January 2015

 Of Things Gone Astray by Janina Matthewson is a magical fable about modern life and values that's perfect for fans of Andrew Kaufman and Helen Oyeyemi.  Simon Van Booy, bestselling author of The Illusion of Separateness, calls it "a brilliant novel that redefines the boundaries of where our lives begin and where they end."  Janina has stopped by to share some background behind the book and the inspiration for her first full-length novel.

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When the earthquakes hit Christchurch it felt like nothing would ever be the same. And of course it isn’t the same—the city’s still chaotic, there will be constant road works for years to come, and the city center is eerily empty. But the people in it are just carrying on. Because that’s what you do. In the aftermath, it seemed to me that when extraordinary things happen to you, they can stall you, or they can motivate you, but they very rarely actually change you.

So I think that’s what was behind my writing this book. I was interested in how, in the short term we’re so easily upset, so easily knocked off course, and how quickly we can recalibrate afterwards.  There’s a kind of dexterity to it, I think, how we step around things that fall in our path to simply carry on with our lives.

And I wonder sometimes if a reminder that we can do that is all we need to enable us to do it. We get stuck because we think life is too much, that whatever has happened to us will leave us foundering forever. I think telling ourselves that we can get through is instrumental in us actually managing too—not in a gritty, determined way, necessarily, but just with gentle repetition. Getting up every day and deciding again to live with the new situation.

Books have always helped me to do this; they make you feel connected when you are at your most alone. And I’ve always gravitated to the ones that also make me feel like the world is full of secrets and magic. Susannah Clarke, Andrew Kaufman, Neil Gaiman—people who write about our world, but stranger. Because the world is strange.

That’s why I like it.

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Thanks Janina!  If you've already read and loved Of Things Gone Astray, share your thoughts today on social media with the hashtag #IndieGoneAstray.  If you haven't had a chance to check out this highly imaginative debut yet, you can still grab an egalley from Edelweiss now!

-Amanda

 

I don't know about the rest of you all out there, but New York City is in for a cold, wet, disgusting winter weekend.  And what better way is there to spend a nasty weather weekend than snuggled up inside with a fun book?!  Here are a few of our fun reads ready for downloading to make your weekend great.

The Clockwork Crown by Beth Cato: the fantasy/steampunk sequel to The Clockwork Dagger in which a powerful young healer goes on the run with a former government assassin, great for fans of Trudi Canavan and Gail Carriger. Download here!

Rebound by Noelle August: the second in a series about Boomerang—the dating site for the millenial generation—and the behind-the-scenes romances in their offices, perfect for fans of the New Adult genre. Download here!

When Good Earls Go Bad by Megan Frampton: a fun and sexy novella from the author of The Duke's Guide to Correct Behavior, about an earl and the woman who signs on to be his housekeeper, and both get more than they bargained for.  Download here!

So don't let horrible winter weather get you down!  We have plenty more great books just waiting to be enjoyed.

-Amanda

We are so excited about the launch of a new project – The Library Love Fest Book Club!

Every month (if you are a newsletter subscriber), we will send out a fabulous video with the three of us each discussing one book that we particularly love and think is perfect for book clubs. They all appear on our Book Club website, along with over 120 other appropriate titles for you to choose from. 

Tada! Here is the first month's video. In it we talk about The Golem and the Jinni, After I'm Gone and Stiltsville. 

If you receive the newsletter you can get excerpts and win copies of the books for your library, so sign up now. And definitely watch that video – we have a theme song!

– Annie

 

I’m a big old fan of this debut novel. Turn of the century NYC, side shows, secret babies, sisters, illicit love. What’s not to love??

The three person narrative is told by Sylvan Threadgill who finds an abandoned newborn baby and is determined to track down her parents; Odile Church, raised in the curtained halls of her mother’s spectacular Coney Island sideshow, who now must contend with the death of her mother and the loss of her sister Belle, the sword swallower star of the show; and Alphie Leonnetti, a reformed escort, who wakes up groggy and confused in Blackwell’s Lunatic Asylum for Women (gasp!).The last thing she remembers is a dark stain on the floor and her mother-in-law screaming.

