Reviews for the following books will be up with the new episode tonight — around midnight — along with the new episode:
The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 by Chris Wickham
Heat Wave by Richard Castle
Crush by Alan Jacobson
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Bloodborn by Kathryn Fox
The Chosen – Rise of the Darkness by C. A. Milson
Today I got back my sound edited and “ready to go” Episode 17 of BookBanter featuring my interview with Kathryn Fox. Great thanks go once again to my good friend, Jared Emerson-Johnson, for mixing and putting the perfectionist finishing sound touches to make the episode sound just right.
The episode will be going up tomorrow, Wednesday September 30th, at some time between 11PM and midnight. Will let everyone know once it’s up.
For now, you can head on over to Kathryn Fox’s website, which is once again up and running. Check it out.
Here are my most recent arrivals that I’ll be reading and possibly reviewing:
An interesting trio to say the least, but I’m actually looking forward to reading each of them.
It is always important to fact check and research when making specific claims about, well, just about anything, especially if you have the ability to do this and especially if it will take minimal effort.
Which is why I should’ve done my job better when I claimed that Bloodborn was Kathryn Fox’s third novel after Malicious Intent and Without Consent, and was politely informed by the author that Bloodborn was in fact her fourth novel, after Skin and Bone.
Sorry about that Kathryn. And next time I’ll do my homework and fact check!
Lesson learned.
If everything goes as planned, the new BookBanter episode will be up this Thursday on October 1st (or more likely Wednesday night, close to midnight). My interviewee this time was Australian author Kathryn Fox. She’s published two[make that three] novels, Malicious Intent and Without Consent, [Skin and Bone] and her latest book has just been released over here in the US, called BloodBorn. It features her strong, Scarpettaesque character Anya Crichton, who is a forensic pathologist.
This episode will also premiere on the first day of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Fox has teamed up with bestselling authors Kathy Reichs, Linda Fairstein and Robin Burcell to get the word out about the amount of domestic violence going that is largely being unreported and ignored by society. Known as the “Giving Victims a Voice Campaign,” each of their books deals with sexual and domestic violence as the authors have first-hand experience in dealing with this. In the interview, Fox shares many stories and experiences of her time as a medical practitioner and the horrific cases she observed.
There is a silver lining, however, as Fox also tells of positive results she’s already received and witnessed from her books changing people’s minds and giving victims the courage to speak out.
And what can you do, BookBanter reader? Well, listen to the interview and learn what Fox has to offer, but spread the word, get the voice out, encourage people to listen to this interview and hear what Fox has to say. The most important thing is to get people learning and talking about this, so more and more will find out, instead of society ignoring it and even denying that it’s happening.
And what can you do until the new episode comes out? Check out Kathryn Fox’s website (which is being updated at the moment, but there’s a link to her publisher’s website), find out more about Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and spread the word!
A couple of days ago I finished up Crush by Alan Jacobson, which was released on September 22nd. I originally met Alan about a year ago when he came into the store one day to talk about his debut novel, The 7th Victim. We chatted for a while about his history in researching with the FBI which had led to the creation of his recurring and impressive character, Karen Veil, an FBI profiler. He handed me an arc of the book which I read and enjoyed, and reviewed.
I remember I originally asked him if he would be doing a series involving Karen Veil, since he’d done so much research and Veil was such a great character. At that point in time he said he wasn’t sure, but that he might.
Now I’m glad to see that Veil is back with Crush and this book is better than The 7th Victim. Veil is on vacation at the start of the book in the wine country of Napa County, but then a body is discovered and even though she’s strictly “off duty,” her experience and profiling skills automatically kick into gear and she strategically maneuvers herself and get’s on the task force for the case. The brilliant title of Crush comes from the link with grapes, and crushing them for wine, and all that jazz; coupled with the fact that the “crush killer” first kills his victims by strangling them to death. Alan uses lots of place names so for any readers familiar with Napa and Sonoma counties (like I am), it’s a lot of fun recognizing the towns, places, and especially some of the wineries. With this serial killer on the loose, Veil wants to get the word out to try and catch him, but with the wine industry supporting a significant portion of the country’s economy, there are others who are very reluctant to do so.
Crush employs many different facets from government and politics, to wine county and wine drink — using real places — and a fast-paced plot line where the bodies start piling up and Veil has to do her very best to keep everyone in the loop and doing their best to find out just who this killer is.
After my initial reviewing of The 7th Victim, Alan and I have kept in touch over the year through email and Facebook, so I’ve been looking forward to Crush for some time (and was delighted to receive a copy without even asking!) and with somewhat of a cliffhanger, Alan is currently working on the third Karen Veil mystery.
While I plan to have my review for Crush up at BookBanter.net soon, I have also arranged with Alan for an interview with BookBanter which we’ll be doing on October 27th. At the moment the interview with Alan is scheduled to run December 15th.
For now, head on over to Alan Jacobson’s website where you can found out all about Crush as well as some extras and behind-the-scenes that add to the great story. And he’s currently on his tour, so check and see if he’s coming a place near you, drop by, buy a book, and say hi.
With the update of adding the new BookBanter blog, I discovered a URL issue which had most the links to the book reviews being wrong and taking you to a “page not found.”
You’ll be glad to know that this issue has now been rectified and all the links should be working just fine.
If you do discover any broken links or problems with the site, please email me at alex@bookbanter.net.
Welcome to the brand spanking new BookBanter blog. This will be my conduit to discuss and talk about a range of subjects including the BookBanter podcast, the BookBanter website — basically all things BookBanterish. As well as books that I’m reading and reviewing, books that I have to review, and books that I look forward to reading. All things books. Writing reviews, writing, writing about writing. Essentially writing in general. At times I may talk about what’s going on in life, perhaps my goals with writing and with BookBanter. And anything else that may tickle my fancy . . .
No surprise from you, the BookBanter reader, I’m sure as everything I’ve mentioned above falls under the rubric of your “ordinary blog.” Of course, if you enjoy BookBanter, and like books and writing, you should enjoy reading this blog then too.
I also welcome any comments, questions, or discussions that the BookBanter reader may start and look forward to engaging in said endeavors.
For now, it’s until the next post . . .
Bookbanter 