ThrillerFest VIII

I was so excited to go to ThrillerFest this year, the biggest one ever with close to 1000 attendees! I last attended in 2011, and it was great to be back. 

Me beween Michael Palmer & Daniel Palmer

James Grippando

Great to see old friends like Lisa Unger, Alexandra Sokoloff, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, James Grippando and too many more to mention. And I got to meet some of the folks who email me and send me review copies of books on a regular basis - some of the great HarperCollins publicists, the Oceanview publishers, Random House publicists and more.

DP Lyle & T. Jefferson Parker

There were fabulous and fascinating interviews by some famous children of even more famous parents - Daniel Palmer interviewed his dad, Michael Palmer and Christopher Rice interviewed his mom, Anne Rice. Dr. D.P. Lyle interviewed one of my favorite writers, T. Jefferson Parker, who is one of only four writers who have won three Edgar awards for best novel. But my favorite interview was Jon Land's interview of Michael Connelly. Michael finally laid to rest a long running rumor - he does not write the Castle books. He discussed The Black Box, and how he wanted his 25th novel to span the life of his Harry Bosch series, and he did so brilliantly, as always. Finally, he mentioned that Harry Bosch is in the running for a possible TV series - fingers crossed!

Carol Fitzgerald (BookReporter.com) & Linwood Barclay

The opening night cocktail party was a veritable who's who of the industry. I got to chat with R.L. Stine, Lee Child, James Grippando, Michael Palmer, Joseph Finder, Andrew Gross, and many others while snacking on a lovely buffet and sipping some wine. It's a tough job but someone has to do it!

Ward Larsen & Jon McGoran

Debut authors Jenny Milchman, Jeff Miller & Tim O'Mara

My favorite event is always the debut authors breakfast. This year's class was the biggest ever, with 60 authors. Twenty-seven managed to get to NY and give us their one minute spiel. I got to meet a few of the authors I had already read and loved, like Jenny Milchman (Cover of Snow), Jeff Miller (The Bubblegum Thief) and Tim O'Mara (Sacrifice Fly,) and I found some new authors to try. I was intrigued by Playing Tyler by T.L. Costa, Blind Spot by Laura Ellen, The Colony by A. J. Colucci, and Black Fridays by Michael Sears which was the only debut nominated for best first novel.

One of the best things about ThrillerFest is the access that fans and writers have to each other. New writers can ask questions of more experienced ones, and fans can make an author's day. There is truly something for everyone, from super technical workshops for thriller writers like visiting the F.B.I. headquarters and getting to brief department heads, and writing workshops with people like T. Jefferson Parker and Michael Connelly. Friday night was the first ever FanFest, where several popular authors got to invite a dozen each of their super fans. A smaller, more intimate gathering than the opening night party, the fans were in their glory, getting to chat to their heart's delight with their favorite authors, and of course getting their books signed.

Anne Rice

ThrillerFest ends with a bang, the always exciting Banquet where they announce all the winners of the Thriller awards. Here is this year's list, with links to Barnes & Noble for samples of each book. (B&N was the official bookseller of ThrillerFest)

2013 Thriller Award Winners

2013 THRILLERMASTER AWARD: Anne Rice
2013 SILVER BULLET AWARD: Steve Berry
BEST HARD COVER NOVEL: Spilled Blood by Brian Freeman
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL: Lake Country by Sean Doolittle
BEST FIRST NOVEL: The 500 by Matthew Quirk
BEST E-BOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL: Blind Faith by C.J. Lyons
BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL: False Memory by Dan Krokos
BEST SHORT STORY: Lost Things by John Rectorl

I'm always surprised by how fast the conference goes, and this year it just flew by. I had a great time and can't wait til next year! Here are some more photos from the conference...

Lisa Unger 

Catherine Coulter

Lee Child

John Lescroart

 

Blog Tour: STEVE BERRY

I am proud to be the next stop on Steve Berry’s blog tour for THE KING'S DECEPTION! Read on for a review and then a Q&A with the author.

This is a very complex novel, but the ease with which Berry ties all factors neatly together marks a truly fascinating and engrossing read. What do Elizabethan times in British history, going from the reign of Henry VIII to Queen Elizabeth I and her successor, the return of one of the terrorists in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing to Libya due to humanitarian reasons based on his terminal cancer, and questions of territory granted to Irish Protestants by Elizabeth I have to do with one another?

A possible answer to this is presented by Steve Berry in his latest Cotton Malone novel. Malone is returning to Denmark with his son Gary via a stopover in England. His previous employer, the CIA, has asked him to escort a teenager that fled England rather than endanger himself by providing facts about a murder he saw. Looks like an easy drop, with a delivery of the fugitive to British authorities than on to Denmark with Gary for a much needed father and son get together visit.