On a single night, these strangers’ lives become forever entwined, as secrets come to light, consequences are faced, and long-desired acceptance is found.  Leslie Parry creates a richly atmospheric vision of the colorful world of those at the fringes of society and keeps the surprises coming. For fans of The Night Circus or Water for Elephants.

Get an egalley!

– Annie 

PS: Leslie will be at ALA Midwinter, so if you will be too be sure to stop by Booth 4526 on Sunday at noon!

So I was late to the game with The Queen of the Tearling (the first in this amazing trilogy), and I felt like a dumb dumb when I finally read it because it was excellent and fun and smart and engaging and generally awesome, and I could have enjoyed it sooner had I not been all "oh, I don't really read Fantasy." Dumb Dumb.

So when The Invasion of the Tearling became available as a manuscript I immediately printed it out and read it in two days. Two wonderful, adventure-filled days. Kelsea is still learning the ins and outs of being the leader of a country (with the help of her guard Lazarus and the enigmatic, enticing Fetch), but she is also having persistent out of body experiences that show her what life was like before the Crossing. VERY Big Brother.

In that world Kelsea observes Lily, a privileged but very sheltered and insecure young woman, who Kelsea gradually discovers played an incredibly significant role in the creation of The Tearling.

Concurrently, the Red Queen is still pawing at the doorstep of Kelsea's kingdom and is desperate for those sapphires. SO much intrigue! Plus a very handsome and dangerous stranger keeps appearing out of fireplaces. I'm going to read it again, that's how excited I am getting talking about it. 

Don't worry though, I'm not teasing you. It just became available on Edelweiss, so you too can read it!  

Enjoy and let us know what you think!

– Annie

Hazel Gaynor is the lovely and intelligent author of The Girl Who Came Home and A Memory of Violets. She guest blogged for us back in November about her local library, and now I'd like to share with you a video of her speaking about it and her new book. Isn't she charming?!

 Don't forget that Hazel was also chosen as one of Library Journal's Ten Big Breakout Authors of 2015!  You really don't want to miss out on reading her….to that end, download an egalley while there is still time!

– Annie

Can you imagine a life without access to the Internet from your home?  For many in New York City, and across this country, no home access to the Internet is just a fact of life.  But the New York Public Library is working to change that.

The NYPL will soon launch the nation's largest Internet lending program.  The library will lend 10,000 high-speed Internet hot-spots to residents who don't have their own home Internet access and are registered in one of the library's educational programs.  How cool is that?!

You can read the full article about the program here.  Like we needed any more proof that libraries are the coolest.

-Amanda

First of all, take a look at that cover.  Really look at it.  At this point, you might be getting that creepy, uncomfortable feeling deep in your gut.  And that's just the introduction to the exciting and terrifying, thought-provoking and heart-wrenching novel A Head Full of Ghosts by multiple Bram Stoker Award finalist Paul Tremblay.

When fourteen-year-old Marjorie Barrett begins to show signs of acute schizophrenia, but the medications and treatments show no signs of working, the Barrett family turns to a local priest, who believes Marjorie to be possessed and convinces the family to agree to an exorcism.  Desperate for money to pay for Marjorie's medical bills, the family also agrees to allow a film crew into their home to record the event and the toll the weeks leading up to it take on the family’s lives.  The ensuing hit tv show, The Possession, is an instant hit.  Fifteen years later, Marjorie's younger sister Merry—eight years old at the time of the exorcism—tells the story from her point of view, revealing long-buried secrets behind the show and what really happened to her family.

I cannot completely convey how incredibly captivating and disturbing this novel is.  The whole time you're reading, you're never really sure if Marjorie is really possessed or if her actions are the results of a very disturbed mind influenced by pop culture and exacerbated by religious fervor.  The novel truly raises questions about memory verses reality, science verses religion, and the very nature of evil.  Marjorie and Merry's story is both terrifying and tragic, and I seriously recommend checking it out for yourself by downloading an egalley from Edelweiss here.  But clear your calendar and grab your comfort blanky first—you won't want to put it down until Merry's final, heart-breaking secret is revealed.

-Amanda

Please join me in a big round of applause for all our February LibraryReads winners!

