Book recommendations Spring 2020

Here's the latest installment of my periodic (but maybe not reliably scheduled) twice-yearly book recommendations list. I'm thrilled to share these titles, and hope they bring joy in the midst of stay-at-home reading time!

I'm going to list them in alphabetical order by author:

Lian Dolan's The Sweeney Sisters:
This book is near and dear to my heart for many reasons. The author is a total sweetheart, and I was a developmental editor for this book when Lian was drafting it. It's a book about sisters; Lian has four; I have three. It's absolutely beautifully written, and even if you're not a sister, you will find this riveting. The elevator pitch: you learn after your father passes that your next door neighbor is actually your "sister from another plot-twister!" (that could be a thing, right?) My favorite story about this book is that my eldest sister texted me that she was reading a book about sisters that she wanted me to read because it was so good--and then she finished it and saw my name in the acknowledgments. Small world! Plus: this is honestly one of the best covers I've seen.

Gini Grossenbacher's Madam of the Silk:
This is the second in Gini's series about madams (yes, the prostitutional kind!) I attended Gini's book launch and it was a really fun and informative event. I haven't yet read this, but I know it'll be a thoughtful read, based on all the research she talked about at the launch. The elevator pitch: it's about real-life historical San Francisco madam Ah Toy. Gini and I belong to the same Historical Novels Society group, and she is always fun to catch up with!

Anara Guard's Hand on My Heart:
This is a poetry collection by another friend IRL. And speaking of sisters, she did a book tour before the pandemic with her sister, who had also brought out a book. Very sweet to think of doing that with a sister. The poems in this collection are strong and remind me of how much I love poetry. Anara's also a great fiction writer. Watch for more from her!

Sands Halls's Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology:
This is a memoir that caught my eye because Sands was recommended to me and the other directors of the Gold Rush Writers Conference as a possible presenter (and yes: she will be one of our headliners at the conference, rescheduled from right now to October 2-4. It's Saturday, May 2, as I type this in the evening: we would be eating dinner and literally listening to her keynote THIS VERY MINUTE. Wild!) In other small-world wonderfulnesses, soon after we scheduled her, she and I were both presenters at the Sierra Writers Conference which took place in January before all the madness descended, and so we got to meet in person and attend each other's presentations. Her book is so well written and disturbing. The elevator pitch: an earnest, smart young woman falls into and out of the grip of Scientology, Sands's own story.

Greer McAllister's Woman 99:
I don't know Greer in real life, but we've had some great interactions online, and when she launched this book, she did a wonderful series of blog postings with 99 other authors invited to recommend another woman's book. How cool is that?! It was an ambitious project with the hashtag #read99women. She kindly hosted me for one of those. I'm a 99 woman! Click through to see what I recommended (and then come back). I really loved Greer's book The Magician's Lie, and was thrilled to jump into Woman 99. The elevator pitch: a woman gets herself committed to an insane asylum to rescue her sister there.

Anna-Marie McLemore's Dark and Deepest Red:
Anna-Marie is the queen/king/mermaid/merlad of brooding magical realism, and you will love their latest, which is about the real-life "dancing plague" of medieval Strasburg. An amazing person in real life, Anna-Marie and I are both members of the aforementioned Historical Novels Society group (as is the next author in this list) and I was so happy to attend their launch at a local bookstore seemingly just moments before the shelter in place mandate was announced. I'm also proud I got to interview them for this Washington Post article about how the pronoun "they" will have the same staying power as the similarly originally-conflicted title Ms. Elevator pitch: Dark and Deepest Red is also a sideways retelling of the Brothers Grimm "The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces" or "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." Don't miss this beautiful novel!

Gina Mulligan's Remember the Ladies:
Gina's novel was traditionally published in hard cover by Five Star and she recently got the rights back and released an ebook version. This is a fantastic look at the fight for suffrage, which hello!, this year is the centennial of. Can you believe U.S. woman have only been voting for 100 years? (Well, in places like California and a few other states, suffrage passed earlier: 1911 here). Elevator pitch: this is the novel to read to get a good look at what it was like to lobby for suffrage. And plus: Gina in real life is a true and genuine friend. Check out her other novel From Across the Room as well (same situation with getting rights back and releasing an ebook), an epistolary masterpiece with a total kicker of an O'Henry at the end.

Rebecca Pittman's The History and Haunting of Lizzie Borden:
Rebecca is a devoted researcher of paranormal spots, and her books sell incredibly well. I was so excited to read this book about Lizzie Borden, especially since I know she found out a shocking new theory about who might've been there that fateful day of August 4, 1892. Elevator pitch: a thorough and innovative look at a historical double-murder case that continues to haunt us today. Rebecca and I planned to put our heads together on a book project just before Coronavirus came to town, and I hope that when the world is back to normal we can resume! In the meantime, check out her oeuvre, and most especially this book! I've got just a tiny hint: let's play balllllll.

