Laura Bleau from Newtown, Connecticut was selected as the official winner of the Soho Press “Win a Killer Trip to Paris with Cara Black” sweepstakes on May 15th. Bleau is a graphic designer and portrait painter by trade. Ms. Bleau is also a huge Cara Black fan.  “I’ve read every Cara Black book.” Bleau said. “I can’t believe I won. I’ve never won a contest before.”

Over 2,000 entries were received during the two-month contest period and one winner was selected via a random drawing digitally hosted and stored by www.random.org. Soho Press, the publishers of Cara Black’s Parisian series starring private investigator Aimée Leduc, partnered with the San Francisco based Tea Garden Travel to offer this remarkable sweepstakes.

“The contest was wonderful to be a part of,” said Cara Black. “Soho Press and Tea Garden [Travel] really came up with something fun for readers to do, and of course there are all the libraries and bookstores which played host to me on tour, or hosted contest posters and entry forms. I couldn’t be more thankful. It’s going to be a great trip this fall.”

The “Killer Trip” itself will take place October 15th through the 22nd, and is the brainchild of Tea Garden Travel’s Michele Abrate, who constructed the designer tour around locations and destinations found in the Leduc series.

When asked what she was looking most forward to on the trip, Ms. Bleau said, “Meeting Cara. And of course the art.”

One of the stops on the trip will be a scavenger hunt held in the Louvre itself, which will no doubt be a highlight for all the travelers, but especially for Ms. Bleau.

Besides publishing terrific new books, these authors have something else in common: they’ve all worked in Hollywood. The article delves into what makes YA novels great, and why the genre has so many similarities with television and movie writing.

Interested in reading the article? Check it out, HERE.

Here’s more information on how to get involved from the Redergirlz website:

* Follow @readergirlz on Twitter and tweet #rockthedrop

* Print a copy of the bookplate and insert it into a book (or 10!) On April 18th, drop a book in a public spot (park bench, bus seat, restaurant counter?) Lucky finders will see that the book is part of ROCK THE DROP!

* Post the banner at your blog and social networks. Proclaim that you will ROCK THE DROP!

* Snap a photo of your drop and post it at the readergirlz Facebook page. Then tweet the drop at #rockthedrop with all the other lovers of YA books.

Additionally, to further support YA titles, 826NYC is holding a book donation drive. The goal of the drive is to increase awareness for YA literature and to help 826NYC grow its library. Soho Teen and all the other participants in this year’s program encourage lovers of teen fiction everywhere to make a book donation on Thursday, April 18th.

If you’re interested in donating a book, here’s the address:

826NYC
Attn: Joan Kim
c/o: readergirlz Rock the Drop
372 Fifth Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215

So let’s get ready, YA readers, and make this year’s Rock the Drop the best one yet!

Here’s what’s coming up:

THE SWEET DEAD Blog Tour for THE SWEET DEAD LIFE, by Joy Preble, is happening now! May 6 – May 18

See the trailer.

Read an excerpt.

DEVIANT Blog Tour, for DEVIANT, by Helen FitzGerald (June 11).

Read an excerpt.

Join the tour!

THE W.A.R. Tour, for THIS IS W.A.R. by Lisa and Laura Roecker (July 2)

Read an excerpt.

Join the tour!

DANCER DAUGHTER TRAITOR SPY tour, for DANCER DAUGHTER TRAITOR SPY by Elizabeth Kiem (August 13)

Join the tour!

Lisa and Laura Roecker are sisters-turned-writing partners with a passion for good books, pop culture, and Bravo programming.

Their first book, The Liar Society, earned fans everywhere and compelled Bookalicious to exclaim:

“The Liar Society is full of boarding school awesome, secret societies, and misunderstood hot teen boys. It takes a very unique plot for me to enjoy a contemporary YA and The Liar Society has unique coming out of the authors’ little pink brains.”

As you can see, you’re in very capable hands. And the Roecker sisters do not disappoint with their follow-up effort This is W.A.R.

So, what’s this new book all about? Glad you asked …

Everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club saw Willa Ames-Rowan climb into a boat with James Gregory, the Club’s heir apparent. And everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club watched him return. Alone.

No one believes that Willa’s drowning was an accident. After all, she held the Club record for the 1500 meter freestyle.  And the Gregory family has a history of making troublesome girls disappear.

