Lori Rader-Day's Blog, page 5

Back home again in Indiana

That title is a song, and if you’re not *from* Indiana, perhaps this song has never wedged itself into your brain for an entire weekend.

I spent last weekend at the festivities for the Indiana Author Award. I was the Regional category winner, and it was just a fantastic weekend. It was great talking with the other winners and finalists and adding their work to my to be read list, and also seeing so many Hoosier friends at the event itself. Jama and the good folks at Midwest Writers Workshop were there! One of the profs I used to teach with in the Telecommunications department at Ball State University was there! I complimented a woman I didn’t know early in the afternoon on her lovely jacket and then after the ceremony, I actually looked into her face and realized—Kari? Kari who I used to work with at the BSU computer lab?! Back in touch after mumble years! Indiana was full of gifts!

Also, they gave me a very lovely and precarious trophy to redecorate my household around.

Part of the ceremony was a recording of me reading from my latest book, The Day I Died, so now anyone at all can hear me reading a snippet from The Day I Died. That doesn’t make me nervous at all.

It was such a nice weekend. Thank you to the Glick Family (that’s Marianne Glick with us at the right) and the Indianapolis Library Foundation and all the people who put together the program and prepared me to participate in it. I love that Indiana has this program. As part of this award, I’ll be visiting some Indiana libraries this spring; can’t wait. ALSO as part of this award, Thorntown Public Library will be receiving a grant in my name. I’m thrilled about this, and am looking forward to what they’ll do with the grant!

 

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The Day I Died is a prize finalist!

I’ve been so busy, I forgot to share this news!

The Day I Died is a Finalist for the 2017 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year! How wonderful is that? You won’t believe the company I’m keeping in this short list. Fantastic writers and lovely people. What a great city Chicago is. Looking forward to this event in January!

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Anthology news: “Still Life” is DEADLIER

Got something scrummy (as they say on the Great British Bake-Off) in the mail yesterday—my copy of DEADLIER, an anthology of 100 women crime writers, including Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Jackson and, oh, right, ME.

To say I’m excited doesn’t even cut it.

It’s not available in the US right now except through international sources. Probably they’ll get a US publisher soon and then it will be easily found at your local indie. If you can wait that long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The title of my next book is…

Harper Collins William Morrow gave me the go-ahead to reveal the title of my next book, due out in (probably) May of 2018. The title is…

UNDER A DARK SKY

 

Very excited to have it final and since I’ve been calling it “the dark sky” book this whole time, well…I think it works.

What’s it about, you ask.

Only in the dark can she find the truth . . .

Since her husband died, Eden Wallace’s life has diminished down to a tiny pinprick, like a far-off star in the night sky. She doesn’t work, has given up on her love of photography, and is so plagued by night terrors that she can’t sleep without the lights on. Everyone, including her family, has grown weary of her grief. So when she finds paperwork in her husband’s effects indicating that he’s reserved a week at a dark sky park, she goes. She’s ready to shed her fear and return to the living, even if it means facing her paralyzing phobia of the dark.

But when she arrives at the park, the guest house where she is supposed to have the suite to herself is teeming with a group of twenty-somethings stuck in the orbit of their old college friendships. Horrified that her get-away has been taken over, Eden decides to head home the next day. But when one of the friends is murdered, everyone—including Eden—is a suspect.

As mishaps continue to befall the group, Eden must make sense of the chaos and lies to evade a ruthless killer—and she’ll have to do it before dark falls. . . .

 

This book is set in Upper Lower Peninsula, Michigan, by the way. I’ll be up there later this month to talk at the Mackinac Island Public Library. I’m staying at the Grand Hotel, wheee! Check my events page for more info!

I’ll let you know when we have a cover to share!

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Glick Indiana Authors Award Winner!

I’m so excited about this news! I’m the winner of the 2017 Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award (Regional Category)! I’m a proud Indiana native and of course, if you’ve read the books, it figures into my writing. Thank you to the Glicks for supporting Hoosier authors and to the judges and the Indiana Public Library Foundation. Thank you also to the librarians and readers who nominated me! I’m looking forward to meeting the other winners and finalists at the event in October.

 

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Bull’s eye, baby

THE DAY I DIED is available in TARGET STORES! Wooooooo!

I’ve been going to Target since college, so I’m totally geeked to be in their emerging authors section. You can look online to see if your store carries the book. Or you could just go, because it’s Target and you’re going anyway.

They also carry the audio book but not in the store. Online only. Double geeked about that.

The book should also be available in Hudson’s stores in your fine airport terminals. Anyone spotted one out in the wild there?

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THE DAY I DIED is out in the world!

I launched THE DAY I DIED, so far, in Madison, Wisconsin, with Patricia Skalka and in Chicago with handwriting expert Warren Spencer! Am having such a good time, I forgot to post about it!

Still working on lots of details this week, so you will need to be satisfied with this interview Megan Abbott did with me about my new book for The Strand Magazine! Yes, those words, in that order, just came out of my mouth. Knocked a few things off the ol’ bucket list in one fell swoop.

See my events calendar for more launch events in your area!

Also, BEHOLD the cake the Book Cellar had made for my launch party! (You can order signed and/or personalized/signed copies of my books at the Book Cellar!)

 

 

 

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Three Questions with… Andrew Welsh-Huggins!

Andrew Welsh-Huggins and I have been hanging out in the same Midwestern mystery circles for a couple of years now, and we finally got to spend some time together last year at Magna Cum Murder in Indianapolis. You should think about coming to Magna, too, because Midwestern mystery authors are NICE. Or you could come out to the event Andrew and I are doing together for our launches and meet us both.