No such luck, the boy and Gary are kidnapped by persons unknown and Malone enters into the midst of a conspiracy involving the US CIA, the British equivalent of the FBI, a visit to Oxford University, exploration of London underground, and tours of the tombs of deceased British royalty interred in Westminster Abbey.

Steve Berry and his wife, Elizabeth, are fascinated by history and together founded a foundation called History Matters, which is dedicated to historic preservation. He incorporates his love of history with a great story featuring a theory about Elizabeth I changing the way she is featured, and based upon interpretation from writings of her contemporaries as well as an essay published by Bram Stoker, the creator of Dracula showcasing that change in view of her. The concept of a different Elizabeth I and what it could mean if true has the possibility of reshaping the UK. King's Deception is fiction, but a reading of certain facts presented by Berry in the course of the novel are sure to provoke the reception of new ideas and theories on the part of the reader.

In keeping with the formats of his last several books, Steve Berry's research into other times leads to alternative ideas of that period and I certainly look forward to his next novel. 

--6/13 Paul Lane for the BookBitchBlog

Q&A with Steve Berry

1.      Your latest novel, The King’s Deception, tackles quite a controversial conspiracy surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s real gender and identity. Do you believe the conspiracy is legitimate or did you just find it to be a fascinating premise for a novel?

          I think its both possible and fascinating.  The most wonderful fiction always has a ring of truth to it.  Here, everything centers around the Bisley Boy legend.  Three years ago, Elizabeth and I were north of London doing some publicity work for my British publisher when our guide told me about a local legend.   In the village of Bisley, for many centuries on a day certain, the locals would dress a young boy in female Elizabethan costume and parade him through the streets.  How odd.  I then discovered that Bram Stoker, in the early part of the 20thcentury (the man who wrote Dracula), also heard the tale and wrote about it in a book called Famous Imposters, which I read.   I then began to read about Elizabeth I and learned of many odd things associated with her.  

2.      What was so odd about her?

          Elizabeth wore wigs all of her life.  Heavy face paint all of her life.  Clothes that did not flatter her body.  She refused to allow doctors to examine her.  When she died she left orders that there was to be no autopsy.  Her number one duty as queen was to have an heir, yet she refused to marry, refused to have a child, and proclaimed herself the Virgin Queen.  And then the strangest of all—when she dies they bury her with her sister, Mary, in the same grave so that their bones would mingle together.  All of that adds up to to the fact that Elizabeth I was not exactly what she appeared.   

 3.  Now I'm intrigued.  What was the mystery?

          The legend is that Elizabeth died at age thirteen and was buried in Bisley.  Her governess was so afraid of Henry VIII’s wrath that she substituted a young boy in her place.  The ruse worked and, once done, it could not be undone.  Twelve years later the imposter became Queen and England and ruled 40 years.   

    4. Is there any way to prove that?  

          There is.  Open the grave of Elizabeth I and do some comparative anatomy and DNA testing.  That would answer the question.  But Elizabeth's grave has never been opened. It’s one of the few royal tombs never breached.  So I sent Cotton Malone, my recurring hero from 7 previous novels, to England to solve the mystery.

Visit the author's website at www.steveberry.org

Win a LADIES' NIGHT prize package from Mary Kay Andrews!

YOU DESERVE A LADIES’ NIGHT…I am thrilled to be able to offer one lucky reader a copy of LADIES' NIGHT by Mary Kay Andrews plus a bag filled with goodies to create the perfect night with your girlfriends!

Every June I kick off my summer reading with Mary Kay, and she never disappoints. Ladies' Night is a fun, fast read that kept me up way too late turning the pages; I couldn't put it down until I turned the last one.

Grace Stanton is a young blogger with a growing following for her Martha Stewart-light type blog. Her husband is ambitious and has turned her little blog into an advertiser sponsored money maker, enabling them to move into a beautiful new McMansion, with all the upgrades they could want - provided she blogs about them.

Grace isn't entirely comfortable with her new lifestyle, but she lets her husband push her along until the night she finds him in a compromising position in his $175,000 car with her young assistant. Fireworks ensue, followed by Grace driving said car into the pool, and then she moves out.

She quickly learns that was a big mistake, as the divorce moves forward the judge orders her into a group counseling for some anger management. Grace moves in with her mom, who lives above the bar she owns in this small west coast Florida town, but Grace still has plenty to be angry about. Her husband has frozen her out of her home, bank accounts, credit cards and most importantly, her blog. 

Grace starts anew, finding a new project to blog about, an old Florida cracker cottage in desperate need of repair, and she makes some friends as  the group takes to meeting up after their sessions at the bar where she's living.

This is Mary Kay Andrews at her best, with lots of angst, laughter, food and love. Not to mention recipes! If you want a fast, fun read to kick off your summer, read the entry information below...

If you would like to win a copy of LADIES’ NIGHT and the goody bag, just send an email to contest@gmail.com, with "LADIES NIGHT " as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is only running for one week, so your odds of winning are pretty good - if you enter by June 25, 2013. Good luck!

