Books

Alexis Hall leaps from the world of contemporary romantic comedies to the realm of Regency romance with A Lady for a Duke (15.5 hours). Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood, has been moping around his family’s country estate ever since his closest friend died at the Battle of Waterloo. What Gracewood doesn’t realize is

As you may or may not know, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing to prevent Penguin Random House (PRH) from acquiring/merging with Simon & Schuster, on the grounds that it will lose authors money. Unlike many antitrust suits, it is not concerned with monopoly (not enough sellers) but monospony (not enough buyers).

The comic book industry and crime fiction are intertwined. For example, the pulp comics of the 1930s such as Black Mask and The Shadow led to the superhero comics we know today as well as the pulp fiction novels of the 1950s and 60s. New York author Alex Segura knows this history well and has

Thursday 18 August will be an interesting day for crime fiction lovers this year. It’s a date when a lot of important releases hit the shelves, setting the tone for our Autumn reading. Four of our books this week will arrive on the 18th and they’re all exciting, however our lead book is The Twist

★ Invisible A fresh and cleverly conceived take on the beloved 1985 film The Breakfast Club, Invisible is a colorful and engaging tale written by first-time graphic novel author Christina Diaz Gonzalez and illustrated by Gabriela Epstein (Claudia and the New Girl).  Diaz writes in both English and Spanish, the languages spoken by her archetypal

American author Lee Goldberg returns with his fourth Eve Ronin novel, which he loosely bases on chilling series of real-life killings that took place in Malibu, California in 2018. Research scientist Tristan Beaudette was shot dead while camping in Malibu Creek State Park with his two young daughters, the latest in a series of shootings

I’ve been going through the incredible responses to a survey on what tools and information would be helpful for fighting back against book bans. One thing that popped up was having quick templates and guides to action for folks who want to do something but don’t know where to begin. Today, let’s look at how

Debut author Tom Mead is receiving considerable publicity for his historical mystery Death and the Conjuror. The story takes place in 1936 London, with its lead characters the elderly showman and conjuror Joseph Spector and Scotland Yard detective George Flint. Flint hopes Spector’s skills at misdirection can lead him to figure out what really happened

’90s kids, now weary adults, have a reputation of being more nostalgic than most. With the state of the world we stepped into after leaving childhood, maybe that’s understandable. Sometimes, we just want to return to a life of pogs, Gameboys, and Wishbone episodes. Is that asking too much? As I’m sure the majority of

True crime and crime fiction that feels like true crime are very popular at the moment. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the story you’re reading actually happened or not. Which is fine, as long as it’s a good story. With Rook, Buffalo-based author Stephen G Eoannou has unearthed one of the most sensational crime

If you open up any one of hundreds of news stories of rightwing “parents’ rights” groups trying to have book removed from schools for having queer characters or mentioning the existence of sex, you might notice a common refrain: “We aren’t banning books. Anyone can buy it on Amazon if they want.” There are so

Texan author Gabino Iglesias’ two previous novels, Coyote Songs and Zero Saints, earned him an enviable reputation for being able to blend genres. Writers who can pull this off successfully – like Elizabeth Hand, Laird Barron and Cynthia Pelayo – manage to meet readers’ expectations for what a good crime novel should provide while also

Today’s Featured Deals In Case You Missed Yesterday’s Most Popular Deals Previous Daily Deals A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow for $2.99 Mrs. Rochester’s Ghost by Lindsay Marcott for $1.99 Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett for $2.99 The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt for $1.99 Sadie by Courtney Summers for $2.99 A

Val McDermid’s cold case police detective Karen Pirie is coming to the small screen in September 2022 in a new three-part ITV crime drama. Adapted from the first novel in the six-book series, The Distant Echo, the programme will star Lauren Lyle of Outlander fame as the lead detective. Watch the trailer below… [embedded content]

In Craigslist’s “Missed Connections” section, you can almost always find a titillating headline or two, something like “Goth Woman in Piggly Wiggly Produce Section” or “Saw You at Six Flags’ Drop of Doom, May 17.” We all have a story about the one that got away, but not everyone takes that obsession to the lengths

