Month: September 2020

Who Spends $30K to Investigate a Library’s Support for BLM?!

Post author By Katie McLain
Post date September 4, 2020

Sponsored by A Drop of Midnight by Jason Diakité.

He traced his Black ancestry through time and across continents. What he found is a story only he can tell. From hip-hop artist Jason Diakité comes a stunning account of growing up between worlds. A Drop of Midnight is Jason’s remarkable memoir and an unflinching look at not only his own history, but also that of generations affected by the trauma of the African diaspora, then and now. Jason draws on conversations with his parents, research, and personal experiences to paint a vivid picture of race, discrimination, family, and ambition. Prime members read or listen for free.

Welcome to Check Your Shelf. I hope everyone can enjoy this upcoming long weekend, even though every person I’ve talked to has had an existential crisis about the fact that WE’RE ALREADY IN SEPTEMBER OH MY LORD WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!

Ahem.

Libraries & Librarians

News Updates

Here’s the latest update on the REALM partnership test results…spoiler alert, a longer quarantine for returned items may be required.
Douglas County Library Board of Trustees will investigate the library director and the staff over their statement of support for Black Lives Matter, voting to spend up to $30K on a third-party investigator. What the fork is this nonsense??
And on the opposite end of the spectrum, a member of the Fairfax County Library board is facing calls for his removal after his critical remarks about the diverse titles featured on the library’s website.
Loudon Co. (VA) officials have drawn a lot of negative press after deciding to close two library branches to serve as county day care centers without consulting library administrators first.
Some libraries are being forced to roll back in-person services due to COVID cases on staff, community surges, or uncooperative visitors. Meanwhile, Lake County (IL) libraries are gradually restoring services, saying “We needed to ensure we could do it safely.” (This is the county I work in.)
And in other news, this German library paid £2.5 million for a book 400 years after it first tried to buy it!

Cool Library Updates

Libraries host learning pods to serve students in need.
Libraries employ low-tech programming to engage children and families.
The Harold Washington Library in Chicago offers a pop-up resource center to provide assistance to people experiencing homelessness.

Worth Reading

Virus-responsive design for libraries.
Supporting school librarians through COVID and beyond. Plus, how to boost the signal of school librarians.
10 non-partisan fact-checking websites, in case you need some additional resources to offer your patrons (ahem…or family members…)

Book Adaptations in the News

HBO is doing a TV adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Sphere! I love this book so much – it’s probably my favorite Crichton novel next to Jurassic Park!
The Game of Thrones showrunners are working to adapt Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem.
Al Roker Entertainment is producing an adaptation of Beverly Jenkins’ Bring on the Blessings series.
Netflix is adapting Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land, as well as The Noel Diary by Richard Paul Evans.
NOS4A2 will not be renewed for an additional season.
Emma Roberts signed a first-look deal with Hulu and plans to focus primarily on adapting books. Her first project will be adapting Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering.
George R.R. Martin has filed a lawsuit over the film rights to his werewolf novella The Skin Trade.
Here’s the first look at The Haunting of Bly Manor, which is based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and is a follow-up to The Haunting of Hill House, which was terrifying as hell. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THIS!!
Here’s the first trailer for I’m Thinking of Ending Things. If you haven’t read the book yet…it’s a trip.
Teaser trailer for The Stand.
The best movie and TV adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. (Although A Muppet Christmas Carol is clearly the top choice, and I refuse to hear a word against it.)

Books & Authors in the News

Fauja Singh Keeps Going is the first children’s book by a major publisher to center on a Sikh character. On the one hand, this is really cool! On the other hand, SRSLY?! We’re still having firsts like this in the year 2020??
Jesmyn Ward wrote a heartwrenching essay about losing her husband in January of this year.
(TW: transphobia) JK Rowling returns an award given to her last year by the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights group, after the group criticized her increasingly fervent and problematic anti-trans viewpoints in August.

Numbers & Trends

Library professionals: facts and figures.
A look at all of the books published recently about Trump…how well do they actually sell?

Award News

The Women’s Prize for Fiction is having an online ticketed celebration.
Roundup of awards from the Poetry Foundation.
The Barjeel Art Foundation announces its first Barjeel Poetry Prize for ekphrastic poetry for teens and adults. Click the link to learn more, and to find out what the heck “ekphrastic” actually means.