Lisa Redfern's Phases of Gage:
I couldn't help but be drawn to this story. Elevator pitch: a novelization of the true-life morbid case of Phineas P. Gage, a medical curiosity in the 1800s whose skull was punctured by a 13 pound iron rod...he continued to live and be studied by neurologists. Today his skull resides in a Harvard museum. Lisa's a kindred spirit and I know you'll enjoy this look at a very strange life.

Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl's Rad American History A-Z:
Yes yes yes yes yes, you need this book, and you need to buy copies for the young readers in your life too! Elevator pitch: this is the latest in a series of books celebrating rad women, with Kate's great text and Miriam's amazing illustrations. I did a minor bit of invited brainstorming along with others, and am proud as PUNCH to be in the acknowledgements because of that. Seriously, buy this book and others in the series both for yourself, and as gifts for the young people in your lives. Get the word out about the powerful accomplishments of rad women! I couldn't love these books more. They are the equivalent of those old wonderful orange biographies of women that some readers will remember from their childhoods.

Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation:
Exactly my kind of book. That is all.

Next in line to be purchased:

• Ed Skoog's poetry volume Travelers Leaving for the City, 
• Meredith Arthur's Get Out of My Head: Inspiration for Overthinkers in an Anxious World, and 
• Nanea Hoffman's The Anxiety Blob: Comfort and Encouragement Journal. 

You'll see these on the list in Fall!
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2017: my writing year in review

This year I had three pieces of writing-related news.

1. An audio book of Woman of Ill Fame was released in May from Tantor. Confession: I still haven’t listened to it! At some point I will do a giveaway for one of the downloads. Perhaps 2018 will slow down enough that I can listen to it myself. I’d love to hear the narrator blustering through some of Nora’s creative Irish swearing. And I liked very much the new cover they gave the book.

2. In February, the third book in my Y.A. trilogy The Arnaud Legacy was released by Kensington Books, titled Avenged. It’s written under my pen name Lynn Carthage. This was to protect teen readers from my other books (see unapologetic Gold Rush prostitute novel, above), but I decided it was okay to publicize from Erika to Lynn, just not the other direction. I love this spooky neo-Gothic series and heartily encourage it for grown-ups as well. The sequence is: Haunted, Betrayed, Avenged. I think it’s okay to jump into the series with either Haunted or Betrayed, but probably more challenging to start with Avenged.

3. The Murderer’s Maid: A Lizzie Borden Novel launched in October. The book has received some wonderful trade reviews and some good press.

NewYork Journal of Books, Kirkus, Foreword, Booklist, A&E, The Millions

And thanks to Diana Gabaldon and Kathleen Kent for the fantastic bookjacket blurbs.

I did a big round of events in the San Francisco Bay Area, my courage rising despite intimidation by natural disasters (sorry if that sounds overblown...I love that line from Pride and Prejudice). The Santa Rosa wildfires affected attendance at two events (at one in Sausalito, Peg Alford Purcell’s lovely Why There Are Words monthly reading series, air quality was so bad I couldn’t stand outside for more than a few minutes. Litquake’s Litcrawl in San Francisco was similarly affected by the smoke). I felt awful for people who had lost much more than attendance because of the fires. One dear friend even came to my event although she had evacuated to a hotel; she wanted some “normal” in her life (and thank goodness, her home survived, as did Peg Alford Purcell’s!)

Then, more significantly, the hurricane delayed unloading at port of the cargo ship that happened to have my books on board. Again, I realize this is a very negligible “loss,” but it did mean that books were not available for two weeks of front table display at Barnes & Noble as previously scheduled, and undoubtedly affected sales. My sister had preordered on Amazon, and since the book was so delayed, she was sent an email offering to cancel the order. I shudder to think of how many people may have done just that. Luckily, my publisher had rush-ordered a substantial number of early copies, so we had enough to sell at the launch events. We held or participated in events at a haunted museum in Oakland, an art gallery after hours in San Francisco, and of course multiple bookstores. I had a great time talking about the bewildering, complex case that is the Borden family murders. It’s always cool to see what questions people come up with.

The Murderer’s Maid was my first stab (oh please, no pun intended) at writing a “marquee novel”—one about someone who is already famous enough that there could be some built-in readership. I’m excited that a movie about Lizzie Borden is showing at Sundance in January 2018. I cannot wait to see it! Even just a trailer would probably keep me happy for a week.

