The deserts of Los Alamos New Mexico during the World War II era were a feverish junction for secret work on the realization of the Manhattan project — which spawned the world’s first atomic bomb.

It is in that landscape, nationally published and acclaimed journalist and author Nora Gallagher sets the love story of her debut novel “Changing Light.”

The book is said to be “a revelry of art, creativity, conscience, science, visibility, change and loss set in a most memorable time and place.” At 7:30 p.m., March 22, Gallagher will be set at Eagle Harbor Book Company reading from and discussing the novel.

The story evolves out of a mess of secrets and underlying passions as love hooks a visiting stranger and an New Mexican artist.

The prose has been called lyrical, while the story focuses some of the largest issues in the modern world without departing from its intimate connection with the reader.

Gallagher’s personal connections with readers has been developed through her essays, book reviews and journalism which has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Los Angeles Times Magazine among others.

While this is her first novel, Gallagher has also written two memoirs, published by Knopf and Vintage Books. “Changing Light” was published by Pantheon Books earlier this year.

The Eagle Harbor Book Company is located at 157 Winslow Way East, Bainbridge Island. For more information, call (206) 842-5332 or

(360) 692-2375; or visit www.eagleharborbooks.com.