March 2017

Are you looking for a new great novel to dive into?  Today at 2pm EST we're participating in a Booklist LibraryReads webinar, where you can find out about the Summer/Fall 2017 titles we think you should read next.  Register for the webinar here, but if you can't make it, here's more info about all the titles we will discuss.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz: From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery. Request an egalley.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn: In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption. Request an egalley.

The Force by Don Winslow: The acclaimed, award-winning, bestselling author of The Cartel—voted one of the Best Books of the Year by more than sixty publications, including the New York Times—makes his HarperCollins debut with a cinematic epic as explosive, powerful, and unforgettable as Mystic River and The Wire. Request an egalley.

Kiss Carlo by Adriana Trigiani: From Adriana Trigiani, the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Shoemaker’s Wife, comes an exhilarating epic novel of love, loyalty, and creativity—the story of an Italian-American family on the cusp of change. Request an egalley.

The Reason You're Alive by Matthew Quick: The New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook offers a timely novel featuring his most fascinating character yet, a Vietnam vet embarking on a quixotic crusade to track down his nemesis from the war. Request an egalley.

The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal: A dark, compulsively readable psychological suspense debut, the first in a new series featuring the brilliant, fearless, chaotic, and deeply flawed Nora Watts—a character as heartbreakingly troubled, emotionally complex, and irresistibly compelling as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole. Request an egalley.

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Books That Should Be on Your LibraryReads TBR PileRead More »

Books about libraries always hold a special place in our hearts, and Felicity Hayes-McCoy's The Library at the Edge of the World is no exception.  The author's U.S. debut follows a local librarian who must find a way to rebuild her community and her own life in this touching, enchanting novel set on Ireland’s stunning West Coast.  Check out the lovely letter below about how this book came to be and the beautiful Irish setting:

***

Dear Librarian,

One day, while eating lemon-drizzle cake with my agent in the café at the Charles Dickens' Museum in London, I conceived the idea of an Irish librarian who gives up her career for love and, twenty-five years later, discovers that her marriage has been a sham. What would she do? Where could she go? What are the consequences of ditching your life and starting off again where you began?

Soon Hanna, her difficult teenage daughter and her monstrous mother had possessed me, but the turning-point for The Library at the Edge of The World was the creation of my fictional peninsula. It's the physical world that shapes Finfarran’s characters, and their shared social and cultural inheritance that unites them to fight for their identity. I myself knew the magic of life in rural Ireland: I was raised in Dublin, and now divide my time between London and my home in an Irish-(Gaelic) speaking community which, while utterly modern, is rooted in an inheritance of storytelling; and my love of the particular colors and patterns of Irish speech comes from a lifetime of listening in two languages.  

I sketched the Peninsula on a paper napkin that day and thereafter the characters and the outline for a series of books came easily.

During one of her weekly trips in the Peninsula’s mobile library van Hanna realizes that “for millennia, written words had conveyed dreams, visions, and aspirations across oceans and mountains, and that, as she steered between puddles and potholes she was part of a process that stretched across distance and time, linking handwritten texts from Egypt and Mesopotamia with the plastic-covered novels, CDs, and celebrity cookbooks lined up in the back of her van.”

As a librarian, you too are part of this enchanting process. So I hope that, like Hanna, you’ll find a feeling of belonging in Finfarran. A sense of recognition. A desire to cross boundaries and embrace new colors, patterns and ideas. Most of all, I want you to enjoy the people and places you find there, and to keep coming back. 

Happy Reading,

Felicity

***

If libraries or reading have ever played an important part in your life (seems like a safe assumption if you're on the Library Love Fest website reading this) or if you want to live on the coast of Ireland, request the egalley now and dive right in.

-Amanda

HarperCollins is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year and we need YOUR help to celebrate!

Starting yesterday and running through April 30th, we have an amazing sweepstakes for librarians, with the grand prize winner receiving 50 books for their library!

What do you need to do? First, if you don't already have a 200th anniversary poster, email us, and we'll send you one! If you subscribe to Booklist, your poster is already on its way. Then, display said poster anywhere in your library. Be creative! Use it as part of a book display, take a selfie with it, throw a party for it. The possibilities are endless.

Then post your pic on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram using both hashtags #hc200poster and #SweepstakesEntry between 3/15 and 4/30. We will randomly select and announce two librarian winners by May 5, 2017. The grand prize winner will receive 50 books for their library plus cupcakes and swag! The runner up with receive 25 books for their library plus cupcakes and swag.

