Loan Stars is the readers’ advisory tool that allows library staff across Canada to collaboratively select their favourite forthcoming titles. Using CataList, the online catalogue service and order management tool available for free to libraries, library staff can endorse the Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile, and Young Adult titles they want to recommend to their patrons. The titles with the most recommendations become Loan Stars picks!

But who are the authors and illustrators behind these great Loan Stars reads?

We find out in our series Meet the Loan Stars.

Meet Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms and for Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus in history and art history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. Marie, the author of The Other Einstein, Carnegie's Maid, The Only Woman in the Room, and Lady Clementine, views herself as an archaeologist of sorts, telling the untold stories of women. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Marie’s latest novel Her Hidden Genius is part of the January & February 2022 Loan Stars Adult list!

But this isn’t the first time Marie’s books have become Loan Stars. You can also find her books The Personal Librarian on the June 2021 Loan Stars Adult list and The Other Einstein on the October 2016 Loan Stars Adult list.

Read our interview with Marie below to discover her favourite libraries, favourite librarians, book recommendations, and more.

If you could visit any library in the world, where would you go?

Before travel became so challenging, I adored visiting libraries in a variety of locations, some close and some far-flung. While I spent a lot of time in the beautiful Morgan Library and New York Public Library during the decade I spent as a New York City lawyer, I would love the opportunity to travel again to Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland, one of the most exquisite institutions with some of the world’s most important and stunning books, including the Book of Kells.

Do you have a favourite librarian, real or fictional?

What a challenging question! I have been so fortunate in the supportive, inspirational, and lovely relationships I’ve had with so many librarians — real and imagined — that it’s hard to select just one. But if I had to narrow it down, I would have to choose my mother-in-law, Catherine Terrell, who is a former school librarian. Her kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, and vast depth of knowledge on so many topics — especially educational subjects — defies description, and I am fortunate to be her daughter-in-law.

Which book would you choose to recommend to library patrons?

Oh, I think the book I would recommend to a library patron would depend entirely upon the interest of that particular person. That’s part of a librarian’s job, isn’t it? To serve as a matchmaker of sorts, pairing the right book with the right person at exactly the right time? For example, to a library visitor hunting for a compelling new science fiction novel, I might suggest Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, or to a patron searching for a new piece of genre-bending literary fiction, I might propose Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. And so on.

What does being a Loan Stars pick mean to you?

To have Her Hidden Genius chosen by librarians across Canada as a favourite forthcoming novel means everything! If you are familiar with any of my books, you know that I am an enormous library and librarian fan — in fact, without my ancestors’ early use of free libraries I literally wouldn’t be writing books today — so this is a huge honour for which I am extremely grateful.

And thank you, Marie!

Are you a Loan Stars-recommended author or illustrator who wants to be featured on our blog? Get in touch with us to get started.

Until next time!