They all know James Gregory killed her.

But none of them will say a word.

Enter the W.A.R. Four girls. Four very different motives to avenge Willa’s death, and only one rule: Destroy the Gregory  family at any cost. Innocence is lost, battles are won, and the pursuit of the truth ultimately threatens to destroy them all.

Sound like a book you’d like to know more about? Great! An excerpt is below …

          Willa Ames-Rowan never thought she would die. She firmly believed white should be worn before Labor Day, champagne was best enjoyed on an empty stomach, and sleep was for the weak. If it weren’t for the inky black water tugging at her limbs, clawing its way into her mouth, she might have welcomed the dark solitude of Hawthorne Lake. She might have floated on her back, counting stars, dreaming about what it would be like to wake up next to her future husband, what it might be like to marry James Gregory.
          But not tonight.
          Tonight, Willa Ames-Rowan was drowning.
          As luck would have it, she’d just read an article recounting a Tsunami survivor’s near-death experience in a tattered copy of Reader’s Digest. This, while waiting for her acupuncture appointment earlier in the week. Willa took comfort in the survivor’s story because just before he passed out from lack of oxygen, he felt a moment of peace. He gave himself to the water, accepted his fate.
          So Willa knew she couldn’t be dying because there was nothing peaceful about her struggle to determine which way was up, down, left or right. The moment she went under she’d decided to decline death’s invitation – with the socially acceptable level of regret, of course. She knew enough to remain calm, tread water, back float until someone noticed she was missing. Contrary to her sister’s judgy texts, Willa was a fighter. She would never let her life slip away in a Hallmark movie moment of blissful surrender.
          She’d only had a couple of drinks but her head was cloudy and her limbs sluggish and heavy. She’d been raised on the water—boating trips, beach vacations, the Club pool—she should have been above the surface, not under it. Earlier in the afternoon, Willa had taken a dip in this very same water while the girls lounged on the beach. Madge yelled at her not to swim out too far, brown hair swirling around her face in the wind, her fair skin shielded by layers of sunscreen and a long, gauzy cover up. Next to her, Lina buried her nose in a magazine, all boobs and legs, doing her best impression of not giving a shit. And then there was Sloane with her pin straight hair and black almond eyes, looking like a tiny beacon in her bright pink bikini. She stood next to Madge, shielding the sun with her hand. Even from the distance, Willa could see the smile tugging at her lips. If Sloane weren’t so self-conscious, she might have been cheering.
          And so it was her friend’s silent encouragement that pushed Willa on as brief bursts of light shone in the sky overhead, fireworks guiding her toward the surface. She scissored her legs toward the red, white and blue explosions. Her lungs burned, the muscles of her arms wept for a break. But still, she fought.
          Images of the Gregory brothers bubbled to the surface of her consciousness. She couldn’t think of them now. But Rose McCaan was different. There was something about Rose that begged to be remembered. The quiet way she walked around the Club. Almost invisible. Rose was pretty, but she didn’t realize it yet, hiding an hourglass figure behind unflattering t-shirts and unfortunate shorts.
          Willa knew Rose had a thing for James Gregory.
          She knew but she didn’t care and now she couldn’t help but wonder if that kiss had somehow landed her here, in this water. Willa would take it back if she could. She’d take a lot of things backAnd for a moment she thought she might actually have the chance.  She finally broke free of the lake’s slippery grip. Her head bobbed into the cool night air.  But she opened her mouth too early and choked on the stagnant water. Hacking and sputtering, she was able to keep her head up long enough to drink in brief gasps of oxygen between coughs. The agony in her lungs slowly faded and for the briefest of moments she thought she was going to live to write a much more accurate drowning survival story, preferably for Teen Vogue.
          But Willa never saw the hands that pushed her head back under.
          She never felt the water fill her lungs.
          And she was completely unaware of the champion-sized trout grazing her lifeless arm.
          Willa Ames-Rowan never gave up and welcomed death.
          Willa Ames-Rowan simply died.
 