Larry Beinhart. There’s a name we haven’t seen in a while. The American author behind the 1993 satirical novel American Hero – adapted for film as Wag the Dog – is back. He’s a funny and incisive writer of crime and conspiracy fiction, and his novel The Deal Goes Down is our lead book this

Translated by Alison Watts — If you enjoyed Riku Onda’s previous mystery translated into English, The Aosawa Murders, you’ll find many of the same attributes in her new psychological thriller, Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight. It offers that same dreamy feeling and a quality of uncertainty about the characters’ perceptions. It’s almost as if the

When you’re a spy, regime change is tricky. Even positive shifts can make for treacherous times. Two novels uncover the messy, uncertain lives of intelligence operatives in times of tectonic political change: Allison Montclair’s The Unkept Woman explores English life after World War II, at the dawn of the Cold War, while Dan Fesperman’s Winter

Sean Munger is an Oregon-based LGBT crime author who loves the freedom that writing crime novels gives him. He sees his books as a place to craft characters and narratives, turning over a variety of social issues and exploring different areas of the world with his readers. His latest, The Son Thief, arrives on 2

Many of us feel trapped in a grind of constant change: rolling news cycles, the chatter of social media, our families split along partisan lines. We feel fearful and tired, on edge in our bodies, not quite knowing what has us perpetually depleted. For Katherine May, this low hum of fatigue and anxiety made her

Thirty-seven year old Geoffrey Mark Hays Talsma of Portage, Michigan was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment by Chief United States District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou yesterday. The charges are mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. Talsma has also been ordered to pay over $3 million in restitution to Amazon. The expensive judgement comes as a

Katie Gutierrez’s debut novel is a story of family, secrets, trauma and the complexity of relationships, told through the eyes of two women – Dolores Rivera and Cassie Bowman. Cassie is an aspiring true crime writer, but for the moment she earns her money by blogging part-time for H20, a television network making low-budget romance

The Ringers, the aliens that descend to Earth at the beginning of Ruthanna Emrys’ A Half-Built Garden, are perhaps the best-case scenario as far as aliens go. They’re a multicultural community made up of different interstellar life-forms, they value parenthood to the point that they show up to negotiations with children in tow, and they’ve

A 6-3 vote in favor of a new draconican book plan in Pennsylvania’s third largest school district will put more power in the hands of adults to determine which books children in the schools have access to. The Central Bucks School Board, swayed by a loud and vocal Moms For Liberty group, will now create

Fictional legal eagles are flying high these days – just look at how successful the recent Netflix adaptation of Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer has been. And then we have Eddie Flynn, creation of Northern Irish author Steve Cavanagh, featuring here in the seventh book of a series that’s garnered awards, high praise and oodles

In The Half-Life of Valery K, the titular Soviet scientist is released from a Siberian prison and transported to a town called City 40, which seems to be absolutely suffused with unhealthy levels of radiation. The most frightening thing? As Natasha Pulley reveals, towns like City 40 really did exist. In the 1960s, across the

In Book Riot’s anti-censorship coverage, we’ve mentioned Lafayette, Louisiana several times, from its library board granting itself the power to ban books to its new policy forbidding any “cultural displays,” which prevents any Pride book displays as well as displays about Black History Month and more. Cara Chance is the North Regional Library Branch Manager

Michael Connellly, Joseph Knox and Mick Herron with their Theakston winnings. Heading to the final day of the Theakston Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, I met a man walking with his young son, wobbling along on a trike. “What’s going on at the Old Swan?” he asked. “If I told you, I might have to

Whether it’s zombie westerns, apocalypse horror or fugitive noir novels, Jason Bovberg is an author obsessed with writing pulp fiction and having fun while doing it. His novels are stylish and expressive, full of dense, zesty prose that demonstrates his love of writing and a willingness to push boundaries in whatever genre he tackles. On

In How to Read Now, Elaine Castillo models how to read not just books but also history, culture and the world with an eye toward understanding how the ideas that inform our reading lives came to be. You write that your book’s title, How to Read Now, is both a comment and a question. Can