All posts by Emily Berg

A Virtual Event with Rosalind Brackenbury

July 20, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books @ the Studios presents…
An Evening with Rosalind Brackenbury
and Katrin Schumann discussing Without Her.

Friday, August 7th, 6 PM

REGISTER HERE FOR FREE

Join us for an online event with Key West favorite Rosalind Brackenbury. Brackenbury will be speaking with author Katrin Schumann (This Terrible Beauty) [click here to purchase] about her newest book, Without Her, now out in paperback.

When her old friend Hannah doesn’t show up at her house in the south of France, everyone assumes that Claudia, who has known Hannah since their shared years at boarding school, will know where she is, and what has happened. But as Claudia travels from the USA to France to help Hannah’s husband and children conduct their search, she is forced to deal with her old jealousy of Hannah, as well as her own relationship in the present with her French lover, Alexandre. As events unfold, Claudia begins to wonder if Hannah and Alexandre may have had an affair and if that has had something to do with Hannah’s mysterious disappearance. In this exquisitely written, Ferrante-esque novel the question of whether or not Hannah will come back becomes urgent and bewildering. And if she doesn’t come back, what will the lives of her friends and family be without her?

About the Authors:

Born in London Brackenbury is a former writer-in-residence at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and has also served as poet laureate of Key West, teaching poetry workshops.

She is the author of Becoming George Sand, Paris Still Life, The Third Swimmer, and The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier. A former writer-in-residence at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, she has also served as poet laureate of Key West, teaching poetry workshops. She has attended the yearly Key West Literary Seminar as both panelist and moderator. Born in London, Rosalind lived in Scotland and France before moving to the United States. Her 2016 novel, The Third Swimmer was a 2016 INDIES Silver Winner in adult General Fiction. She now lives in Key West, Florida, with her American husband. 

Katrin Schumann enthralled readers with her debut novel, The Forgotten Hours, a Washington Post bestseller that critics praised as “an addictive and timely read” (Kirkus) with a “clear and resonant” voice (New York Journal of Books) and a style that “will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty, Paula Hawkins, and Jenna Blum” (Booklist).

 

 

A *VIRTUAL* Event with Meg Cabot

July 19, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books presents…
An Evening with Meg Cabot
discussing No Offense

 

Tuesday, August 11, 7 PM

 

REGISTER HERE FOR FREE

New York Times-bestselling author Meg Cabot’s returns with a charming romance between a children’s librarian and the town sheriff in the second book in the Little Bridge Island series.

Click here to read our Q&A with Cabot last fall. 

Welcome to Little Bridge, one of the smallest, most beautiful islands in the Florida Keys, home to sandy white beaches, salt-rimmed margaritas, and stunning sunsets—a place where nothing goes under the radar and love has a way of sneaking up when least expected…

A broken engagement only gave Molly Montgomery additional incentive to follow her dream job from the Colorado Rockies to the Florida Keys. Now, as Little Bridge Island Public Library’s head of children’s services, Molly hopes the messiest thing in her life will be her sticky-note covered desk. But fate—in the form of a newborn left in the restroom—has other ideas. So does the sheriff who comes to investigate the “abandonment”.  When John Hartwell folds all six-feet-three of himself into a tiny chair and insists that whoever left the baby is a criminal, Molly begs to differ and asks what he’s doing about the Island’s real crime wave (if thefts of items from homes that have been left unlocked could be called that). Not the best of starts, but the man’s arrogance is almost as distracting as his blue eyes. Almost…

Clever, hilarious, and fun, No Offense will tug at readers’ heartstrings and make them fall in love with Little Bridge Island and its unique characters once again.

About the Author:
Meg Cabot’s many books for both adults and tweens/teens have included multiple global and #1 New York Times bestsellers, selling over twenty-five million copies worldwide. Her Princess Diaries series has been published in more than 38 countries and was made into several hit films by Disney. Meg is still waiting for her real parents, the king and queen, to restore her to her rightful throne. She currently lives in Key West, FL, with her husband and various cats.

 

Reader Meet Writer – Virtual Event with Sarah Broom

July 18, 2020
by Emily Berg

Let us deliver authors to your living room.

Sarah M. Broom – The Yellow House [order here]
THURSDAY AUGUST 13th at 7PM EDT

The next author in the Reader Meet Writer series is Sarah M. Broom.  Broom is the 2019 National Book Award winner in Nonfiction for her memoir The Yellow House.

Broom will be talking with us THURSDAY AUGUST 13th at 7PM EDT about the memoir as well as answering your questions. Broom is one of many authors we’ll be bringing into your living room.

In 1961 Sarah M. Broom’s mother, Ivory Mae, bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant—the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah’s father Simon Broom; their combined family would eventually number twelve children. But after Simon died, six months after Sarah’s birth, the Yellow House would become Ivory Mae’s thirteenth and most unruly child.

A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother’s struggle against a house’s entropy, and that of a prodigal daughter who left home only to reckon with the pull that home exerts, even after the Yellow House was wiped off the map after Hurricane Katrina. The Yellow House expands the map of New Orleans to include the stories of its lesser known natives, guided deftly by one of its native daughters, to demonstrate how enduring drives of clan, pride, and familial love resist and
defy erasure. Located in the gap between the “Big Easy” of tourist guides and the New Orleans in which Broom was raised, The Yellow House is a brilliant memoir
of place, class, race, the seeping rot of inequality, and the internalized shame that often follows. It is a transformative, deeply moving story from an unparalleled new voice of startling clarity, authority, and power.

To attend please RSVP here

You can also RSVP by emailing booksandbooks@tskw.org with the subject line “RSVP for SARAH M. BROOM”

Attendance is limited.

If you elect to attend, we will email you on Thursday morning (8/13) with the link to attend this virtual event, plus the link to purchase books.  If you purchase the book through our website we will automatically send you the login information you need to join the event. If you ordered by phone please RSVP above.  

Happy Reading!

A Virtual Event with Lucy Burdette

July 17, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books @ the Studios presents…
An Evening with Lucy Burdette
and Deborah Crombie discussing The Key Lime Crime.

Tuesday, August 18th, 6 PM

REGISTER HERE FOR FREE

Join us for an online event with Lucy Burdette, author of the bestselling Key West Food Critic Mystery series. Burdette will be speak with author Deborah Crombie (A Bitter Feast) [click here to purchase] about her latest book in the series The Key Lime Crime, out 8/11.

With her intimidating new mother-in-law bearing down on the island and a fierce rivalry between Key lime pie bakers to referee, food critic Hayley Snow is feeling anything but festive…

It’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s and Key West is bursting at the seams with holiday events and hordes of tourists. Adding to the chaos, Key lime pie aficionado David Sloan has persuaded the city to host his Key Lime pie extravaganza and contest. Hayley Snow can’t escape the madness because her bosses at Key Zest magazine have assigned her to cover the event. Every pie purveyor in Key West is determined to claim the Key lime spotlight—and win the coveted Key Lime Key to the City.
Another recipe for disaster—Hayley’s hubby, police detective Nathan Bransford, announces that his mother will be making a surprise visit. Newlywed Hayley must play the dutiful daughter-in-law, so she and her pal Miss Gloria offer to escort his mom on the iconic Conch Train Tour of the island’s holiday lights. But it’s not all glittering palm trees and fantastic flamingos–the unlikely trio finds a real body stashed in one of the elaborate displays. And the victim is no stranger: Hayley recognizes the controversial new pastry chef from Au Citron Vert, a frontrunner in Sloan’s contest.

Hayley must not only decipher who’s removed the chef from the contest kitchen, she’s also got to handle a too-curious mother-in-law who seems to be cooking up trouble of her own.

About the Authors:
Clinical psychologist Lucy Burdette (aka Roberta Isleib) is the author of 18 mysteries, including THE KEY LIME CRIME (Crooked Lane Books,) the latest in the Key West series featuring food critic Hayley Snow. Her books and stories have been short-listed for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She’s a past president of Sisters in Crime and the current president of the Friends of the Key West Library.

Deborah Crombie is a native Texan who has lived in both England and Scotland. She lives in McKinney, Texas, sharing a house that is more than one hundred years old with her husband, three cats, and two German shepherds.

 

Reader Meet Writer – Virtual Event with Daniel Nayeri

July 13, 2020
by Emily Berg

Let us deliver authors to your living room.

Daniel Nayeri – Everything Sad is True [order here]
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 3rd at 7PM EDT

The next author in the Reader Meet Writer series is Daniel Nayeri. Nayeri is the author of several books for young readers, including Straw House, Wood House, Brick House Blow: Four Novellas.

Nayeri will be talking with us THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 3rd at 7PM EDT about his new book as well as answering your questions.

At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls “Daniel”) stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much.

But Khosrou’s stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy.and further back to the fields near the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers bled red like the yolk of sunset burst over everything, and further back still to the Jasmine-scented city of Isfahan.

Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, Daniel weaves a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story). It is Daniel’s.

Daniel Nayeri was born in Iran and spent a couple of years as a refugee before immigrating to Edmond, Oklahoma at age eight with his family. He is a former professional pastry chef, and if he’s not writing or baking, he’s likely playing board games, or riding motorcycles. He lives with his family in New Jersey.

To attend please RSVP here

You can also RSVP by emailing booksandbooks@tskw.org with the subject line “RSVP for DANIEL NAYERI”

Attendance is limited.

If you elect to attend, we will email you on Thursday morning (9/3) with the link to attend this virtual event, plus the link to purchase books.  If you purchase the book through our website we will automatically send you the login information you need to join the event. If you ordered by phone please RSVP above.  

Happy Reading!

Reader Meet Writer – Virtual Event with SILAS HOUSE

June 11, 2020
by Emily Berg

Let us deliver authors to your living room.

Silas House – CLAY’S QUILT [pre-order here]
THURSDAY JULY 9th at 7PM EDT

The next author in the Reader Meet Writer series is Silas House.  You may have read House’s earlier work: THE SOUTHERNMOST, CLAY’S QUILT and others.

House will be talking with us THURSDAY JULY 9th at 7PM EDT about the re-release of his first three books, CLAY’S QUILT, A PARCHMENT OF LEAVES and THE COAL TATTOO as well as answering your questions.  Silas is one of many authors we’ll be bringing into your living room.

Silas House is the nationally bestselling author of six novels. His work frequently appears in The New York Times and Salon.  He is  former commentator for NPR’s “All Things Considered”.  His writing has appeared recently in Time, The Atlantic, Ecotone, The Advocate, Garden and Gun, and Oxford American, as well as in anthologies such as Best Food Writing, 2015 and New Stories From the South, The Year’s Best: 2004.  House serves on the fiction faculty at the Spalding School of Creative Writing and as the NEH Chair at Berea College.

He is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the recipient of three honorary doctorates, and is the winner of the Nautilus Award, an EB White Award, the Appalachian Book of the Year, the Storylines Prize from the New York Public Library/NAV Foundation, the Lee Smith Award, and many other honors.

To attend please RSVP here

You can also RSVP by emailing booksandbooks@tskw.org with the subject line “RSVP for SILAS HOUSE”

Attendance is limited.

If you elect to attend, we will email you on Thursday morning (7/9) with the link to attend this virtual event, plus the link to purchase books.  If you purchase the book through our website we will automatically send you the login information you need to join the event. If you ordered by phone please RSVP above.  

Happy Reading!

Reader Meet Writer – Virtual Event with S.A. COSBY

May 15, 2020
by Emily Berg

Let us deliver authors to your living room.

S.A. Cosby – BLACKTOP WASTELAND [order here]
TUESDAY JULY 28th at 5PM EDT

The next author in the Reader Meet Writer series is S.A. Cosby.  You may have read Cosby’s earlier work: My Darkest Prayer and Brotherhood of the Blade.

Cosby will be talking with us TUESDAY JULY 28th at 5PM EDT about the his new book BLACKTOP WASTELAND as well as answering your questions.  Cosby is one of many authors we’ll be bringing into your living room.

BLACKTOP WASTELAND is about a diamond heist schemed up by an uneasy alliance of poor men and women.  Black and white, they live in the Virginia Tidewater region in a town where the desire to be more, have more, leave and live large haunts. With breakneck twists, heartbreaking intents and the missteps of its indelible characters, S. A. Cosby weaves a story about black male identity, about what it means to be from the South and have its history not include your story, and about the pull of family and its confusing messages about love and inheritance.  

Shawn A. Cosby is a writer from Southeastern Virginia, now residing in Gloucester, Virginia.  His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines. His short story “The Grass Beneath My Feet” won the Anthony award for best short story in 2019. His writing is influenced by his experience as a bouncer, construction worker, retail manager and for six hours a mascot for a major fast food chain inside the world’s hottest costume. When he isn’t crafting tales of murder and mayhem he assists the dedicated staff at J.K. Redmind Funeral home as a mortician’s assistant. He is an avid hiker and is also known as one hell of a chess player.

To attend please RSVP here

You can also RSVP by emailing booksandbooks@tskw.org with the subject line “RSVP for S.A. COSBY”

Attendance is limited.

If you elect to attend, we will email you on Tuesday morning (7/28) with the link to attend this virtual event, plus the link to purchase books.  If you purchase the book through our website we will automatically send you the login information you need to join the event. If you ordered by phone please RSVP above.  

Happy Reading!

A *VIRTUAL* Evening with Mamta Chaudhry

May 15, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books and Miami Book Fair presents…
“AN EVENING WITH MAMTA CHAUDHRY & RUSSELL BANKS”
discussing Haunting Paris

Thursday, June 11 at 7PM

 

REGISTER HERE

If you missed Mamta Chaudhry’s incredible event at the store in February you’re in luck as she joins again virtually for an in-conversation event with Russell Banks.
Chaudhry’s debut novel, Haunting Paris, has been praised as “elegantly wrought,” by The New York Times and “a heart-wrenching love letter to Paris” by Publishers Weekly.  Books and Books’ own Mitchell Kaplan calls it “so fresh, so musical and so moving.”
The two writers sit down to chat about Haunting Paris, and the dark days of Nazi occupation during World War II that continue to haunt the City of Light.
Paris, 1989:  Alone in her luminous apartment on Île Saint-Louis, Sylvie discovers a mysterious letter among her late lover Julien’s possessions, launching her into a decades-old search for a child who vanished in the turbulence of the Second World War. She is unaware that she is watched over by Julien’s ghost, his love for her powerful enough to draw him back to this world, though doomed now to remain a silent observer.  Sylvie’s quest leads her deep into the secrets of Julien’s past, shedding new light on the dark days of Nazi-occupied Paris. A timeless story of love and loss, Haunting Paris matches emotional intensity with lyrical storytelling to explore grief, family secrets, and the undeniable power of memory.

 

About the Author:
MAMTA CHAUDHRY‘s fiction, poetry, and feature articles have been published in the Miami Review, The Illustrated Weekly of India, The Telegraph, The Statesman, Writer’s Digest, and The Rotarian, among other publications. Much of her professional career was spent in television and classical radio at stations in Calcutta, Gainesville, Dallas, and Miami. She lives with her husband in Coral Gables, Florida, and they spend part of each year in India and France. Haunting Paris is her first novel.

About the Moderator:
RUSSELL BANKS, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is one of America’s most prestigious fiction writers, a past president of the International Parliament of Writers, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Common Wealth Award for Literature. He lives in upstate New York and Miami, Florida.

Presented in collaboration with

 

A *VIRTUAL* Evening with Chanel Cleeton

May 15, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books and Miami Book Fair present…
An Evening with Chanel Cleeton
In Conversation with Renee Rosen discussing

 

The Last Train to Key West
Thursday, June 18, 7pm 

In partnership with Lit Hub, Culture Crusaders, and Miami DDA

REGISTER HERE

About the Book:

In 1935 three women are forever changed when one of the most powerful hurricanes in history barrels toward the Florida Keys.
 
For the tourists traveling on Henry Flagler’s legendary Overseas Railroad, Labor Day weekend is an opportunity to forget the economic depression gripping the nation. But one person’s paradise can be another’s prison, and Key West-native Helen Berner yearns to escape.

After the Cuban Revolution of 1933 leaves Mirta Perez’s family in a precarious position, she agrees to an arranged marriage with a notorious American. Following her wedding in Havana, Mirta arrives in the Keys on her honeymoon. While she can’t deny the growing attraction to her new husband, his illicit business interests may threaten not only her relationship, but her life.

Elizabeth Preston’s trip to Key West is a chance to save her once-wealthy family from their troubles after the Wall Street crash. Her quest takes her to the camps occupied by veterans of the Great War and pairs her with an unlikely ally on a treacherous hunt of his own.

Over the course of the holiday weekend, the women’s paths cross unexpectedly, and the danger swirling around them is matched only by the terrifying force of the deadly storm threatening the Keys.

About the Author:

Originally from Florida, Chanel Cleeton grew up on stories of her family’s exodus from Cuba following the events of the Cuban Revolution. Her passion for politics and history continued during her years spent studying in England, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Richmond, The American International University in London, and a master’s degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Chanel also received her Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law.

About the Moderator:

Renee Rosen is the bestselling author of historical fiction. Her novels include Windy City Blues, White Collar Girl, What the Lady Wants and Dollface as well as the young adult novel, Every Crooked Pot. Her most recent novel is Park Avenue Summer (April 30, 2019 from Penguin Random House/Berkley). Renee is a native of Akron, Ohio and a graduate of The American University in Washington DC.  She now lives in Chicago where she is at work on a new novel, The Social Graces, a story about Mrs. Astor and Mrs. Vanderbilt vying for control of New York society during the Gilded Age. (Coming soon from Penguin Random House/Berkley).

 

Reader Meet Writer – Virtual Event with TJ KLUNE

May 15, 2020
by Emily Berg

Let us deliver authors to your living room.

TJ KLUNE – THE EXTRAORDINARIES [order here]
THURSDAY JUNE 11th at 4PM EDT

The next author in the Reader Meet Writer series is TJ Klune.  You may have read Kune’s earlier work: THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA and others.

TJ Klune will be talking with us THURSDAY JUNE 11th at 4PM EDT about his newest book THE EXTRAORDINARIES and answering your questions.  TJ is one of many authors we’ll be bringing into your living room.

TJ KLUNE is a Lambda Literary Award-winning author (Into This River I Drown) and an ex-claims examiner for an insurance company. His novels include the Green Creek series, The House on the Cerulean Sea and The Exraordinaries. Being queer himself, TJ believes it’s important—now more than ever—to have accurate, positive, queer representation in stories.

The Extraordinaries is Klune’s YA debut, a queer coming-of-age story about a fanboy with ADHD and the heroes he loves. Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right? After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he’ll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick’s best friend (and maybe the love of his life).

The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.

Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He’s tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.

To attend please RSVP here

You can also RSVP by emailing booksandbooks@tskw.org with the subject line “RSVP for TJ KLUNE”

Attendance is limited.

If you elect to attend, we will email you on Thursday morning (6/11) with the link to attend this virtual event, plus the link to purchase books.  If you purchase the book through our website we will automatically send you the login information you need to join the event. If you ordered by phone please RSVP above.  

Happy Reading!