Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Derek Haas answers The Questions

--> How many rejection slips did you get before your first novel was published?

I was lucky. I was already a screenwriter and had a film agent at William Morris. So when I finished the manuscript of THE SILVER BEAR (after five years of writing, putting it off, writing, putting it off), I gave it to my film agent and said, "I wrote this. I don't know if it's any good or there's a market for it." My film agent sent it to Mel Berger, a WME literary agent in NYC. He read it and said he loved it and wanted to try to sell it. I thought maybe he was humoring me because my film agent put him up to it. The book sold the next week. To be fair, I had a lot of rejection slips when I was coming up in screenwriting, so this overnight success story is really ten years in the making.

--> Have you ever thrown away a book that you just couldn't make work?

Yes, the first novel I tried to write out of college was titled THE ANNUNCIATION and was about a boy, today, who an angel appears to and tells him where and when the Second Coming will take place. A bunch of people try to kill him after that. I didn't know what I was doing then and wasn't much of a writer. It had its moments but it has long since been trashed. 

  --> Is it still exciting to publish a new book even after all this time?

It is extremely exciting and nerve wracking. It is much different than a movie, where everything builds up toward a release date and you are made or broken in that first weekend. A book's release can be a long process, and a book can catch on months after it first hits shelves. The best part is finally getting reader reviews and press reviews and seeing if that book that has been in your head for so long actually entertains.

--> Do you get ideas for new books all the time and you keep them written down, or does one come to mind when you need one?

I wish I did! No, I usually have just a kernel of an idea for the next book I want to write and then I start writing and see where it goes. I usually figure it out about a 1/3 of the way through… at least I figure out the ending… and then I work to that. A lot of times I figure out what the last line of the book will be and then I just set that as my target and everything drives toward that last line.

--> Do you have entire story arcs mapped out when you begin a trilogy or a series of related books?

Not at all. I barely know where that particular book is going to go when I first start typing. Do you have any ideas for where the sequel to THE RIGHT HAND should go?

--> Do you have to get into a different creative space to write novels than you do screenplays?

You don't have to be in a different mindset to write novels versus screenplays… the same muscles that help you put audiences on the edge of their seats apply when you want readers flipping pages.  It is all about pace, and writing movies certainly influences the style of my prose.

--> Do you have to enter a different mind-set to write different stories for different names/characters?

Yes… you definitely have to switch hats when you change points of view. I like to write driving, page-turning stories… so I usually get some loud rock music blaring and then go to work.

--> Is there any kind of book you would like to write but haven't?

No, I've been lucky enough to write some crime and some espionage thrillers. That's what I enjoy, and that's what I'll continue to do.

--> If you could change anything about your writing career, what would it be?

I pinch myself that I get to do this for a living. I would, of course, like to reach more readers, but I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. I just write the best books I can and hope people will pass them along, recommend them, and tell all their friends.

--> What’s the most interesting question you’ve ever been asked about your writings, and what was your answer?

I was asked, "How does your wife sleep at night next to you knowing her husband writes these stories about hit men and death and destruction." My answer was, "I've been asking myself that question for 18 years."

--> If you could have written any single work – novel, screenplay, stage play, poem, history, biography – that you most admire and adore, what would it be?

I am blown away by Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES. Perfect novel. I get writer envy all the time though. I just read Neal Stephenson's REAMDE and thought, "how the hell does he write that many words and tie all that plot together with characters I actually care about?"

--> Anything you’ve always wanted to be asked about your writing but no one ever has?

I've always wanted to be asked… "Derek, you are a national best seller, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, with entire rows of bookstore shelves dedicated to your books… how does it feel to have so many readers?" Strangely, I haven't been asked that yet.

 

 

Free Shipping!

Free 1^st Class Shipping On Any KOBO Mini or Glo Purchase!*

*In The United States ONLY! Until December 24, 2012!

Important Notes:

- We may not be able to get it to you in time for Christmas, depending on when the order is placed.... 

- The device is great for travelling; but people who live outside the US run into copyright law issue and can't access the full range of KOBO titles (on the ones we sell), this is why we limited the shipping to the US only!

We Have Some Movie Passes!