Pop Cultured

Rest in power, Chadwick Boseman.
Resident Evil is headed to Netflix.

Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous

Dictionary.com releases its biggest update ever.
Fierce Reads announces a new monthly YA book club.

On the Riot

How librarians helped invent the YA category of books.
How to get a Little Free Library sign.
The elusive accurate Stephen King adaptation.
The wide world of Jeopardy! contestant authors.
Donating books during COVID.
One reader on why they are too slow a reader for book clubs.
The world’s first novel is older than you think.

Take a breath and take care of yourselves on this long weekend, folks. I’ll see you next week.

—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for September 4: Afrofuturism Spotlight

Post author By Alex Acks
Post date September 4, 2020

Sponsored by Vault Comics and #1 New York Times Bestselling author Brandon Sanderson’s new, original hardcover graphic novel DARK ONE!

From Brandon Sanderson comes Dark One, the first in a series of original graphic novels, from Vault Comics. Order now!

Some worlds are made to be broken. Paul Tanasin is a young man haunted by visions of a dark and fantastic world―visions he initially believes are hallucinations. But when he discovers they are prophecies from Mirandus, a world in which he’s destined to become a fearsome destroyer, he’ll have to embrace the fear, rise up as the Dark One, and shatter everything. Dark One examines the dual roles we often take on in life—the ability to be a savior as well as a destroyer.

Happy Friday, shipmates! We made it through another week! August has been consigned to the dustbin of history, and good riddance (unless your August didn’t suck, in which case, please do not let me toss it away). It’s Alex, with some news—a LOT happened this week, wow–and a very abbreviated glance at some Afrofuturist books, since that’s a topic way too broad to truly handle in one little newsletter. Take care and stay safe!

Looking for non-book things you can do to help in the quest for justice? blacklivesmatter.card.co and The Okra Project.

News and Views

Octavia Butler finally hit the NYT bestseller list (for the week of August 29). The snip in the tweet is from the Paperback Trade Fiction list, with Parable of the Sower at number 14. For more on her work, there’s a great Book Riot post to get you started.

The Three Body Problem is being adapted for a Netflix series. Here’s a New Yorker profile of Cixin Liu from 2019.

Star Trek: Discovery has announced more of its season 3 cast, which includes a nonbinary actor and a trans man actor.

FIYAHCon invites you to enjoy all of its Friday programming for free.

John Boyega did an excellent and absolutely unflinching interview with GQ Magazine that is a must read. No, really. Go read it. Right now. I’ll wait.

New short story from Tochi Onyebuchi: How to Pay Reparations: A Documentary

Strange Horizons just published its 20th birthday issue.

New Zen Cho novel on the horizon!!

Ryan Coogler writes about Chadwick Boseman. Marvel put together an incredibly touching tribute to him. Letitia Wright wrote a beautiful poem.

As an aside, this is a cool article about the evolution of the Dora Milaje from comics to how they were seen in Black Panther.

Per KJ Charles, you’ve only got a limited time left to snag Samit Basu’s amazing novel Chosen Spirits.

On Book Riot

How The Hunger Games prequel helped me realize I’ve changed

10 of the best urban fantasy series to read

This month, you can enter to win $50 to spend at your favorite indie bookstore and a free 1-year audible subscription.

Free Association Friday: Afrofuturism Spotlight

In honor of Chadwick Boseman’s most famous role (though did you know he was also an award-winning playwright before he broke out as an actor?) I wanted to put the spotlight on Afrofuturism, since Black Panther is arguably what put a much older (though the term itself originated in 1994) literary movement into the broader [white] cultural spotlight.

(Also as a note, Nnedi Okorafor draws a distinction between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism, which is why her books aren’t going to be in this FAF. I’m also not educated enough to go further into the academic discussion.)

Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler – This is a compendium of the entire Xenogenesis trilogy, which was actually my introduction to Butler’s work (and left me actually angy that I hadn’t known to read her earlier). Humanity has been almost destroyed, and their only chance for survival is a strange kind of symbiosis with the alien Oankali.

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead – The Department of Elevator Inspectors is divided between the good-old-boy Empiricists, who do everything by the book, and the Intuitionists, who are able to understand any defect an elevator has via meditation. Lila Mae is the first Black woman inspector; she’s an Intuitionist, and she is never wrong. When an elevator goes into freefall on her watch, the Empiricists jump at the chance to blame her… so she decides to start her own investigation into the incident, one that will lead her to a secret that will change her life forever.

Blood Colony by Tananarive Due – The blood of immortals is the source of a drug called “Glow,” which can cure almost any illness–including the scourge that is AIDS. But the people who make and distribute Glow are being murdered by a violent, fanatical sect linked to the Vatican… and ultimately, it’s up to one teenaged immortal girl to stop them before they take everything she loves.

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney – In a dead city at the center of the United States, only madmen and criminals wander the streets. Into this place arrives a young man known only as the Kid, a poet and wanderer, who will uncover its mysteries.

Mindscape by Andrea Hairston – For 115 years, the world has been divided by the Barrier, created by an extraterrestrial and epi-dimensional entity seemingly intent on dividing humans into warring factions. A treaty has been painstakingly created to end the wars, but the architect is assassinated, much to the glee of the power-hungry politicians and religious fanatics who liked the conflict the way it was. It’s up to her protege, Elleni, to repair the shattered treaty.

Prey of the Gods by Nicky Drayden – A future South Africa rapidly advancing with personal robots and new renewable energy infrastructure is about to get hit with a triple whammy: a new hallucinogenic drug, an AI uprising, and an ancient demigoddess who wants to reclaim her power with a lot of human blood. It’s up to a quirky cast, each of whom has their own serious issues, to keep their bright future—or any future at all—alive.

Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett – I can’t do a punchier summary than this: “A computer program etched into the atmosphere has a story to tell, the story of two people, of a city lost to chaos, of survival and love. The program’s data, however, has been corrupted.”

See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.

Read This Book

Read This Book: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Post author By Tirzah Price
Post date September 3, 2020

Sponsored by Kind of a Big Deal by Shannon Hale, with Fierce Reads.

There’s nothing worse than peaking in high school. Nobody knows that better than Josie Pie. She was kind of a big deal—but the bigger you are, the harder you fall. And Josie fell. Hard. Ouch. Meanwhile, her life keeps imploding. Desperate to escape, Josie gets into reading. Literally. She reads a book and suddenly she’s inside it. It’s alarming. But also . . . kind of amazing? It’s the perfect way to live out her fantasies. Book after book, Josie the failed star finds a new way to shine. But the longer she stays in a story, the harder it becomes to escape. Will Josie find a story so good that she just stays forever?

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!

This week’s picks is one of my favorite books of 2020–The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson! To say that this book might be the favorite of the year is no exaggeration–I loved every bit of it!

Content warning: domestic abuse

Cara lives in the future, where walled cities are home to the wealthy and privileged, and communities just outside consist mainly of people of color who struggle to make ends meet in a world vastly affected by climate change. Cara is one of the lucky ones–she’s got a job with the corporation that has perfected multiverse travel, and she works as a traverser. She’s one of the most valuable traversers, in fact, because you can’t travel to worlds where your counterpart is alive, and thanks to her rough upbringing, most of Cara’s doppelgängers are dead. She just needs to keep her head down for four more years and she can apply for citizenship in the city. Cara passes time by flirting with her unavailable handler, Dell, and helping out her family outside the city the best she can. But when she’s sent on a routine mission to a new world where her doppelgänger has recently been murdered, Cara discovers that she’s a pawn in a vast conspiracy–and she has to decide what she’ll do about it.

Cara is the kind of character I love to read–tough but emotionally vulnerable, resourceful but grappling with a secret past that could undo everything in the space of a breath. While the beginning does feel like a bit of a big info-dump, if you stick with it for thirty pages, you begin to get a sense for what a creative, complicated, and vivid world Johnson has created. The social and economical stratifications aren’t so far removed from our own world, and if Cara comes across as hardened, it’s because she grew up in a tough world. You also won’t have to wait very long for the twists to start hitting–Cara is much more complicated than she first appears, and readers will want to pay attention as tiny reveals change your entire understanding of Cara and her world(s). And they never stop, either–chapter after chapter, new twists and surprise developments keep you on your toes. Some of them you’ll see coming, some of them will take you by surprise, but they never stop thrilling, even up until the very end of the book.

