Month: June 2020

The Movies

Post author By Mary Kay Brayer
Post date June 26, 2020

Sponsored by our 1-year Audible subscription giveaway courtesy of Macmillan Audiobooks.

We’re giving away a 1-year subscription to Audible to one lucky winner, courtesy of Macmillan’s Audiobooks Newsletter.

The things I’m missing the most during social/physical distancing are weirdly nuanced. Most things can be adapted by taking them outdoors or wearing a mask, but there are two things for which there are no close substitutes:

1. Overpriced cups of “drip” coffee that I can sip at my leisure in a semi-public over-air-conditioned space while eavesdropping to inane and unequivocally boring conversations while pretending to write, hunched over my dusty-ass laptop.

2. Going to the movies by myself, sitting in the exact center of the theater and watching some obscure horror movie in the middle of the day.

The closest we can come to substituting those experiences at a time like this is reading books about horror films. The only way to do that (that emulates the things I miss) is while sitting on our own patios or porches in the afternoon, pouring your morning’s leftover coffee over ice. Or in parks with a makeshift fence staked with your kids’ tent spikes and wrapped with crime scene tape (don’t pretend like you don’t have a roll or two from Halloween still stashed above your fridge in those cabinets that there is no point to because NO ONE CAN REACH THEM. They are literally behind an appliance and taller than any human can go-go-gadget their arms. Who decided?) while your sun-deprived skin absorbs all the vitamin D it can get.

By the way, you’re in the Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly horror newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this realm of hell, THE MOVIES.

Earworm: “Prototype” by Andre 3000.” “Do something out of the ordinary, like catch a matinee… / / Let’s go… let’s go / to the movies.”

Fresh Hells (FKA new releases):

Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles edited by Ellen Datlow

This new anthology centers around the mythology we’ve created by looking at screens. The horrors that lie just offscreen or on the cutting room floor, or even hide in plain sight are all fair game for this collection of horror authors such as Josh Malerman, Stephen Graham Jones, Laird Barron, and Nathan Ballingrud, among others.

Inte interior chinatown rior Chinatown: A Novel by Charles Yu

Though this novel itself is a satire of noir tropes, particularly those of Asian men in Chinatown, more than a horror book itself, the tropes that it satirizes have a horrific sting. The book is described as “a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.” (And if you’re interested in the film Chinatown, check out the biography of the film itself, The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson.)

Hitchcock Blonde: A Cinematic Memoir by Sharon Dolin

This “cinematic memoir” releases in one week (on July 7), but I, of course, had to put it on this list. The book is described as a “heady cocktail of sex and trauma,” but told through the lenses of the famous horror films by director, Alfred Hitchcock. Go ahead on and pre-order this one. You’re welcome.

Cryptkeepers (FKA horror from the backlist):

The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones

If you’re a horror fan (and I know you are), you are also unquestionably familiar with the trope of the Final Girl. This horror book is THE horror book for horror movie fans. It’s not quite a screenplay and not quite a novel, but it’s chock full of film references. The premise itself is an homage to the most famous final girls (Jamie, Ripley, etc.), and a competition among them. And if you’re a big SGJ fan (which you will be, if you’re as yet unfamiliar with his work) his book The Only Good Indians is finally releasing (after being postponed for COVID) on July 14. And Night of the Mannequins is hot on its heels (it releases in September)!

Harbingers (FKA news):

Here’s how the “Shoot the Book adaption market — a staple at the Marché du Film since 2014 and a rising player on the global film scene — continues to evolve.”

Congratulations to horror author Grady Hendrix, who will be releasing his next two novels with Berkely Publishing. Can’t wait to get my hands on The Final Girl Support Group, due to release in June of 2021. Till then, y’all can enjoy The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.

Here’s how The Twilight Zone season two premiere softly skewers male presumption.

Want to read about award-winning Tayari Jones (author of Leaving Atlanta) and her search for writing success? Of course you do.

Read 8 horror novels that are set in Maine (and not by Stephen King).

Check out this horrifying list of queer true crime, too.

Speaking of true crime and film adaptations, I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, “HBO’s new docuseries about late crime writer Michelle McNamara and her obsession with finding the predator she dubbed the Golden State Killer, is a complex story that embodies both of these points and more.”

Rest in peace, Joel Schumacher, director of horror cult classics like The Lost Boys, thrillers like A Time to Kill, The Number 23, and Phone Booth, among many other writing and directing credits.

Boots Riley (director of the wild film Sorry to Bother You) announced his new TV series I’m A Virgo, which will “be dark, absurd, hilarious, and important.”

Want to know how lockdown has changed the publishing industry? Here you go.