NEW $50,000 MILITARY HISTORY BOOK PRIZE

NEW ANNUAL BOOK PRIZE AWARDS $50,000 TO TOP WORK IN MILITARY HISTORY

Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize to Reward Outstanding Writing in a Neglected Discipline

NEW YORK CITY—June 12, 2013—The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation announced today the establishment of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History, which carries an award of $50,000. The prize will be awarded annually in recognition of the best book in the field of military history published in English during the previous calendar year. The inaugural award will be made in February 2014 for a book published in 2013.

“It is our hope that the establishment of this prize will draw public attention to the field's continuing utility as an important staple of education in international politics, diplomacy, and conflict, and to assist in the restoration of military history to an important place in university curricula,” said Josiah Bunting III, president of the foundation. “If we do not learn from the conflicts of the past, we will be doomed to repeat them. For the sake of all, we cannot allow this area of scholarship and thinking to atrophy in the United States or abroad.”

The winner of the prize will be selected in January 2014 from a short list of six finalists and then announced at an event at the New-York Historical Society the following month. Publishers may submit as many appropriate titles for consideration as they wish. More information about the submission process can be found athttp://www.hfg.org/prize/main.htm.

The judging committee for the prize, below, includes some of the most respected names in the field.

·         Andrew Roberts, Ph.D., historian and journalist, Committee Chair

·         Charles F. Brower IV, Ph.D., Brigadier General, USA, Ret.; Henry King Burgwyn Professor of Military History, Virginia Military Institute

·         Josiah Bunting III, President of the HF Guggenheim Foundation; Recording Secretary to the Committee

·         Eliot A. Cohen, Ph.D., Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

·         Saul David, Ph.D., Professor of War Studies, University of Buckingham

·         Leanda de Lisle, M.A., M.B.A., historian and journalist

·         Sir Hew Strachan, Ph.D., Chichele Professor in the History of War, All Souls, Oxford University

·         H. Kirk Unruh, Jr., Rear Admiral, USNR, Ret.; Recording Secretary, Princeton University.

The prize recognizes the foundation's founder, Harry Frank Guggenheim, creator of Newsday and a distinguished naval veteran of both twentieth-century world wars. It is made possible by Lewis E. Lehrman, co-founder of the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, author, and champion of studies in American political and military history.

Win Walt Longmire mysteries by Craig Johnson!

I am delighted to be able to offer one lucky reader copies of A SERPENT’S TOOTH and the new TV tie-in edition of DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY, the second book in the series. For all the details on how to win, see below.

Fresh from Longmire, which had the best freshman season in total viewers for any A&E series, scripted or non-fiction, in the network’s history, Craig Johnson returns with his ninth Walt Longmire mystery, A SERPENT’S TOOTH ! This time Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire finds himself in the crosshairs of a brewing religious war.

It’s homecoming for the Durant Dogies football team when teenaged Cord Lynear, a Mormon ‘lost boy,’ forced off his compound for rebellious behavior, shows up in Absaroka County. Without much guidance—divine or otherwise—Sheriff Walt Longmire, his second-in-command Victoria Moretti, and his good friend Henry Standing Bear, search for the boy’s mother. They find themselves in a high plains scavenger hunt that ends at the barbed wire doorstep of an interstate polygamy group that has recently set up shop in the neighboring town of Short Drop. The group, run by Cord’s stepfather, the four-hundred pound polygamist Roy Lynear, is frighteningly well-armed and too good at keeping secrets.

Meanwhile, the Absaroka County jail is getting crowded with the arrival of Orrin Porter Rockwell, a dangerous and delusional old man who claims he was blessed in the flesh by Joseph Smith, and who has appointed himself Cord’s bodyguard.

As Walt and Vic pursue the Lynears, things heat up in both the investigation and their personal lives; butting heads with the well-armed zealots, they hear whispers of Big Oil and the CIA and find that even with Henry Standing Bear’s assistance, they may be in for more than they had bargained for.

THE LONGMIRE TV SERIES

Johnson’s series is the basis for Longmire, the hit A&E-TV original drama, which is returning for a second season on Memorial Day, May 27th at 10/9c. 

Here’s the trailer: 

http://www.aetv.com/longmire/video/season-2-28630595871

Longmire was the highest-rated scripted program in A&E’s history and stars Robert Taylor (Matrix, Vertical Limit) as Sheriff Walt Longmire, Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba, Young Guns) as Henry Standing Bear and Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, 24) as Victoria Moretti. Longmire was developed by Shephard/Robin Productions for Warner Horizon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire mystery series.  Johnson is the recipient of the Wyoming Historical Award for fiction, the Western Writers of America Spur Award for fiction, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award for fiction, the Rocky Award for best mystery novel set on the left coast, the Nouvel Observateur Prix du Roman Noir, and the Prix 813. He lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population twenty-five.

