John Wiswell + Caitlin Rozakis: Wearing The Lion

Join us for an in-person event with award-winning author John Wiswell for the launch of his new book Wearing The Lion. Joining John in conversation is New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rozakis. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

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ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator. Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at ZXZlbnRzIHwgc3RyYW5kYm9va3MgISBjb20= by June 2 to request.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact .

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"This novel effortlessly ascends to the heights of Mount Olympus. Tough and tender and bittersweet. Wearing the Lion establishes Wiswell firmly on the new fantasy landscape." —T. Kingfisher, Hugo Award-winning author of Nettle & Bone

"Wiswell makes something new and thrilling—and funny and wrenching and tender—out of a very old myth." —Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Book of Love

Nebula Award-winning author of Someone You Can Build a Nest In John Wiswell brings a humanizing and humorous touch to the Hercules story, forever changing the way we understand the man behind the myth—and the goddess reluctantly bound to him

Sometimes a goddess's worst enemy is her biggest fan.

Heracles, hero of Greece, dedicates all his feats to the goddess Hera. If only he knew that his very face is an insult to her...as he is yet another child that Hera’s dipshit husband, Zeus, had out of wedlock.

“Auntie Hera” loathes every minute of Heracles’ devotion, until she snaps and causes an unspeakably tragic accident: the death of Heracles' children. Plunged into grief and desperate for revenge, Heracles is determined to find the god that did this.

Wracked with guilt and desperate to save face, Hera distracts Heracles with monster-slaying quests, only to find that he is too traumatized to enact more violence. Instead, Heracles cares for the Nemean lion, bonds with the Lernaean hydra, and heeds the Ceryneian hind.

Each challenge adds a new monster to Heracles' newfound family. A family that just might lay siege to Mount Olympos.

John Wiswell is a disabled writer who lives where New York keeps all its trees. He won the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Short Fiction for "Open House on Haunted Hill," and the 2022 Locus Award for Best Novelette for "That Story isn't the Story." He has also been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. His fiction has been translated into ten languages, and has appeared in venues such as Uncanny Magazine, the LeVar Burton Reads podcast, Tordotcom, Nature Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He can be found around the internet through his Linktree: https://linktr.ee/johnwiswell. 

New York Times best-selling author Caitlin Rozakis writes fantasy with a satirical twist and a cozy heart. Her debut novel is Dreadful, but turned out not to be dreadful at all. Her contemporary romance novella Leah’s Perfect Christmas, written as Catherine Beck, was adapted as the Hallmark Channel Original Movie Leah’s Perfect Gift. Her next book, The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, releases May 2025.

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