 
 PART 1: S.A.R. (Search and Rescue)

Chapter 1
          Rose stared at the water and whispered the Hail Mary in Spanish, the way her grandmother had taught her. She wasn’t sure if she believed in God, at least not the one the nuns at St. Agnes ranted and raved about, but Mary was a different story. Every summer she’d spent with her grandmother, she’d been reminded that Mary watched out for good little girls, especially good little girls with the middle name Marie. And something about the way her grandmother clutched the Rosary to her chest, blue beads tinkling against the silver cross, her knuckles white beneath papery skin, had always made Rose want to believe.
          The repetition calmed her. She understood why people prayed in the face of tragedy. Praying provided the illusion of control. And, of course, there was the niggling possibility that the prayer might actually work. A miracle like the ones her grandmother had read to her from the back pages of Spanish tabloid magazines.
          Rose shivered in spite of the humid air. It looked like every member of Hawthorne Lake Country Club was on the beach. The women wore sundresses that skimmed their knees and nipped in at the waist. They stood in tight circles whispering and crying while their husbands rushed around in dry cleaned golf shirts trying to look useful. Their movements seemed designed to look important. If they walked with enough authority and spoke in quiet reassuring tones, they might be able to bring Willa Ames-Rowan back to life.
          But it was all a lie. Like everything else at Hawthorne Lake.
          Willa was dead. The ambulance had screamed off in a blaze of sirens 20 minutes ago. Even in the darkness Rose saw the blue of Willa’s lips, the way her arm dangled off the side of the stretcher before it was gently placed back at her side. And now there was nothing left to do but pray to her grandmother’s Mary.
          “Rose! Thank the lord.” Her mom wrapped her thin arms around Rose’s body and squeezed too hard. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” She was dressed like all of the other women on the beach that night, but with her jet black eyes and café au lait skin she might as well have been wearing a Club uniform. As Hawthorne Lake’s event planner, Pilar McCaan was afforded most of the same privileges as members, but she was still considered “staff” by everyone who mattered. The accent that snuck its way into a handful of her mom’s words, despite her efforts to suppress it, didn’t help.
          Rose stiffened in her mom’s arms. She wanted to forget everything she’d seen over the course of the night. To un-know all the secrets. But she had watched Willa stumble around the yacht. And she’d seen her mom navigate the party like social climbing was an extreme sport. The past 6 hours ran on repeat in her brain like some kind of terrible movie. But there was no director calling scenes or strategically fading to black when images grew too intense. No Oscar-award winning makeup artist perfected the blue of Willa’s lips or added silicone strips to mimic the bloating of her skin.
          Every moment was real. And it was all burned in high definition into Rose’s memory.
          “Are you okay?” Rose’s mom held her at arm’s length, her thick-lashed eyes probing her daughter’s. “Did you see? I mean, I can’t believe she’s….You can’t tell him.” Her mom was using the voice she reserved for male members when their hands wandered a little too low at one of the Club’s famous star-lit parties. Rose always thought of it as her business voice and it normally stopped her dead in her tracks. But tonight she just shrugged her mom’s hands off her shoulders and resumed her vigil, her lips moving, the sound trapped inside.
          Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia…
          “He’s going to ask you questions. You have to be prepared to answer them.” White shone around the black of her mom’s wide eyes. “You know what will happen if you tell him the truth,” she whispered.
          Rose nodded, her eyes fixed on the black and blue expanse of water in front of her. As the sky lightened on the cusp of morning, the color resembled an angry bruise.
          Santa María, Madre de Dios…
          Rose had lived the first 17 years of her life without ever making a mistake. Well, not unless you counted the time she’d let Katelyn Norris copy her English homework on the bus to school and was too afraid to speak up when her teacher questioned the identical paragraphs.
          Her mom’s short, square nails dug into her flesh as they wove their way through the small groups of members still scattered across the beach. She regretted wearing sandals that pinched her toes, the heels sinking into the sand, slipping with every step. How stupid she’d been standing in front of her closet, pushing her feet into different shoes, yanking shirt after shirt over her head and leaving the rejects heaped in a corner. She’d never cared before. Tonight she cared too much. Maybe that was her first mistake.
          No. She knew better.
          Her first mistake had come long before criticizing her reflection in the mirror. It was the moment she’d accepted James Gregory’s invitation to his family’s annual 4th of July party. Or maybe it went even farther back, to the moment he caught her hiding in the boathouse, the night of the Club’s Summer Swing.
          Rose shook her head slightly, her mouth still moving through the prayer. None of it mattered. Pinpointing the exact moment everything began to fall apart wasn’t going to change a thing.
          And yet…maybe it was her last mistake that really counted: the moment her dad had swung her off the yacht, his detective’s badge catching the moonlight.
          “Rose, what happened? Did you see anything?” His voice had probably sounded calm and professional to the perfectly coiffed couple standing behind her, but Rose could hear the note of panic underlining every word like a silent exclamation mark. Her dad had been around long enough to know that accidents didn’t happen at Hawthorne Lake. Rose had started to respond but choked on her words when she saw the paramedics frantically pumping Willa’s chest on the beach directly behind her dad. She had watched as they finally gave up and wheeled her slowly toward the truck.
          “I have no idea what happened.”
          Out of all the mistakes she’d made that night, this was the one she regretted the most.
          Her mom yanked hard on her arm, pulling her through the crowd of people standing around the parking lot. Rose stared blankly at their old Lexus. It seemed wrong for it to be there. Normal, unchanged after everything that had happened tonight. She finished the prayer in English, the words barely a whisper.
          Pray for us sinners,
          Now and at the hour of our death.
          To her surprise, before her mom unlocked the door, she met Rose’s dark eyes with her own and whispered, “Amen.”

***


Pre-order the book today from one of these select retailers!


 

Junior Bender is a Los Angeles burglar with a magic touch. Since he first started breaking into houses when he was fourteen years old, he’s never once been caught. But now, after twenty-two years of an exemplary career, Junior has been blackmailed by Trey Annunziato, one of the most powerful crime bosses in LA, into acting as a private investigator on the set of Trey’s porn movie venture, which someone keeps sabotaging. The star Trey has lined up to do all that’s unwholesome on camera is Thistle Downing, America’s beloved child star, who now lives alone in a drug-induced stupor, destitute and uninsurable. Her starring role will be the scandalous fall-from-grace gossip of rubber-neckers across the country. No wonder Trey needs help keeping the production on track.

Junior knows what that he should do-get Thistle out and find her help-but doing the right thing will land him on the wrong side of LA’s scariest mob boss. With the help of his precocious twelve-year-old daughter, Rina, and his criminal sidekick, Louie the Lost (an ex-getaway driver), Junior has to figure out a miracle solution.

***

Buy now for $2.99 :
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | INDIEBOUND

“The best novel I’ve read in years … It’s a flat-out terror trip.“ ─ James Ellroy, author of The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential

“Not only one of the finest thriller debuts of the last ten years, but also one of the best Irish novels, in any genre, of recent times.” ─ John Connolly, author of the #1 bestselling Charlie Parker series

“Terrifyingly authentic, shiveringly good.” ─ Val McDermid, internationally bestselling author of The Vanishing Point

“ … Crime fiction doesn’t get much better … ” ─ Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series

Sunday March 17th, join Soho Press for a celebratory dinner with Cara Black, author of the newly released Murder Below Montparnasse. 

The event is at Cafe du Soliel in Manhattan, and includes a three-course French meal and a signed first edition copy of Murder Below Montparnasse.

The book follows one of crime fiction’s very best heroines — the inimitable Aimee Leduc — as she puts together the pieces of a sinister, complicated puzzle: a possibly priceless long-lost Modigliani portrait, a grieving brother’s blood vendetta, and a Soviet secret that’s been buried for 80 years …

Bestselling author Alan Furst calls the Leduc series “transcendentally, seductively, irresistibly French.”

Cara Black is currently on a cross-country tour, and will only be in New York for one evening, so be sure to reserve your tickets soon — seats are limited and selling quickly!

The dinner runs from 7-9 Sunday night, and tickets are $75 per person (tax and gratuity included). For more information, please email or call Juliet at Soho Press:

• jgrames@sohopress.com.
• 212.260.1900

And don’t forget: We’re giving away a TRIP TO PARIS! Enter the “Paris is for Murder” contest here.

826NYC is the innovative Brooklyn chapter of the literacy nonprofit started in California by Dave Eggers (who contributed to the anthology). They provide drop-in tutoring, workshops, and field trips, often to low-income classes, and have built an entire eccentric mythology behind getting kids to love reading and writing. Who Done It? draws on the 826 mythology: the 83 contributors each wrote (or drew, or rapped, etc.) an alibi clearing their name for the murder of the heinous editor Herman Mildew, a frequent blight on otherwise perfectly nice field trips.

In keeping with the spirit of Who Done It?, there will be a few “alibi”-themed activities, such as getting your own mug shot! In addition, several of the Who Done It? contributors will be in attendance (with some surprises up their sleeves), including Elizabeth Eulberg, Libba Bray, Lauren Oliver, Rebecca Stead, Adele Griffin, and Jon Scieszka, chief investigator of Mildew’s supposed demise.

We will have envelopes to facilitate easy donating to 826NYC throughout the night. Books will be for sale through Community Bookstore.

You must be 21 or older to attend.

For more information, contact:

Meredith Barnes and Soho Teen
Marketing/Publicity Manager | Soho Press

(212) 260-1900 | Dir: (212) 203-4491| mbarnes@sohopress.com

Mike McCormack’s East Coast Tour

March 13-17, 2013

 For the US debut of his latest novel, NOTES FROM A COMA, Irish literary author Mike McCormack will be flying in from Galway for an east coast tour in mid-March. While Mike McCormack is a highly decorated literary figure in his native Ireland, Soho Press’s edition of NOTES FROM A COMA marks his first US publication, of which we are extremely proud. He will be visiting New York City, Boston, and Washington DC for readings, discussions, and signings. All tour events are free and open to the public.

New York City

East Village Reading, Discussion & Signing

Wednesday, March 13

7:00pm

Solas

232 E 9th St. (9th St. & 2nd Ave.)

Happy hour prices until 8pm.

Upper West Side Pub Chat

Thursday, March 14

7:00pm

George Keeley

485 Amsterdam Ave. (84th & Amsterdam)

Open bar for event attendees until 8pm.

Boston

Harvard Book Store Reading, Q&A & Signing

Friday, March 15

7:00pm

Harvard Book Store

1256 Massachusetts Ave. (Mass. Ave. & Plympton St.)

Refreshments will be provided.

Washington, DC

Politics and Prose St. Patrick’s Day Reading

Sunday, March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day!)

1:00pm

Politics and Prose Bookstore

5015 Connecticut Ave NW

Refreshments will be provided.

Book will be 20% off in-store for all of March!

About NOTES FROM A COMA

NOTES FROM A COMA is the story of JJ O’Malley, a brilliant but troubled young man who, shattered by personal tragedy, chooses to enroll in a government program testing deep coma as an option for use within the EU penal system.

The volunteers—all of whom except JJ are criminals—become international celebrities, literally famous for doing nothing. This novel has telling implications of the increasingly pervasive culture of instant celebrity, especially given the proliferation of reality TV. Told from five different, crucial perspectives, NOTES FROM A COMA is an imaginative and atmospheric novel that examines how our identities are safeguarded and held in trust by those who love us.

About the Author

 Mike McCormack is the author of Getting It in the Head, a New York Times Notable Book, and Crowe’s Requiem. Notes from a Coma was shortlisted for the Irish book of the Year award. He was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature, a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, and has received several Irish Arts Council Awards. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

Praise for NOTES FROM A COMA

“The greatest Irish novel of the decade just ended.”

─Irish Times

“McCormack’s language is lovely, lyrical … his humor is dark, macabre; the words glimmer like a spell.”

─Time Out

 “A major talent in Irish fiction…..McCormack slyly and brilliantly satirizes, among many other things, our fixations with celebrity and high-priced medical technology.”

─Booklist

Praise for Mike McCormack:

“McCormack’s obsessions at times converge with those explored by Ian McEwan, Will Self and J. G. Ballard, but his clever ideas and fluid, gracefully morbid style are all his own.”

─GQ

“When venturing into the realm of the macabre, a writer gains a distinct advantage if he has a sense of discipline and a sense of humor…Mike McCormack has both to spare…Like parables in their easy transcendence of setting and time, the most audacious stories are classics.”

─The New York Times Book Review

Looking for just the right gift for a picky reader? Maybe a little something for yourself?

We’ve put together a Holiday Gift Guide to make choosing out the perfect book a breeze. Click HERE to take a look!