Enter to win $250 to spend and Barnes and Noble.

Enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible.

Tell us more about yourself and potentially win an ereader! We’re doing a Reader Survey, it’ll only take a few minutes, and you can see the questions and giveaway details at bookriot.com/2020survey.

Until next week, follow me @mkmcbrayer for minute-to-minute horrors or DM me there to let me know of other books I should include. I’m also on IG @marykaymcbrayer. Talk to you soon!

Your Virgil,

Mary Kay McBrayer
Co-host of Book Riot’s literary fiction podcast, Novel Gazing

What's Up in YA

A Boatload of YA Ebook Deals

Post author By Kelly Jensen
Post date June 26, 2020

Sponsored by The Harbinger Series by Jennifer L. Armentrout, published by Inkyard Press

Half-angel Trinity and her bonded gargoyle protector, Zayne, have been working with demons to stop the apocalypse while avoiding falling in love. The Harbinger is coming . . . but who or what is it? All of humankind may fall if Trinity and Zayne can’t win the race against time as dark forces gather. Don’t miss Rage and Ruin, book two in the fantastical Harbinger trilogy from #1 New York Times Bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout.

Toot toot!

Happy Saturday, YA readers. Grab your ereader and prepare to load it up on some excellent YA ebook deals this weekend.

Prices are current as of Friday, June 26.

Award winning YA nonfiction The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater, which is outstanding, is $3. I cannot recommend it enough.

Almond by Won-pyung Sohn and translated Sandy Joosun Lee is a brand-new novel in translation. It’s marketed as adult, but it’s about a teenager and perfect for YA readers. Not an easy read, but it’s excellent. Grab it for $2.

Speaking of YA in translation, The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi and translated Cathy Hirano is the first in a fantasy series. Grab it for $3.

Claire Kann’s Let’s Talk About Love is $3. Can we talk about how incredible the cover is?

Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake is $3 and one still on my own TBR.

Nina LaCour + David Levithan = You Know Me Well. Grab this novel written by two YA superstars for $3.

Itching for speculative short stories? You can score The End and Other Beginnings by Veronica Roth for $2.

Maybe you want queer short stories. In that case, All Out edited by Saundra Mitchell will be your cuppa. $2.

X by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon, about young Malcolm X and co-written by his daughter, is $1. Please read this.

For $3, you can and should pick up This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callendar.

Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) by LC Rosen is such a great queer read. $2.

Alternate history with zombies? Dread Nation by Justina Ireland is $3.

Add a couple of Anna-Marie McLemore books to your TBR. Blanca and Roja and When the Moon Was Ours are each $3.

And add a couple of books by Amy Rose Capetta to your reading life, too. The Lost Coast is $2, while Capetta’s co-written novel with partner Cori McCarthy Once and Future is $3.

Yaqui Delgado Wants To Kick Your Ass by the incredibly talented Meg Medina is $3.

Last, but not least, The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner — first in her “The Queen’s Thief” series — is on sale for $2.

See you Monday for some cover fun!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram and editor of Body Talk, (Don’t) Call Me Crazy, and Here We Are.

Check Your Shelf

Please Don’t Microwave Your Library Books

Post author By Katie McLain
Post date June 25, 2020

Swords and Spaceships for June 26: Cats (not the movie)

Post author By Alex Acks
Post date June 25, 2020

Pride Picks!

Post author By Alice Burton
Post date June 25, 2020

Sponsored by Writing Wild by Kathryn Aalto.

In Writing Wild, Kathryn Aalto celebrates 25 women whose influential writing helps deepen our connection to the natural world—including Dorothy Wordsworth, Carolyn Finney, Mary Austin, and Rebecca Solnit, among others. These inspiring wordsmiths are scholars, spiritual seekers, conservationists, scientists, novelists, and explorers. They defy easy categorization, yet they all share a bold authenticity that makes their work both distinct and universal. Part travel essay, literary biography, and cultural history, Writing Wild ventures into the landscapes and lives of extraordinary writers and encourages a new generation of women to pick up their pens, head outdoors, and start writing wild.

More Pride! Pride all the time. We’re at the last Friday newsletter of June, so here we go with some real gay (or queer. or trans!) books:

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock. This book is a JOURNEY. Mock tells her story of growing up “young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America.” What is it like to grow up trans and without privilege? When I read this, I felt like it offered tremendous clarity about the breadth of experience out there, how every person’s journey is different, and what humans are capable of accomplishing. If you’ve already read it, check out Mock’s second book, Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. Kim on For Real HIGHLY recommends this. I bought it at Powell’s Books in Portland and haven’t read it yet, but I’m expecting it to be amazing. It’s a memoir of the emotionally abusive relationship Machado was in, as well as the aftermath. It’s called beautifully written, but “haunting,” so watch out if you can’t handle that kind of thing right now. What makes it truly stand out is that Machado changes up the style of every chapter, including a Choose Your Own Path and a Haunted House-style section.