I also love that Cara is casually queer in a way where her sexuality isn’t really a big deal, but it does play an important role in the book. Her yearning for Dell, a privileged woman she can’t have, is a huge source of angst, and also symbolic of all the things that Cara wants but can’t have. It also provides wonderful tension as the reader is left to wonder just how much Dell understands about Cara and her secrets. While I won’t say how that pans out, I can tell you that this is not a tragic queer story!

I could go on for pages about why I love this book, but suffice to say it’s one that I know I’ll want to re-read at some point in the future, for enjoyment and also to just marvel at how Johnson put such a complicated story together. I’ve not read this level of plotting since Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows and Ninth House, and honestly, it’s thrilling to know that you’re reading a complicated story masterfully executed!

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.

True Story

Some History Reads for Your Friday

Post author By Alice Burton
Post date September 3, 2020

SCARY STORIES Documentary Watch Party For Banned Books Weeks: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date September 3, 2020

The Big Books of Fall

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date September 3, 2020

Sponsored by Size Zero by Abigail Mangin.

Condom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways. A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion’s biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend’s New York City mansion. This new evidence casts suspicion back on the former boyfriend, Cecil LeClaire. Now a monk, he is forced to return to his dark and absurd childhood home to clear his name. He teams up with Ava Germaine, a renegade ex-model. And together, they investigate the depraved and lawless modeling industry behind Cecil’s family fortune.

Hello mystery fans! It’s the weekend and this crime train always stops for round-ups, news, trailers, links to share, and Kindle deals. Here we go:

From Book Riot And Around The Internet

Rincey and Katie talk adaptation news, including the Dan Mallory movie, and take a walk down memory lane with middle grade mystery books on the latest Read Or Dead.

Get to Know Nordic Noir With These 10 Novels

Alyssa Cole is on the Smart Bitches podcast: When No One Is Watching, with Alyssa Cole

On the Crime Writers of Color podcast: Faye Snowden, author A Killing Fire, is interviewed by Robert Justice.

Audiobooks Are — And I Can’t Stress This Enough — Saving My Sanity During COVID-19

(There are crime novels mixed in) The 23 Most Anticipated YA Books to Read in September

How Are Crime Authors Going to Address the Pandemic in Their New Books?

The Big Books of Fall

(The Bright Lands is one) Win 5 Books by Authors You Should Get to Know

Win a Copy of THICK AS THIEVES by Sandra Brown!

Win a year subscription to Audible

News And Adaptations

Jane Harper updated fans on Instagram regarding The Dry adaptation: “In an alternate universe, today was the day the The Dry movie was due to hit screens. The pandemic means the release has been postponed with a new date still to be confirmed, but trust me, it is absolutely worth the wait.”

‘No Time to Die’ Gets New Trailer as 007 Marketing Engine Roars Back to Life

The Inside Story of the $8 Million Heist From the Carnegie Library

Literary Scammer Dan Mallory to Be Rewarded by Having Jake Gyllenhaal Play Him on TV

Catherine Steadman To Pen Series Adaptation Of Jess Ryder’s ‘The Ex-Wife’ For BlackBox Multimedia & Night Train Media

Kindle Deals

Legal mystery fan? Here’s a series starter not to miss that is a revised edition of The Little Death: Lay Your Sleeping Head by Michael Nava is $3.99–and I sure did add the audiobook for $1.99!

Historical mystery fan? Don’t miss this series starter based on one of the first female Indian lawyers: The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey is $1.99! (Review) (TW domestic violence)

Like your thrillers to be cruel AF? I got you: Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent is $1.99! (Review) (TW: cyber-exploitation/ Heads-up a character deals with fat shaming throughout the entire novel.)

Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. See 2020 upcoming releases and 2021. An Unusual Suspects Pinterest board. Get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.

Giveaways

090320-TheInsomniacs-Giveaway

Post author By Natalia Heroux
Post date September 3, 2020

We’re giving away five copies of The Insomniacs by Marit Weisenberg to five lucky Riot readers!

