Wilton Library Author Talk with Samantha Greene Woodruff in Conversation with Jacqueline Friedland

Join Wilton Library for an Author Talk program with Samantha Greene Woodruff in conversation with fellow author Jacqueline Friedland about Woodruff’s latest novel, The Trade Off. Inspired by the true story of a pioneering investment legend, The Trade Off is a powerful novel about identity, sacrifice, family loyalties, and the complex morality of money. In this historical novel, a brilliant and ambitious young woman strives to find her place amid the promise and tumult of 1920s Wall Street.

Bea Abramovitz has a gift for math and numbers. With her father, she studies the burgeoning Wall Street market’s stocks and patterns in the financial pages. After college she’s determined to parlay her talent for the prediction game into personal and professional success. But in the 1920s, in a Lower East Side tenement, opportunities for women don’t just come knocking. Bea will have to create them.

It’s easier for her golden-boy twin brother, Jake, who longs to reclaim all their parents lost after fleeing the pogroms in Russia to come to America. Well-intentioned but undisciplined, Jake has a charm that can carry him only so far on Wall Street. So Bea devises a plan. They’ll be a secret team, and she’ll be the brains behind the broker. As Jake’s reputation, his heedless ego, and the family fortune soar, Bea foresees catastrophe: an impending crash that could destroy everything if she doesn’t finally take control.

Woodruff is the author of two number-one Amazon-bestselling historical fiction novels, The Lobotomist’s Wife (2002) and The Trade Off (2024). She spent 15 years at Viacom’s Nickelodeon before leaving to parent her two young children. After studying in the continuing education program at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, Woodruff completed her first novel, The Lobotomist’s Wife, which was an Amazon First Reads pick. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Writer’s Digest, Female First, Read 650 and more. In addition, she has contributed an essay entitled “Jew-ish” about her lifelong conflicted relationship with Judaism, to the anthology, On Being Jewish Now (2024) edited by Zibby Owens. All proceeds from the book will go to Artists Against Antisemitism, a non-profit founded in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks in Israel. Woodruff lives in southern Connecticut with her husband, two children, two dogs and a small reptile zoo.

Friedland is the USA Today- and Amazon-bestselling author of both historical and contemporary women’s fiction. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and NYU Law School, she practiced as a commercial litigator for as long as she could stand it. After determining that office life did not suit her, she began teaching at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan and working on her first book. She soon returned to school to earn her Master of Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, graduating from the program in 2016 and publishing her first novel shortly thereafter. Her books have been awarded the 2020 and 2021 gold medals in fiction from Reader’s Favorite and have been named a Best Indie Book of 2021 by Kirkus Reviews, the SheReads Best Book Club Pick of 2021, and a Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star finalist for 2022. Friedland regularly reviews fiction for trade publications and appears at schools and other locations as a guest lecturer. Her fifth novel, Counting Backwards, is forthcoming from Harper Muse in March 2025. Friedland lives in Westchester County, NY with her husband, four children and two very bossy dogs.

Elm Street Books will be on site to sell copies of The Trade Off, which Woodruff will sign. A portion of the proceeds goes to Wilton Library.

Registration required. To register, visit www.wiltonlibrary.org.