***

In 2017, I presented at several conferences, the Gold Rush Writers Conference in downright adorable Mokelumne Hill, California, and Summerwords, a literary conference hosted by American River College in Sacramento.  I joined a new local group organized nationally by Jonathan Maberry called the Writers Coffeehouse and continued attending a small monthly meeting of local historical novelists. I did radio spots (I'll post clips in another blog post) for Beth Ruyak's Insight program on NPR's Capitol Public Radio in Sacramento, Rich Ehisen's podcast, Tim Weisberg's paranormal show Spooky South Coast, and guest host Joey Garcia on KFBK. Many writer friends had launches this year and have my congratulations and support, too many to name here. I feel invigorated by my community and by the privilege of being able to focus on what I love so sincerely: words.

 
Wishing you and yours the very best for 2018. Happy New Year, everyone!

….

Another cover design post

I'm so thrilled with this cover for The Murderer's Maid. Why, you ask? Three reasons. Not listed in order of preference!

1. The tweaked image of Lizzie Borden. There aren't that many photos of Lizzie, alas; perhaps a handful. The designer wanted to use this one, and I made one small suggestion that I think will resonate with people who know Lizzie. In the original portrait, her eyes are looking off to the side. I asked if the gaze could be designed to look straight at the viewer. I think it's chilling and a subtle, wonderful change.

2. The blurbs! I have been so fortunate to have two bestselling authors whom I deeply respect, admire and downright like give blurbs to this novel. The ever-gracious, sweet Diana Gabaldon and my loveable partner-in-witchery Kathleen Kent donated kind words. I'm forever grateful to them both.

3. I love the bold red which will hopefully draw readers' eyes to the cover while browsing at the bookstore. They say you can't judge a book by its cover but you can certainly notice  a book by its cover.

What do you think?


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The cover that never was

Occasionally I'll google to see if there are any reviews I've missed. Imagine my surprise when I saw mention of my book on a book design site. I clicked through and could see that along with the hardcover U.S. design, there was a jacket there I hadn't seen before. I could only see a small portion of it through a circular thumbnail and, wouldn't you know it, something was up with my computer and I couldn't load the full image.

Here's what I saw:

So I emailed the designer Laura Duffy and we had a lovely exchange. And the next day, I was able to click through and see the beautiful book cover in its entirety.

Isn't that gorgeous? For an author, book design is a really important thing. I know I reject books when I'm browsing based on their jackets, and pick up something I maybe wouldn't otherwise if the look is arresting. It's also a very interesting process to see someone else's vision of your book: kind of intimate in a way. I know it's rare that a designer would actually read the book but nonetheless that person has been given descriptive materials and creates their own vision of what the story is. It's maybe a brief taste of what it would be like to see your work on the screen. At any rate, I loved what Laura created.

I think the colors are attention-grabbing, the element in the middle looks like a rune-meets-a-torture-device (very fitting for my book!), it's allusive to a devil's pitchfork, and ghosted behind it all I can see wording from the Malleus Maleficarum, a Witch Hunters Bible from the medieval period, and elements from a design that appeared on the book's galley but was ultimately rejected. I LOVED THAT COVER. Here it is:

It has all the Rorschach test value of "what do you see in the flames?" and is dangerous and would've been so beautiful with the promised gold foil in different colors for the fire. Since my book takes place during the era when witches would be burned at the stake, this is a haunting design. Laura, you knocked it out of the park with this one! I was told at the time that it looked too science-fictionish and instead this quiet yet still lovely design from Laura was used:

I have been lucky that the book then went into paperback with a new design, that a British edition was created with its separate hardcover and paperback designs, and that an audiobook was recorded in England with again a different cover. Seeing each one of these designs brought a frisson of delight to see the designer's take on what was so very personal to me. Speaking of covers, I have a reveal I'll be doing on Wednesday for a new project. Stay tuned!

Laura's design work is beautiful. See more of it here. 


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A new voice for Nora

Seems like just a few months ago I signed a contract with Tantor Media for an audiobook to be made of Woman of Ill Fame...and it officially releases in three days! That company moves quickly. (It has to have been longer...these days are just flying by!)

I love the new cover they designed, and can't wait to hear the narration by Tiffany Morgan. It will be exciting to see how an actor interprets Nora. Back in 2008, an audiobook was made of The Witch's Trinity, but only in the U.K. I remember driving around in my car listening to it--such a strange thrill to hear one's words read back to one.

I really like this new cover: gritty, stark...and with a nicely unadorned Nora. That image is a photograph of a Dodge City prostitute nicknamed Timberline. If you're interested in her story, please see my previous posts here and here.

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