Some of my favourite reviews come from kids. I love it how they whole-heartedly embrace a book and the characters within it.  This Saturday sees the release of Chris Rutkowski’s new UFO book and first children’s book  I Saw it Too! Chris received an early thumbs up from 10 year-old who lives in his neighbourhood. Here’s what she had to say:

Ben Guyatt, the author of Billy Green Saves the Day, received a very interesting email which happened to be from a descendant of Billy Green.  Here’s the lovely email.

Dear Ben,
I just finished reading “Billy Green Saves the Day” and enjoyed it very much; I felt like I was there.  I have a particular interest because I recently got involved in my family’s genealogy and the Samuel Green family from New Jersey is part of my family tree.  Both Adam and William, his brother, were Loyalists and moved away; Adam to Stoney Creek, ON and William to western Pennsylvania.  Billy was named after his Uncle William.  My great grandmother on my father’s side is descended from William Green.  I was born in Warren, PA but for the past 30+ yrs. have lived in Oshawa, ON.  Earlier this year I stopped in Stoney Creek and found the Adam Green homestead, however, no one was home at the time.  I plan to go back soon and visit some of the historic sites.
Thank you very much for that little bit of history.
Jeanne Searle

And finally over a year ago we published Don Easton’s third mystery novel featuring the rule-bending Jack Taggart. Due to unfortunate circumstances, a review for Angel in the Full Moon that was to run in the RCMP Quarterly never ran. Well, we now have it here for you.

“RCMP Cpl. Jack Taggart and the Organized Crime Unit are back in Don Easton’s latest Jack Taggart Mystery, Angel in the Full Moon.  In his first two novels Easton challenged his readers to resolve whether being on the “right” side of the law made a character “good” and likewise, if being on the “wrong” side of the law made a character “bad”; there was little room for black and white distinctions.  Unlike those first two novels, in Angel in the Full Moon there is black and white.  The bad guys are out-and-out bad and the good guys are venerable.

Partners Jack Taggart and Laura Secord set out to investigate an unknown crime based on a tip.  While they don’t know what they’re getting into, they know it is big.  The crime is human trafficking and the story heart-wrenching.  Easton sets the tone of the novel early by introducing the readers to the victims first, humanizing them and making it difficult for the reader not to be drawn in and filled with compassion.

In all Easton’s books it is difficult to determine what of his story line is based on his life experiences as an undercover RCMP, and what is fictional creation.  Angel in the Full Moon feels from the beginning too real to be a work of fiction.  Easton wrote with emotion the reader can feel emanate off the pages.  The knowledge that the story is closer to reality than fiction makes parts of it a tough story to swallow.

As with Above Ground Easton does a splendid job of intensifying his characters without taking away from the story.  His primary characters are dynamic throughout the Jack Taggart Mystery series and throughout each individual novel.  And as he did in Above Ground, Easton has escaladed some of his secondary characters to a level that makes one wonder what role they will play in the fourth novel.

Above Ground did not offer as much shock value as Loose Ends did but Angel in the Full Moon arguably offered more.  The news stories on human trafficking seem to be swept under the rug as though they are not society’s concern.  Don Easton lifts the rug and airs it out for all to see.  He reminds us that human trafficking often involves young girls, sex crimes, and crimes against human rights.  It is sickening to think that members of society support such crimes.

I commend Mr. Easton for the personal experiences he brought to this latest book.  I admire his honesty and offer my sympathy for what he has had to endure both on the job and in his personal life.  I’d like to thank Mr. Easton for sharing a part of himself with the reader as it truly made the novel meaningful for me.  As for those out there who have yet to read the novel, even if it isn’t your style or genre, read it to remind yourself of what a portion of society goes through every day.”
- Erin Chatwell

And thus ends my last blog posting. I’m saying farewell to Dundurn today.  I’ve had a lot of fun keeping you updated on our activities.  Thanks for reading about my adventures as a publicist here at Dundurn. Best wishes to you all! And make sure you keep tuning in for more updates and publishing stories from Ashleigh and Jeffrey.

Happy Reading!

Talking about the media, I would like to send a big shout out to Don Graves, mystery book columnist with the Hamilton Spectator, who continually provides insightful reviews of Canadian mysteries. Recently Don reviewed John Moss’ Grave Doubts - his second novel featuring the detective duo Quin and Morgan. Here’s a brief snippet from that review.

“Quin and Morgan are as quirky and dynamic a duo as there is out there fighting crime, exploring life and spinning solutions to life’s mysteries … Grave Doubts is writing that moves the mystery novel beyond the often trite label of genre fiction into crafted storytelling that delves into the energy and desperation behind actions that can both define and destroy lives.”

