SUSAN BECKHAM ZURENDA taught English for thirty-three years at the college and high school level. She is the author of the Southern literary novel, Bells for Eli,which received several awards including first place for Best First Book—Fiction in the 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Zurenda has won awards for her short fiction, including the South Carolina Fiction Prize, twice. The author lives in Spartanburg, SC.
A searing and compassionate exploration set in present-day Pawleys Island, and 1990s rural Oklahoma
When author Shannon Irwin meets Grace Ferrall and agrees to interview the younger woman and tell the story of Grace’s forced child marriage and harrowing youth, these very different women begin an unlikely relationship. Grace’s ordeal starts in Louisiana, with an alcoholic father and a mother whose mood swings are often intolerable. When Grace is barely fifteen and living in Oklahoma, her mother manipulates her into marrying Rafe, a scurrilous, older man. Pregnant at sixteen, Grace is soon living in a truck near a river in Oregon with Rafe’s cult-like family.
After years Grace manages to escape, but her newfound freedom is fragile, and she is forced to make impossible choices to protect herself and her two daughters. Trust builds between the women as Grace shares details she has never told anyone, while Shannon, with a daughter Grace’s age, and ridden with guilt about her former marriage, reveals the dysfunction in her own life and the remorse she suffers.
Date: Friday, October 30th 2026
Location: To be Announced
Time: 10:45AM-1:00PM
Your Ticket Includes:
Guaranteed seating via our curated seating chart (no rushing for a spot).
An intimate talk and Q&A with Susan Beckham Zurenda.
A multi-course salad, lunch entrée, dessert, and beverages provided by the venue.
A dedicated window for personalized book signing and a brief meet-and-greet with the author.
The Opportunity to purchase a signed copy of No Way Out But Through.
Refund Policy- Thank you for signing up for an event at Litchfield Books! Cards will be charged upon time of ticket purchase. We will refund your ticket, excluding our merchant banker convenience fee and credit card reversal fee. Cancellations are accepted up until seven days prior to the event date. If the cancellation is past the seven days you will not be offered a refund but you will be offered the signed copy of the event book.