If you would like to win a copy of A SERPENT’S TOOTH and the new TV tie-in edition of DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY, the second book in the series, just send an email to contest@gmail.com, with "LONGMIRE" as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is only going to run for two weeks, so your odds of winning are pretty good - if you enter by June 18th, 2013. Good luck!

Big Library Read is Here!

Yesterday was the rollout of the Big Library Read pilot. This pilot program allows millions of patrons from more than 7,500 participating libraries to simultaneously read Michael Malone’s critically-acclaimed ‘Four Corners of the Sky’ in OverDrive Read, Kindle and EPUB formats. Big Library Read enables users from 10 different countries on five different continents to join in one of the largest global reading events ever to occur. From now until June 1^st, users will be able to log in to their digital library website and check out this wonderful tale about love, secrets and the mysterious bonds only families can form.

During this campaign, Overdrive will post discussion questions on Facebook and Twitter, so be sure to encourage your staff and patrons to follow them and Michael Malone and be a part of the dialogue. In addition, there will be a worldwide conversation using the hashtag #BigLibraryRead, so tweet your thoughts often. Next week, the book’s publisher,

 Sourcebooks, will host a live Facebook chat with author Michael Malone, enabling readers to have their questions answered in real time. More details will be coming soon.

If you would like to participate in this chat, please send questions during the week to Twitter (@OverDriveLibs) and stay tuned for more information. This program is the first of its kind, so head to your library’s digital collection to check out the title and join the #BigLibraryRead conversation!

The Palm Beach County Library System is participating, you can get your book here: FOUR CORNERS OF THE SKY

MWA Announces 2013 Edgar Winners

Congratulations to all the winners & nominees!

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce the winners of the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2012. The Edgar® Awards were presented to the winners at our 67^th Gala Banquet, May 2, 2013 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.


BEST NOVEL

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)


BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

The Expats by Chris Pavone (Crown Publishers)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books)


BEST FACT CRIME

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French (Penguin Group USA – Penguin Books)


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics by James O’Brien (Oxford University Press)


BEST SHORT STORY

"The Unremarkable Heart" – Mystery Writers of America Presents:  Vengeance by Karin Slaughter (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books)


BEST JUVENILE

The Quick Fix by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Abrams – Amulet Books)


BEST YOUNG ADULT

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Disney Publishing Worldwide - Hyperion)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

 “A Scandal in Belgravia” – Sherlock, Teleplay by Steven Moffat (BBC/Masterpiece)


ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"When They Are Done With Us" – Staten Island Noir by Patricia Smith (Akashic Books)


GRAND MASTER

Ken Follett
Margaret Maron


RAVEN AWARDS

Oline Cogdill

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, San Diego & Redondo Beach, CA


ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
                                                                                          
Akashic Books


THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, May 1, 2013)

The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge Books)




 

Win BUNKER HILL by Nathaniel Philbrick!

I am honored to be able to offer one lucky reader of a copy of Bunker Hill by National Book Award winner Nathaniel Philbrick.

BUNKER HILL: A City, A Siege, A Revolution tells the story of the battle that ignited the Revolutionary War, and—because Nathaniel Philbrick is telling it—the story has never been more interesting.

In BUNKER HILL, Philbrick finds new characters, and new facets to familiar ones. The real work of choreographing rebellion falls to a thirty-three year old physician named Joseph Warren who emerges as the on-the-ground leader of the Patriot cause and is fated to die at Bunker Hill. Others in the cast include Paul Revere, Warren’s fiancé the poet Mercy Scollay, a newly recruited George Washington, the reluctant British combatant General Thomas Gage and his more bellicose successor William Howe, who leads the three charges at Bunker Hill and presides over the claustrophobic cauldron of a city under siege as both sides play a nervy game of brinkmanship for control.

Key Events Leading Up To

BUNKER HILL: A City, A Siege, A Revolution

by Nathaniel Philbrick

In his new book, Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the battle that transformed a revolution into a full-fledged war.  Philbrick focuses his narrative on the little known Dr. Joseph Warren, the charismatic physician who was at the forefront of the revolution in Massachusetts during the spring of 1775 and was fated to die at Bunker Hill. What follows is an account of the events leading up to that historic battle in June 17, 1775. 

April 2:  With tensions rising, patriot families begin to evacuate Boston.

April 13:  Massachusetts Provincial Congress directs the Committee of Safety to create six companies of artillery.

April 17:  Thomas Gage prepares his plan to send Col. Francis Smith and 700 troops to destroy rebel military stores in Concord.

April 18:  at 10 pm, British grenadiers and light infantry assemble at Boston Common for transportation to Cambridge; learning of the plan, Joseph Warren orders William Dawes and Paul Revere to alarm the countryside that the soldiers are headed to Concord. 

