On top of the usual high octane new thriller books from the likes of New York Times bestselling author Stuart Woods, there are new mysteries this week for fans of historical fiction, including Wrath of the Furies and The Adventuress.
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From the depths of internet celebrity to the red carpet, this week's best biography books include great anecdotes from the realms of fame and fashion.
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Happily Ever After is the perfect new book to read for fans of Kiera Cass's The Selection Series. Interested in new teen books that are a bit darker? Check our Garth Nix's newest release, Newt's Emerald.
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If you're looking for a good fantasy book to read, check out Melissa F. Olson's new book for some paranormal fun, or Mercedes Lackey's newest release, Closer to the Heart.
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Tell us a little bit about your new release, Click, Double-Click.
In Click, Double-Click, Dr Alastair Cameron-Strange, a bereaved and emotionally labile young doctor, solves an obscure cryptic crossword, and realises that, deeply embedded within the puzzle’s solution, lies a terrorist threat. His attempts to alert the authorities are met with derision. The more he struggles with the puzzle, the more unbalanced he becomes. The question is, is he mad, or is he the only sane person in a vast lunatic asylum?
I was intrigued by the idea of constructing a plot around a crossword puzzle. If you are not a cruciverbalist, never fear; Alastair does the solving for us. Mind you, there is one vital piece of information buried in the solution that he never divulges. To find it, you need to solve the puzzle. And even then you might not see it.
What draws you to the crime thriller genre? What about it makes you want to write?
Click, Double-Click is a bit subversive. I’ve tried to turn the crime thriller on its head. My protagonist, rather than discovering a crime and working through the clues towards a solution, discovers a solution that may or may not allow him to prevent a crime. I supposed I’ve hijacked elements of the crime thriller genre for my own nefarious purposes. I don’t think I quite knew what Click, Double-Click was about until I’d finished it. Somebody pulling it off the “Crime” section in the bookshop might justifiably feel he’d been tricked. Click, Double-Click is not about the detection of crime; it’s about the detection of humbug.
What are your favourite books to give – and get – as gifts?
Oddly enough, it’s my birthday today! I’ve been given A Stranger in My Country, the 1944 Prison Diary, by Hans Fallada, translated by Allan Blunden (Polity Press, 2015). I’d never heard of Fallada until this morning. He was a German novelist who on 4th September 1944 was committed to the Neustrelitz-Strelitz state facility, a prison for “mentally ill criminals” in Mecklenburg. At great personal risk, he kept a diary. I can’t put it down. It’s quite phenomenal. The description of life in Germany under the Third Reich is so vivid; I read it and think, yes, that must have been what it was like.
A gift, given or received, is something that comes out of the blue. It should surprise the recipient, perhaps send him down a road he had not thought to travel.
What are you currently reading?
I’m actually reading a textbook of Thermodynamics. Nerdish I know. Delta G = Delta H – T Delta S. I’m determined to get to the bottom of it!
C P Snow used to accost his literary friends at cocktail parties and ask them if they knew what the Second Law of Thermodynamics was. He told them that acquaintance of the Second Law was equivalent, in educational terms, to knowledge of a Shakespeare play. F R Leavis the distinguished Cambridge literary critic famously demolished Snow’s “Two Cultures” argument and wiped the floor with him. But I think Snow had a point. How can you read PPE at Oxford and not know a bit of Thermodynamics? I have this theory that economics is basically applied thermodynamics, and that every time the moguls of high finance land us all in deep trouble it is because they have tried to defy the First and Second Laws.
But what do I know?
Where is your happy place? Why does it bring you joy?
Is this a geographical location, or a region of the mind?
I’m sitting in Dunblane Cathedral, listening to a rendition, on the fine Flentrop organ, of the St Anne Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552, by J S Bach.
What’s not to like?
What advice would you give your teenage self?
Don’t be so miserable. Stop trying so hard. Take it easy. Chill. Don’t be a fake. Just be yourself. Go out with Jennifer Marsden.
Who are your literary heroes?
Richard Hannay and James Bond.
They’re actually quite alike. Of course, Hannay would have found Bond’s womanizing unconscionable, but occasionally their dark worlds of espionage overlap. In Mr Standfast, Hannay endures the after dinner conversation of a Conscientious Objector for whom he doesn’t have much time. He stands with his back to the mantelpiece, smokes a cigarette, and looks steadily at the man’s face. That could be Bond. There’s something cold and steely about that.
