Library Love Fest

New Podcast Episode - Editors Unedited: Emily Griffin interviews Jillian Medoff, author of WHEN WE WERE BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL

There has been so much love around the HarperCollins office for Jillian Medoff's When We Were Bright and Beautiful. We were so excited to be able to feature a podcast episode with the acclaimed author of This Could Hurt and her editor at Harper. She returns with When We Were Bright and Beautiful, her biggest, boldest novel yet—an electrifying, twisty, and deeply emotional family drama, set on Manhattan’s glittering Upper East Side, that explores the dark side of love, the limits of loyalty, and the high cost of truth.

Aimee Molloy, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Mother and Goodnight Beautiful says:

“When We Were Bright and Beautiful blew me away. Jillian Medoff’s gripping exploration of wealth, consent, and complicity tells the story of a loving family’s unraveling with the propulsive pace of the best thrillers. A masterful achievement.” 

Listen to the episode below:

When We Were Bright and Beautiful is on sale August 2, 2022.

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-Lainey

Yeehaw! The Library Love Fest team is heading to another conference: TLA 2022!

Hello, librarians! We're so excited for our second conference this year—and this time we're going to Dallas! Check out the schedule below to see all of the exciting events and author signings we have coming up. And if you missed out on a physical galley, check out our TLA 2022 Edelweiss Collection here! We can't wait to see everyone again!

New Podcast Episode: Librarian Becky Spratford interviews Paul Tremblay, author of THE PALLBEARERS CLUB

We are so excited to share a new podcast episode between Readers' Advisor Becky Spratford and beloved author Paul Tremblay about his upcoming book, The Pallbearers Club—a cleverly voiced psychological thriller about an unforgettable—and unsettling—friendship, with blood-chilling twists, crackling wit, and a thrumming pulse in its veins.

Becky Spratford [MLIS] is a Readers' Advisor in Illinois specializing in serving patrons ages 13 and up. She trains library staff all over the world on how to match books with readers through the local public library. She runs the critically acclaimed RA training blog RA for All. She mentioned the 3rd edition of her book: The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror, which she named Paul Tremblay as an example of a great author working in psychological horror. You can follow Becky on Twitter @RAforAll. 

Becky reviewed The Pallbearers Club book for Booklist, giving it a starred review!

"In his brilliant new novel, Tremblay takes on the well-mined small-town, coming-of-age horror trope, transforming it into something so original, it elevates the entire genre."

—Booklist ⭐️ review

 

Check out some of the other rave reviews:

"Books can have teeth. A whole mouthful of them. The Pallbearers Club has a whole lifetime of them." 
—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of My Heart is a Chainsaw

 

"A new novel from Paul Tremblay is always cause for celebration. The Pallbearers Club has it all—growth and decay, metatextual playfulness and earnest terror, dark hilarity and deep melancholy. For a book that looks death squarely in its sightless eye this one is just brimming over with life and inventiveness. I loved floating and falling through time with Art Barbara and Mercy."
—Karen Russell, New York Times bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Orange World

 

"The most beautiful and heartbreaking funeral I've been to in a long time, The Pallbearers Club is melancholy, funny, and very cruel, but you won't regret carrying this coffin."
—Grady Hendrix, bestselling author of The Final Girl Support Group

Listen to the episode below:

Paul also listed some of the books he is reading and loving:

• Ocean State by Stewart O'Nan
• Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies by John Langan
• Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez
• Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum
• The Ghost Sequences by AC Wise
• Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison

The Pallbearers Club is on sale July 5, 2022

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LibraryReads votes are due June 1st.

A HUGE thank you to Becky and Paul for taking the time to record this episode!

-Lainey

LLF Guest Post: TEAM AMERICA by Robert L. O'Connell

Team America is a dynamic history of four military leaders whose extraordinary leadership and strategy led the United States to success during World War I and beyond, from national bestselling author and acclaimed military historian Robert L. O’Connell.

Today, we are honored to feature a guest post from Robert O'Connell about how this book is feeling very topical for our current climate:

 

***

Ironically, Team America: Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, Eisenhower, and the World They Forged, a book about four men born in the late 19th century, has been dragged into extreme relevance by Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine—one which directly challenges the international order the American quartet had a major role in establishing. Unlike Putin it seems, they were all excellent strategists and practitioners of war on an industrial scale, and all came to see that massive conscript based conflict in an era awash with nuclear weapons was not only extremely dangerous, but in large part futile. They came to this conclusion by living it—witnessing two World Wars' destruction, wrought by whole societies devoted to generating military power, then watching that power transmute into the central obstacle to all-out war, nuclear deterrence through Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, its black humor acronym.