Enter here for a chance to win, or click the cover image below!

Here’s what it’s all about:

A competitive diver, seventeen-year-old Ingrid is haunted by what she saw at the pool at a routine meet, before falling off the high dive and waking up concussed. The only thing she remembers about the moment before her dive is locking eyes with Van—her neighbor, former best friend, and forever crush—kissing his girlfriend on the sidelines. But that can’t be all. Then one sleepless night, she sees Van out her window…looking right back at her.

Riot Rundown

090320-ThickAsThieves-Riot-Rundown

Post author By Devin Service
Post date September 3, 2020

Sponsored by Sandra Brown’s tantalizing new thriller, Thick as Thieves

Twenty years ago in the dead of night, four seemingly random individuals pulled the ultimate heist and almost walked away with half a million dollars. But by daybreak, one of them was in the hospital. One was in jail. One was dead. And one got away with it.

Arden Maxwell, the daughter of the man who disappeared all those years ago — presumably with the money, after murdering his accomplice — has never reconciled with her father’s abandonment. She returns to her family home in Caddo Lake, Texas, hoping to vanquish the demons of her past. Little does she know, two of her father’s co-conspirators are watching her every move.

The Stack

090320-DCeased: TheUnkillables-The-Stack

Post author By Natalia Heroux
Post date September 3, 2020

Audiobooks 09/02

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date September 2, 2020

Sponsored by The audiobook edition of Don't Look For Me written by Wendy Walker & read by Therese Plummer.

In Wendy Walker’s thrilling audiobook, Don’t Look for Me, the greatest risk isn’t running away. It’s running out of time. One night, Molly Clarke walked away from her life. She doesn’t want to be found. Or at least, that’s the story. It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to leave their lives behind and start over. But is that what really happened to Molly Clarke? Listen to Therese Plummer’s narration of the Don’t Look For Me audiobook to find out.

Hola Audiophiles! Welcome back to Audiolandia. I have been looking forward to a lot of today’s new releases for some time now so let’s get straight to it! Like I said before: this fall is going to be quite the ride.

Ready? Let’s audio.

New Releases – week of September 1st

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole, read by Susan Dalian, Jay Aaseng (mystery/thriller) – My Riot buddy Jamie Canavés has given this book an absolutely glowing review and says it’s best to go into it knowing as little as possible. So I’ll say just give you this: a young woman in Brooklyn is doing her best to keep (get?) her life and neighborhood in order. When she begins to research the neighborhood’s history, strange things start happening… Props to Alyssa Cole for killing the romance game and now hitting us with this magnificent work of suspense!

Narrator Note: Susan Dalian is the voice of Haku in the first season of Naruto, as well as Storm in Wolverine and the X-Men and Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. Jay Aeseng is a writer/actor/producer who you may know from the Twin Peaks TV series.

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, read by Bahni Turpin (fiction) – This book sounds like it is going to slap me in the face and I will take that slap with a smile. Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at Stanford studying depression and addiction. After an ankle injury leaves her athlete brother hooked on Oxy and he dies of a heroin overdose, Gifty turns to science to understand the depth of her family’s loss. But she also finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and the evangelical church in which she was raised, where the promise of salvation is tempting, but elusive.

Narrator Note: I’m not even going to say anything about Bahni Turpin anymore. Just going to drop her name and the mic.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas, read by Avi Roque (YA fantasy) – I love this book! Aiden Thomas is a delightful queer trans Latinx human and this is their debut paranormal queer romantic YA fantasy (it’s adjective day!). It’s about a trans boy who wants more than anything for his traditional Latinx family to accept his true gender. To prove that he’s a brujo, he performs a death day ritual with the help of his badass BFF to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. Pero…the ghost he summons a) isn’t his cousin and b) kind of refuses to leave, and c) is also kind of dreamy? This book is full of Latinx references and non-italicized Spanish and is inspired by lots of different Dia de los Muertos rituals. Mi corazon is just fit to burst!

Narrator Note: Avi Roque is an actor whose most recent work includes the show Chicago Med. They are also queer, trans, and Latinx which I really appreciate as a choice for this book. I love the humor, the drama, and the tenderness they lend to the words from what I’ve sampled so far.

