Michaela Carter Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Michaela Carter is a historical fiction author who also loves to call herself an award-winning poet and painter.

Earlier on in her life, she went to Warren Wilson College, where she earned her creative writing MFA before she went o the University of California and Los Angeles where she studied theater.

Carter is now the author of the very popular work “Leonora in the Morning Light” that she published in 2021. The work made the list of 2021 Most Anticipated Books by LitHub and Most Anticipated Historical Novels on Oprah Magazine.

The work is so popular that it has been translated into several languages including Dutch, Polish, and German. The work has also made the shortlist for the American Library in Paris book award.

Her 2014 published work “Further Out Than You Thought,” which was her debut has also won several awards over the years.

Besides her writing, Michaela Carter is also a poet who has been nominated for several prizes including a pushcart. She has also been a winner of the Los Angeles New Poets Contest and the Poetry Society of America awards.

Her work has also been featured in numerous journals and anthologies over the years.,

Michaela currently makes her home in Prescott alongside her husband and their two rambunctious dogs.

Carter is also the co-founder of the Peregrine Book Company based in Arizona, where she works as a storyteller and book buyer. Booksellers and independent bookstores have always meant a lot to Michaela Carter both on a professional and personal level.

She believes that independent bookstores are critical for book-loving communities since they expose what may be great books, not in the public consciousness.

Whenever she travels, Michaela always makes a point of visiting the bookshops in town to sample their most popular works. Because of her love for independent bookshops, she founded the Prescott, Arizona bases Peregrine Book Company in 2012.

As a book buyer, it is her job to get the best books out there to offer to her town’s readers. As a writer, she loves giving readings at independent bookshops and also seeing her own works on the shelves.

Michaela has said that she cannot imagine living without the services of the wonderful booksellers and bookstores as it is where she gets much of what she reads.

Aside from her writing, she works at Yavapai College as a teacher of creative writing.

Michaela Carter’s debut novel was inspired by some work she was doing as part of research into the Surrealist art movement. In 2013, she went to the Tate Modern in London and was fascinated by the performance of Leonora Carrington.

She proceeded to purchase an art book by Leonora from the gift shop. Later on, she pursued her interest in the artist and read about her affair with Max Ernst, an established and older artist.

She read about the many profound trials she had to face during the Nazi occupation of France and decided that she wanted to tell the story.

Michaela read everything she could find on Max, Leonora, and Peggy Guggenheim and while she was writing her novels, he fell in love with the settings and the characters.

Michaela Carter’s novel “Leonora in the Morning Light” is a work set during World War II.

In 1940, there is a train arriving in Southern France carrying exiled German prisoners picked up from some camp.

Within a few minutes, word goes around saying that the Nazis are in the vicinity looking for the escaped prisoners and the men melt into the woods hoping to cross into Spain.

But one man will not leave as he wants to go back home aboard the train. In 1937 Paris, a twenty-year-old British painter and socialite named Leonora Carrington meets an older married artist named Max Ernst.

The latter had captivated Europe and manages to sweep Leonora off her feet so that she follows him into the vibrant world of cafes and studios in Paris.

It is a city where the likes of Salvador Dali, Andre Breton, Man Ray, Lee Miller, and Pablo0 Picasso, who are the rising surrealists are challenging traditional approaches to life and art.

Taking inspiration from their creative freedom, Leonora begins experimenting. She translates poignant stories of her youthful experiences onto canvas and is soon a renowned artist in her own right.

It is a glorious and bright age of enlightenment until things change and Max and his friends are denounced as degenerates while war threatens to engulf Europe. Max is arrested and imprisoned as France is occupied by the Nazis.

Leonora is left all alone trying to survive difficult circumstances while demons from her past threaten to take her out.

As Max and Leonora embark on a remarkable journey apart and together, the beautiful story of the passionate and tumultuous love affair unfolds. It spans borders and time as they look to reclaim their creative power and reunite in a world shattered by war.

“Further Out Than You Thought” by Michaela Carter combines the raw sensuality and eloquence of Jeanette Winterson with the renegade and romantic spirit of Patti Smith.

It is an erotically charged and taut literary debut set in Los Angeles during the riots in 1992. It tells the story of three people searching for meaning and identity in the city of angels.

In Los Angeles, three dreamers are on the cusp of great transformation since they lie in a city where almost anything is possible.

Gwendolyn Griffin is a twenty-five-year-old stripper who has worked hard to put herself through university.

Leo her perpetually high boyfriend often embarrasses her as he dresses in costume while he sells his music in town. He has recently been losing his loose grip on what is real and what is hallucination.

Count Valiant their neighbor and friend who runs a nightclub has also been slowly losing it.

When the Rodney King verdict is handed down, it results in violence that may just be the catalyst for change that is needed.

Leo comes up with a stupid stunt as he plans on walking into the city holding a white flag, naked. Valiant is invigorated even as Gwen learns that she is expectant and is plagued by all manner of troubling doubts.