Our Lady Georgie: Rhys Bowen's "On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service"

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Rhys Bowen, On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service

For everybody's eyes only: Rhys Bowen visits AADL to celebrate the 11th release in her Royal Spyness series.

A lot happened in 1930s Great Britain: Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of England, the economy fluctuated as it tried to recover from the world war, and Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, daughter of the Duke of Atholt and Rannoch, found herself broke and jobless forcing her to leave Scotland for London.

OK, the last part only happens in Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness series -- but what an amazing ride it has been for the titled but insolvent Lady Georgie.

To celebrate the release of the 11th book in the series, On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service, Bowen will appear at the downtown branch of the library on August 3 at 7 pm. The event, co-sponsored by Aunt Agatha’s, will present this New York Times bestselling author as she talks about the latest installment of her successful series.

Author Events: August 2017

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April 2017 Author Events

Photo by Conger Design/Pixabay

What does having an amazing university, a plethora of fantastic local independent bookstores, and a pretty slam-bang public library system (if we do say so ourselves) bring to a town?
Authors. Lots and lots of authors.

In fact, so many authors pass through the area that sometimes it can be hard to keep track of who is speaking and when and where. To help guide you, Pulp curated a highlights list of August 2017 author events.

Mystery Women: Sisters in Crime's Michigan chapter debuts in Ann Arbor

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Sisters in Crime

At the 1986 "Women in the Mystery" conference, Sara Paretsky, author of the wildly successful V.I. Warshawski series, spoke out about the rising tide of misogyny in mystery books. Almost immediately, she began receiving messages from women all over the country, sharing their stories of ill-treatment. A year later at the Edgar Awards, female mystery writers formed Sisters in Crime.

The organization's mission states that it is committed to helping women who “write, review, buy, or sell crime fiction" and the "ultimate goal is to … address issues of concern to everyone involved in the mystery field.” In the 30 years since its inception, Sisters in Crime (SinC) has encouraged and supported women in the genre, but it has not had a chapter in Michigan -- until now.

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #647

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Denver's Tattered Cover Bookstore alum and winner of the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize, Matthew Sullivan has been named Goodreads Debut Author of the Month, and Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, an Indie Next Pick. What's not to love -- a suicide in a bookstore, a 20-year-old triple-murder cold case, and a survivor who turns to clues hidden in books to solve the mystery.

Offshore Scores: Maureen Dunphy's "Great Lakes Island Escapes"

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Maureen Dunphy, Great Lakes Island Escapes

Maureen Dunphy’s Great Lakes Island Escapes explores Michigan's many slivers of land in the lakes.

In grade school, we learn the mnemonic HOMES to remember their names. We know they are the largest freshwater system on the planet. And those of us lucky to live near them get to enjoy recreation opportunities year-round.

But did you know that over 30,000 islands can be found in the five beautiful Great Lakes?

Maureen Dunphy’s new book, Great Lakes Island Escapes: Ferries and Bridges to Adventure takes us on an amazing journey to more than 100 of these slivers of land.

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #646

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World Fantasy Award–winner Theodora Goss's debut The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter * is reworked from an earlier short story, bringing her "Gothic-inflected fantasies roaring into the steampunk era." (Publishers Weekly)

Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless after her mother's death, found among her mother's ledger monthly payment to the Magdalen Society for the upkeep of "Hyde". Curious and eager to claim the reward for the capture of Edward Hyde, her father’s former friend and a murderer, Mary enlisted the help of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who were somewhat distracted in consulting for Inspector Lestrade in a series of gruesome murders of Whitechapel prostitutes.

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #645

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The Reminders *, a debut novel by writer, singer-songwriter, and actor Val Emmich (Vinyl and Ugly Betty) is the unlikely friendship between a gifted child who remembers everything and a grieving man who is trying to forget.

The 10-year-old Joan Lennon Scully (named after her father's favorite songwriter) has HSAM: highly superior autobiographical memory. While she can recall every minute detail of her life, she is frustrated that everyone else forgets, even the most important things and people in their lives. She thinks winning a local songwriting contest might make her unforgettable.

"Terror in Ypsilanti" recounts the true story of The Michigan Murderer

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Gregory Fournier, Terror in Ypsilanti

In Terror in Ypsilanti, Gregory Fournier says the Charles Manson murders overshadowed the trial of serial killer John Norman Collins.

"Notice of a psychotic killer in their midst did not resonate with the Ypsilanti, Michigan community in the summer of 1967."

So begins Terror in Ypsilanti, the award-winning book by Gregory Fournier. Not only did this idea not resonate with inhabitants of our area, but the term “serial killer” hadn’t even been devised yet; nonetheless, that is exactly who was stalking young women in Ypsilanti.

John Norman Collins ultimately was suspected of the deaths of seven women over a three-year period. Fournier, who was teaching in Ypsilanti at the time, lived a block away from Collins and “had several negative encounters with him.” But it wasn’t until he “saw (Collins’) face plastered across newspapers that I recognized him.”

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #644

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Michigan author Karen Dionne's hardcover debut The Marsh King's Daughter * transports her readers to the wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula where a woman must risk everything she has and use every skill she learned to hunt down the dangerous criminal who taught her everything she knew - her father.

When Helena Pelletier heard on the news that the notorious murderer/kidnapper known as "The Marsh King" has killed two guards and escaped from Marquette maximum security prison, she knew she could no longer outrun her past.

Manifesto Destiny: Melting Watch Press debuts with Beats-inspired poetry anthology

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Melting Watch Press

Cousins Joe Provenzano and Mike Benoit aren't short on proclamations. Their new Ann Arbor-based Melting Watch Press was inspired by a shared love of the Transcendentalists -- particularly Walt Whitman -- and the Beats, and the duo aren't afraid to claim their place in that lineage.

“We really consider ourselves to be part of their tradition,” says Provenzano. The cousins believe in "the idea of writing things that we’re actually thinking, and taking ourselves away from academic pseudo-poetry and (the) shielding of ourselves and opening our hearts to the page.”

Melting Watch Press' first salvo against "academic pseudo-poetry" is Chattering of the Subconscious Toybox: A Radical Anthology of Emerging New Poets, an anthology featuring Provenzano, Benoit, and their friend Jake Camaj.