Got Me a First!
I hope I get many more next week—first real-life sightings of birds I’ve never seen before. Because I’m going on a road trip to the Maritime provinces and I’ll see some shore birds, in particular, that I’ve never encountered. More on the trip in a second, but check out my find: A Wilson’s snipe! Such a fantastically goofy critter!
So yeah, for a few years now I’ve had “he likes to plan road trips and sometimes even takes them” as part of my official author bio. This is one of those times. I’ve heard tons about how beautiful the Cabot Trail is on Cape Breton, so I’m basically heading there and back and it’s all about the journey, man. I’ll be cruising through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia (home of Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite), enjoying some provinces I’ve never seen before and hopefully seeing lots of new birds.
A week from today, in fact—or Tuesday, July 22, if you’re not reading this today—I’ll be in Fredericton, New Brunswick, at a nifty indie store called Westminster Bookmark from 5-6 pm. They’ll have Hounded, Ink & Sigil, A Plague of Giants, and Kill the Farm Boy for sale there, as well as Oberon’s Bathtime Stories. Buy something from them (even if it’s not my stuff) and you’re welcome to bring all the books you already have for me to sign. If you’re anywhere nearby—heck, are you in MAINE?—this is the closest I’ve been to your neck of the woods in many, many years. I hope you can come say hi! We’ll make plans on the fly, but let’s do dinner afterwards if you feel like it. I’ve done this in several cities—Minneapolis, Chicago, and Asheville, NC come to mind—where a few readers are hongry and willing to hang out with a tourist for a bit. I love meeting new peeps!
If you can’t make the event but want a signed book, call Westminster Bookmark to arrange it—they’ll have me sign it July 22 then ship it. Here’s their number: (506) 454-1442.
And if I may, I’d like to highlight the Ink & Sigil series, which many of you have read but perhaps some of you haven’t. It is its own thing, to be sure—it’s where we meet Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite—but it also wraps things up for the characters of the Iron Druid Chronicles, after some time and distance from Scourged allows perspective. Heck, see the graphic for Paper & Blood where it says at the top that this is the return of the Iron Druid! The whole trilogy is out in paperback now and Candle & Crow wraps up everything happily, though the folks who are paid subscribers to Words & Birds are currently enjoying more stories set after that book, exploring new adventures with Atticus, Granuaile, Owen, and Gladys. Give it a try if you haven’t, eh? (It’s in audio too, narrated by Luke Daniels.)
Currently I’m reading a couple of mysteries…or thrillers? Neither are what you’d call a traditional mystery. They’re genre-bending but also great summer reads. What are y’all reading these days?
Razor Girl
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A lovable con woman and a disgraced detective team up to find a redneck reality TV star in this raucous new novel from the New York Timesbestselling author of Squeeze Me.
Merry Mansfield, the eponymous Razor Girl, specializes in kidnapping for the mob. Her preferred method is rear-ending her targets and asking them for a ride. Her latest mark is Martin Trebeaux, owner of a private beach renourishment company who has delivered substandard sand to a mob hotel. But there's just one problem: Razor Girl hits the wrong guy. Instead, she ends up with Lane Coolman, talent manager for Buck Nance, the star of a reality TV show about a family of Cajun rooster farmers. Buck Nance, left to perform standup at a Key West bar without his handler, makes enough off-color jokes to incite a brawl, then flees for his life and vanishes.
Later
Stephen King has written several novels in the pulp style for this particular publisher, which bestows upon them old-school pulp covers. I think they’re rad.
SOMETIMES GROWING UP MEANS FACING YOUR DEMONS.
The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine – as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.
LATER is Stephen King at his finest, a terrifying and touching story of innocence lost and the trials that test our sense of right and wrong. With echoes of King’s classic novel It, LATER is a powerful, haunting, unforgettable exploration of what it takes to stand up to evil in all the faces it wears.
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