Click here to read the entire review.

Photo taken at Forest of Reading® Festival of Trees™ at Harbourfront Centre

Yesterday, I found myself outside amongst screaming fans numbering in the thousands … was I playing hooky from work and attending an outdoors concert? Nope, rather I was at the Festival of Trees, the culmination of the Forest of Reading Program, at the Habourfront Centre in Toronto, where Dundurn’s very own Mahtab Narsimhan won the Silver Birch Award Fiction for her novel The Third Eye! Congratulations Mahtab!

All I can say is WOW! It was a truly spectacular event!  More than 250,000 students province wide voted for their favourite book and it all culminates in a two day festival.  The Habourfront grounds were filled with tents set up for author signings, face painting, and carnival like games and were overrun with more than 6000 students who were all there to cheer on their favourite author in seven different categories. The first thought that came to my head, after thinking how on earth am I going to locate our authors was I so would have loved this when I was a kid/teen. I’ve often described my job to my friends as being part cheerleader. And it was nice being surrounded by a group of kids who love and support not only The Third Eye but also Reading the Bones by Gina McMurchy-Barber which was also nominated for a Silver Birch Award, and Perilous Passage by B.J. Bayle which was nominated for the Red Maple Award as much as I do. And I must confess that I found myself hollering and clapping as loud as the students were when The Third Eye won!

Mahtab with her award

Next up for Mahtab is The Silver Anklet, the second book in the Tara Trilogy. Watch this blog for an upcoming video interview with Mahtab.

And the winners are:

The Blue Spruce Award (kindergarten – grade two): Chester, written and illustrated by Melanie Watt (Kids Can Press)

Silver Birch Award Fiction (grade three – six): The Third Eye by Mahtab Narsimhan (Dundurn)

Silver Birch Award Non-Fiction (grade three -six): Gold Medal for Weird by Kevin Sylvester (Kids Can Press)

Silver Birch Award Express (grade three – six): Dear Sylvia by Alan Cumyn (Groundwood Books)

The Red Maple Fiction Award (grade seven – eight): Out of the Cold by Norah McClintock (Scholastic Canada)

The Red Maple Non-Fiction Award (grade seven – eight): Royal Murder: The Deadly Intrigue of the Ten Sovereigns by Elizabeth MacLeod (Annick Press)

The White Pine Award (high-school): Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (TOR)

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favourite things.”

The box cuter slits the packing tape open and the generic brown cardboard box springs open and releases bright coloured confetti and streamers. Ok  maybe there wasn’t confetti and streamers when I opened the case of The Jewels of Sofia Tate, which arrived from the printer’s this afternoon, but there should have been. Every book deserves to be celebrated – it took a lot of work, patience, and time – from manuscript submission to copy-editing to final checks and every step in between – to get it to this place.  Despite the many, many boxes of newly arrived books that I have cracked opened I still get excited when a new book arrives. It’s neat to see a book in it’s final form especially if you’ve been dealing with galleys or ARCs of them, which are often not in the same format as the final book and have different cover treatment. One of the best parts of my job is presenting an author with their book. Often, if an author is local, they will drop by the office and pick up their author copies, and the look on their face, especially the first time authors, is priceless. 

So what happens after I open the boxes? Well after digging through way too much packing paper I take out the books and do a walk around the office and give one copy to each staff member. One of the neat things of distributing the books is seeing everyone’s reactions, which range from delight that the book has come in on time to “oh another book” to a mini debate erupting about the cover and our thoughts about it. One copy is put on display in our reception area and the rest are shelved in our storage cabinets for, mostly, publicity to use.  These extra copies will be mostly used for media requests, prizes for contests, and for reference. Today, my copy of Sofia comes into my slightly messy office and joins  Dancing in the Sky, Grave Doubts, Outside the Line, Hat Trick, and Outcasts, which are on display on the top shelf of my desk.

One of the highlights of working for an independent bookstore is that you really get to know your customers. One of my favourite regulars was a couple that always came in Friday evenings just before we closed. One Friday they came in and made a beeline for the J section of the store and swooped up all of Maureen Jenning’s Murdoch Mysteries. They had loved the Murdoch miniseries so much that they wanted more. Flash foward a couple of years to last year, now working as a publicist for Dundurn, when the neatest thing happened to this mystery reader – I got to be the publicist for Maureeen Jenning’s new novel, and sequel to Does Your Mother Know?,  The K Handshape, which features forensic profiler Christine Morris.  And now just over a year after the publication of The K Handshape I’m delighted to announce that Maureen Jennings has been nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel for The K Handshape. Congratulations Maureen!