Wayward Witch by Zoraida Cordova, read by Almarie Guerra (YA fantasy) – 🎶Although we’ve come *snap* to the eeeeend ooooh the road… I am both very ready and wholly unprepared to read this last installment of the Brooklyn Brujas series by my fave Zoraida Córdova. This part mythical/part urban fantasy series has followed the three Mortiz sisters as they come into their powers and battle magic in both the real world and worlds beyond. Wayward Witch is told from Rose’s perspective and kicks off with a huge revelation on her Deathday ceremony, which leads to an adventure in the Caribbean Sea. Apparently today’s newsletter is dedicated to witchy Latinx death day stuff and I am very okay with that.

Narrator Note: Almarie Guerra did a fantastic job with Five Midnights by Ann Dávila Cardinal and is such a great choice to voice the youngest Mortiz sister! Her body of work includes Valerie Valdes’ Chilling Effect, The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera, and Wendy Heard’s The Kill Club.

Latest Listens

Heyyyyy it’s more (sorta) witchy Latinx death stuff! I wrapped up my listen of Tehlor Kay Mejia’s Paola Santiago and the River of Tears, a middle grade fantasy adventure inspired by the legend of La Llorona. Before I tell you about the book, let me tell you a little more about The Weeping (or Crying or Wailing) Woman.

I’m fairly positive that La Llorona began as a Mexican folk tale, though I’m sure she’s been an equal opportunist in terrifying children of numerous Latin American backgrounds. The legend varies a little, but the general idea is that long ago before La Llorona was La Llorona, she was a woman who married a rich man and had a couple of kids. The husband was rarely home and on the rare occasion in which he was, the guy ignore his wife and focused all his attention on the kids. Sh*t really hit the fan when Not-Yet-La Llorona caught her man with another woman, and that is when it’s said she drowned her children in a jealous rage. In some versions of the story, she also drowned herself and was then turned away from the pearly gates, banished to purgatory on Earth to spend her days in search of her lost children. It’s said she continues to lurk near bodies of water in her funereal gown waiting to attack or kidnap children. Might this story terrify a kid who lives in mother&@%^# coastal San Diego? Me. That kid was me, and the answer is yes.

Back to the book! Paola Santiago and the River of Tears is part of the Rick Riordan Presents line and the titular character is a science and space-obsessed 12-year-old. Pao and her two best friends, Emma and Dante, know they must abide by one rule: stay away from the river. It’s all they’ve heard since a schoolmate of theirs drowned in the Gila a year ago, and Pao resents her mom’s insistence that La Llorona is to blame.

In spite of all the risk and warnings, Pao organizes a meet-up to test out her new telescope in a stargazing spot by the river. But Emma never shows and remains missing the next day, and Pao begins to wonder if her mom was maybe, possibly a little bit right. She and Dante will have to brave a world of unnatural mist, monsters of lore, and relentless spirits controlled by a terrifying unknown force. Could that force be… nah, it couldn’t. Or can it? Maybe. You’ll see.

Between the use of a magical chancla and the presence of chupacabras, I again wish I could hop in the spaceship and gift this literary treat to my younger self. What fun to see the mythologies I grew up with brought to such magical and adventurous light! It takes a careful hand to take a pretty dark and terrifying story like that of La Llorona and calibrate the creepy down to a level that works for a middle grade audience. Tehlor Kay Mejia is that very hand and I’m glad this generation of kids will get to devour her work.

Narration gets five stars from Frankie Corzo for well-paced, suspenseful narration and for getting the voices of twelve year olds just right.

From the Internets

Check out Libro.fm’s Independent Bookstore Day wrap-up, including video submissions just dripping in indie bookstore love.

at AudioFile: 5 New Enemies-to-Lovers Romances on Audio – This is quickly becoming one of my favorite tropes!

Over at the Riot

7 Literary Authors Who Read Their Own Audiobooks– Ta-Nehisi Coates’s voice has stayed with me all these years, what a performance.

Traversing World of Warcraft Armed with Audiobooks

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with with all things audiobook or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the In The Club newsletter and catch me once a month on the All the Books podcast.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa