August 12, 2011

It’s live --- the NEW Bookreporter.com! We had celebratory bagels and cream cheese Monday morning --- this project has been a complete team effort, and I am really proud of how our entire staff pulled together to make it happen --- and then hovered over our monitors waiting for the servers to pick up the new site. At one moment during the week, there were three versions of the site floating around the Internet --- the new one, the old one, and the one we had used to build it! Couple that with Mercury being retrograde, and it was quite a week! We appreciate all the early reader feedback that we have received --- lots of raves. And we thank those who have been patient with things like contest pages that were not refreshing on demand. We think that is all under control now!

Caching, which is a topic I could take a page to explain, may keep some of the pages on the site from refreshing the way they should. Thus if you get to a page where there is "about the book" copy instead of a review, for instance, just hit Ctrl+F5 on a PC or Apple+R on a Mac, and it should replace itself with the right thing. Cache is this delicate dance making me insane this week...trying to get the balance right. Feel like I am a vintner trying to make fine wine.

So what’s new?

1) There’s a bold new graphic area --- called the "barker" --- on the homepage that gives us the opportunity to draw attention to six features each week.

2) We have a new “This Week…” features page that gives us a way to highlight the special features offered that week. This is set up like a Table of Contents, which brings me back to my magazine days. And there are ways to get to specific features quickly from the top nav and on the right side of the “This Week…” page.

3) Scrolling bars highlighting features appear on the bottom of the homepage as well as at the top of the “This Week…” page; there is a similar scrolling bar on the Reviews page highlighting recent reviews.

4) Our search functionality has been enhanced, and now you can search for books by title, author, genre and date of publication. As well as search for authors in more in-depth ways.

5) All content is able to be emailed, shared and printed with great ease from both the top and bottom of each piece, allowing you to easily pass along articles and reviews of interest.

6) We will continue to feature buy links for IndieBound and Amazon --- and have added Barnes & Noble. These days we want to offer options for whatever way readers would like to purchase books. And links to “Shop with TBRN” on any of these sites are available on the lower right on almost every page; we ask that you use these links when purchasing from these three sites since we do see a sliver of the revenue. When you shop, just use one of these links to start shopping; it's that easy!

7) The Bookreporter.com On Sale This Week newsletters that launched earlier this year have been enhanced --- they now are available online and via email --- and now link each title to a book page with more information where readers have easy buylinks available for pre-order or purchase.

8) The Coming Soon feature has changed as well, again linking to book pages with more information for pre-order or purchase.

9) New in Paperback books are listed by week, and again each will have a descriptive page about it and easy links to purchase.

10) Books On Screen has been expanded to include not only movies in theaters and on DVD, but also programming on cable and network television that is based on books.

11) One of your favorite features --- Word of Mouth (affectionately called WOM by our staff) --- can now be accessed from the righthand side of almost every page, as well as on the top nav under Connect. Important to note: Moving over the archives of past Word of Mouth, Poll, Question of the Week and Newsletter features are still to come! Trust that they WILL happen, but it will take some time. We chose to launch more quickly instead of waiting for these to move over. Currently you can see Poll results here.

12) For those of you trying to find your favorite features, we have a guide to the New Bookreporter.com here, or by clicking the art in this newsletter.

As always, launches mean that no matter how much testing you have done, there still can be things that fall through the cracks or user issues that arise. Thus, we have a link available where folks can report things that are not working, which can be found here.

Whew!

However, the relaunch was not all we did this week. We have some great new features beginning today to showcase on the new site, starting with our Mystery Mayhem Author Spotlight for William Kent Krueger’s NORTHWEST ANGLE. If you’re not familiar with his Cork O’Connor series, then NORTHWEST ANGLE is a great place to start. Kent’s audience has been growing steadily with each Cork book, and he deserves your attention! He has such a gift for bringing the North Woods of Minnesota to life. You can practically feel the snow and hear the trees. NORTHWEST ANGLE finds Sheriff Cork O’Connor trying to get some much-needed R & R on the lake with his daughter until strong winds wreck the boat and leave them stranded on a deserted island. At least, they think it’s a deserted island. We have 20 copies of NORTHWEST ANGLE to give away to readers who enter here by Friday, August 19th at noon ET. This is the 11th book in the series, but they’re written so you can jump in anytime. Newcomers to the series have lots to explore! NORTHWEST ANGLE will be in stores on August 30th.

I love giving readers access to books well in advance of publication, and we have that opportunity for you with BOND GIRL by Erin Duffy, our latest Sneak Peek: An Early Look at an Upcoming Book title. Here we give a select group of readers early access to a manuscript and get their take on it. In BOND GIRL, Alex Garret is a recent college graduate who has always loved the action of Wall Street, and she finally makes her dream come true when she lands a place on the bond market floor for a top Wall Street firm. Her dream clashes with reality as she finds that, despite the rewards, young women have it pretty tough on the Street. The book isn’t scheduled to be released until January 2012, but we have 100 advance editions for readers who enter here and answer some questions by Friday, August 26th. Please only enter if you’re able to complete the book and answer some more questions by Monday, September 26th. I read this book a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed seeing this fast-paced world of excess and rollercoaster adrenalin through the eyes of Alex. Given all that’s happened on Wall Street this week, this contest couldn’t come at a better time.

One more feature to note this week is our Paperback Spotlight for REDEEMING LOVE by Francine Rivers. This bestselling rendition of the biblical story of Hosea celebrates its 20th anniversary. Francine sets the story during the California Gold Rush as a prostitute who has lost her faith in just about everything and everyone finds herself a suitor in an upstanding, hardworking farmer. It’s truly a special story about unconditional love. Those who read HER MOTHER’S HOPE and HER DAUGHTER’S DREAM, both of which we featured last year, know Francine has a gift for historical settings, and blending fact with fiction to bring characters and places to life.

Our Fall Preview daily contests are still going strong. We’ve been giving away some great titles from Monday through Thursday for the past two weeks. You can subscribe to receive our special contest alerts here or visit the site each day at noon ET. We have three more weeks left to go, so don’t miss out! Check out all our featured titles on this page.

THE ACCIDENT by Linwood Barclay is fast-paced, and the story keeps you guessing on every page. The book follows a struggling contractor who’s mourning the sudden death of his wife, who was drunk at the wheel when her car crashed. While he tries to understand how his wife hid her problems with alcohol from him, the rest of his world begins to crumble, and he learns his suburban life is not as stable as he once thought. Joe Hartlaub has our review and says, “THE ACCIDENT is Barclay’s most ambitious book to date and, not coincidentally, contains some of his best writing.... If you are looking for a mesmerizing and literate escape from the onset of the autumn months, you need look no further than THE ACCIDENT.”

Another one of my favorite authors, Lisa Unger, is also back this week with DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND (this phrase immediately has me humming Simon and Garfunkel’s "The Sounds of Silence"). Lisa returns to The Hollows with a mystery about a cop, a psychic, and two young people seeking answers to their troubled pasts. Their fates all collide during one single event that has devastating consequences for the entire community. This afternoon I took a break and drove out to the Clinton Book Shop to see Lisa as she did a signing there. And I picked up my weekend reading! You can see me with Lisa above.

Norah Piehl has our review and says, “Reading DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND feels a bit like moving to a small town like The Hollows. First you get to know the locals, slowly but surely, and then once you're familiar, you start to notice the oddities and peculiarities of the place, wondering what secrets it's hiding. The book might not be explosive or edgy, especially not at first, but it does steadily build suspense in a way that might be even more effective.”

Keith Raffel, author of the Silicon Valley Mysteries series, recently released DROP BY DROP as an exclusive eBook. It's about a professor who takes a position on the Senate Intelligence Committee in part to avenge the terror attack that claimed his wife. What he finds upon arriving in Washington, D.C. is a series of attempts on his life, top-secret documents emerging in unlikely places, and allies and foes in unlikely places. With our new redesign, we will be noting both eBook shorts and select eBook originals. As we all are huge Keith Raffel fans, we are happy to kick this off with DROP BY DROP. Check out Keith’s site, www.KeithRaffel.com, for more information about DROP BY DROP.

Joe Hartlaub has our review and says, “A series of explosive events mark the book’s conclusion, making it one of this year’s more interesting offerings in the thriller genre.DROP BY DROP, as with Raffel’s previous novels, offers a generous mix of interesting characters and complex, smartly-navigated plotting that result in a fast-paced read and satisfying ending.

Yesterday, I took Greg and a few staffers off to the movies to see The Help. We went to the beautiful Ziegfeld Theatre, which was the perfect BIG SCREEN location to see this movie. We all loved it. It’s one of the best Books on Screen adaptations that I have seen. Loved seeing one of my favorite books visualized with lush sets, a talented cast, and period-perfect fashions and other details. I definitely recommend it. We also updated our special tribute site just in time for the film's release. Check it out here.

I also finally got to see The Lincoln Lawyer on DVD over the weekend and enjoyed it enormously. My husband thinks it’s just because Matthew McConaughey is in it, but he failed to realize that I also liked the BOOK it was based on. I read this week that The Lincoln Lawyer is headed to TV, with Variety reporting that ABC is developing a TV show based on the series with Michael Connelly writing the pilot. Speaking of legal thrillers moving to TV, NBC brings "The Firm" to TV mid-season.

In late May I was interviewed for a video where I shared my thoughts about Gail Caldwell’s memoir, LET'S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME, which came out in paperback this week. Watch it here. For those of you not familiar with it, it’s the story of Caldwell's brilliant friendship with author Caroline Knapp, who tragically died of lung cancer just weeks after being diagnosed. When I finished reading it, I found myself connecting with my friends who I had been out of touch with, as well as reflecting on friends who are no longer here. It’s the kind of book that makes you think --- a lot. Also interviewed are Kelly Corrigan, who you know from her book THE MIDDLE PLACE; Esther Bushell, founder of LiteraryMatters.net; Bethanne Patrick, a friend who also is the Editor of Shelf-Awareness.com for Readers; and Jesse Kornbluth, who co-founded Bookreporter.com with me and now is the butler you want to follow at HeadButler.com. Fun! You can watch the video here.

I read the sad news that the Poe House in Baltimore is in danger of closing due to a lack of funding. I enjoyed visiting this historic location when I was in town there a few years ago. Now I need to worry about preserving our literary haunts as much as I do bookstores and libraries!

Now what are you waiting for? Read on and then shoo…go….explore the new site. And then let me know what you think!!! Happy reading!!!

Carol Fitzgerald (Carol@bookreporter.com)

THE ACCIDENT by Linwood Barclay (Thriller)
A typical American community descends into darkness, as an ordinary man is swept into one of the most violent mysteries of modern life. Pursued by mysterious killers and confronted by threats from neighbors he thought he knew, Glen must take his own desperate measures and go to terrifying new places in himself to avenge his wife and protect his child. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

-Click here to read an excerpt.

DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND by Lisa Unger (Thriller)
After giving up his post at the Hollows Police Department, Jones Cooper is at loose ends. He’s having trouble facing a horrible event from his past and finding a second act. Then, on a brisk October morning, he has a visitor. Eloise Montgomery, the psychic who plays a key role in FRAGILE, comes to him with predictions about his future --- some of which are dire. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.

-Click here to read an excerpt.

William Kent Krueger's NORTHWEST ANGLE, the latest installment in his Cork O'Connor series, finds the Minnesota sheriff seeking some rest and relaxation on a houseboat until strong winds wash him and his daughter ashore, stranding them on an island that holds a grisly secret.

We have 20 copies of NORTHWEST ANGLE, which will be in stores August 30th, to give away to readers who would like to preview the book and comment about it. If you are interested, please fill out this form by Friday, August 19th at noon ET.

-Click here to read an excerpt.
-Click here to read William Kent Krueger’s bio.
-Visit William Kent Krueger’s official website, www.WilliamKentKrueger.com.

More about NORTHWEST ANGLE:
With his family caught in the crosshairs of a group of brutal killers, detective Cork O’Connor must solve the murder of a young girl in the latest installment of William Kent Krueger’s unforgettable New York Times bestselling series. During a houseboat vacation on the remote Lake of the Woods, a violent gale sweeps through unexpectedly, stranding Cork and his daughter, Jenny, on a devastated island where the wind has ushered in a force far darker and more deadly than any storm. Amid the wreckage, Cork and Jenny discover an old trapper’s cabin where they find the body of a teenage girl.