Yet Bond himself continually surprises us with little acts of courtesy and chivalry, even in the amoral carnivorous world in which he moves. And he’s very funny. He seems to walk a tight-rope between extreme menace, and extreme farce.
It has been virtually a lifelong ambition of mine to create a character who might surface and resurface in a series of books. I hope he is Dr Alastair Cameron-Strange. He’s nothing like Hannay or Bond. Thank goodness.
What’s your favourite quote or scene from Click, Double-Click?
Favourite quote: I rather like, “The atmosphere was thick with sycophantic, meretricious concupiscence.” It’s way over the top. Favourite scene: Dr Alastair Cameron-Strange stands up at a medical meeting, loses his temper, and tells the group that the particular piece of managerial pseudo-science they are peddling is the biggest load of tosh he has ever heard. I once did that. It was very satisfying. Mind you, it didn’t do any good. And Dr Cameron-Strange gets hauled before the Patient Safety Committee and suspended from his hospital post because he appears to have gone off his rocker.
Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?
I can’t resist opting for the last four words of Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata. I’d better not quote them as Max Ehrmann died on September 9th 1945 so, at time of writing, he has one week of copyright left to run, and quoting Desiderata over the years has been a contentious copyright issue. So look it up. The words remind me of my late mother. She was completely indifferent to worldly success and she could never understand why I got exercised about academic examinations. Mind, she was a Queen’s Nurse and a midwife so she did sit a few in her time. She once came up against an intimidating and irascible consultant obstetrician who barked, “Give me a cause of early miscarriage and don’t say syphilis.” She said, “Syphilis!” I once asked her what she would have liked to be if she hadn’t been a midwife. She said she would have loved to mend roads.
What the hell. Let’s risk it. Strive to be happy.
Photo Credit: Whyler Photos
James Calum Campbell is the author of the new book Click, Double-Click.
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Sunday Dinner is about the South. Southern society was, and some ways still is, shaped by a rigid hierarchy and system of expectations and behaviors I call “right order.”
I learned about “right order” as a child visiting my grandmother in Tupelo, Mississippi. In Sunday Dinner, I share stories about my family and about how the traditions we observed conditioned me to obey the rules of right order (or suffer the consequences). The characters in the book—my family and the people in their orbit—are so imbued with the notion of right order, that many no longer have eyes to see the injustices it enforced.
What’s on your writing desk?
Paid bills
A flashlight
A stack of instructional DVDs, mostly about dog training
A file folder of articles about recent racial confrontations in the U.S.
A note pad
A copy of Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Who are your literary heroes working today? Why do you admire them?
Marilynne Robinson, author of books of fiction and non-fiction, writes with such passion and grace—I want to slow down and savor every word. She confronts moral and spiritual quandaries in the lives of characters so familiar, they might be my best friends. In so doing she rescues John Calvin from puritanical interpretation and walks the reader into a depth of spiritual embrace that enriches her daily life.
John Egerton, Jason Sokol, John Lewis, Taylor Branch, Ta-Nehisi Coates and others who write about civil rights and white supremacy are also heroes of mine. They are brave and prophetic.
What makes your world go ‘round? Why does it bring you joy?
My world revolves around my farm, my family, my dogs, my kitchen stove, and my church. My farm is beautiful. I can look out my back window, take a deep breath, and find peace. My children and grandchildren blow in and out bringing whatever joy or crisis that is currently in their lives. My dogs adore me. I touch them and feel life and warmth and genuine affection. Someone once said, “Dogs make our lives better.” It’s true. Cooking creates a space for relationships to happen. Shared meals can become a symbol and sign of shared relationships. My church finds its identity in the pursuit of social justice. The biblical mandate to care for the least of these finds a voice there.
What books are currently on your night stand?
Our America, The Latino Presence in American Art
Outside the Magic Circle – The Autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr
Being with Dying – Joan Halifax
Women of the Way, Discovering 2,500 years of Buddhist Wisdom – Sallie Tisdale
Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own – Kate Bolick
The Death of Adam, Essays on Modern Thought – Marilynne Robinson
Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts – Aglaia Kremezi
My book, Sunday Dinner, Coming of Age in the Segregated South, Ann Boult Walling
What advice would you give your teenage self?
Believe in your own ideas. It doesn’t matter if anyone else agrees with you.
What’s your favorite line from Sunday Dinner?
“As a little girl, Sunday dinner at 640 Jefferson Street defined my universe. It was the air I breathed. People can breathe a poisoned atmosphere for a very long time before the lungs seize. Before it takes their breath away. Breathless moments were woven into my childhood until I finally understood the source of the poison. Until I really understood how wrong right order was.”
Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?
“We all do better when we all do better.” I wish I knew the source.
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George R.R. Martin, you're playing with our hearts. There's a new Game of Thrones book (a prequel story called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms) out this week, which sparked the following conversation in our office:
"WHOA. There's a new George R.R. Martin book out today?" - Taylor
"Yeah. I told you that." - Chloe
"STOP IT, George R.R. Martin, I need more Game of Thrones books! Stop releasing things unless it's the next Game of Thrones book." - Ben (who is obviously very passionate about the matter)
"It IS a Game of Thrones book. But not the one you want." - Chloe
No - the new George R.R. Martin book doesn't continue the story from where A Dance with Dragons left off. We still have SO MANY questions.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place a century before Robert Baratheon arrives in Winterfell to visit his friend Eddard Stark. Before Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow and Khal Drogo, there were Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg.
This version of Westeros features a Targaryen on the Iron Throne. Go back into the history of Westeros in this brand new novella by George R.R. Martin.
If you're a huge fan of the Game of Thrones books, we recommend picking up the hardcover version. It features gorgeous new illustrations that you won't want to miss.
Today, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day. We had the honor of speaking with Jamie Tworkowski, founder of the suicide prevention organization To Write Love on Her Arms, about his new book If You Feel Too Much. If You Feel Too Much explores heavy topics in mental health and offers truly inspiring words to those who are struggling. For more information on the work that Jamie Tworkowski is doing, visit the TWLOHA website.
It's a collection of stories from the last 10 years. Stories from my life and work - pain and hope, fears and dreams, death and love and depression. More than anything, I would like to think it's an honest book and an encouraging book. The title comes from something I wrote the night that Robin Williams passed away. I wanted to write something not about his life or death, but for people who could relate to that sort of struggle, to battling depression, even to the point of thinking about suicide. What I wrote began with "If you feel too much, there's still a place for you here."
What's your favorite song lyric?
"I dare you to move." by Switchfoot and "But I still haven't found what i'm looking for" by U2. Technically, those are both lyrics but really I would also say those are my two all-time favorite songs.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
From about junior high on, I wanted to be a sales rep for a clothing brand in the surf industry, which is what I ended up doing. I worked as a sub rep (assistant sales rep) for Quiksilver from 18-22, and then I was Hurley's Florida sales rep from 22 until 26, when I left to start To Write Love on Her Arms.
What's the most memorable moment from your book tour so far?
Every night was special but I would say the highlights were Nashville, where about 40 people had to watch from outside because the store was so packed. I had a bunch of friends there that night, and two of my friends played songs. And then my hometown of Melbourne, Florida - I didn't know what to expect and wondered if it might be the smallest crowd of the tour, but it ended up being the biggest. Over 200 people. Friends and family, former teachers, people I hadn't seen in years. A night I won't forget.
What's the best advice you've ever received?
I was about to speak to a large crowd and I texted my friend Donald Miller to ask for advice. Don is my friend but he's also my favorite writer and speaker. He wrote back, "I just think you being you is incredibly powerful."
Where did you write If You Feel Too Much? (your couch, a coffee shop, a bar... hey - we won't judge)?
I wrote it over the course of 10 years, so it was written in a lot of different places. I lived in Florida for a lot of that time but I also lived in New York City for two of those years. And then I was actually in Los Angeles at a place in Laurel Canyon when I finally committed to the idea and finished the book proposal, with the help of my agent Bryan Norman.
Imagine you now host a talk show (congrats). Who is your first guest?
Bono. He's in a league of his own when it comes to my heroes. I've had the chance to meet a lot of people that I look up to and respect. He's the one guy I would still really like to meet.
Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?
Not really but "People need other people" comes to mind. That's a statement we use a lot at TWLOHA. It's simple but i believe it's a game-changer. So many people feel alone, especially when it comes to their pain. We want folks to know that it's okay to be honest and it's okay to ask for help.
Jamie Tworkowski is the author of the new book If You Feel Too Much.
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Let’s see… It’s a journey through the mysteries of family history and coming of age, refracted through the glittering prism of Las Vegas. Walter, a seventeen-year-old boy, takes care of his ailing father in the shadow of the Strip, their lives compromised by the disappearance of his mother, who drove off when Walter was five and never returned. Entwined around his story is the tale of the mother, who abandoned family to follow a feverish vision of Liberace from Milwaukee to Las Vegas, and the father, who went searching for her amongst the gondolas of the Venetian Hotel. It jumps back and forth in time, it’s prose, but with sections of graphic novel interspersed. Did I mention that there are sexy living statue performers featured, plus Liberace vandals?
