Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody series has entranced readers for years, and today the final installment has finally reached shelves. The Painted Queen finds Amelia the target of assassins in an excavation season that will prove to be unforgettable.
Praise has already come pouring in, including a Publishers Weeklystarred review: “The long-running series by MWA Grand Master Peters (1927 – 2013) featuring forthright Amelia Peabody Emerson and her irascible archeologist husband, Radcliffe Emerson, comes full circle with this energetic final novel completed by Hess, Peters’s friend and fellow mystery author…. the Emerson clan takes a fitting final bow as the curtain falls on a pioneering career."
The Painted Queen is on sale today, so now's your chance to devour this final chapter in an amazing adventure, or take this opportunity to dive into the complete series and experience the adventure from start to finish.
Molly Patterson's ambitious debut novel, Rebellion, has garnered serious praise in advance of its August on-sale date. Tracing the lives of four daring women across several generations and continents, Rebellion received a starred review from both Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews. Per Kirkus, Patterson is "a talent to watch…manages to travel broad swaths of history and geography while creating intimate moments with a refreshing lack of sentimentality; and the novel’s sense of adventure makes it addictive reading." We are thrilled to have Molly join us today for a guest post, so without further ado, enjoy!
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For one academic year, from September 2012 to June 2013, I held the title of Writer-in-Residence at a tony boys’ school in Washington, D.C. The position offered a vanishingly small stipend, room and board, medical insurance, and very few duties. I was expected to teach a fifty-minute class four days a week and I was expected to write. That was all.
I’d been working on Rebellion for two years when I moved to D.C. and the book seemed to be falling apart in my hands: the structure was unsound, the main character uninteresting. I’d never written a novel before and I wasn’t sure that I was capable of writing one. There were no screens on the window to my apartment and one day, two different birds flew into my bedroom, hours apart. They found their way out, but I remained stuck.
The nation’s capital has a lot to offer someone with time but no money. One day, I took a bus down Massachusetts Avenue and made my way across the Mall to the Library of Congress. Previously, my idea of the type of person granted access to this institution was a researcher dressed in corduroy, someone who knew her way around a footnote, an endnote, and a bibliography. I had no formal research training. I didn’t even know what I wanted to look for in the Library’s vast catalog. But it turns out that in one important respect, the Library of Congress is the same as all the other libraries I’ve frequented and loved over the years: it’s open to all. You don’t need an association with any institution to use it. What you need is a project, a passion. That I had.
My first time—and, indeed, every time—in the Library, I was awed. It’s a stunning building, with marble floors and columns, stained glass, mosaic ceilings, and wooden study tables polished with age. In my memory, there are little alcoves off the main reading room where few ever venture. Several stories up, tourists gaze down from behind glass as if into a fishbowl, while inside the reading room, a focused quiet is maintained.
During my days at the Library, I perused volumes of correspondence from American missionaries in China. It was valuable research for the novel, but even more valuable was the feeling I got from being there. Sitting with my stack of musty volumes, surrounded by others with their own creaky books, I had no idea who was an academic working on a dissertation, who was tracking his family’s genealogy, and who was following a pet interest just for fun. It didn’t matter. We were all researchers, given credence by our curiosity and a desire to satisfy it.
When I was feeling stuck working on Rebellion, a visit to the Library couldn’t point the path forward, but it could reveal what was beyond the windshield and out the side windows, too. Of course, I wanted to see what was there—that’s what every writer always wants: to find out what’s on the next page, and the next, and the next.
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Thanks, Molly! Rebelliongoes on sale August 8th. Can't wait? If you're a librarian, the egalley can be downloaded from Edelweiss. Happy reading!
If you are a librarian but haven't yet dipped your toes into the wonderful world of GalleyChat, now is the time! Unfamiliar? GalleyChat, a Twitter discussion taking place the first Tuesday of every month from 4-5PM EST, is all about upcoming books librarians are most excited about. It has quickly grown into a vibrant community and one of the best resources for discovering what everyone will be reading in the months ahead.