April 19:  British regulars fire on militiamen at Lexington Green, killing eight and wounding ten; later in the day, men die on both sides during a clash at Concord’s North Bridge.

April 20:  Thousands of patriot militiamen from towns throughout Massachusetts flood into Cambridge and Roxbury. 

April 23:  Admiral Graves begins building a gun battery on Copp’s Hill in Boston’s North End; the Provincial Congress reconvenes at Watertown and elects Joseph Warren as President.

May 22:  The Provincial Congress passes a resolve that all persons who remain faithful to the king “are guilty of such atrocious and unnatural crimes against their country, that every friend to mankind ought to forsake and detest them.”

May 27:  General Israel Putnam captures and burns the British schooner Diana in the Battle of Chelsea Creek.

June 14:  Joseph Warren is appointed a major general in the provincial army.

June 16:  At 6 p.m. Colonel William Prescott and 1,000 soldiers assemble in Cambridge with instructions to build a redoubt on Bunker Hill; for reasons that remain unclear to this day, they build the fortification on Breed’s Hill instead.

June 17:  Joseph Warren is killed during the final stages of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which proves to be the bloodiest engagement of the Revolution.

If you would like to win a copy of BUNKER HILL, just send an email to contest@gmail.com, with " BUNKER HILL" as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is going to run for less than two weeks, so your odds of winning are pretty good - if you enter by April 22, 2013. Good luck!

Guest Blogger: LISA BLACK

I must be a frustrated architect. If you’ve read my past books you may have noticed how often a building figures into the plot—in Takeover it was the gleaming but secretive Federal Reserve with its marble and gilt. In Trail of Blood it was the crumbling but ominous structure with its hidden rooms and upcoming date with the wrecking ball, and also the trains, the churning steel behemoths that chugged along their tracks at its base. In Defensive Wounds, of course, it was the landmark Terminal Tower with its old-money flavor and its dizzyingly high observation deck. I like large buildings, vast hallways carved from stone, arches and curlicues and history. This is probably why, after a high school trip to Washington DC, I got a bachelor’s degree in political science despite having no aptitude or talent for politics. Turns out I didn’t like politics. I just liked the buildings.

In Blunt Impact my tendencies are at it again. Theresa is caught in the controversy of a new county jail—a sweeping skyscraper still under construction. OSHA whistleblowers and missing money, criminal elements using the site for their own purposes and a homely but smart district attorney who becomes more interested in Theresa than the intrigue surround the forensic scientist and her new friend, a tough but endangered little girl named Anna—better known as Ghost.

            Ghost has a unique lifestyle, loved by her construction worker mother and disabled grandmother but constantly slipping out of her home to roam the back alleys of the large city, looking for the father whose identity has always been kept secret from her. Nothing all that bad ever happens—until she witnesses her mother’s murder, the beautiful young woman thrown from the 23^rd floor. Ghost will not rest until she learns the truth, which means that Theresa cannot rest until Ghost is safe.

            I learned during the writing, as I always do. I learned about concrete, expensive and specific, and funding and the difference between a beam and a column (the first is horizontal, the second vertical). But what I really wanted to learn about was the pervasiveness (or not) of corruption within the construction trades. Do you think I could find one single book written about the Big Dig or any other construction project that wound up costing much more than expected? I could not.

            The setting, of course, gives me the opportunity to mess with the acrophobic in all of us. But truly it’s the openness that intrigues me, the image of the wind rushing by as my characters get an unobstructed view of the city from their aerie, with that accompanying sense of danger and freedom and excitement so rarely obtained in our safe, careful lives.

And isn’t that, after all, what books are all about?

Blunt Impact, available April 1, featuring forensic scientist Theresa MacLean and a series of murders surrounding a skyscraper under construction in downtown Cleveland. The first to die is young, sexy concrete worker Samantha, thrown from the 23^rd floor. The only witness is her 11 year old daughter Anna, nicknamed Ghost. Ghost will stop at nothing to find her mother’s killer, and Theresa will stop at nothing to keep Ghost safe.

Also, Kindle owners can find a bargain in my new book The Prague Project, written under the name Beth Cheylan. A death in West Virginia sends FBI agent Ellie Gardner and NYPD Counterterrorism lieutenant Michael Stewart on a chase across Europe as they track stolen nukes and lost Nazi gold, hoping to avert the death of millions of people.

Interview with Maureen Johnson by Becky Lejeune

I am delighted to share Becky Lejeune's interview with Maureen Johnson from her recent Tattered Cover event in Denver. This was the final stop on her MADNESS UNDERNEATH tour. MADNESS is the second installment in her Shades of London series. 

BL: You are very active on Twitter, so describe the Shades of London series in a tweet:

MJ: Madness Underneath is oh, no some ghosts!

BL: Shades of London is a bit different from your other books, what inspired the series?

