For its annual Candlelight Stroll, Strawbery Banke Museum of Portsmouth NH is hosting Julia Older discussing and signing her historical novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals on Saturday, December 13, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

Strawbery Banke Museum carries on the history of the English settlement begun in 1630 on a tidal inlet of the Piscataqua River where wild berries proliferated, giving the settlement its early name. By 1653, the thriving waterfront had become a very active, important seaport and was renamed Portsmouth.

The outdoor Museum presents an authentic neighborhood of 42 historic buildings (the earliest dates to 1695) that have been restored and furnished according to historical periods. Some buildings are shops now equipped and operated by artisans practicing traditional trades.

Many people touched based in Portsmouth, including John Paul Jones, Paul Revere, George Washington, Daniel Webster and Lafayette. Many others wove their lives into the Isles of Shoals lore — Philip Babb, William Phips, William Shapleigh, Captain Kidd, Judge Samuel Sewall.

Older’s award-winning novel This Desired Place gives readers a deeply-researched sense of place and true-to-life 17^th century historical people and events on the northern New England coastline. The captivating Isles of Shoals lie nine miles to sea from new and old Portsmouth.

The new holiday video on the Random House website has Julie Andrews, Dean Koontz, Maya Angelou, Barbara Walters, Dan Brown, Ariana Huffington and many others saying that “Books make great gifts because...“