The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy by Julia Quinn: the final, dazzling installment of a four-book series featuring the Smythe-Smiths.

Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon: a heart-wrenching but redemptive story of psychological suspense told from the point of view of the father of a boy who is unaccounted for during a school shooting.

The Siege Winter by Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman: a tour de force mystery and murder, adventure and intrigue, told by two courageous young women whose fates are intertwined in twelfth century England’s devastating civil war.

Thank you to everyone who voted for LibraryReads this month!  Want to join in the fun?  Check out the LibraryReads website to find out how and to see the entire February list.  If you're stumped for eligible books available to read for future LibraryReads lists, we've curated a new Pinterest board of the LibraryLoveFest gals' favorite books ready for download on Edelweiss.  Please check it out and get a jump start on your March list reading!

-Amanda

Andrew Mayne's debut novel, Angel Killer, was a runaway self-published hit, and it continued running when HarperCollins got hold of it. Amanda and I are big fans of Jessica Blackwood, the lead FBI agent character, and the very interesting way Andrew weaves the art of illusion with crime-solving.

We are giving away 15 copies of Angel Killer to the first people to email us at librarylovefest@harpercollins.com, so get your clicker fingers ready and Go! I'll wait.

Now that you've emailed us, here is a behind the scenes look at Andrew's progression as writer.

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I was eight and bored. I’d finished the latest Encyclopedia Brown mystery and was searching for something new to read. A boy detective myself, but despite letting it be known around the neighborhood my investigating skills were for hire, business was scarce. So I was looking for a way to kill time between cases.

Snooping around the guest bedroom closet I discovered several boxes of books my father had stowed away. What a treasure! These weren’t the small books about giant red dogs or boy detectives I was familiar with. No, the dogs here had names like Cujo and terrorized their families! The detectives drank martinis instead of chocolate milk and dispatched villains with bullets, not brainteasers! The covers were filled with alien worlds, menacing eyes and scantily dressed women wrapped around suave men who would kill you as soon as say “Hello”.

We’ve all opened that door. It starts with a cover that tingles your curiosity. Next, you’re haunting bookstores in search of more adventure. Those books made me want to be a storyteller with my own tales. I lied about my age to go from high school to star of my own magic show performing in places I was too young to set foot inside. I worked circuses, cruise ships and headlined a casino revue in Japan. I created behind the scenes for Penn & Teller, David Blaine and spent several years helping famous skeptic, James Randi, investigate faith healers, mediums and other fraudsters.

Along the way I kept writing and sharing stories to anybody who would listen, including the showgirls I lived with in Japan who I’d read to at night as they gathered around in their pajamas. We should all have such muses…

Eventually I decided to take writing seriously and wrote a novella for fans of my podcast (now over 10,000 listeners). It climbed the eBook charts, motivating me to write more. Even before A&E picked up my TV pilot, a retailer declared me the fifth best-selling independent author in the UK that year. It was an encouraging start, to say the least.

I wrote Angel Killer to tell something close to home. Dinner as a kid was filled with my father’s ATF agent stories hunting moonshiners, body-guarding presidents, investigating bombings and chasing international hit men. This inspired my brother to become an FBI agent and me to write in safety.

Jessica Blackwood possesses some of my experiences but in important ways the mirror opposite. I was a magician born into a law enforcement family. She’s from a showbiz family whose moral code compelled her to become a cop. I’m a man in a male-dominated industry, who takes things for granted. Jessica is someone who has to work for everything and overcome the biases of the people around her.

Her story is all the things I know and don’t know. Which is why the curious boy detective/magician is excited to be bringing Angel Killer to a larger audience. I hope you enjoy it.

Best,

Andrew Mayne

***

 Annie

In Keija Parssinen's novel, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis, the eponymous character is a teenage basketball protege and overall exceptional athlete. So dig deep and employ all your athletic prowess to get a copy of this book as fast as possible because it.is.good! I read this over the holidays and was so taken by the characters. 

Keija has popped into Library Love Fest to share with us her history with libraries – a unique take since she grew up in Saudi Arabia. Welcome, Keija!