Here are some details on HarperCollins titles that are garnering major buzz in the GalleyChat community!
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The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld A haunting, richly atmospheric, and deeply suspenseful novel from the acclaimed author of The Enchanted about an investigator who must use her unique insights to find a missing little girl.
The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine A mesmerizing debut psychological thriller full of delicious twists about a coolly manipulative woman who worms her way into the lives of a wealthy “golden couple” from Connecticut to achieve the privileged life she wants.
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash The author of the celebrated bestseller A Land More Kind Than Home returns with this eagerly awaited new novel, set in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina in 1929 and inspired by actual events, that chronicles an ordinary woman’s struggle for dignity and her rights in a textile mill, a moving tale of courage in the face of oppression and injustice.
Looking for your next GREAT book club read? Join us on Tuesday, July 18th, at 2:00PM EST for Booklist's Book Club webinar! It's free, fun, and filled with fantastic recommendations that will make you the hero of your book club. What's not to love? Click here to register!
In case you missed our Facebook Live event this past Friday, you can now watch the archived video below or on Facebook. The LLF team discussed some of our favorite current titles, including the inaugural Sarah Jessica Parker Book Club Central pick, No One Is Coming to Save Usby Stephanie Powell Watts, as well as exciting future releases such as the newest Laura Lippman standalone, Sunburn. Watch below for more!
If you don't want to miss our next Facebook Live, be sure to like us on Facebook to receive advance notice! For all the latest news in library land, sign up for our newsletter!
Award-winning actress, producer, and book lover Reese Witherspoon has chosen Kate Quinn's The Alice Network as the next selection of her @RWbookclub! Quinn's dual narrative historical novel tells the story of the real-life network of female spies who operated in France during WWI, along with the story of a young American socialite looking for her cousin in post-WWII France.
Reese will post about The Alice Network on her social media in July, and you can join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram. There will also be a Facebook Live discussion at the end of July for the #RWBookClub members.
Haven't read The Alice Network yet? The first 10 people to email us at librarylovefest@harpercollins.com will receive a complimentary copy! This is the perfect opportunity to dive into this enthralling historical novel, so make sure you join in the fun this summer.
A one night stand, an imploding marriage, and a small Southern town full of secrets combine in Joshilyn Jackson's The Almost Sisters, which rocketed onto the July LibraryReads list at number 7. Joshilyn stopped by LLF to share what making this amazing list means to her:
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When my editor called me and told me The Almost Sisters was a LibraryReads Pick, I let out a barbaric yawp and a did a spontaneous dance that had a lot to do with joy and very little to do with personal dignity. I danced, in fact, like nobody was looking, even though my husband, our two dogs, and Cat the Younger were right there. Once I shared the news, Scott danced with me, and the dogs milled about excitedly with no idea why. Cat the Younger acted like he was too cool to care, sitting complacent on the china cabinet, looking down his nose at us.
Scott went out and bought a frosty bottle of sparkling rosé and popped it open, saying we were going to drink the whoooole thing. Confession: he doesn’t much care for it… I married well. It was worth the wee, pink, bubble-induced headache I had in the morning; it’s the kind of news that we celebrate like crazy-pants at my house.
I tell you all this so you will know how much you matter—how much this means to writers like me.
My job mostly takes place in my dark cave of a bedroom, me in enormous pajamas with feral hair, crunched up in the bed with a laptop, grunting and puffing when it goes poorly and cackling into the screen like a smug hyena when I get into that high-like zone where story falls out of me feeling whole. It is very solitary and weird, an oddly private process with a hopefully very public end result.
I try to get people and things and places that are so real to me, and so beloved to me, to run out of my brain and down through my fingers and out in the form of words. It’s a long, fraught trip from the brain to the page, made in the hopes that these words will work as a road map, bringing readers to tiny imaginary Birchville, Alabama.