The winners will be announced on Thursday June 4th in Ottawa.

9:00:A yummy start to my day – eating a bowl of oatmeal while checking my emails and twitter. The majority of the emails I received had to do with an upcoming launch for Susan Papp’s Outcast, which a heart warming true story about a couple that is separated during the Second World War and who are reunited years later in Canada. Update  RSVP list.

9:30:Finishing up the copy for a flyer annoucing the release of Art and Politics by Sarah Jennings which the Ottawa Writer’s Festival has kindly aggreed to put on display for us.  

10:00:Emailing copy for the flyer to my colleague Erin (yes there’s two of us!) and I’m now finalizing the titles that we will be submitting to the Quill & Quire for their Fall Preview edition.

10:35: My boss Beth (VP of Sales & Marketing) arrives back from the London Book Fair. Chatting about London and what’s going on here ensues.

10:45: Receive the Art and Politics flyer from Erin. It looks wonderful! Really eye-catching. Proofread it and send her a few changes that need to be made.

11:00: Working on one of my favourite projects – the Teachers’ Resources Guides that we are developing and have been posting online. Click here to see our webpage which is still in development. Right now I’m working on getting the tables and graphs for Speechless ready for Erin to design.

11:41: All done with the Art and Politics flyer! And I’m back to working on the Speechless guide.

12:30: Now working on an invitation list for the upcoming Toronto book launch for Art and Politics. Hmm … now that I think about it it’s been pretty much of an Art and Politics day.

13:00:Lunch time! Mmmm! Going to run some errands and enjoy the fresh air after a healthy lunch of soup.

14:00: Quick update meeting with Beth

14:05: Back to working on invitation list – trying to track down mailing addresses

15:00: Fielding queries about whether I or my colleague Ali will be doing the publicity for certain upcoming titles.

15:15: Looking into how to get 38 boxes of books that are cluttering up our front office back to our warehouse.  

15:30: Argg!!!! Email isn’t working! Drats!!!!

15:45:Yay! Email is back up and working

15:46: Still working on that invitation list

16:30: Now blogging about my day.

17:00: And that’s a wrap!

Hope you enjoyed this brief snap shot of what a day is like for this publicist.

Recently I’ve had the good fortune to be the publicist for Mackenzie, Lost and Found, which tugged at my heartstrings from the first chapter to the last sentence.  I’ve become a bit of a broken record around the office and amongst my friends with how much I talk about this book. But when you like a book why not shout it from the rooftop. And the nice thing is that others have also embraced Mackenzie. Leah Sparks of VOYA Library Magazine wrote “this solid coming-of-age story offers a unique setting and a likeable young heroine.” And Kelsey Boeckermann wrote on her blog Reading Keeps You Sane, “This book really is a poignant coming of age story with a twist … Kerbel is a great writer. With a writing style that is familiar but distinctive at once she gives a taste of what’s there but keeps you wanting more and more. Overall, this novel was a very well done and extremely original.”

If you want to find out more about this delightful book visit Mackenzie’s author, Deborah Kerbel’s website by clicking here. Deborah is currently doing a blog tour and you can find her chatting with YA Fresh on April 20th and doing an interview with The Book Munch from April 23rd to 26th.

And talking about YA books, 6 of our YA books – Speechless, Fathom Five, Demon in My View, Ms. Zephyr’s Notebook, David Thompson, and Louis Riel - have been chosen by The Canadian Children’s Book Centre for their list of Best Books.  A big congrats goes out to their authors – Valerie Sherrard, James Bow, Tom Henighan, kc dyer, Tom Shardiow, and Sharon Stewart.

Now that you know some of my favourite children and YA books – how about you? Share with us your favourite young adult novel and why and receive a copy of Mackenzie, Lost and Found.

“Still Waters is both an assured debut in the mystery category and offbeat in the charming way only a newbie can be … This is the kind of mystery in which the detectives themselves are intimately involved with the crime, to the point of placing their own lives in jeopardy. Now I know this sounds like another case of literary flourishes and subplots distracting from the good, clean fun of solving gruesome homicides. Yet it works really well. At first, the cops seem hopelessly self-obsessed and unreal as they swap prolonged personal cracks over dead bodies, but eventually you get drawn into their lives in a way that makes solving the crime even more vital. If anything, Moss’s character-driving writing in Still Waters reminds me of the involving work of the British writer Reginald Hill in the famed Dalziel and Pascoe series. Sure, it’s not quite realistic: do we think modern police officers are intimately connected with all their cases? No, but it makes for entracing fiction … I really want to know what hot water Quin and Morgan get into on their next case.”