Wednesday, April 19, 6 p.m.,

Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood Commons Shopping Center, 2692 Madison Rd M, Cincinnati, Ohio.

We are going to have some fun, promise.

Andrew’s new book is The Hunt, featuring private investigator Andy Hayes. It’s out April 15, just in time for that refund from Uncle Sam. Here’s what Booklist had to say about The Hunt: “The author has crafted a fine procedural based on human trafficking, and it’s a pleasure to watch his PI, Columbus, Ohio–based Andy Hayes, go to work. …Welsh-Huggins has a way with language…[He] is an Associated Press reporter, and the urge to bring the news is an unkillable one.”

Not too shabby, Andrew.

Tell us a bit about The Hunt and how Andy has grown or changed over the series so far.

The Hunt opens with a man hiring Andy to find his sister, a prostitute who’s missing just as a serial killer is stalking human trafficking victims on the streets of Columbus, Ohio. Andy soon realizes he’s not the only one looking for the woman, and the search becomes a race against time as he tries to unravel why so many people have taken an interest in finding her, not to mention doing her harm.

Andy has changed as I’ve gotten to know more about him and added to his back story. I’ve previously established that he’s an ex-Ohio State quarterback with a lot of baggage, which happens when you blow your team’s shot at a national championship by going to jail the week before the Michigan game. Now we’re seeing more of his relationship with his parents and his two sons by two different ex-wives, as well as his ongoing efforts to have positive romantic encounters given a history of not treating women very well.

What do you and Columbus private investigator Andy Hayes have in common?

Hopefully not our approach to relationships! Andy has had a string of women in his life, whereas I’ve been married to my college sweetheart for almost 33 years. That said, he is my alter ego in many ways. We’re both skeptical (but not cynical), we both want answers to the questions we’re posing, we both have a snarky sense of humor, we both like to read nonfiction and work out, and we both have an aversion to guns. I would never recommend naming a series character after yourself, but in this case, probably because we do think alike at times, he just had to be an Andy. Fittingly, I suppose, that’s a nickname I never go by, just as he never goes by Andrew—unless his mom is really mad at him.

How did you come to crime fiction and who are your influences today?

 The short answer is three series of books I read as a child: Encyclopedia Brown by Donald Sobol, the Happy Hollister mysteries by Andrew Svenson (published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which also published the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy series), and my mom’s Erle Stanley Gardner Perry Mason books, which I snuck off the top shelf beginning when I was about eight. Those books inspired a lifelong love of mysteries that continued through high school, college, and beyond. These days, I try never to miss new books from Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin and Laura Lippman as well as J.K. Rowling in her new guise as private eye novelist, to mention a very few. Going back in time, I was heavily influenced by Rex Stout (the Nero Wolfe mysteries), Robert B. Parker and Spenser, several of Stuart Kaminsky’s series and Ohio’s own Les Roberts, with his Milan Jacovich books set in Cleveland. If I had to describe where Andy Hayes comes from, I’d say he’s a combination of Nero Wolfe’s sidekick, Archie Goodwin (who, at least fictionally, was from Ohio), and Spenser, with a dollop of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee thrown in for good measure. Ultimately, though, I have to credit my mom, Mary Anne, and my late father, Richard, for raising me in a house full of books where reading was encouraged, and for always championing my dream of being a writer.

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THE DAY I DIED is an IndieNext Pick!

Exciting news! The Day I Died has been chosen for an IndieNext Pick for April! Along with some other amazing books!

I have already pre-ordered about… all of these books.

What does “IndieNext” mean? you may be wondering. “Indie” refers to the network of independent bookstores who belong to the American Booksellers Association. Booksellers at the bookstores nominate books they’re excited about; votes are tallied; list is made. The list shows up in material that goes out to all the members stores, which helps new-to-me readers find my book. If you wanted never to run out of interesting things to read, you could do worse than to watch for this list every month.

So thank you to the independent bookstores who nominated my book and, actually, even those who didn’t. Independent bookstores make the world go ’round. I’m excited to get out this spring and visit a bunch of stores I’ve never been to before! If you wanted to help me reward indie stores, pre-order The Day I Died from your local indie, or come see me when I’m visiting your local indie store (or library—there’s often a bookseller from the local indie selling at library events).

Here’s the schedule. If I’m not coming anywhere near you and you want a signed book, pre-order from any of the indie stores I’m visiting and for an extra couple of bucks, they will happily manage that signature for you when I’m there and ship it right to your door.

 

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Enter to win a gift certificate to your favorite bookstore!

Have you pre-ordered The Day I Died?

If you’re that excited about the launch of The Day I Died, why not be rewarded for your enthusiasm?

If you have pre-ordered The Day I Died, take a snapshot of your receipt showing the title and the date of the sale and email the photo to contest (at) loriraderday (dot) com before March 31 for your chance to win a prize package of The Day I Died treats!

Eight winners will win:

• $25 gift certificate to the bookstore of the winner’s choice. (I encourage you to consider independent bookstores in your area, but any bookstore can be chosen.)

Any entrant will receive, if requested in the email:

• A signed bookplate for your book. If you want it personalized, please specify who the book is for. You may also have me sign your book if I’m having an event at your local library. See my events page to look for your town.

If you’re buying The Day I Died for a book club read, you may be interested in my contest for book clubs!

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