What's the best advice you've ever received?
Don’t read your reviews, good or bad. Just don’t look. Unfortunately, like Bluebeard’s wife, I have not been able to follow this advice, but I recognize its sagacity.
Say you're the host of a talk show. Who would be your first guest? What would you want to ask?
I think I’d like to have Margaret Atwood on. She’s fun, she’s political and she’d have lots to say, and would probably say it beautifully. Maybe I’d pair her with Dame Helen Mirren and just sit and watch the two of them go at it, then go off the air, because it could only go downhill from there.
What makes your world go round? Why does it bring you joy?
My world has been in the gravitational pull of my son for thirteen years, and watching him learn and grow has brought me great joy and fulfillment. Alas, he’s at the age where he no longer wants me to revolve around him, so I’ll have to settle for some really good baked goods.
Who are your literary heroes?
Oh, this cast changes daily, but I’d have to say the mainstays are Neil Gaiman and Edith Wharton. Gaiman creates modern myths with real emotional resonance, and his storytelling is phenomenal. Wharton crafts these exquisite sentences that are witty, illuminating, and achingly apt. And, in a guest spot, I am mildly obsessed these days with the YA book “Simon vs. the Homo Sapien Agenda” by Becky Albertalli. It’s a book I wish I had read in high school, and the main character reminds me a lot of the teenager Walter in my book.
What has been the biggest "pinch me" moment in your career?
There have been many surreal, delirious moments on the road to publication (first galleys, first view of the cover, first copy of the hardback) but I have to say my giddiest moment was on publication day, when friends from all over the country started popping up on my Facebook feed, holding copies of my book. That’s when I knew that it was out there, it was really out there!
How do you like to spend a rainy day?
I’m sorry, I live in Southern California— what means this, “rainy day”?
What's your favorite quote from STILL LIFE LAS VEGAS?
I have a fondness for this revelation from Walter while riding the bus: “There’s a pain, right below my breastbone, that catches my breath, but feels like relief. I guess I know what this means. Surprising, but not surprising. This has been waiting for me my whole life. A hardened husk is cracking open and something inside is wriggling loose. This me. Being released. The bus ride is short but my life has changed.”
Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?
A Buddhist saying:
As We Think, So We Become
The thought manifests as the word,
The word manifests as the deed,
The deed develops into habit,
And habit hardens in character,
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love,
Born out of concern for all beings…
As the shadow follows the body,
As we think, so we become.
James Sie is the author of the new book Still Life Las Vegas.
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Our readers love James Patterson books and are always waiting for the latest James Patterson books. Lucky for thriller readers, James Patterson is highly prolific and his list of books is longer than most. Some of our recent favorite James Patterson books are Alert, a detective / FBI novel, and The Murder House - a new crime thriller.
If you love books by James Patterson and want something similar, check out our book list of new releases with similar appeal to James Patterson books. Also check out our list of books to read if you like Lee Child!
Mrs. John Doe
Tom Savage
Release Date: October 6, 2015
Why fans of James Patterson books will like it: James Patterson himself recommends it, saying, "Savage knows the mystery novel inside and out, and it shows on every page.”
The Guilty
David Baldacci
Release Date: November 17, 2015
Why fans of James Patterson books will like it: David Baldacci is a natural fit for James Patterson fans. His assasin thrillers are very well-written and are true page-turners.
Trust No One
Paul Cleave
Release Date: August 4, 2015
Why fans of James Patterson books will like it: you won't see the enging coming. This is a gripping thriller that will keep you engaged and make the hairs stand up on the back of your head.
Those We Left Behind
Stuart Neville
September 22, 2015
Why fans of James Patterson books will like it: it's terrifying, but beautifully powerful. This Belfast-set thriller is simultaneously bleak and wonderful.
The Slaughter Man
Tony Parsons
Release Date: September 22, 2015
Why fans of James Patterson books will like it: Tony Parsons' first foray into crime fiction is truly impressive. Parsons brings literary beauty to the genre and this trilogy will find lots of fans in James Patterson readers.
Minute Zero
Todd Moss
Release Date: September 15, 2015
Why fans of James Patterson books will like it: when a deputy assistant secretary of state writes an international thriller, we pay attention. Todd Moss knows what he's talking about and it shows in this action-packed read.
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