I want folks to see Leia Birch, the narrator, the way I see her: brassy, bright, funny, nerd-cool, but also flawed, with a crack in her deepest heart. I want people to visit the town her family founded just after the Civil War on the burned out bones of a ‘Bama hamlet. I want people who came from the small town South to recognize elements of their own communities, and those raised elsewhere to feel they have truly armchair travelled. Hopefully visitors will understand my homeland a little better, love its beautiful pieces, understand our flaws.
And truthfully? Writers don’t know how well our maps are working to bring readers to our imaginary lands, not truly, until the book goes out into the world.
Here is what I know about librarians: you guys are True North readers. If you like it enough to make it a LibraryReads Pick, my map must have gotten you to this place I so want folks to visit. Moreover, I also know what huge, glorious mouths you have—you guys talk books, and readers listen.
And while I write alone, and while I write very much for my own pleasure, I also write to be read. Thank you for visiting Birchville, double thank you for liking it enough to say so out loud in total public, and, most of triple thankin’ all, thank you for all you do to get books like mine into the hands of readers.
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Thanks, Joshilyn! The Almost Sisters goes on sale July 11, so all you readers out there should make sure to dive into this powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South as soon as it hits shelves.
A panel of librarians from around the country came together for another well-attended Read n' Rave at this year's ALA Annual in Chicago. Modeled after the ever-popular Shout 'n Share panel that takes place every year at Book Expo, Read n' Rave gives the panelists an opportunity to voice their love of upcoming books they don't want you to miss. The full recap can be read over at The Booklist Reader by following the link below:
Keep reading for a list of all the HarperCollins titles chosen by the panelists. One notable book that garnered RAVES from many of the panelists was LLF-favorite The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn!
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Erin Downey Howerton, Children’s Manager at the Wichita Public Library The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine A mesmerizing debut psychological thriller full of delicious twists about a coolly manipulative woman who worms her way into the lives of a wealthy “golden couple” from Connecticut to achieve the privileged life she wants.
Stephen Sposato, Manager of Content Curation and Reader’s Advisory at the Chicago Public Library The Child Finderby Rene Denfeld A haunting, richly atmospheric, and deeply suspenseful novel from the acclaimed author of The Enchanted about an investigator who must use her unique insights to find a missing little girl.
Hello, librarian friends! The Library Love Fest team has survived the wonderful, crazy, and spellbinding rush of ALA Annual in Chicago. Where do we go from here? More books! We have some very special titles in store for your September LibraryReads considerations, including our Lead Read pick for Fall 2017: The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld. Also new this month is an advanced peek at some great upcoming October releases. Let's get reading!
Don't forget: thedeadline to vote for the September LibraryReads list is July 20th.
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The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld For fans of: The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter and The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena A haunting, richly atmospheric, and deeply suspenseful novel from the acclaimed author of The Enchanted about an investigator who must use her unique insights to find a missing little girl. "Rene Denfeld has a gift for shining bright light in dark places. The Child Finder is a gorgeous, haunting gem of a novel. Raw and real yet wrapped in a fairy tale, as lovely and as chilling as the snow." —Erin Morgenstern, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus
The Twelve-Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson For fans of: Barkskins by Annie Proulx and The Son by Philipp Meyer From New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Henderson, an audacious American epic set in rural Georgia during the years of the Depression and Prohibition. "One of the deepest and most nuanced explorations of our shared humanity that I’ve read…. The writing is so extraordinary it will make your teeth ache; the story is so compelling that you may gasp out loud…. This is no ordinary novel. It is art of the highest order." —Cristina Henríquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans
Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss For fans of: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida and The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht The award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The History of Love conjures an achingly beautiful and breathtakingly original novel about personal transformation that interweaves the stories of two disparate individuals—an older lawyer and a young novelist—whose transcendental search leads them to the same Israeli desert. "Krauss’s elegant, provocative, and mesmerizing novel is her best yet. Rich in profound insights and emotional resonance…. Vivid, intelligent, and often humorous, this novel is a fascinating tour de force." —Publishers Weekly review
Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody series has entranced readers for years, and today the final installment has finally reached shelves. The Painted Queen finds Amelia the target of assassins in an excavation season that will prove to be unforgettable.
