We moved here permanently 14 years ago.Īfter I got married, I quit my high-stress job and stayed home with my kids. My parents and his parents had places in the Berkshires, so we came here every weekend as our kids were growing. I met my husband, who was working in Westchester, and moved there. I came to New York in my middle twenties, when I was working for an international TV news agency. I grew up all over Europe, spent most of my high school and earlier years in Geneva, and went to college in England. 11 to discuss her new novel, 'Slipper,' which is “not the fairy tale you remember.” Watch a trailer of the book, created by Sheffield filmmaker Ben Hillman, on the author’s website. Velmans is the author of two children’s books, 'Isabel of the Whales' and 'Jessaloup’s Song.' She and Matt Tannenbaum, owner of The Bookstore in Lenox, will be appearing at The Mount on Oct. She is tri-lingual, speaking English, French and Dutch, and specializes in translation of contemporary Dutch and French literature. But is he really a killer? Told in the alternative voices of Ray and Iris, Girl in the Dark is a compulsive, page-turning thriller about lies, murder, and the tenacity of a family determined to stay together even as they are pulled apart at the most vulnerable seams.Born in the Netherlands and educated in Switzerland and England, Hester Velmans is an author, editor and renowned translator who lives in Sheffield, Mass. There is no question that Ray is odd and obsessive, unable to communicate like the rest of us.

A man who is devoted to his tropical fish and who loves baking bread. Visiting Ray, she meets a man who looks heartbreakingly like her own son. Her older brother is autistic-and in prison for brutally murdering his neighbor and her daughter. What she discovers surprises-and horrifies-her. Why did her mother lie to her for her entire life? Why did she hide the existence of Ray Boelens from her? Curious about this sibling she has never known, Iris begins to search for long-buried truths. She also has a brother-shocking news she uncovers by accident. A single mother and lawyer, Iris has a colorful caseload, a young son with behavior issues, and a judgmental mother. An award-winning, internationally bestselling author makes her American debut with this taut, riveting domestic drama with the compulsive intensity of The Good Girl, The Pocket Wife, and The Stranger, about a long-lost brother convicted of a horrifying crime and a sister's fight to clear his name.

Slipper by Hester Velmans