Juliette Fay Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Juliette Fay is a contemporary and historical fiction novelist from Boston Massachusetts. The author was born in 1963 in Birmingham New York but her family had moved to Massachusetts while she was still very little.

Due to the poor television reception, Juliette developed a love for books. She used to haunt the local library for favorites such as “Julie of the Wolves” and “The Boxcar Children,” and had a particularly nerdy childhood.

In her later years, Juliette went to Boston College where she studied theology and human development. She believes the double major made her a qualified thinker about the state of humanity even if she was not good at anything else.

She would later on volunteer for a Jesuit Corps, work at a Seattle, Washington emergency shelter, run a daycare for homeless families, and volunteer at a Guatemalan hospital for the poor particularly catering to children. Thereafter, she went back to Boston and became a teacher of autistic children.

After graduating with a degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Juliette Fay ran a parenting education program and worked for the child abuse prevention agency in the state.

Even though all these jobs provided a lot of fodder that she could ruminate on regarding the state of humanity, she was poorly compensated. Much of the time, she used to supplement her income by working as a waitress.

It was during this time that she married former Jesuit Volunteer Tom Fay, who she has said countries to be funny, kind, smart, and dashingly handsome over the years. After having four children, she assumed she would go back to working for the government but fate intervened after she read a badly written novel.

She was convinced that she could do better as long as she committed to putting to paper the many stories that used to run through her mind all day. While her children slept, she used to sit at the computer and tap away only to get up to stop fights ad supervise homework.

Juliette Fay started out writing contemporary fiction with the publishing of the award-winning “Shelter Me” in 2008. After she published her third contemporary fiction novel, she struggled to find ideas for her next work and began panicking. It was understandable since this was not something she had had to put up with before.

But then her father visited over lunch one day and began urging her to work on some historical fiction ideas he had. Fay was not interested in any of the ideas but while they were talking, she remembered that her father had once been in vaudeville.
This was an intriguing idea that she just had to pursue even though business-wise, this was not an easy transition. Juliette would end up switching both her editor and her agent and was never sure if she had just tanked her career.

But the “Tumbling Turner Sister” which she published in 2016 received much critical acclaim and would also become a bestseller. Fay now has more than half a dozen titles to her name in both historical and contemporary fiction.

“Shelter Me” by Juliette Fay is set four months following the decease of Janie LaMarche’s husband which has left her in much anger and grief. But her mourning is disrupted when a builder suddenly arrives saying he had a contract to add a porch to her house.
She is shocked but knows that this is her husband’s last gift to her that was to be a surprise before he died. She reluctantly allows the contractor to begin construction while she clings to her sorrow and fiercely protected and mothers two small children. She avoids family and friends and stews in a rage she is unable to release.

But her isolation is rudely interrupted when several unlikely interventionists butt into her life. They include the contractor Tug, who seems to have his own private grief, her cousin who comes bearing muffins, her over-manicured and bossy neighbor, and her ipecac toting and chattering aunt.

With the porch taking shape, she discovers that since the future is uncertain, it is best to navigate it with the help of other people. Some of these may be the ones we least expected to call on but then sometimes have to learn to love.
Penned in the tradition of Anne Tyler and Marisa de los Santos it makes for an intriguing story of forgiveness, loss, and heartbreak.

Juliette Fay’s “The Tumbling Turner Sisters” is a compelling historical fiction work from one of the best women’s fiction authors in the mold of “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen.

The work is set against the chaotic background of the American Vaudeville and features four sisters that go on an unexpected adventure. They are also involved in a last attempt at saving their family.

In 1919, the four sisters and their parents are hardly surviving. Their father works in Johnson City, New York as a lowly paid boot stitcher and they are always one paycheck away from eviction.

When he loses his hand in a work accident and can no longer work, their mother believes their only chance at survival is the vaudeville stage. Kit, Winnie, Gert, and the recently widowed Nell travel by train from town to town and find freedom in the company of other performers.

But there is a darker side to the business and the women have to face turns of fate and dangers they could never have imagined.

Surprising and heartwarming this is a story of awakening to heartbreak, to love, to unexpected possibilities, and the dawn of a new era in America.

“Deep Down True” is a poignant and funny novel about the importance of having one’s heart in the right place. Dana Stellgarten the lead is a recently divorced woman that is the mother to Grady and Morgan.
She struggles to find her identity post-divorce and also has several family issues as she tries to figure out who she needs to become.

Juliette Fay describes the lead’s relationship with her ex-husband, her niece, her sister, and her kids in addition to her neighbors and friends with great detail that there is a feeling that you know her and could become friends.
Through Dana’s struggles, she learns some valuable but hard lessons about the true meaning of friendship and love and also about relationships.

The author does a good job to illustrate the many stages women have to go through in life first as daughters, to become friends, then wives, mothers, and ultimately grandmothers.