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Hi reader,
The August books have been out a week now and the shelf has barely had time to settle, which is the pace we set for ourselves this summer and which I am no longer sure was entirely wise. Three more arrive Friday, September 4.
Here is what is coming.
The Auction House Affair, by Jennie Wren Foster. The third Crabapple Antiques Mystery. A regional auction house rolls into Kettlebrook to disperse the hoard of a reclusive collector, and Addie Wrent comes away from it with a box lot containing a 1920s brass cash register and a slip of paper in her late great-aunt's handwriting that says three words it has no business saying. Then Lot 47, a plain rosewood writing box catalogued for almost nothing, vanishes out of a locked hall, and by morning the cataloguer is dead at the foot of the loft stair. The town calls it an accident. The register disagrees, loudly. It does not ring things high because they are valuable. It rings them high when they are lying. Cozy, closed door, murder off the page, and a fair-play puzzle you can genuinely solve.
Ashmarked to the Exiled Dragon, by Kira Deveraux. Book three of the Ashpeak Alphas. A cartographer rides three days through bad weather to stop her sister making a terrible decision, and arrives to find the enemy kneeling at the gate asking for sanctuary. Then he touches her hand, and the bond she has spent her whole life swearing would never choose her chooses her anyway. What makes this one work is that Caen does not push. He does not use the bond as a lever, not once. He simply waits, and she has no defense at all against being let go of gently. High heat, open door, enemies to lovers, and a hard-won happy ending.
The Shatterfield, by Kira Deveraux. The third Thornbound Chronicle. Details in Wednesday's letter.
If you are behind, you are not behind. The three from August 21 are still right there: The Broken Script of the Stars and The Broker's Mask from Jennie, and Feathers and Phantoms from Jessie. I wrote about all three the morning after they landed, in a library, a mask, and a haunted house, if you want the short version of each. Nothing here expires.
A small thing worth your two minutes. If any book from this house has reached you this summer, an honest review is the single most useful thing a reader can do for a small press. Not a glowing one. An honest one. It is how the next reader finds the book, and it is a lever we cannot buy.
Listen along. We have a podcast now, Story Worlds, and it lives on YouTube. The first episode is called "Every Book Is a Doorway," and it is about why a reader will follow a writer into a haunted house and a dragon's stronghold in the same week and never think it strange, which felt like the right place to begin for a house that publishes both. Watch the episode, and if you would like the next one to turn up on its own, subscribe to the channel.
Read them before anyone else. Our launch team is called Read It First: a free advance copy about three weeks ahead of release, in exchange for one honest review on launch day. The next book out to the team is Kira Deveraux's The Second Family, and you tick which authors you actually want on the signup form, so nobody gets sent a book that is not for them. Join Read It First.
If someone in your life is forever asking what to read next, forward them this. They can subscribe from the site.
And tell me something. Of the three coming Friday, which one made you sit up: the haunted cash register, or the dragon who will not push? Hit reply. I read every one.
Happy reading,
Lori Collins
Publisher, JL Collins Publishing
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