TJ Klune in conversation with Kira Apple

Charis and the Georgia Center for the Book welcome TJ Klune in conversation with Kira Apple for the paperback release of In the Lives of Puppets. In Person in the Sanctuary at the First Baptist Church of Decatur.

About the Book: New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labeled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

TJ Klune is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door, In the Lives of Puppets, and the Green Creek Series for adults, the Extraordinaries Series for teens, and more. Being queer himself, Klune believes it's important—now more than ever—to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories.

Kira Apple (she/her) is a full-time bookseller at Charis Books and More and co-facilitator of Charis's Queer Romance Book Club. Originally from Eastern Pennsylvania, she received her Bachelor's and Master's in English from Kutztown University. A lifelong lover of fantasy, sci-fi, and romance literature and media, she can also be found playing video games and TTRPGs, writing, and wrangling her three cats. You can find her on Twitter @keekrbeekr and Instagram @kiapple