Puppeteer’s Daughters

Heather Newton’s novel Under The Mercy Trees (HarperCollins, 2011) won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, was chosen by the Women’s National Book Association as a Great Group Reads Selection, and was named an Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. Her short story collection, McMullen Circle (Regal House, 2022), was a finalist for the W.S. Porter prize. Her novel The Puppeteer’s Daughters (Turner, 2022) is her second novel. A practicing attorney, she teaches creative writing for UNC-Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program and is co-founder and program manager for the Flatiron Writers Room in Asheville, North Carolina (flatironwritersroom.com). Visit her website at heathernewton.net.

“A complicated father-daughter story that fulfills its promise. Fans of Tara Conklin’s The Last Romantics and Melissa Scholes Young’s The Hive will love this.” —Library Journal“Heather Newton has written a tender family saga with gorgeous prose, a lot of heart, some big secrets, and a little bit of magic.” —Sarah McCraw Crow, author of The Wrong Kind of Woman“With this mix of traditional fairy tales, offbeat original scripts, insights into the world of puppetry, a touch of King Lear, and the basic personality of a romcom, The Puppeteer’s Daughters is a charming read with some unexpected thoughtfulness between the lines.” —New York Journal of Books“An aging, celebrated puppeteer throws his daughters’ lives into chaos in Heather Newton’s gripping new novel . . . A heartwarming story about self-acceptance, forgiveness, and the strings sometimes attached to family love.” —Foreword Reviews“The Puppeteer’s Daughters by Heather Newton masterfully captures the tenderness and tension between sisters . . . Newton employs a light touch with this enchanting tale of memory, myth, and magic, as each of The Puppeteer’s Daughters begins to untangle her complicated family legacy.” —Kim Wright, author of The Canterbury Sisters and Last Ride to Graceland“Beautifully rooted in classic fairy tales, and rich with the intricacies of the puppeteer’s art, Heather Newton’s novel animates the lives of three complex women.” —Laura Kalpakian, author of Memory into Memoir and These Latter Days“Heartfelt, intriguing and breathtakingly creative. The Puppeteer’s Daughters proves that happily-ever-afters aren’t always the ending to fairytales—sometimes they’re just the beginning.  Heather Newton is a born storyteller, showing us that magic can spill into our everyday lives when we step out of our comfort zones.” —Sarah Addison Allen, New York Times bestselling author of Garden Spells and Other Birds“Perfectly plotted, wonderfully paced, with characters I loved and rooted for page after page.” —Tessa Fontaine, author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts