JVNLA rides the subway 2013!

Last year for the holidays, JVNLA took to the subway to express our love for our books published in 2012.  We snapped candid shots (and some not so candid shots) of ourselves reading as subway passengers looked on with puzzled expressions. For 2013, we simply had to do it again!

We began by posting pictures of us "reading in the wild" on Twitter--including pictures of us reading on subway platforms, at our desks, in bed, etc.--with the hashtag #readersinthewild. Then we followed it up with our adventure reading in the wilds of the subway!

Below, we present this year's candid and not-so-candid shots for your viewing pleasure.

We started at Times Square.  Here, Tara, Jennifer, and Laura read Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche (Hyperion, May 2013). This and all other photos were taken by our excellent behind-the-scenes photographer, Ariana.

Below is a sampling of the 2013 books we brought along.  When we began piling more books onto the subway seats, a mini-avalanche started!

Alice joined Laura and Jennifer to read The Book of Someday by Dianne Dixon (Sourcebooks Landmark, September 2013).

The day we chose for subway riding was particularly snowy, and so Jean decided to stay home and read in the warm rather than in the wild!  Here she is reading Our Picnics in the Sun by Morag Joss (Delacorte Press, November 2013).

Certain books inspire certain poses, and so Laura, Tara, and Jennifer couldn't help themselves from looking particularly nefarious while reading the noir mystery Sugar Pop Moon by John Florio (Seventh Street Books, July 2013).

We also couldn't help but crack ourselves up while reading the very funny The Heartbreak Messenger by Alexander Vance (Feiwel and Friends, July 2013).

When the below subway rider saw Royal Mistress by Anne Easter Smith (Touchstone, May 2013), she got so excited she had to read it herself! 

Then, she instructed Laura, Tara, and Jennifer how to properly pose for a scandalous historical novel like this one.

Noticing that some of our books had a certain theme to them, we decided to create our own story: First, there's Love with a Chance of Drowning.  Next comes The Heartbreak Messenger.  Which leads to This Is How You Say Goodbye.

While those of us in New York were in the midst of our subway adventures, Elizabeth was in Wisconsin having her own reading in the wild/transportation adventures! Here she is on bike with Sugar Pop Moon, 101 Quizzes for Couples by Natasha Burton (Adams Media, November 2013), Dead Run by Dan Schultz (St. Martin's Press, March 2013), Beyond the Bear by Dan Bigley and Debra McKinney (Lyons Press, March 2013), and more!

Laura, Jennifer, and Alice displayed their favorite parts of Otis Dooda: Strange but True, written by Ellen Potter and illustrated by David Heatley (Feiwel and Friends, June 2013).

Two businessman on their way to lunch were super excited about Otis Dooda too!

As you can see below, Laura, Tara, and Jennifer were each intrigued by Women, Sex, Power, and Pleasure by Evelyn Resh (Hay House, March 2013).

The delicious pie recipes in Sweetie-Licious Pies by Linda Hundt (Skirt! Books, October 2013) got Laura's and Tara's attention.

When the train emptied out, Jennifer had fun reading The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb (Hyperion, February 2013).

When it was time for our subway adventure to end, Laura, Tara, and Jennifer got a little choked up reading the last book, This Is How You Say Goodbye from Victoria Loustalot (St. Martin's Press, September 2013).

Thanks for joining us on our subway adventure!

For more about our recent books, take a look through the Recent and Upcoming Titles section of our website--all of the books make for great holiday gifts!

Two books at the forefront of the busy fall publishing season

Fall is the one of the busiest times of the year in the publishing world (if not the busiest time). It's not only when agents are busy submitting to editors who are busy buying books after the lull of the summer, it's also when publishing houses are busy publishing! Many publishers release their lead titles in the fall, and so the season is marked by numerous great reads hitting bookshelves—physical and virtual—for the first time.

Two JVNLA books that have been part of the fall publishing excitement are The Book of Someday by Dianne Dixon and Margot by Jillian Cantor. Since their releases earlier this season, glowing reviews have been coming in so fast we've had a hard time keeping up with them!

Now, we're putting the spotlight on both books:

THE BOOK OF SOMEDAY BY DIANNE DIXON is, as one blogger put it, “a novel rich with compelling characters, each haunted by a past riddled with painful, life-altering mistakes” (Jenn's Bookshelves). The novel tells the story of three women whose lives are connected in mysterious ways. As these connections begin converging, each of their lives will change forever.

Dianne Dixon

Dixon credits a recurring nightmare she had as a child as the inspiration for The Book of Someday.  The nightmare was of “a beautiful woman in a silver gown opening her mouth to let out a scream [that Dixon] knew would be the sound of absolute horror.” Read more about how Dixon wove this nightmarish woman into her novel on her website here--and don't forget to check out the rest of the site!

The Book of Someday was Sourcebooks Landmark's lead title for the fall. Per a Publishers Weekly article about the imprint and its acquisition of Dixon's book, Landmark has been aggressively building its fiction list in recent years.  It has focused on women's fiction, writing that blends the literary with the commercial, and reads that make for fantastic book club selections. With The Book of Someday, Landmark knew it had found the perfect book for its fiction list, and hence it bought the novel (plus a second book) in a major pre-empt deal! Read the rest of the article here.

In another piece, Publishers Weekly highlighted Dixon's unique trajectory from Emmy-nominated screenwriter to novelist.  Novels have a particular advantage over screenplays for Dixon, as she explains in this excerpt:

When you write screenplays, says Dixon, you are creating a blueprint of a story others will execute. “Especially in animated television,” she adds, because she is not an animator. No matter how successful Dixon has been in Hollywood—where she never thought she’d end up—she says she feels most at home writing novels because she is creating the whole story herself.

Read more about Dixon's TV-to-books transition here.

Below are some of the extraordinary reviews we've received in for The Book of Someday:

“This haunting tale is an excellent piece of escapism that will put a pang in your heart and, sometimes, a chill in your bones.” --Shelf Awareness, starred review

“Compelling, emotionally driven...Reminiscent of Jodi Picoult, Kristin Hannah, and Carol Cassella...Enchanting.” --Booklist

“Unusual, suspenseful.” --Library Journal

“A real page-turner.” --Kirkus

“The reader quickly becomes enmeshed.” --BookPage

“Dixon creates beautifully broken characters whose stories are as touching as they are invigorating...A stunning and heartbreaking story.” --San Francisco Book Review


MARGOT BY JILLIAN CANTOR, a lead fall fiction title from Riverhead, tells a unique “what if” story: What if Anne Frank's sister, Margot Frank, had survived? In Cantor's sensitive imagining of this possibility, Margot has escaped to America and is living as a secretary in 1950s Philadelphia. Yet when The Diary of Anne Frank comes to movie theaters, her past and present collide.

Jillian Cantor

Cantor chose to write about Margot Franklin in part because, as an older sister herself, Cantor identified quite a lot with Margot when she read The Diary of Anne Frank as a child.

An exclusive Time feature article and interview with Cantor explores more about Cantor's inspiration, her sensitive subject matter, and her writing process:

Was she worried about treading on what many readers consider sacred text? Only after the fact, it seems. "There’s been so much written about Anne over the years...." [Cantor] says. "...But really nothing has been written about Margot...So I felt like I wanted to tell her story and when I was writing, I didn’t think about anybody reading it. I didn't think about what other people would say. I just sort of thought 'well this is a story that I need to tell. And this'd be a book I would want to read.'"

Read the rest of the article here.

The New York Times Book Review and USA Today also featured Margot in write-ups. O Magazine did a piece on it, too, calling Margot “an ode to the adoration and competition between sisters who were once so close.” O Magazine's piece is below:

But Margot hasn't only caught the eyes of the press.  Each month Library Reads compiles the top ten books librarians across the country have loved most. Margot was one of their September picks.

Below are more of the fabulous reviews Margot has received since its publication:

“Cantor's re-imagining of Margot's life is believable and wistful...A heartbreakingly masterful corollary, ultimately commemorating the abbreviated life of this remarkable young woman.” --Shelf Awareness, starred review

“Daring...This story of sisterly rivalry, sacrifice, and love survives and thrives.” --Booklist

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Margot since I finished this book. Highly recommended.” --Historical Novel Society

“Intriguing...Compelling sensitivity.” --USA Today

“A convincing, engaging might-have-been.” --People

“Ingenious...Will have you smiling--and fighting off tears.” --Ladies Home Journal, October 2013 Book Club Pick

“Magnetic characters and the book’s exploration of the complexities of identity and memory make Margot a compelling read.” --Jewish Book Council

“Cantor brings Margot to life with a beautifully raw sense of immediacy.” --Brooklyn Daily Eagle

A photo journey through BEA 2013

Last week, book madness descended on New York City for BookExpo America (BEA), an annual publishing conference and book exhibition extravaganza for publishers, industry experts, booksellers, librarians, and book lovers.

While educational panels, subsidiary rights meetings, and more take place throughout the conference, the most dazzling feature of BEA is always the Exhibition Hall, where publishers showcase the books they are most excited about for the upcoming fall season or that they have recently published.  JVNLA's books were featured prominently, so of course we hunted them down and snapped some photos in order to bring a part of BEA 2013 to our blog! 