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In Saudi Arabia, where I grew up in the 1980s, we depended on libraries to keep us in books. It was hard to get certain titles past airport customs, where men would open up your suitcase and dispense with anything that looked suspicious—which most books written in English did. Getting anything through the mail took ages, and customs worked hard on that end, too; a friend told the story of how she once received a coffee table book on art that had all the naked women cut out of the paintings. So the oil company and school libraries were it for entertainment, and I’ve loved and relied on the blessed institutions ever since.

In my current hometown of Columbia, Missouri, the public library is so beautiful that I usually try to take out-of-town visitors there to marvel at its elegance. But the Columbia Public Library (part of the Daniel Boone Regional Library system) isn’t just pretty; it is also a cutting-edge model for how libraries can serve their communities, providing a spacious and whimsical indoor play space for children, daily baby and toddler music classes, thousands of books, CDs, and DVDs, free internet access, and adult education classes on everything from the job search to filing taxes. I rely on it as a workspace, as well as a place to take my son on long winter days, when cabin fever strikes hard.

When my first book, The Ruins of Us, was published in 2012, libraries took on a new role in my life. They became conduits through which I could connect with countless new readers. It was exciting to see my book on the shelf at the library and to know that people in my community were reading about the characters that had taken me years to create. In 2013, the library selected Ruins for its One Read program, one of the longest-running and most extensive community reading programs in the nation. Besides the obvious thrill that such an experience offers, I also befriended several of the librarians and learned quickly what a badass, smart, curious-minded group they are, always hungry for compelling new books, always thinking creatively about how to reach more readers of all ages. And so my early love affair with libraries has thus deepened into a long-term, committed relationship. I can’t wait to see my second novel, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis, covered in that crinkly protective sheath and sitting on the shelf at the library, awaiting the arrival of a new reader.

****

Thank you so much, Keija!

Make sure you snag a copy, lovely readers.

– Annie

A powerful and global debut memoir, FInding Samuel Lowe follows Paula Williams Madison's quest to track down her maternal grandfather and reunite with a family that never knew she existed.

When Nell's Jamaican mother left her Chinese father after learning he would be welcoming a Chinese bride, Nell never saw him again, later learning he'd returned to China with his new family.  Even after moving to America, Nell's Asian features set her apart from her Harlem neighbors, creating a sense of loneliness that instilled a perpetual sense of loss in her daughter Paula.

Now a grown woman, with a successful career behind her and her own grandchild just arrived, Paula has decided the time has come to search out Samuel Lowe and reunite with her mother’s family. With her brothers beside her and with the help of generous strangers, Paula tracks her grandfather’s life, from China to Jamaica and back, ultimately reconnecting with relatives who had not even known to look for her.

Finding Samuel Lowe has recently received a starred review from Booklist, calling it, "A profoundly moving and revelatory memoir of far-reaching discovery and affirmation," and it will be featured in the Spotlight on Multicultural Literature in the February 1 issue.  Be sure to pick up a copy to read the rest of the review and learn more about this inspiring story.

If you'd like to learn more about Paula's quest to track down her grandfather, you can download an egalley here and start reading today!

-Amanda

Between New Year's Eve sparklers and all these starred reviews from Library Journal in January, my eyes have had no time to recover!  Please join me in giving these authors and titles a round of applause for starting the new year with a bang.

Driving the King by Ravi Howard: "this novel is a personal, poignant portrayal of how the lives of African Americans could be so easily derailed by racial inequality under the law." —Library Journal starred review

Epitaph by Mary Doria Russell: "The multitude of points of view exemplifies the best of third-person omniscience, revealing innermost secrets, hopes, and fears." —Library Journal starred review

American Ghost by Hannah Nordhaus: "Every aspect of the account is enlightening, well written, and entertaining" —Library Journal starred review

Hush Hush by Laura Lippman: "After writing several excellent stand-alone novels (After I’m Gone), Lippman returns to her popular series sleuth in this compelling mystery about a good mother gone bad." —Library Journal starred review

The Siege Winter by Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman: "The rigidity of status in feudal society rightly permeates every scene, but Norman and Franklin excel at showing how the war impacts everyone in this richly researched, female-driven historical mystery." —Library Journal starred review

Congratulations!

-Amanda