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Popular author with Kansas ties returns to Wichita for latest book

New York Times best-selling author Sarah Penner likes to share the story of how her first manuscript — written while she was working in corporate finance for Koch Industries in Wichita — was received by the publishing world.

It was rejected by 130 agents.

But the Kansas native was determined to make a go of her longtime dream of being a published author.

Agents told her that while the writing was good, it was the premise of the book that needed to change. She had featured two women characters who were pitted against each other and eventually had their issues solved by a male character. In other words, books with male savior characters have been overdone.

Now her books feature strong women characters who take control of their circumstances in what Penner has described as “twisted, subversive, feminist” ways.

It’s certainly an apt description of what happens in “The Lost Apothecary,” where the premise is women helping other women in Georgian London by providing poisons to get rid of the wrong-doing men in their lives. “The Lost Apothecary” was released in hardback in spring 2021 and in paperback a year later. Penner’s debut book reached No. 7 on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list, has been translated into 40 languages and has been optioned by Fox Entertainment.

This month, the now full-time author who lives in Florida is on a book tour for her newly released second book, “The London Séance Society,” that will bring her back to Wichita for a 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, event at the Advanced Reading Library, 711 W. Second St. The reading, which will also be livestreamed on Facebook for virtual guests, is part of the Books to Books Series co-hosted by the Wichita Public Library and Watermark Books & Café. The series celebrates books, literature and the community, according to the co-hosts.

In “The London Séance Society,” Penner again features two strong female characters —the acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire and her understudy Lenna Wickes who are in Victorian London to solve the murders of two individuals with whom they have personal ties.

“I think (strong women) have always existed but in history, it’s been men who have been elevated. These women have been silenced and I love to imagine what kinds of things these women got up to,” Penner said during a recent interview from her Florida home.

Described as having “dark, gothic vibes” by some readers, the book is set during a time when spiritualism — a movement based on the belief that spirits can be conjured and communicated with — was in its heydey. As Penner writes in the author’s notes section, “Parlor-room seances were frequent occurrences, as were public theatrical displays of mediumship and psychic power” in the Victorian era.

“I’ve always loved ghost stories but wanted to steer clear of the haunted house approach. I wanted to try a fresh, original approach,” Penner said in her interview with The Eagle.

She landed on the concept of using the Victorian era’s fascination with séances when her mother, whom Penner described as a believer in spirits and ghosts, suggested she accompany her to a séance in Cassadaga, Florida, which is home to America’s oldest spiritualist camp.

The fact that mediumship was one of the only professions where women were respected in Victorian London also added strength to the character Vaudeline.

Much of the action revolves around the book’s namesake London Séance Society, a men’s club that capitalized on the spiritualism movement, and its headquarters. While the society itself is fictional, men’s clubs were indeed popular in Victorian London.

Penner isn’t afraid to share her story of the repeated rejection of her first manuscript because she likes to encourage people to leave their comfort zones and “go big,” she said.

The story conveys how Penner was able to leave her comfort zones: her home state of Kansas and a highly successful career in corporate finance.

Raised in northeast Kansas, Penner earned a degree in finance from The University of Kansas. She spent a decade working for Koch Industries up until 2017. On frequent business trips to a Koch Commodities office in central London, Penner discovered how much she loved the bustling city and its rich history.

In 2017, as she was still crafting “The Lost Apothecary,” Penner and her husband, Marc, quit their finance jobs and sold their College Hill home to move to St. Petersburg, Florida, to be closer to beaches and the sorts of outdoor activities they love doing. After the move, Penner got hired by one of America’s largest accounting firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In spring 2021 — as her first book was making its debut and she’d sold her second book to HarperCollins — Penner resigned from corporate America to become a full-time writer, her dream job.

She’d had a longtime interest in writing, Penner said, easily filling up volumes of childhood and teenage diaries and journals. As an adult, while her finance career was fulfilling, it didn’t scratch her creative itch. She started what she calls a “self-study” venture of going to writing conferences, taking online courses and reading about the art of writing.

She settled on the genre of historical fiction, realizing she could incorporate her love of history and research into her stories.

While she’s celebrating the publication of her second book, Penner is also in the midst of writing her third book, which is due at the end of the year. To avoid being pigeonholed into setting her stories in London, she’s setting her third book on the Amalfi Coast of Italy, where she and her husband vacationed last summer. They plan to return this summer so that Penner can do more research.

Like “The Lost Apothecary,” her third book will feature a dual timeline, telling stories set in two different eras. Fans who attended her appearance in Wichita last year, when “The Lost Apothecary” was released in paperback, may recall Penner talked about the difficulty of using a dual timeline and her comments of not wanting to do that again.

“But I was just telling someone the other day that when the story idea comes to you, the story doesn’t really care whether it’s difficult to pull off or not. And this is one of those stories where I’ve got a present-day character and she uncovers something mysterious,” said Penner. The present-day character is a female marine archeologist who discovers historical shipwrecks, one of which is quite mysterious.

“The story is begging for me to reveal the historical timeline as well. So, it’s one of those things where as much as I would love it to just be one linear timeline, I know that that’s not right for the book. So, I’m going to just put in the work and make it happen.”

Books to Books Series: author Sarah Penner

When: 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 28

Where: Advanced Learning Library, 711 W. 2nd St. in person, with a Facebook livestreaming option

Admission: Free. Sarah Penner’s newly released “The London Séance Society” and her debut book, “The Lost Apothecary” will be available for purchase.

More info: 316-682-1181 or watermarkbooks.com/event/person-event-sarah-penner-0