Join us for a thrilling and magical evening as we kick off the JCC Cover to Cover Book Festival! Celebrate the release of Zigzag Girl with author Ruth Setton, who will discuss the inspiration behind her captivating new novel. Then, experience the wonder firsthand as a live magician brings the magic to the stage. 

Lucy Moon, daughter of America's most renowned magic family, has always lived in the shadow of legends. Determined to forge her own path, she takes the stage at Atlantic City's haunted Black Widow Theatre for a career-defining performance. But when her best friend Van is found murdered inside the infamous sawing box-the same box that hid a real murder victim decades ago - Lucy is thrust into a deadly game where every suspect is a master of deception. Haunted by the ghost of Cleo West, a glamourous World War ll-era assistant whose life ended in the same box, Lucy must navigate Atlantic City's criminal underworld, comfort her family's dark secrets, and resist falling for a charismatic magician who might be the killer. With the help of a fierce circle of female magicians and mystics, she races to expose the truth before she becomes the final act. Zigzag Girl is a noir-tinged thriller about illusion, buried secrets, and the dangerous magic women create to survive in the world designed to make them disappear. 

Born in Morocco, Ruth Knafo Setton is the author of the novels, The Road to Fez, and Zigzag girl, which won Grand Prize in ScreenCraft's Cinematic Book Competition and First Prize in the Daphne du Maurier Awards. An NEA Fellow and professor of Creative Writing at Lehigh University, and with Semester at Sea, she travels the world in search of wonder.