We have several movie passes for this new movie about Hitchcock's life. The movie is about the love story between influential filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and wife Alma Reville during the filming of Psycho in 1959.

The passes are for Thursday November 29^th at 7pm at AMC Pacific Place 11--make sure to get there early, there is sure to be a line! You can find the passes on our display, here in the front of the shop:

 

You Must Remember This

70 years ago today, Casablanca premiered

Kennedy Assassination followers don't mess around!

So here I am, Bryan Johnston, author of Man with a Gun, talking with Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists and students of the subject at my book signing and I have come to the conclusion that these people know their stuff! I keep reminding them that my book is fiction. But that's the beauty of writing fiction; you can make up whatever you want, you just better make sure what you're making up is plausible and that you've done your homework. It's been 49 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated. There have been countless theories on who pulled the trigger, but I like to think there have been none like this. I know, I know, bold words, but hey, I really believe it, so sue me.

Bryan R. Johnston

 

 

 

Bryan Johnston, the author, with Ken Scearce, his co-panelist.

Be Thankful for What You Have

Kobo Mini Sale!!!

The Great KOBO Black Friday SALE!

On Friday November 23^rd and Saturday November 24^th ONLY!

The KOBO Mini will be marked down to $49.99 from $79.99 for just those two days!

This is limited to stock on hand, so if you are interested in this offer--call, e-mail or purchase online to RESERVE your device no later than Tuesday afternoon!

They must be PAID FOR on Friday or Saturday. This is TWO DAYS ONLY.

(If, however, you're going to be out of town over the holiday weekend, you can order in advance and give us your payment info, and we can and will ring up your sale on one of those days so that you get the discount!)

But this will only work if we know by Tuesday afternoon that you want one. Think about it - it's a great price for a great gift!

McKinty at Seattle Mystery

Great to be at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop. Had a wonderful chat to the staff and clientele. Now that I live in Seattle, this is going to be my regular spot for hanging out with the novelists and I love. I was happy to sign my new book The Cold Cold Ground, a mystery novel set during the Hunger Strikes in Belfast on 1981. Also dug signing Dec Burke's wonderful collection of essays Books to Die For!

If you're in Seattle this is the place to come to if you like books and if you dont like books you're in the wrong town, son.

Adrian McKinty

Author Blog Questions: Rhys Bowen!

--> How many rejection slips did you get before your first novel was published?

Sorry, but none. I had written other things before I switched to mysteries and several publishers wanted my first Constable Evans mystery.

--> Have you ever thrown away a book that you just couldn't make work?

Again, no. I have come up with ideas that I couldn't excite my agent about and so some half finished manuscripts sit on my computer, but I've actually rescued the good bits to use in current mysteries.

--> Is it still exciting to publish a new book even after all this time?

Oh yes. I still get a thrill from seeing my books on a shelf. I still get a thrill from nice fan letters and waiting to see how the book is selling and whether it might make the NYT list (it did) is so exciting.

--> Do you get ideas for new books all the time and you keep them written down, or does one come to mind when you need one?

Oh yes. I always have more ideas than I have time to write so I keep a file on possible Georgie ideas and possible Molly ideas. I know a year ahead what I plan to write but then sometimes I change my mind at the last minute (as I did with the Twelve Clues of Christmas that just hit me out of the blue. I pitched it to publisher. They loved it)

--> Do you have entire story arcs mapped out when you begin a trilogy or a series of related books?

Goodness, that sounds way too organized for me. I have no idea where a story in a particular book might lead me, let alone where a whole series arc might go. Obviously if my characters have a love interest, which they do, one would want them to be together finally, but they are my children and nobody can guarantee how one's child might grow up.

--> Do you know how a book/series is going to end when you begin it?

Sometimes I know who the murderer will be. That's when the actual killing and motivation for it is important to me and I want to build sympathy for my murderer. I'm always interested in what might make an ordinary person be pushed so far into a corner that they might kill.

--> Do you have to enter a different mind-set to write different stories for different names/characters?

I find that writing my stories in the first person immediately takes me into the world of my narrators. And I take a little time between books to get one scenario out of my head. But I hear their voices so clearly that it's not hard for me.

--> Is there any kind of book you would like to write but haven't?

Harry Potter??? Actually I'd love to have created that world (even apart from the money). But I would really love to write some kind of lasting legacy, so that in the future someone might say "Rhys Bowen--didn't she write x?"

--> If you could change anything about your writing career, what would it be?

Maybe to have switched to mysteries earlier, but I think I needed my years writing other things to refine my writing skills. I wish that maybe I hadn't used such cute puns as the titles for the Constable Evans books because they made the books sound cozier than they were. (when I got an Edgar nomination for one of them I was so thrilled that a committee recongized them as good, meaty, multi-level books.)

--> What’s the most interesting question you’ve ever been asked about your writings, and what was your answer?

The strangest question is the number of people who ask me to write their life-stories, as if that might be a treat for me. And they are usually boring people too (and they don't expect to pay me). When a woman I know quite well kept bugging me to write her life story I finally said, "You can't afford me."

--> If you could have written any single work – novel, screenplay, stage play, poem, history, biography – that you most admire and adore, what would it be?

The Lord of the Rings (or Harry Potter). I read the Lord of the Rings every six months of my life for many years. It had everything a story should have--real, believable characters, a great quest, amazing scenery, terror and joy. It was perfect.

--> Anything you’ve always wanted to be asked about your writing but no one ever has?

Don't think so. I'm not a shy violet and if I wanted to be asked something, I'd make sure it came out!

Thanks for asking good questions.

Rhys

E-readers and all that jazz

The common wisdom (such as it is) in the bookselling business is "adapt or die". We're to understand that if we don't expand in some way -- sell e-readers, add a cafe, become a wi-fi hub -- we'll become as relevent as buggy-whip makers.

Except...

According to a report in The Digital Reader, "...recently polled 1,983 US consumers and asked about the gadgets they used.  This filtered group of respondents consisted entirely of ereader owners, and 337 (17%) indicated that , on average, they used their ereader at least once a week.  Another 575 (29%) use it at least once a week. And the not-so-surprising statistic today is that 694  (35%) of the respondents indicated that they used the device just once."

Now it's possible that the e-readers were given to people who simply don't read. Sadly, there are a lot of folks like that in the world. Being dedicated readers, we don't understand it, but we acknowledge that it's true. But that's still a huge percentage of people who try it and shrug.

And here we just got e-readers in for you!

One of the complaints about some of the other types of e-readers is that they're complicated, hard to set up. In all honesty, most of us here haven't experimented with other e-readers so we can't speak to that. We can say our Kobos are really easy to deal with, for what it's worth.

Another observation is that, while many people do have e-readers, they also have tablets, and a lot of people discovered that they'd rather do everything on one device rather than have a separate gadget for each interest, so people are reading books on their tablets while letting their e-readers gather dust. Convenience makes a lot of sense.

(Shameless plug here, Kobo will be rolling out their new tablet, the Arc, in the not-too-distant future, and we'll be able to get them for you when they do.)

But here is the breakdown of those who aren't into their e-readers: "The survey went on to ask why those 694 owners only used the ereader once, and the majority (396 respondents or 57%) indicated that they didn’t have the time to use it; they are too busy. Approximately 22% (153 respondents) said that they’d received it as a gift and didn’t have a need for it. And a sizable 174 (25%) were among the Luddite minority who preferred to read with paper books."

These are interesting times for booksellers. Well, everyone in publishing, actually. There are lots of predictions out there as to what the shape of publishing will be in the next year/month/week, but the truth is, no one really knows. We're all kind of making this up as we go, which is both exciting and terrifying.

But we've said all along that print books would always be around, and we're still pretty confident about that. They may not all be in print, but we believe that there will always be a percentage -- and we're betting on that being a fairly substantial percentage -- of people who love the feel of a book, the smell of pages, the actual turning of pages.

Still, we're adapting, and we're enjoying selling our Kobo Mini's and Glo's, just as we'll enjoy selling the Touches and Arcs. But we're reassured by the fact that there are still a fair number of you who enjoy the printed page!

-Fran

I do know the difference between Seattle and Portland......

So when my editor sent me the cover for COLLARED, the first Gin & Tonic mystery, I was thrilled - the art was cute, and the copy was dead-one for tone and...wait a minute.  Wait, what?  "...the neighborhood PORTLAND bar?"

So I called my editor and I called my agent and said "SEATTLE!  Not Portland - SEATTLE!"

And the "oops" was heard 'round NYC.

So while here at Seattle Mystery Bookshop, celebrating the launch of COLLARED,  I'd like to apologize to everyone, and swear that yes I do know the difference between Seattle and Portland, truly I do.  And I've done my very best to make sure that what's INSIDE the book is true to Seattle, a city that I love second only to my own NYC.

And I have been promised first kicking rights, as soon as someone in the copy department fesses up...

 L.A. Kornetsky

 

Rhys does Seattle

I'm in the wonderful Seattle Mystery Bookshop right now and I've just been reminded why I write books. I've been talking to a fan who has driven all the way from Spokane to see me--is that five hours? And another who told me that my books have kept her going through a long and serious illness. Writing is a solitary business so these book tours are so exciting and affirming.

And the other thing that makes me happy is seeing bookstores like this managing to hang on, in spite of everything. So every time I gripe at the airport TSA lines I'll remind myself that I'm doing my small part to keep bookstores alive, and keeping alive that great relationship with my readers too.

Tomorrow I'm doing a TV show in Seattle--making the audience play silly games and feeding them English Christmas food. Should be fun.

Rhys Bowen

SPECTRE - ever-growing, ever-dangerous

We've been largely silent for the last few months on the questions about, and the actions of, Amazon. Frankly, we got tired of the fight. So few seemed to care or be willing to do anything about the dangers we see. However, there have been a few developements recently that we thought deserve attention.

                                            In no particular order:

    Journalist David Streitfeld of the NYTimes published a terrific article on Nov 4^th,  Booksellers Resisting Amazon’s Disruption. The article deals with Timothy Ferriss who has been writing a couple of books on how to do things swiftly. His The Four-Hour Workweek was a bestseller for him and his traditional publisher, Crown. For his latest book, The Four-Hour Chef, Mr. Ferriss has gone with Amazon as the publisher and seems honestly stunned that other booksellers will not carry the book.

            Signing Mr. Ferriss was seen as a smart choice by Amazon, which wanted books that would make a splash in both the digital and physical worlds. When the seven-figure deal was announced in August 2011, Mr. Ferriss, a former nutritional supplements marketer, said this was “a chance to really show what the future of books looks like.”

            The implication there is that Amazon is the only future of the book. If that was and is his attitude, he cannot be surprised that other booksellers would 1) be insulted by his attitude AND comment, and 2) would not be interested in helping him by selling his book.

            When Mr. Ferriss signed with Amazon, he celebrated the new at the expense of the old. “I don’t feel like I’m giving up anything, financially or otherwise,” he said.

            He has a somewhat different view these days. “By signing with Amazon, I expected this type of blowback,” he said. “I’ve been girding my loins.”

            If he'd been expecting it, he cannot be shocked that it is taking place.

             Now that publication is at hand, that future looks messy and angry. Barnes & Noble, struggling to remain relevant in Amazon’s shadow, has been emphatic that it will not carry its competitor’s books. Other large physical and digital stores seem to be uninterested or even opposed to the book. Many independent stores feel betrayed by Mr. Ferriss, whom they had championed. They will do nothing to help him if it involves helping a company they feel is hellbent on their destruction.

            “At a certain point you have to decide how far you want to nail your own coffin shut,” said Michael Tucker, owner of the Books Inc. chain here. “Amazon wants to completely control the entire book trade. You’re crazy if you want to play that game with them.”

             The irony, he [Mr. Ferriss] added, is that the $35 book was meant to be inviting to the casual browser. Amazon can do many things, but it still cannot let readers examine a book before buying. “This is the kind of book that physical booksellers would be most excited to sell,” Mr. Ferriss said.

            But what Mr. Ferriss clearly does not grasp is the economics of the bookselling world. They're key.  His book is $35. Amazon is selling it at a 40% discount, for $21. That is the same price that any bookseller would need to pay Amazon to stock it. If they wanted to compete directly with Amazon strickly on price and sell the book for that same amount - $21 – they would be making no money at all. If any bookseller wanted to make something on the sale (to say, oh, pay the rent or the employees or the phone
bill or for heat), they’d have to sell the book at a higher price than Amazon, thereby making their copies less competitive. Amazon is a massive, MASSIVE corporation that sells tires and tube socks in addition to books and e-files and can afford – or is willing to afford – to lose money on printed books.

        And keep in mind that Amazon is perfectly willing to undercut its own printed books – the Kindle edition of his book is just $9.99, which saves the buyer 71%. How much less does Mr. Ferriss make on the sale of e-files rather than printed copies? How aware is Mr. Ferriss of the economic practices of his new publisher?

        So, as we’ve written many times in the past, it is not only a matter of not wanting to enrich a corporation that is destroying our chosen and honorable profession, it also make zero financial sense. The math is clear. When Bill Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage, a large store in suburban Marin County, said “We don’t think it’s in our best interests to do business with Amazon,” he’s talking about the these issues. 

                                Then, on Nov 6th, came this story:

Amazon Goes After Netflix With New Monthly Subscriptions Now that they've done their best to conquer publishing, they're going after Hollywood. Like e-books, streaming movies and TV shows really is the next logical world for them to conquer. Here they go!

                                 On Nov 8th, it was learned that the 'buy-buttons' for the e-books from the major NYC publishing houses had vanished. You could still buy printed books and e-books from a few other publishers but not from Hachette, Random House, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and HarperCollins.

Just to be clear what we're talking about (and this is not meant to be exhaustive, just a sampling) -

Hachette: Grand Central, Little Brown and Mulholland Books (authors include Marcia Muller, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Margaret Maron, Michael Robotham, Michael Koryta, James Patterson, Nelson Demille, Lawrence Block)

Random House: Crown, Vintage, Bantam, Doubleday, Delacorte, Ballantine, Knopf, Titan, Hard Case Crime (authors include Mary Daheim, Lee Child, Gillian Flynn, Jo Nesbo, Rex Stout, Rita Mae Brown, Anne Perry, Peter Lovesey, Martin Limon, Cara Black, Stuart Neville, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz)

Penguin: Putnam, Dutton, Viking, Berkley NAL (authors include Aaron Elkins, Craig Johnson, Robert Crais, Clive Cussler, Ace Atkins, Deborah Harkness, Kat Richardson, Yasmine Galenorn, James Thompson, Susan Hill, Sara Paretsky, Jayne Ann Krentz)

Simon & Schuster: Scribner, Pocket, Atria (authors include Jan Burke, Ann Rule, John Connolly, Vince Flynn, Stephen Hunter, Jeffrey Deaver)

MacMillan: St. Martin's, FSG, Holt, Tor, Forge, Minotaur (authors include Louise Penny, Loren D. Estleman, Dana Stabenow)

HarperCollins: Harper, Avon, Morrow (authors include Dennis Lehane, Mary Daheim, JA Jance, Jess Walter, Phillip Margolin, Peter Robinson, James Rollins)

The next day the buttons were returned and working with the explanation that it had been merely a technical issue.

                                    However, there are a few things to bear in mind:

~ Back in Feb, Amazon removed the 'buy-buttons' from IPG books over a disagreement of terms.

~ In Jan of 2010, in another dispute with a publisher, Amazon removed all 'buy-buttons' from ALL of Macmillan's books due to a disagreement of terms. MacMillan has been the victim twice.

~ And which publishers were sued by the US Department of Justice over the issue of price fixing of e-books? Hachette, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and HarperCollins. They had tried a new pricing structure to attempt to stop the coming monopolization of the world of e-books by Amazon.  

               Coincidence? Or the opening of a new battle over the pricing of e-books?

Finally, a timely note of a sick twist: We've been referring to Amazon as SPECTRE, the outfit fought by James Bond. We see many similarities. SPECTRE is not bound by nationhood or the common rules of society, and its mission is to enrich itself at the cost of anyone and everyone and will do its best to wipe out anyone who stands in its way. With the release of the new James Bond movie, we've been puzzled that Penguin, who had been publishing all of the Ian Fleming Bond books, had let them go out of print. Seems like now would be the time to have them all available, right? Last weekend we stumbled on the reason: Amazon is now publishing them.

SPECTRE is now James Bond's publisher.

Goodbye, Mr. Bond

 

 

 

Seattle Mystery Books Blog Post- The Bones and the Book and the Business Cards

“Where do you get the ideas for your books” is the first question my readers always ask. And when I tell them that I got the idea for my latest mystery, The Bones and the Book, from two business cards, they look a bit stunned. But it’s true. I really was inspired to begin the historical novel by one business card and to finish it by another. The first card once belonged to a long-dead Jewish fortune teller named Dora Meltzer and the second to the very much alive one-time Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, now Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy in the other Washington. Here’s how it happened.

After a tour of Manhattan’s Tenement Museum in the late 1990's, I was in the gift shop where I was drawn to a piece of note paper decorated with the facsimile of Dora Meltzer’s business card. About a hundred years before, Ms. Meltzer lived in one of the tiny, teeming, unplumbed apartments I'd just explored. Her white square card claims that she can predict how matters of love, money, health, travel, and the law will work out for her clients. I figured she must have been gutsy to defy rabbinical strictures against fortune telling. According to the rabbis, only god knows what the future holds, and we humans aren't supposed to compete. I've always been a fan of women who defy the rules men make for us, and I wondered what drove Dora Meltzer to take up a forbidden profession. What was her story? The minute I heard myself “say” the word story I wanted to make Dora’s story up, to write a novel about an Orthodox Jewish immigrant girl who becomes a palmist in the late Nineteenth Century. As I stood in line at the cash register in that gift shop, Dora moved into my head and I renamed her Feigle, the most Yiddish-sounding name I could think of. Feigele stayed in my head for nearly a decade.

Feigele had to share the space in my head with the menopausal protagonist of my 8-book Bel Barrett Mystery Series. It took me so long to get around to telling Feigele’s story because I was still writing of Bel’s adventures and because in 2003 my husband and I relocated from the east coast to Issaquah WA. Soon after we moved, I attended my first meeting of the Puget Sound chapter of Mystery Writers of America. The speaker was Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. After his talk he handed each of us one of his business cards and promised that if we called needing forensic advice, he’d connect us with experts in the SPD. I stashed Chief Kerlikowske’s card away and held onto it.

By 2005, I'd written the last two Bel Barrett books and was ready to begin telling Feigele’s story. I had a rough outline of parts of it sketched out. Feigele would travel from the Ukraine to New York to Seattle, to Alaska, and back to Seattle where she would be murdered in 1907. She would tell her story in Yiddish in a diary, the book of the title. A century later a tourist would spot Feigele’s bones and her diary in Seattle’s Underground Streets. The demolition of the Alaskan Way Viaduct would have disinterred the bones from their makeshift grave. A modern Yiddish-speaking Seattle widow would translate Feigele’s diary, be moved by her story, and figure out who killed her. I began to research Feigele’s life. In late 2006 I finally let Feigele out of my head and onto the page where I wrote the English translation of her diary. It took me over a year.

At last I was ready for forensic advice to help me figure out who murdered Feigele and how and how the murder would be solved. I plucked Chief Kerlikowske’s card from the drawer where I'd kept it and made the call. He was as good as his word. Thanks to him I met with the King County Medical Examiner’s Forensic Anthropologist Katherine Taylor, PhD. The bad news was that I'd barely sat down before Dr. Taylor pointed out a giant flaw in my fantasy forensics. Feigele’s bones would not have lasted one hundred years in Seattle’s soggy soil! Her bones would have remained intact only until the 1960's. The good news was that this information saved me from making a serious forensic error and drove me to revise my plans for the rest of the novel. It would not take place in the 21st Century but in the mid-1960's. Goodbye modern career woman as amateur sleuth/translator. Hello aproned housewife Rachel Mazursky as amateur sleuth/translator. Rachel is a widowed Jewish mother with an empty nest, an empty bed, a passion for history, an inside line to god, and a story of her own to tell. She is so moved by Feigele’s account of loves and losses that she not only figures out who killed the diarist but also mines the diary for lessons that strengthen and enrich her own life..

Two different business cards inspired me to invent two strong, smart, and caring Jewish women, each a creature of her time, who together tell one wrenching murder story. Enjoy!

Jane Isenberg

Check out our e-readers!

We just got in our fancy new e-readers, the Kobo Glo and Kobo Mini, that we mentioned before. Yes, you can buy e-readers from us, and we're excited!

The Kobo Glo sells for $129.99 and the Kobo Mini sells for $79.99. We have covers for them, too! For the Glo we have the Black Sleep Cover Case which turns your Glo on and off when you open the cover, to imitate the feel of a regular book. We have the Glo Red Neoprene Case with memory foam exterior and faux fur lining to keep you eReader safe and unscratched. For the Mini we have the Ruby Snapback Cover, with quilted design and bright color it makes it just a bit more personalized. The Mini also has a Black Soft Touch Cover with the quilted design and soft touch it makes the Mini feel even better when you hold it.

Amber has put all kinds of information on our website about what the different Kobos are, what their specs are, how to load things, and all manner of wonderfulness. Please understand that this is a work in progress, and we're learning as we go along, so if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask us.

Eventually Kobo will also have a tablet, and we'll let you know when that's available. We won't have it in stock, but we should be able to get it within days if you decide you want one (and Fran already does!).

Remember that when you purchase a Kobo e-reader from us, we get a small portion of each book you buy, and we know you're all about supporting us. 

If you don't have a Kobo eReader in order to support our bookshop and before shopping at the our or the Kobo store, please set up your Kobo account via the links from our website. Here

Thank you for that! We really do appreciate everything you do for us!

Election Day!

A few thrillers and mysteries for the most important day in a democracy!

Justin Cronin and Cookie Teeth

Justin Cronin's new books have to do with a government experiment gone apocalyptically wrong. The first in the series, The Passage, dealt with the catastrophe. His latest, The Twelve, is set one hundred years later. Some humans, in his books, have been transformed into blood-sucking creatures - he calls them 'virals'. So Gina the Cookie Lady made appropriately shaped goodies for Justin's time with us.

White teeth cookies with red fangs. Tasty, too!

The Twelve (Ballantine hc, $28) - signed printings while they last!

Double Vision Winner!

We have a winner for our Double Vision spy package! Lee C.! Thank-you to everyone who entered!

Here is my (Amber's) review of Double Vision by F.T.Bradley:

Linc Baker can’t ever seem to stay out of trouble. Things get seriously out of hand when Linc causes some major league mayhem on a chicken farm during a school field trip. Landing him in even more hot water than usual, when the farm decides to sue his family for a million dollars, Linc is desperate.

Enter a secret government agency with an offer Linc cannot refuse. Their top kid agent, Benjamin Green, has vanished. Pandora (the secret agency) needs Linc to take Benjamin’s place during an exchange, otherwise the operation is a total bust and hundreds of man hours wasted. In exchange for Linc’s help, Pandora will make the lawsuit disappear. Why is the agency so bent on having Linc help them? He could be Benjamin Green’s twin!

Chaos follows Linc to Paris where the exchange goes wrong, he is beaten up by a girl and arrested all on his first day!

This book has it all: spies, double, gadgets, puzzles, trouble, heroes, danger and chickens! Everything you look for in a great action adventure book!

This is a really fun and smart spy novel! I enjoyed reading it! I rooted for Linc all the way thru, hoping he would finally find a way to use his natural tendency for chaos to help complete his mission and save his family.

  The absolute best thing the author does is slip in knowledge (AKA learning), without ever distracting her readers from the central storyline. Which is a great fast paced spy / espionage novel! The use of codes and code breaking such as Morse Code, Pigpen Cipher and Hobo Signs were all used to great effect in the book. Another example was the Parisian setting, The Louvre and The Mona Lisa again were describe well and again were central to the plot and any learning was well hidden.

  I would recommend this to a male reader (sorry girls, it is told exclusively from the guy perspective, however it does have a strong female character in it) between the ages of 8-12 who are looking for an action-packed book they will never get bored reading!