Author: Jamie Canaves

Mysteries For One, Please!

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 17, 2020

Amy Adams Joins IG For Bookish Project: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 17, 2020

Sponsored by our $50 Barnes and Noble giveaway! Enter here!

Amy Adams Joins IG For Bookish Project

In an effort to help Save the Children and Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, actresses Amy Adams and Jennifer Garner have teamed up with children’s publisher Scholastic to launch #SaveWithStories. They’ll be posting videos on Instagram and Facebook of celebrities reading children’s books to help drive donations to Save the Children and No Kid Hungry, since many kids unable to go to school during the current coronavirus outbreak are missing out on education, and also a school meal they rely on and need.

We’re Now Getting Movie Theater Movies At Home

Kind of hard to go to the movies when we’re social distancing, so Universal Pictures has decided to make movies currently in theaters available on demand. You can watch adaptations like Emma and The Invisible Man for the rental fee of $19.99 starting on Friday on Apple, Amazon, Sky, and Comcast.

Peru’s Nobel Literature Laureate VS China

Peruvian author, and Nobel literature laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa used his mighty pen to write an article in Spain’s El Pais newspaper where he opined that if China had been a democracy instead of a dictatorship, the coronavirus would not have spread the way it did. China’s embassy responded, calling on Llosa “as a public figure, not to spread irresponsible and prejudiced opinions that serve no purpose.”

Today In Books

Book Decorated Shopping Cart Races: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 16, 2020

Sponsored by Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Book Decorated Shopping Cart Races

The second Middletown Kiwanis shopping cart challenge raised money for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library by having eight teams decorate shopping carts with bookish themes and then race around to complete tasks and games at selected downtown businesses. Fun!

Voice Of Frozen‘s Olaf Will Read You Children’s Books

Josh Gad, the actor who voices Olaf in Frozen, has decided to help everyone staying home during the coronavirus outbreak by reading children’s books and livestreaming it on Twitter. He started by reading Olivia Goes to Venice by Ian Falconer.

Updated COVID-19 Impact List

PW is keeping a list of the book events cancelled and/or rescheduled, industry functions impacted, policy changes etc. due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Today In Books

New Baby-Sitters! Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 14, 2020

Sponsored by Blindside by James Patterson.

New Baby-Sitters!

Kristy, Mary-Anne, Claudia, Stacey, and Dawn are back! Okay, thanks to the popularity of The Baby-Sitters Club books, they never went anywhere (and even got new audiobooks narrated by Elle Fanning and one of my all time favorite narrators Bahni Turpin), but now they’re getting a Netflix adaptation and we have the first look at the cast!

Volume Of Octavia Butler’s Work

Library of America publishers are working on a volume of Octavia Butler’s work to release in 2021, edited by Nisi Shawl and Gerry Canavan. The collection will include “novels Kindred and Fledgling, the contents of her collection Bloodchild and Other Stories, as well as a handful of other short stories.” And it’s just the beginning: they plan on publishing a new volume every year or two to end up with four volumes of Butler’s work. Here for all of it!

Sneaky, Sneaky

In a plan to fight censorship around the world, Reporters Without Borders and Blockworks have created a library inside the game Minecraft with hundreds of virtual books that contain articles that are censored/banned around the world by governments. Now, no one tell those governments about the game.

Today In Books

The Everywhere Book Fest Announced: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 13, 2020

Sponsored by The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski, with Fierce Reads.

The Everywhere Book Fest Announced

You may have noticed that quite a few things are getting cancelled in these here pandemic times, and book festivals have not been spared. To keep society safe while also continuing to support authors and readers, a virtual gathering of kidlit authors, books, and readers is coming May 1st and 2nd: The Everywhere Book Fest. You can follow them on Twitter and await more news on their site.

Excellent Books Get Awarded

National Book Critics Circle announced the winners for fiction, autobiography, nonfiction, biography, poetry, criticism, and the John Leonard Prize. If you’re looking for your next read, here are seven, award winning, excellent picks: Everything Inside; Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland; The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth; Know My Name: A Memoir; Magical Negro; Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval; The Yellow House: A Memoir.

