A new book from a late author

I saw this at a Seattle bookstore over the weekend:


The Joys of Love is a previously unpublished coming-of-age story written by Madeleine L'Engle in the 1940s. The book includes an introduction by the author's granddaughter, who suggests that the novel's protagonist is "close to an autobiographical portrait of L'Engle herself as a young woman".

Here's the plot summary (taken from the publisher's website):

"During the summer of 1946, twenty-year-old Elizabeth is doing what she has dreamed of since she was a little girl: working in the theatre. Elizabeth is passionate about her work and determined to learn all she can at the summer theatre company on the sea where she is an apprentice actress. She’s never felt so alive. And soon she finds another passion: Kurt Canitz, the dashing young director of the company, and the first man Elizabeth’s ever kissed who has really meant something to her. Then Elizabeth’s perfect summer is profoundly shaken when Kurt turns out not to be the kind of man she thought he was."

While she's best known for her Wrinkle in Time series, L'Engle could actually write a mean melodrama, and she was exploring some eyebrow-raising YA issues long before Judy Blume's Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret came out in 1970.