For sweepstakes rules, visit http://www.harpercollins.com/hcpostersweepstakes

-The Library Love Fest team

LLF wishes a happy book birthday to Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy by Nicholas Reynolds! Reynolds, a former CIA officer and curator of the CIA Museum, began researching a series of clues pointing towards Ernest Hemingway's involvement in World War II as a spy for both the Americans and the Soviets. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy is the result of this groundbreaking research—part espionage thriller, part detailed portrait of one of the most revered and enigmatic authors of all time.

Reynolds was recently interviewed by Anthony Mason on CBS This Morning. You can watch that interview by clicking here.

Happy book birthday to Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy and congratulations to Nicholas Reynolds for crafting an incredible piece of non-fiction. We're celebrating by giving away a free copy to the first five people to email us at librarylovefest@harpercollins.com. For more details on the book, click here.

-Chris

You voted, and the results are in.  Public librarians across the country chose Miss You by Kate Eberlen as the #4 pick for April!

"Eberlen…excels in creating realistic characters whom readers will adore… [and] shines at keeping the story moving through 16 years of friendship, purpose, and love. Swoon-worthy." —Booklist starred review

“If ever a couple was ‘meant to be’ it’s Tess and Gus. This is such a witty, poignant and uplifting story of two lives criss-crossing over the years, with near-miss after near-miss… I couldn’t put it down.” —Sophie Kinsella

“Hugely enjoyable romantic comedy with a great premise…. Thoroughly deserving comparison with David Nicholls’ One Day (and I don’t say that lightly), this is commercial fiction of the very highest order.” —Alice O'Keeffe, The Bookseller (UK)

There's still time to download the egalley for yourself before Miss You goes on sale in April, so start reading and find out why everyone is crazy about this book!

You can find the rest of the April winners at LibraryReads.org.

-Amanda

Christopher Bollen's novel Orient hit the scene in 2015 to great critical acclaim, so we are very excited for his next book, The Destroyers—an explosive tale of wealth, deceit, and murder, perfect for fans of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley and Noah Hawley’s Before the Fall.  In additon to the great praise, Orient received a lot of support from libraries, so Christopher has stopped by LLF to share his experience and give a little taste of his next novel.

***

One of the exciting parts about setting a novel in a real-life place—and also one of the most daunting parts—is learning the reactions from readers who live there. My last novel Orient [Harper, 2015] was set in the very real-life place of Orient Point on the far North Fork of Long Island, and I have to be honest, I was nervous about the responses from locals. After all, I had used the beautiful, sea-swept town of Orient as the backdrop for murders, affairs, deceptions, and even the dumping site for mutant animal corpses. The strange thing is I truly loved my time spent in Orient researching the novel (I can imagine a few readers guffawing, “if this is how he treats a place he loves…”).

            Not long after Orient was published, I received invitations from libraries to come and speak at their book clubs or mystery groups or simply for their general members—and the vast majority of those invitations came from libraries on Long Island. Some were in the hamlets just outside of New York City in Nassau County, and others were located hours out on the East End in Suffolk County. Each time I said yes without hesitation, simply because, growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, my local library was an invaluable escape hatch for me, a rocket ship to everywhere built on the Dewey Decimal System. My hesitation was reserved for my drive out to the library, where I envisioned baskets of tomatoes—or rocks—near the entrance for patrons to throw at me in retaliation. I was sure there would be neighborhood cabals waiting for my car to appear in the library parking lot, ready for vengeance—this will teach you to set a murder mystery in greater Long Island! Each time, the very opposite happened. My library visits reminded me of what readers of literature are by nature: open-minded, empathetic, willing to entertain disparate, even conflicting, opinions, able to discern the difference between fact and fiction and yet sharp as to how each informs the other. I hope that I was an interesting speaker for my hour standing at the podium and talking to the crowd. I certainly learned more from hearing the audiences’ comments and questions and takes—particularly on the ending of Orient—than the attendants must have learned listening to me. Mostly, these conversations renewed my faith in the excitement and devotion of readers to new fiction being published. People showed up with lists of questions and observations, copies dog-eared (and need I mention these events were often held on gorgeous, warm days where a beach was in driving distance?). When you sit alone at a desk writing a book, it’s hard to imagine who will be reading your book at the end of the line. Those library visits proved to me that the communities of eager readers still exists (and special recognition goes to the Bryant Library in Roslyn, New York, who created a buffet of Orient-themed lunch items down to killer-bee cupcakes).

