J.A. Jance headed to Spokane, CdA
The perennially best-selling suspense novelist J.A. Jance will visit Spokane and Coeur d’Alene this week as part of the national rollout of her latest hardback, “Queen of the Night” (William Morrow, $25.99).
Jance re-visits her character Brandon Walker, a retired homicide detective, who finds himself embroiled in the murder of Arizona State University student years before. The story also follows the massacre of four people on an Indian reservation. The stories converge in the hunt for a psychopathic killer.
Jance was familiar to Northwest readers long before she hit it big nationally. She started writing at age 39 in Seattle and now divides her time (and, often, her stories) between Seattle and Tucson.
The book hits shelves nationally on Tuesday.
On Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., Jance will sign books at the Hastings Books, Music and Video store, 101 E. Best Ave. in Coeur d’Alene.
On Wednesday at 7 p.m., Jance will read and sign at Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main.
Expect crowds of fans. She has more than 15 million copies of her novels in print.
Another bestseller for Miller
Speaking of bestsellers, Spokane’s Linda Lael Miller showed up high on the New York Times best-seller list last week.
Her novel “Austin,” (aka “The McKettricks of Texas: Austin”) a modern cowboy romance, debuted at No. 3 on the Paperback Mass-Market Fiction list.
The only two titles above it?
Two Stieg Larsson blockbusters, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Girl Who Played With Fire.”
‘Quick Fall of Light’
Local author Sherrida Woodley has released a novel that the publisher describes as a cross between Michael Crichton and Rachel Carson, “A Quick Fall of Light” (Gray Dog Press, $17.95).
It’s about an avian flu that spreads rapidly around the world. A one-pound bird, thought to be extinct, holds both the cause and the cure.
Woodley, who lives near Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge near Cheney, will read from her novel on Tuesday, 7 p.m. at Auntie’s Bookstore.
The ultimate book club
Let’s pay tribute to what may be Spokane’s ultimate book club, the Weekly Readers.
They meet every week – and have done so for 35 years. That means they have read more than 1,820 books.
I am assured by one member that most of them have indeed read those books. They don’t condone slacking.
This group of retired Spokane women discusses a different book every week at the Spokane Club. Their choices range across contemporary fiction, classics and provocative non-fiction.
This is one of several book clubs spawned by the late Sister Miriam Bernadette, a redoubtable English teacher at the Holy Names Academy. These clubs serve as an inspiration to all book clubs.
As one member, Lucia Huntington, said, “It’s impossible to read a book a week for 35 years without having your mind opened by the experience.”