Award-Winning Independent Booksellers | Since 2001
MidtownScholarBookstore-ReadingSeries.jpg

Midtown Scholar Bookstore Podcasts

Subscribe to our new PODCAST series!

Brought to you by one of the nation’s premier independent bookstores, in the heart of Pennsylvania’s capital city. We proudly host national award-winning authors and emerging literary sensations in our weekly book-talk-and-signing series. SIGNED books by featured authors now available at www.MidtownScholar.com

Join us as we celebrate the essential role of literature in contemporary society and engage the region’s vibrant literary and civic community in wide-ranging discussions on books, politics, arts & culture.

“Every Booklover Should Visit” – Travel + Leisure

“Indie bookstore jewel” – Publishers Weekly

Incendiaries: A Novel

 
The Incendiaries paperback.jpg

Now a National Bestseller

"Religion, politics, and love collide in this slim but powerful novel reminiscent of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, with menace and mystery lurking in every corner." --People Magazine

"The most buzzed-about debut of the summer, as it should be...unusual and enticing ... The Incendiaries arrives at precisely the right moment." --The Washington Post

"Radiant...A dark, absorbing story of how first love can be as intoxicating and dangerous as religious fundamentalism." --New York Times Book Review

A powerful, darkly glittering novel of violence, love, faith, and loss, as a young woman at an elite American university is drawn into a cult's acts of terrorism.


Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet in their first month at prestigious Edwards University. Phoebe is a glamorous girl who doesn't tell anyone she blames herself for her mother's recent death. Will is a misfit scholarship boy who transfers to Edwards from Bible college, waiting tables to get by. What he knows for sure is that he loves Phoebe.

Grieving and guilt-ridden, Phoebe is drawn into a secretive cult founded by a charismatic former student with an enigmatic past. When the group commits a violent act in the name of faith, Will finds himself struggling to confront a new version of the fanaticism he's worked so hard to escape. Haunting and intense, The Incendiaries is a fractured love story that explores what can befall those who lose what they love most.