Chaucer’s Bookstore will host local author Frances Petty Davis for a book talk and signing of her novel “Red Summer,” 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15 at 3321 State St., Santa Barbara.

Book description: It is the summer of 1954, and the small California town of Bear River simmers with Cold War paranoia.

Althea Bailey returns home with her husband Sayer and daughter Freddie only to find herself in a town on edge, where the personal tragedies and grievances of the past and the fear-stoked suspicions of the present are slowly boiling over, testing the family in ways they never could have imagined.

“Rich in character and steeped in local color, ‘Red Summer’ is a multigenerational story about love and family, jealousy and betrayal and, ultimately, forgiveness,” Chaucer’s said.

An author, journalist, essayist, fiction writer and poet, Davis is a long-time local columnist former feature writer. Her work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies, and she is a winner of the Lamar York prize for nonfiction.