Supporting Your Indie Bookstore

Small businesses usually get hit first in times like recessions, economic downturns, and sudden changes in physical store foot traffic. With social distancing being a reality at the moment, indie bookstore co-owner Josh Cook talked with PW about ways readers who have the means and desire to can support indie bookstores, ranging from simple acts of signing up for their newsletters all the way to local activism.

Today In Books

Kentucky Lawmakers Go After Libraries: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 12, 2020

Conan Doyle Took Dictation For His Dying Friend’s Mystery Novel

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 12, 2020

Indiana Jones of the Art World Finds Stolen Poetry: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 11, 2020

Sponsored by Shadow Mountain Publishing.

Indiana Jones of the Art World Finds Stolen Poetry

Persian poet Hafez, born approximately in 1325, is one of Iran’s most celebrated literary figures, known for his Divan. One of its earliest known copies was privately owned by Jafar Ghazi, until his death when his family discovered many of the items in his collection were missing. Enter Indiana Jones of the art world, known for finding a stolen Picasso, to the rescue, helping to find the stolen Divan.

Want Now

YA mystery author Tiffany D. Jackson (Allegedly; Monday’s Not Coming; Let Me Hear a Rhyme) has set her aims at being YA’s Jordan Peele by 2021, and by that she means she’s writing social horror. Smoke is pitched as Get Out meets The Haunting of Hill House and The Weight of Blood is a remix of Carrie set at an integrated prom. Why are these not in my hands right now?!

State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report

The fantastic romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice has released their fourth annual report to determine where romance publishing is in regards to publishing authors of color and indigenous peoples. “According to the study, for every 100 romance books published in 2019, only 8.3 were written by people of color, a percentage of 8.3%.” It’s an increase from the previous 7.8% in 2016 but if that’s the pace we’re moving to acknowledge people’s humanity/equality, I want off this snails-slathered-in-molasses-ride please.

Today In Books

Free E-books For Patients Under Quarantine: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 10, 2020

Sponsored by Shadow Mountain Publishing.

Free E-books For Patients Under Quarantine

In South Korea an e-book subscription service that began in 2017, Millie’s Library, is offering people under home quarantine and coronavirus patients free access to their 50,000 title library for two months. “Millie’s said that its decision to allow free access to its library was a way of ‘giving back to society.’”

Mobile Library

The Echo Mobile Library in Greece was founded in 2016 and operates thanks to its 15 volunteer team to bring books to refugee camps. “’There is one family who speak Urdu and the mother had made her way through every single Urdu book we had,’ Dignan says. ‘When I was back in London I looked all over the place for another Urdu book and eventually I found one.’”

2020 Lambda Literary Awards Finalists!

Prepare the TBR: the Lambda Literary Awards Finalists for 2020 have been announced. Categories range from Lesbian Fiction to LGBTQ Studies and include genre categories like romance, sci-fi/fantasy, poetry and mystery. And nonfiction is especially exceptional with finalists like Ordinary Girls; How We Fight For Our Lives; In The Dream House; Real Queer America; Long Live The Tribe Of Fatherless Girls. Your next great read is definitely on the Lambda finalist list!

Unusual Suspects

Teen Sleuths And Revenge!

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 10, 2020

Sponsored by The Jerusalem Assassin by New York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg.

The fate of the Middle East and the American president is at stake in this heart-pounding race against time. CIA operative Marcus Ryker has spent his entire career studying killers. One thing he knows for sure: a peace summit is the ultimate stage for an assassination. With all eyes on Jerusalem and the president in the crosshairs, it’s up to Ryker to stop an international alliance from carrying out its chilling plot. The fate of the region depends on his success.

Hello mystery fans! I noticed a theme in a few of my last reads so I thought I’d share two great teen sleuths and a YA revenge fantasy.