MJ: I wanted to write a mystery. I’m a huge mystery reader... I read two mysteries a day as a kid and I was thinking, “I really want to write a mystery. That’s actually what I love.”

I was doing research in England for The Last Little Blue Envelope and I just started to think “I really want to set something here properly. Properly in London, properly kind of out of the city.” I was on a historical tour and they were telling all of these ghost stories and I was really… disappointed in the quality of the ghost stories. I thought they were lame and I wanted to tell a better one – and make it a mystery as well.

I sort of had it in my head that I was going to do a mystery and then started looking for the right mystery to hang it on.

BL: You’ve said there are to be four books in the series as a whole. So far in we’ve got Jack the Ripper and Bedlam, what other dark historical influences can we expect?

MJ: There’s a lot of stuff underneath the ground. That’s all I’m going to say. The next book is called The Shadow Cabinet but if I say anymore I run the risk of spoilers.

BL: Do you know now how the series is going to end, or is it sort of book by book?

MJ: I absolutely know. The ending is set: book three is all mapped out and book four, I know exactly what that’s about.

BL: You’ve also got a collaborative project coming up based on Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series, how did that come to be?

MJ: I’m doing a collaborative project with Cassie Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan, called The Bane Chronicles. We came up with the idea because we hang out a lot together - we work together, we’re friends.

Sarah is the funniest person in the world. Sarah reads more than anyone I’ve ever met. I mean, I’ve met some people that read a lot but nobody reads as fast as Sarah. One time, she was staying at my house - I went to bed at 11 - and by the time we got up in the morning she had read two books overnight! It’s no joke. And she can summarize books in the funniest way possible – she isolates what’s kind of great and funny.

She did all these funny summaries of Cassie’s books and things she wanted to have happen in them, ‘cause she has an evil imagination. She loves to break readers’ hearts, that’s her favorite thing. I love Simon from Cassie’s books and we had been sort of joking around and speculating on things that we would do if we were in charge. It was through those conversations that we realized we could actually take Magnus, who has this whole past that has never been explored - he’s been alive for many hundreds of years – and let the two of us loose on it.

That was the idea. It was just out of a bunch of joking conversations that we were like, “You know what, we could actually do this. It would be really fun.”

BL: When did you decide you wanted to be an author and how did you get started?

MJ: When I was really little. I mean it’s just sort of always what I did – I was a very kind of indoor kid. I was writing from the time I was little. I didn’t always know exactly how it was going to work out but I was pretty confident – I was weirdly confident that it would be all ok.

BL: What does your typical writing day look like?

MJ: I don’t have one. I don’t have a typical writing day. It depends on what I’m doing, like right now I’m on tour so that’s very much a tour activity and sometimes it’s very much a travel activity… but it really depends.

When I am really writing hardcore, I try to keep hours very normal. I try to start in the morning and cut off at a certain point in the evening. I don’t like to work into the night - I used to and then I kind of felt fried ‘cause you work all the time. You actually come at it fresher if you keep the hours kind of straightforward.

BL: Are you a plotter or a pantser?

MJ: I have been both and I do both. I don’t have a set method. I’m not one of those people that’s like, “I have a routine, I have to start a fire, I have a special pen and my special hat.” It varies with me.

BL: Since you are so active on Twitter, how do you balance work time and Twitter?

Twitter is easy for me to do, it’s very automatic to me and I can Tweet something in seconds. In many ways it’s like the comment I would make to someone if there were more people sitting there… Twitter has filled in the gap for the imaginary people I think are around me at all times and so this has really just fed into a delusion of mine. Psychologically it is both wonderful and - a professional might say - it’s probably bad, but I think it’s great.

BL: Is there anything you’ve learned along the way that you wish you’d known when you started out as an author?

MJ: Yeah. Things I wish I’d known when I was starting out: not to worry so much, to sort of know that you’ll never feel quite done with the book. Not to really stress out. Sometimes you have to write and the more time you spend worrying is sort of wasted time. You can’t really fail. A lot of times you think, “But this time I’ve failed. This time it kills me – this book will literally kill me!” A book has never killed anybody yet. 

BL:  What question do you wish people would ask at events?

MJ: Um, would you like to hold all of these kittens that I brought? That is the question I would like to be asked. And I eagerly await that because I would like to hold a lot of kittens! I think that may seem like a facetious or a simple statement but in fact that is mostly why I go places, to be around dogs and cats. I’m staying here with Kate, my agent, and she has two dogs… I couldn’t stop thinking for days about how, oh, the doggies will sleep with me! I’m basically a five year old.

BL: Of all of your characters, who’s your favorite?

MJ: You know, I don’t want to choose favorites. But having said that, I really love the Martin family, which is a group of four characters in Suite Scarlet, Scarlet Fever, and the upcoming third Scarlet book. I love them – they maybe are my favorite. That’s sort of my happy place, when I’m writing about them.

BL:  What advice do you have for people who want to write?

MJ: [My] advice to people who want to write is really just to keep going. A lot of times – pretty much always – you’ll work on something and think, “I can’t do this. This is too hard. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m lost. This is terrible. I’m the worst.” Fill in the blank. You will think you are the worst. If you don’t, you may be fine but you may have a serious ego problem, but in general most people feel at some point like they have failed. Or that it’s too hard. Or that it can’t be done... If you feel that way, it’s normal. Just keep going. Really, just keep going through that. The only way a book doesn’t get done is if you don’t finish it, but there’s never been a book that couldn’t be finished, I think. You will feel that way, just keep going.

7th ANNUAL FLORIDA BOOK AWARDS

7th ANNUAL FLORIDA BOOK AWARDS ANNOUNCE BEST OF 2012

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— Its seventh annual competitions now complete, Florida Book Awards announces winners for books published in 2012 in eight categories of competition.  According to Co-Director Lisa Tendrich Frank, “In its seven years, the program has honored many of the Sunshine State’s best authors.  It is already the nation’s most comprehensive statewide program, and the program promises to bring more distinction to our talent-rich state.”

FBA 2012 Winners by Category

Popular Fiction
Gold: DJ Niko, The Tenth Saint (Medallion Press)
Silver: Michael Lister, Blood Sacrifice (Pulpwood Press)
Bronze: Mary Anna Evans, Plunder (Poisoned Pen Press)

General Fiction
Gold: Dennis Lehane, Live by Night (HarperCollins)
Silver: Janis Owens, American Ghost (Scribner)
Bronze: Mary Anna Evans, Plunder (Poisoned Pen Press)

Florida NonFiction
Gold: Gilbert King, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (HarperCollins)
Silver: Craig Pittman, The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal, and the World's Most Beautiful Orchid (University Press of Florida)
Bronze: Larry Eugene Rivers, Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in 19th Century Florida (University of Illinois Press)

General NonFiction
Gold: Michael Grunwald, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (Simon and Schuster)
Silver: William A. Link, Links: My Family in American History (University Press of Florida)
Bronze: Tracy Crow, Eyes Right: Confessions from a Woman Marine (University of Nebraska Press)

Poetry
Gold: Campbell McGrath, In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (HarperCollins)
Silver: Terri Witek, Exit Island (Orchises Press)
Bronze: Lola Haskins, Grace to Leave (Anhinga Press)

Visual Arts
Gold: Lu Vickers and Bonnie Georgiadis, Weeki Wachee Mermaids (University Press of Florida)

Silver: Robert L. Crawford and William R. Brueckheimer, The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantation (University Press of Florida)
Bronze:  Gary Libby, Reflections II:  Watercolors of Florida 1835-2000 (Museum of Arts and Science)

Young Adult
Gold: Laura Lascarso, Counting Backwards (Simon and Schuster)
Silver: Carl Hiaasen, Chomp (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Bronze: Alex Flinn, Bewitching (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

Children’s Literature

Gold: Henry Cole, Unspoken (Scholastic)
Silver: Adrian Fogelin, Summer on the Moon (Peachtree Publishers)
Bronze: Dianne Ochiltree, Molly, by Golly (Boyds Mills Press)


The Florida Book Awards --the nation's most comprehensive state book awards program-- was established in 2006 to recognize, honor, and celebrate the best Florida literature published the previous year.  It is coordinated by The Florida State University Libraries, and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, State Library and Archives of Florida, Florida Historical Society, Florida Humanities Council, Florida Literary Arts Coalition, Florida Library Association, “Just Read, Florida!,” Florida Family Literacy Initiative, Florida Association for Media in Education, Florida Center for the Literary Arts, the Friends of FSU Libraries, Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, and the Florida Writers Association.

Submissions were read by juries of three members each nominated from across the state by cosponsoring organizations.  Jurors are authorized to select up to three medalists (including one Gold Winner, one Silver Runner-up, and one Bronze Medalist) in each of the eight categories; jurors are also authorized to make no selections in a given year.

The eight Gold Medal Winners will  be recognized on March 20th at the Historical and Cultural Awards Ceremony sponsored by the State of Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs. All award recipients will be recognized at the a banquet held at Mission San Luis March 19 in Tallahassee.

To learn more about Florida Book Awards, visit:http://fsu.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7473c8fdc1b20c5209df1d8f0&id=28f6a47704&e=7dd856214b orhttp://fsu.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7473c8fdc1b20c5209df1d8f0&id=f4a8d93193&e=7dd856214b

Edgar Awards

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce as we celebrate the 204th anniversary of the birth 

of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery 

fiction, non-fiction and television, published or produced in 2012. The Edgar® Awards will be 

presented to the winners at our 67th Gala Banquet, May 2, 2013 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York 

City. 

BEST NOVEL

The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

Gone Girl: A Novel by Gillian Flynn (Crown Publishers) 

Potboiler by Jesse Kellerman (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

Sunset by Al Lamanda (Gale Cengage Learning – Five Star) 

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow) 

All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley (Penguin Group USA – Riverhead Books) 

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay (Random House Publishing– Ballantine) 

Don’t Ever Get Old by Daniel Friedman (Minotaur Books - Thomas Dunne Books) 

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal (Random House Publishing– Bantam Books) 

The Expats by Chris Pavone (Crown Publishers) 

The 500 by Matthew Quirk (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Reagan Arthur) 

Black Fridays by Michael Sears (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL   

Complication by Isaac Adamson (Soft Skull Press) 

Whiplash River by Lou Berney (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks) 

Bloodland by Alan Glynn (Picador) 

Blessed are the Dead by Malla Nunn (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books - Emily Bestler Books) 

The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books) 

BEST FACT CRIME

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted  

the Last Days of Old China by Paul French (Penguin Group USA – Penguin Books) 

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America  

by Gilbert King (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper) 

More Forensics and Fiction: Crime Writers’ Morbidly Curious Questions Expertly Answered

by D.P. Lyle, MD (Medallion Press) 

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre (Crown Publishers) 

The People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from  

the Streets of Tokyo – and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up  

by Richard Lloyd Parry (Farrar Straus & Giroux Originals) 

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL 

Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: The Hard-Boiled Detective Transformed  

by John Paul Athanasourelis (McFarland and Company) 

Books to Die For: The World's Greatest Mystery Writers on the World's Greatest  

Mystery Novels edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke  

(Simon & Schuster – Atria Books – Emily Bestler Books) 

The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics  

by James O’Brien (Oxford University Press) 

In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the  

Creation of an American Hero edited by Otto Penzler (Smart Pop)

BEST SHORT STORY

"Iphigenia in Aulis" – An Apple for the Creature by Mike Carey (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books) 

"Hot Sugar Blues" – Mystery Writers of America Presents: Vengeance  

by Steve Liskow (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books) 

"The Void it Often Brings With It” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine  

by Tom Piccirilli (Dell Magazines) 

"The Unremarkable Heart" – Mystery Writers of America Presents:  Vengeance  

by Karin Slaughter (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books) 

"Still Life No. 41" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Teresa Solana  

(Dell Magazines) 

BEST JUVENILE

Fake Mustache: Or, How Jodie O’Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved 

the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind  

by Tom Angleberger (Abrams – Amulet Books) 

13 Hangmen by Art Corriveau (Abrams – Amulet Books) 

The Quick Fix by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Abrams – Amulet Books) 

Spy School by Stuart Gibbs (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) 

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage  

(Penguin Young Readers Group – Dial Books for Young Readers) 

BEST YOUNG ADULT 

 Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak  

(Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group – Roaring Brook Press) 

The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George (Penguin Young Readers Group – Viking) 

Crusher by Niall Leonard (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte BFYR) 

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield  

(Penguin Young Readers Group – Dutton Children’s Books) 

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Disney Publishing Worldwide - Hyperion) 

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“Pilot” – Longmire, Teleplay by Hunt Baldwin & John Coveny (A&E/Warner Horizon Television) 

“Child Predator” – elemeNtarY, Teleplay by Peter Blake (CBS Productions) 

“Slaughterhouse” – Justified, Teleplay by Fred Golan (Sony Pictures Television/FX Productions) 

 “A Scandal in Belgravia” – Sherlock, Teleplay by Steven Moffat (BBC/Masterpiece) 

“New Car Smell” – Homeland, Teleplay by Meredith Stiehm (Showtime/Fox21) 

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD  

"When They Are Done With Us" – Staten Island Noir  

by Patricia Smith (Akashic Books) 

GRAND MASTER

Ken Follett 

Margaret Maron 

RAVEN AWARDS

Oline Cogdill 

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, San Diego & Redondo Beach, CA 

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD    

Akashic Books 

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD 

(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, May 1, 2013) 

Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books) 

A City of Broken Glass by Rebecca Cantrell (Forge Books) 

The Reckoning by Jane Casey (Minotaur Books) 

The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge Books) 

Sleepwalker by Wendy Corsi Staub (HarperCollins Publishers - Harper) 

Fill Your New Tablet!

HarperCollins' post-holiday campaign, "Fill Your New Tablet" was created so all consumers can enjoy great HarperCollins e-books at a discount.Running through January 7 and including e-books that are up to 75% off, the campaign boasts 2012 bestsellers such as Michael Chabon’sTelegraph Avenue, James Rollins’ Bloodline, Dennis Lehane’s Live by Night, Daniel Silva’s Fallen Angel and Kim Harrison’s Into the Woods.

This link will go live on Christmas Day!
http://ow.ly/g6NcL