NH Book Festival Keynote Author Jodi Picoult

The New Hampshire Book Festival is thrilled to welcome #1 New York Times–bestselling author Jodi Picoult as the festival’s 2026 Keynote Author. Picoult will discuss her much-anticipated novel Hollow Bones, which will publish in late September 2026.

 

A longtime New Hampshire resident and one of the nation’s most prominent literary voices, Picoult has published twenty-nine novels and an estimated 63.7 million copies of her books in print worldwide. Her work is widely recognized for its compelling explorations of complex ethical and emotional questions.

 

Every ticket includes a hardcover first edition of Hollow Bones (Ballantine, $34), which releases September 22.

 

Hollow Bones centers on Molly Fitzgerald, whose mother was killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center when Molly was an infant. Raised by her father and stepmother, Molly grows up shaped by both love and an enduring awareness of catastrophe. As an adult, she leads the Rhode Island Department for Emergency Preparedness, developing strategies to respond to crises ranging from natural disasters to public health emergencies. 

 

When an unforeseen event disrupts her new marriage to Jesse, a police polygraph expert, both are forced to confront the narratives they have constructed about their pasts and their future. The novel moves between past and present, examining the bonds between mothers and daughters, the stories families tell, and the illusion of control in uncertain times.