Hybrid Author Talk: Last Chance Live!, Helena Haywoode Henry with Kwame Alexander

Date and Time

• Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025  7pm - 8pm

Location

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Details

East City Bookshop welcomes Helena Haywoode Henry to discuss her young adult novel, LAST CHANCE LIVE!, in conversation with Kwame Alexander.

Note on Format: This hybrid event will have both an in-person component with limited seating as well as a virtual broadcast via Zoom Webinar. Both in-person and virtual attendees will be able to pose questions to the author during audience Q&A.

ABOUT LAST CHANCE LIVE!

Squid Game meets Dear Justyce in an explosive young adult novel about a teenage girl on death row who competes on a reality show in hopes of winning her freedom.

Last Chance Live! is the most popular reality show in America—and eighteen-year-old death row inmate Eternity Price’s last chance to live. Getting cast on the show could win her clemency preventing her execution… if she can convince the viewing audience she deserves a second chance. The catch? If America doesn’t vote for her, she loses the chance to appeal her sentence, and she’ll be executed within a week of being eliminated from the show. And since Eternity’s been unpopular her whole life, she’s terrified America won’t pick her. But any chance of getting out of prison and back to her little brother Sincere, no matter how slim, is better than rotting away in her cell.

Eternity never expected to find her first real friends in a reality TV house full of people battling for survival after being convicted of capital crimes, but that’s exactly what happens. So when she gets the opportunity to sabotage them and secure her own victory, she has a choice to make: protect the friendships and acceptance she’s always longed for at the cost of her own life, or sacrifice her newfound community. Eternity must ultimately decide what forgiveness, family, and freedom mean to her, and how far she’ll go to win a game where the stakes are literally life or death.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Helena Haywoode Henry is a mom of three and a former attorney living in the Raleigh-Durham area. Helena graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and from NYU School of Law. Last Chance Live! is her first novel.

Kwame Alexander is an Emmy® Award-winning producer of The Crossover, his Newbery Medal-winning novel turned Disney+ TV series, the creator of the new animated PBS special Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Band, and the host of America’s Next Great Author, the first reality television show for writers which is produced by Libby and Kanopy and will premiere in 2026. He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 44 books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night, How Sweet The Sound, J vs. K, an illustrated novel he penned with Jerry Craft, and the just released motivational primer for graduates, creatives and professionals entitled Say Yes. A recipient of the 2025 NAACP Image Award, Kwame is also the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts for Chautauqua Literary Arts. He regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing around the world, including Ghana, West Africa, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic. His mission is to change the world - one word at a time.