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman. If you were looking for queer history books 5 years ago (and I was), you would come across Faderman all the time, because she was one of the few people writing about it. This is one of her better-known works, where she traces the history of lesbian culture in America. One reviewer accuses her of holding a “culturally-based view of lesbianism,” which is legit, but overall she’s cautious with evidence and does a good job highlighting histories that might otherwise be lost.

All right! Have an excellent weekend, be safe, and as always, you can find me on social media @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

Read This Book

Read This Book: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Post author By Tirzah Price
Post date June 25, 2020

Sponsored by Ocean Front Publishing. Bad Karma eBook just $2.99 for a limited time only!

In the summer of 1978, twenty-one-year-old Paul Wilson jumps at the chance to join two local icons on a dream surf trip to Mexico, unaware their ultimate destination lies in the heart of cartel country. Having no earthly idea of where he’ll get the money, and determined to prove his mettle, he does the only thing he can think of: He robs a supermarket. If karma needed more reasons to doom the trip, he soon learns one of his companions is a convicted killer on the run, the other an unscrupulous cad. Soon enough, mere survival takes precedence over surfing.

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

Before we get into this week’s pick, I wanted to let you know that Book Riot is running a short reader survey! Tell us more about yourself and potentially win an ereader! It’ll only take a few minutes and you can see the questions and giveaway details at bookriot.com/2020survey.

Now, to wrap up Pride Month, I picked one of my absolute favorite books of the year so far: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune!

Content warning: Talk of past child abuse/neglect (nothing graphic)

Linus is a caseworker with the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He’s thorough, impartial, and his reports are always meticulous. But his personal life is rather lacking, and he dreams of taking a vacation to the sea. When his good work catches the attention of Extremely Upper Management, they assign him a case that throws his entire life upside down. Linus is sent to the seaside, where an orphanage on a nearby island is in need of an evaluation. Six highly unusual children live there with their caretaker, Arthur, and it’s Linus’s job to ensure they’re being well looked-after. But this island holds secrets that could jeopardize their future, and Linus will learn that Arthur is determined to keep his makeshift family together, no matter what he may think of them.

I love the whimsical world building and sense of humor in this book! It makes the story feel like a contemporary fairy tale, and it made me love Linus from the very start. This book is a wonderful journey in which Linus must open his eyes to see that the world contains so much more than he has ever imagined–and that’s a bit scary at first. Mainly because kids he’s meant to evaluate are unlike any he’s ever met, and some of them are still struggling with the effects of adult neglect and prejudice. But Linus must learn to sit with his discomfort and be open to listening and witnessing differences, and along the way he sees how hearts and minds can change. The cast of characters is so imaginative, and the shenanigans that the kids get up to had me laughing out loud in certain parts. The romance that eventually blossoms between Linus and Arthur is sweet and subtle, and so the focus of this book is more on found-family and learning to stand up for the marginalized. If you need a really happy read that will make you laugh and cheer, I promise you this book is just the thing!

Happy reading!
Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, All the Books, and Twitter.

If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, click here to subscribe.

Unusual Suspects

We’re Getting More TRULY DEVIOUS 🔪

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date June 25, 2020

Arthur Conan Doyle Estate Sues Over Netflix Adaptation: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date June 25, 2020

Sponsored by Writing Wild by Kathryn Aalto.

Arthur Conan Doyle Estate Sues Netflix & YA Author

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate is suing over the Netflix adaptation of Nancy Springer’s The Enola Holmes Mysteries series, which stars Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, and Helena Bonham Carter. While the majority of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock works are now in the public domain, ten stories published between 1923 and 1927 are not, and the lawsuit claims in those ten stories Sherlock shows emotions and that is the copyright infringement in Enola Holmes Mysteries. The estate “seeks a jury trial and seeks unspecified damages and relief from further infringement on copyrights.”

Finish This Louisa May Alcott Unpublished Work

Twenty years before publishing Little Women, and the same year she wrote her first novel The Inheritance, Louisa May Alcott wrote 9,000 words of Aunt Nellie’s Diary–“from the perspective of a 40-year-old woman bringing up her orphaned niece, Annie. When Annie’s friend Isabel comes to stay, Nellie becomes concerned that the girl’s attractive exterior hides a “’darkness within’”. The work had been unpublished all these years and now you can read it in this week’s Strand magazine. The Strand has also put out a call for writers who think they can finish the work.