 

Putin wants to put all that up for grabs, literally reverse the course of history. Rather than being a creature of the Cold War KGB as earlier thought, he has revealed himself as a man of the previous century, determined to restore the full breadth of the empire of the Romanovs, all on a gross national product less than South Korea's. On that budget he couldn't do better than a Potemkin colossus—the supposedly rebuilt Russian military mostly based on the old Soviet stuff with improved electronics, manned by professionals who turned out to be conscripts. Then he marched into Ukraine expecting the illusion would hold up against Javelin missiles. When it crumpled, he tried the most implausible of bluffs, a nuclear one. The leaders of the democratic world, living in reality, simply shrugged and tightened the economic noose even further. Power politics, as we now live it, and the real basis for a better and a more peaceful world, or at least a world without all-out war.

 

Team America and its four all-stars played an enormous role in establishing that world, and this braided biography follows their interwoven and momentous path to the survival niche we now occupy and find so fundamentally and futilely challenged. It's one worth following. 

***

Thank you so much, Robert! 

Team America publishes on May 17, 2022.

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The May LibraryReads List has arrived!

Hello, librarians!

You voted, they counted, and the winners have finally been announced!

This month, we are thrilled to share that Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt made the May LibraryReads list! This book was our inaugural Galley Club selection as well as a HarperCollins Lead Read title. The team is over the moon that it made the LibraryReads list!

We also gave Shelby a call to tell her the good news. You can listen in to our conversation on our latest podcast episode here:

Find out more about the title selected here.

-Lainey

New Podcast Episode: Librarian Kaite Stover interviews Christopher Moore, author of RAZZMATAZZ

On this episode, we welcome guest host Kaite Stover, Director of Reader's Services at The Kansas City Public Library. She interviews New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore, author of Razzmatazz—an outrageous follow-up to his madcap novel Noir, returning to the mean streets of San Francisco.

"There is literally a laugh on every page of this book (several, on some pages), and with its fast-paces, deliberately helter-skelter storyline, it sinks its hooks deeply and never lets go."
—Booklist

Listen to the episode below:

Kaite is a rockstar!! She also did a tarot card reading for Christopher. Check out the screenshot from the recording:

Razzmatazz is on sale May 17, 2022

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-Lainey

Notes from Meg Gardiner, author of HEAT 2, at PLA 2022

PLA 2022 is in the books! We were so excited to host Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner. Meg spoke at the PLA Mystery Program at the conference. She talked about her upcoming book, Heat 2, written in conjunction with Michael Mann, four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker and writer-director of Heat, Collateral, Thief, Manhunter, and Miami Vice. They have teamed up to deliver Mann’s first crime novel, an explosive return to the world and characters of his classic film Heat—an all-new story that illuminates what happened before and after the iconic film. 

At the live program, Meg had very kind words for the librarians in the room. We wanted to share them with a larger audience. Meg was so gracious to share her remarks from the PLA Mystery Program below:

***

I want to thank all of you here who work in and for libraries day in and day out.

Several years ago I spoke at PLA—also here in Portland—on a panel with Karin Slaughter. She described libraries as part of the national defense. At the time, I thought: that’s a powerful metaphor.

Today, I know, she wasn’t speaking symbolically. Libraries are crucial to defining, defending, and determining who we are and will be as a country.

I live in Austin and teach seminars for Texas Writes, a non-profit that brings published authors to rural libraries across the state to give free writing workshops. I see how integral libraries are to small communities.

You are the core of what we are supposed to be: promoting free expression, knowledge, and inquiry; strengthening and supporting democracy, welcoming all. Guided not by fear or narrow interest, but serving everyone in the community.

I know that right now some of you feel an oppressive atmosphere. In Texas, many librarians are embattled and threatened for doing their jobs. I honor and support you for standing up for us all.

I also want to let you know that this conference will bring in more money than four games of the men’s NCAA basketball tourney held in Portland last week! That’s how big a deal PLA is. LIBRARIANS BEAT MARCH MADNESS.

***

Thank you so much, Meg! 

Heat 2 publishes on August 9, 2022.

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