Goldie Vance the Hotel Whodunit cover image Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit by Lilliam Rivera: Welcome to Florida where Goldie Vance works as a valet at the resort her father manages but really she’s always up in the in-house detectives business because Goldie has a one-track mind and it’s always focused on solving a mystery. For the first half of the book you get to know her and her friends, also working at the hotel, her mermaid performing mother, the in-house detective, how the hotel runs, and that there’s a monster movie being filmed there. The big case starts halfway through when a prized piece of costume jewelry is stolen! Nothing will get in Goldie’s way of figuring out what happened, especially when fingers point at her mother as the thief.

This is the first in a series and is based on the Goldie Vance comics–if you’ve already read those, the mystery is new but the book is introducing Goldie, her family, and friends to potentially new readers, which, as someone who loves Goldie, was a great re-welcome for me. If you’re excited for more Goldie and Diane, you’ll have to wait until the end of this one and the next book as Goldie 100% makes her crush known, but she stays focused on work and the mystery until the end when it’s solved. If you love young sleuths who charge ahead to help and solve mysteries, are kind, and fun you’ll love Goldie and her family and friends.

The Vanishing Girl cover image The Vanishing Girl (Daphne and Velma YA Novel #1) by Josephine Ruby: I didn’t know this existed until I saw it while scrolling on Hoopla and I pressed play immediately, which was a great decision on my part because it is so much fun! This takes two characters from the Scooby-Doo franchise, Velma and Daphne, and makes them lead characters with alternating chapters. They used to be best friends but had a falling out and Daphne, the popular one, got a new best friend, and Velma just stayed away from her. Until Daphne’s best friend goes missing and they join up to figure out what happened.

I really enjoyed the characters, which are based on the cartoon characters’ personalities but are further developed and given their own voices as they deal with family and friendship issues. You get the spooky town, appearances from other members of the Scooby gang–Scooby included!–a good mystery, friendships, and the is-it-a-monster-bad-guy reveal! It’s listed as the first in a series and I will do all the gimme hands for the next in the series.

Foul Is Fair cover image Foul Is Fair (Foul Is Fair #1) by Hannah Capin: The author kindly lists trigger warnings her work so I’ll link to that at the end, but the entire story hinges on something that I need to talk about so I’m starting with one trigger warning for date rape. That’s what happens to Elle when she goes out partying for her sixteenth birthday to a boy’s prep school party. Afterwards she tells her friends, her parents (withholding who the boys were), and transfers to the school the boys attend. Why? Revenge. All planned out. Every boy involved in her assault is going to die and her group of popular girlfriends, her coven, is going to help, along with one boy from the school she’s going to force to help. It isn’t going to be easy, but her mind is made up and these boys need to pay, and the school’s rape culture needs to come to an end at any cost.

This felt like a melodrama war cry meets Lady Macbeth meets Heathers and should be “fun” for fans of revenge fantasies that want to think of nothing more than revenge. It gets bloody! (TW Capin gives detailed notes here.)

Recent Releases

Hollywood Homicide cover image Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrette: Now available on audiobook and narrated by one of my favorite narrators Bahni Turpin (You know her from Dread Nation; The Hate U Give.) (Review)

The June Boys by Courtney C. Stevens: TBR YA mystery about The Gemini Thief who is a serial kidnapper that takes three boys and holds them captive for a year.

Gone by Midnight (Crimson Lake #3) by Candice Fox: TBR the third in the series that follows an unlikely pair of detectives in Australia.

Mimi Lee Gets A Clue cover image Mimi Lee Gets a Clue (A Sassy Cat Mystery #1) by Jennifer J. Chow: The start to a cozy mystery series starring a pet grooming store owner who after reporting a puppy mill becomes a murder suspect. Oh, and a cat she’s watching talks to her and becomes helpful in clearing her name!

A Murderous Relation (Veronica Speedwell #5) by Deanna Raybourn: Currently reading one of my favorite historical mystery series with a will-they-won’t-they pairing that always delivers in adventure and laughs.

Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. See 2020 upcoming releases. 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.

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