Writers Against Racial Injustice Raises $55,000

Author Lise Haines was unable to physically join Black Lives Matters protests but wanted to find a way to help, which led to the creation of Writers Against Racial Injustice, a fundraising coalition by six Boston-area authors. They set out with a goal to raise $10,000 and have since raised more than $55,000 for the Equal Justice Initiative, the Montgomery, Alabama non-profit organization which provides legal representation to prisoners.

Giveaways

062520-AudibleSubscriptionEAC-Giveaways

Post author By Hannah Cherie Hudson
Post date June 25, 2020

Kissing Books

Hashtag Couple Goals

Post author By Jessica Pryde
Post date June 24, 2020

Sponsored by our 1-year Audible subscription giveaway courtesy of Macmillan Audiobooks.

We’re giving away a 1-year subscription to Audible to one lucky winner, courtesy of Macmillan’s Audiobooks Newsletter.

Thursdays are for new books! (I mean, Mondays and Tuesdays are for new books, but Thursday Kissing Books is what it’s all about!)

Over on Book Riot

Last week, we asked. This week, you answered!

This book isn’t out until next year, which makes me sad, but we’ve got a long time to admire this cover!

While it went live a whole week later, there’s no better way to celebrate Loving Day than with some interracial romance novels.

If you’re buying some mainstream, big-five romance anytime soon (or of course, other things, I guess lol), try getting it through one or more of these Black-owned indie bookstores.

These pins are just great.

Deals

Have you checked out Jackie Lau’s Baldwin Village series? Now is a great time to look, because she just put out Baldwin Village: The Complete Series and it’s 3.99 until July 1. Featuring One Bed for Christmas, The Ultimate Pi Day Party, Ice Cream Lover, and Man vs. Durian, it’s a ton of fun and sexytimes for about a dollar a book. (And even if you forget to grab it until after July 1, it’ll still be only 7.99! Either way, if you haven’t read this series, it’s all the good things for someone who wants fun, food, and fluff.

New Books!

Y’all, I’m so behind. This week snuck up on me, and so did a certain Lady of Awesomeness whose book wasn’t supposed to come out until next week.

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert

It is not even fair how brill Talia Hibbert is. In Take a Hint, we once again visit with the Brown sisters (though you can honestly read this one without having read Get a Life, Chloe Brown) and their friends and family. Dani is a PhD student whose class is in the worst building on campus. That’s okay, though, because she and the thick-thighed guard who barks at students for their IDs at the building’s entrance get along very well. To the point that when he carries her out of the building with an adoring look during a danger drill, they accidentally start a viral hashtag that is full of #couplegoals. Which could help him with getting visibility for his charity, so he asks her to fake date—the only kind of dating Dani would ever be willing to do, because she is very much anti-relationship. And Zafir is a hopeless romantic. So, yeah. What could possibly go wrong?

And I was totally going to read Two Rogues Make a Right by Cat Sebastian by this week but somehow it’s already almost the end of June? The author called it “Only One Bed: The Novel” in an email and everyone I know has been screaming about this book for months. And let’s be honest: It’s Cat Sebastian; even if it’s a childhood-friends-to-lovers book, which I tend not to read, I’m going to love it. When I get there. (Also, I heard that Joel Leslie narrates the audiobook, and if you haven’t heard one of his narrations…oh man, you need to.)

And let’s not leave out Miz Adriana Beyoncé Herrera over there, who decided we needed to…find more joy…right now instead of on June 30, when Finding Joy was initially supposed to drop. Desta Joy Walker, the Dominican-American relief worker living in Addis Ababa, and Ethiopian resident Elias Fikru meet, pine, and explore Ethiopia in each other’s eyes in this newest book from Dreamers dreamer Adriana Herrera.

And of course, there are a few more people are talking about:

Her Lady’s Honor by Renée Dahlia (this cover, amirite?)
This Time Tomorrow by Tessa Bailey (this is the sequel to Reborn Yesterday and I just wanted more about them during that whole book)
Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory (It’s probably great, but I’m kind of avoiding politician romance right now)
Loud Mouth by Avery Flynn
Love Delayed in Dublin by Moni Boyce (this one kind of came out of nowhere and I look forward to checking it out!)
The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch by Maisey Yates
Return to Magnolia Harbor by Hope Ramsay
When Harry Met Harry by Sydney Smyth (OKAY I’m super curious about this Audible original, okay?)
It’s a Work Thing by Michelle Karise

So what are you reading this weekend?

As usual, catch me on Twitter @jessisreading or Instagram @jess_is_reading, or send me an email at wheninromance@bookriot.com if you’ve got feedback, bookrecs, or just want to say hi!