Julie Berry

Aphrodite narrates Lovely War, spinning out the story of four young people to escape judgment on Olympus: Hazel, a London pianist; James, a British soldier who had wanted to be an architect; Aubrey, a ragtime musician from Harlem serving in the segregated United States Army; and Colette, a Belgian singer whose family was killed in the war. Julie Berry, born in 1974, grew up the youngest of seven children on a farm at Medina, New York, took a communications degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and later an MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Before she wrote full time she ran marketing for the family software business and wrote a column for the MetroWest Daily News. Lovely War appeared in 2019 from Viking, made the American bestseller list and won the Golden Kite Award for young adult fiction. Her other novels include All the Truth That's in Me and The Passion of Dolssa. In 2021 she moved back to Medina and bought the town bookshop, renaming it the Author's Note.