To give you a sense of what the Exhibition Hall looks like, check out the photo below, showing conference attendees milling around several publishers' booths, including Algonquin and Workman.  Now, imagine this multiplied over 760,000 square feet of exhibition space! 

Clearly, many, many eyes were on the look out for exciting, new books.  We were pleased that so many of JVNLA's books were a part of the spotlight!

According to reports from the front at Sourcebooks, the line for a signed galley of Dianne Dixon's newest novel, THE BOOK OF SOMEDAY (September 2013), was long and didn't end until the last copies were given away!  THE BOOK OF SOMEDAY is the story of three women, each caught up in a web of secrets, and one haunted by a nightmare of a beautiful woman in a silver dress.  While we didn't get a picture of the galley line, we did snap one of Dixon standing beneath her cover as it presided over the Sourcebooks exhibition area.

One woman got started reading THE BOOK OF SOMEDAY right away!

The Lyons Press exhibition booth featured ONE PUNCH FROM THE PROMISED LAND: Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, and the Myth of the Heavyweight Title by John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro (September 2013).  The book is a narrative nonfiction account of the two famous boxing brothers and the divergent paths their lives took.
 

At the Skirt! Books display table, Linda Hundt's recipe book based on her award-winning bakery of the same name, SWEETIE-LICIOUS PIES: Eat Pie, Love Life (October 2013), made passersby salivate.

C.J. Sansom's newest novel, DOMINION (Mulholland Books, January 2014), was an eagerly anticipated giveaway over at Hachette's booth. DOMINION sets readers in an alternate history in which Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940, and, twelve years later, a spy for the Resistance must rescue a man with a secret from a British mental hospital and smuggle him from the country.

Soft Skull Press's booth showcased Berlin Reed's just-released part-food memoir, part-argument for sustainable living, THE ETHICAL BUTCHER: How Thoughtful Eating Can Change Your World (April 2013). 

At the Penguin exhibition area, Jillian Cantor signed galleys of her new novel MARGOT (Riverhead, September 2013).  The novel is a reimagining of the life of Margot Frank, Anne Frank's sister, had she not died in a concentration camp in 1945.

Conference attendees were so excited about snagging a copy of MARGOT that even a baby rifled through the pages to get a quick glimpse of the story!

At Smithsonian Books, YOUR TICKET TO THE UNIVERSE: A Guide to Exploring the Cosmos by Kimberly K. Arcand and Megan Watzke (April 2013) stood out on a display table.

PASSION BLUE by Victoria Strauss (November 2012), a YA novel about a seventeen-year-old in Renaissance Italy sentenced to live in a convent when all she wants is true love, graced the display tables at the Amazon Children's Publishing booth.

BEYOND THE BEAR (March 2013), a memoir about surviving a bear attack and learning to live and love again, written by Dan Bigley and co-author Debra McKinney, was featured in the display racks over at Lyons Press.

Meanwhile, Algonquin arranged its featured books on the walls of its booth.  Just to the right and below the center, you'll find A LIFE IN MEN by Gina Frangello (February 2014), a novel of a woman diagnosed with debilitating cystic fibrosis who takes up her best friend's adventurous lifestyle across many countries and with many men after her friend's tragic death.

Jeryl Brunner signed copies of her newest celebrity travel book, MY CITY, MY LOS ANGELES: Famous People Share Their Favorite Places (March 2013) at the Globe Pequot Press booth.  We snapped a photo of her (center) with her agent Jessica Regel (left) and editor Amy Lyons (right).

In addition to Brunner, Slash Coleman was another JVNLA author selected by Globe Pequot Press to sign books at this year's BEA. Below is the sign announcing the times of the signings for Brunner's MY CITY, MY LOS ANGELES and Coleman's THE BOHEMIAN LOVE DIARIES (Lyons Press, July 2013).

And, here, check out Brunner's and Coleman's books on display at the Globe Pequot Press booth.

As you can see in the previous photo, the cover of Coleman's THE BOHEMIAN LOVE DIARIES features a young boy, shirtless and shoeless, wearing a motorcycle helmet.  Well, that boy made a special guest appearance at BEA.  Here he is below, pictured with the author.  Together, they took the BEA by storm!

Huffington Post raves about LANGUAGE OF SECRETS

"Destined to become this year's THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER and a perennial book club favorite . . . an absorbing, provocative and, ultimately, satisfying read from the first page . . . Pick it up. You won't be sorry."



Click here for the full review!!













Doubleday March 2010