            My next novel, The Destroyers, is set on the Greek Island of Patmos. Alas, there is no library on Patmos that I’m aware of, and I can only imagine at this point what the locals will think of my literary thriller. I will miss the Long Island libraries where we could chat about more regional events. But I do hope to win over some of the Orient readers—there are still murders and deceptions, just a little farther out at sea this time.

—Christopher Bollen

***

Thanks, Christopher!  The egalley of The Destroyers is available now for download, so head on over to Edelweiss now to check out this vivid and suspenseful story of identity, power and fate, fathers and sons, self-invention and self-deception.  Enjoy!

-Amanda

Join the Library Love Fest team LIVE on Wednesday, March 15 at 10:30am EST to hear about some of our favorite upcoming genre fiction titles!

Do you like genre fiction?  Do you want to dive into exhilarating stories of action, romance, and fantasy?

Tune into the Library Love Fest Facebook page at 10:30am EST next Wednesday to hear Amanda and Chris talk about the upcoming romance, fantasy, sci-fi, and horror novels you should read next.

Nickolas Butler's LibraryReads-winning novel The Hearts of Men hits shelves today, and we could not be more excited to finally have this book out in the world.  In addition to being picked by librarians across the country as the #5 LibraryReads pick for March—and being a special favorite of Virginia's—this sweeping, panoramic novel from the author of Shotgun Lovesongs also received multiple starred reviews:

“Butler demonstrates enormous command over the material and sympathy for his flawed characters. This beautiful novel might be his best yet.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Across three generations and as many wars, this earnest novel explores the ways boys become men and how even flawed men may stand as models for the young… A well-paced, affecting read.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Butler’s latest delves into the meaning of loyalty and friendship, how some rise to life’s challenges while others fail… Fans of Butler’s award-winning Shotgun Lovesongs will welcome this impressive work with an outstanding ensemble cast. Top of the class for Butler on this one.” —Library Journal (starred review)

Because we love this book so much, we want to share the love with you!  The first 5 people who email us at librarylovefest@harpercollins.com mentioning this post will receive a complimentary copy of The Hearts of Men.  Get those fingers typing!  Otherwise, The Hearts of Men is available now on shelves near you.

-Amanda

Dear Librarians,

This year marks the 200th anniversary of HarperCollins Publishers. J. and J. Harper, Printers was a start-up founded in 1817 by two tenacious twenty-something brothers from Long Island. At that time, New York City had a population of 120,000, the average city employee made about 75 cents per day, and James Monroe had just been inaugurated as the fifth American President.
 
Even in its nascency, the firm knew how important libraries were to the community. In 1825, the Harper brothers rented part of their office space to the newly formed Mercantile Library, a forerunner of the amazing public library system that we Americans are so blessed to enjoy today. This was just the start of the outstanding relationship HarperCollins has enjoyed with libraries, now entering its third century.
 
As we celebrate this milestone anniversary, we wanted to take the opportunity to recognize and thank you – the nation's librarians – who have been, and continue to be, our critical partners in bringing together our authors and their readers. 

I invite you to learn more about the history of HarperCollins by visiting our anniversary website, www.hc.com/200, and following HarperCollins on social media. We have many exciting initiatives planned throughout the remainder of our anniversary year, starting with the launch of our website today. We also have a few special things planned just for librarians, including collateral, contests and more. If you haven’t already heard from us about our anniversary initiatives, I encourage you to reach out. Click here to help us celebrate and learn more about getting involved.
 
Here's to the next hundred years and beyond!
 
Josh Marwell
President of Sales

Hallie Ephron is the New York Times bestselling author of Night Night, Sleep Tight; Never Tell a Lie; Come and Find Me; and There Was an Old Woman, and is the mystery reviewer for the Boston Globe.  Hallie came by the offices to shoot a special message to librarians about her new book, You'll Never Know, Dear, an addictive novel of psychological suspense about three generations of women haunted by a little girl’s disappearance, and the porcelain doll that may hold the key to the truth.

Check out the video above, and once that and the insanely creepy cover have piqued your interest, go straight to Edelweiss and request the egalley.

-Amanda