaged country with her teenage son before it’s too late. READ MORE
River of Dust
On the windswept plains of northwestern China, Mongol bandits swoop down upon an American missionary couple and steal their small child. The Reverend sets out in search of the boy and becomes entangled in the desolate, corrupt countryside of opium dens, sly nomadic warlords and traveling circuses. Grace, his young wife, pregnant with their second child, takes to her sick bed in the mission compound, where visions of her stolen child and lost husband beckon to her from across the plains. In this story of retribution and a clash of cultures, these Americans find their Christian beliefs sorely tested and their concept of fate expanded as their adopted country comes to haunt them, changing not only what they believe, but who they are. READ MORE