At Bookreporter.com, we have the opportunity to read many great books well in advance of their release dates. Now, with our Sneak Peek Feature/Contest, we are offering our readers the chance to preview select early picks --- and share feedback on them. We know that readers champion books that they love, and we want you to be part of the excitement of upcoming releases as early as possible.

Our latest Sneak Peek Feature spotlights BOND GIRL by Erin Duffy --- a novel of one hardworking, young bond trader's adventures on Wall Street --- which releases in January 2012. We have 100 specially formatted early reader editions to give away to readers who would like to preview the book and share their comments about it. We really want to hear what you have to say about BOND GIRL, so if you will have time to read it and answer some questions by Monday, September 19th, please enter this contest. If not, we plan to have more opportunities like this in the future.

-Click here to read more about the book.
-Click here to read an excerpt.
-Click here to read Erin Duffy’s bio.

REDEEMING LOVE by Francine Rivers (Historical Fiction)
California’s gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their souls for a bag of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep. Angel expects nothing from men but betrayal. Sold into prostitution as a child, she survives by keeping her hatred alive. And what she hates most are the men who use her, leaving her empty and dead inside.

Then she meets Michael Hosea, a man who seeks his Father’s heart in everything. Michael obeys God’s call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel’s every bitter expectation, until despite her resistance, her frozen heart begins to thaw.

A powerful retelling of the story of Gomer and Hosea, REDEEMING LOVE is a life-changing story of unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love.

-Click here to read an excerpt.
-Click here to read Francine Rivers’s bio.
-Visit Francine Rivers’s official website, www.FrancineRivers.com.
 

Vanessa Diffenbaugh's debut novel, THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS, creates a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past.

-Click here to read an excerpt.
-Click here to see the reading group guide.
-Click here to read Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s bio.

More about THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS:
The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it's been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

Now 18 and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them.

With her marriage falling apart, Ellie Calvin returns to her coastal Alabama town for her mother's funeral, only to have a decades-old romance rekindled in Patti Callahan Henry's COMING UP FOR AIR.

-Click here to read a third excerpt.
-Click here to read Patti Callahan Henry’s bio.
-Visit Patti Callahan Henry’s official website, www.PattiCallahanHenry.com.

More about COMING UP FOR AIR:
Ellie Calvin is caught in a dying marriage, and she knows this. With her beloved daughter away at college and a growing gap between her and her husband --- between her reality and the woman she wants to be --- she doesn’t quite seem to fit into her own life. But everything changes after her controlling mother, Lillian, passes away. Ellie’s world turns upside down when she sees her ex-boyfriend, Hutch, at her mother’s funeral and learns that he is in charge of a documentary that involved Lillian before her death. He wants answers to questions that Ellie is not sure she can face, until, in the painful midst of going through her mother’s things, she discovers a hidden diary --- and a window onto stories buried long ago.
 

Fall is almost upon us, which is known as the biggest season of the year for books! The titles that come out in fall often become holiday gifts, and many are blockbusters. Here are some publisher picks that we know people will be talking about. Each day we will spotlight a different title and offer a contest to win one of three copies of the book. Check the site each day to see the featured book and enter to win. We also will be sending a special daily newsletter to announce each day's title, which you can sign up for here.

Our next prize book will be announced on Monday, August 15th at noon ET.
 

Thanks to everyone who participated in our daily Summer Reading contests, and congratulations to all the readers who won! These giveaways were a huge success, and we look forward to doing it all over again next year. Even if you weren’t a winner this time, we encourage you to take a look at our 34 featured titles. Reading any of these wonderful books is a great way to pass the time during these dog days of summer.
 

Poll:

Do you own an eReader? If so, which do you own? Please check as many as apply.

Kindle
Nook
iPad
Sony Reader
Samsung Reader
Kobo
I read on my iPod.
I read on my iPhone.
I read on my BlackBerry.
I read on my Droid.
I have another device.
No, but I plan to buy one.
No, but I borrow one from my library.
I do not plan to buy one at this time, but I am interested in them.
I have no interest in buying one.

-Click here to answer our poll.


Question:

What is the ONE thing you like about having an eReader?

-Click here to answer our question.

Tell us your current reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars. During the contest period from August 8th-26th, FIVE lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win a copy of THE ACCIDENT by Linwood Barclay, THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES by Jussi Adler-Olsen and THE MOST DANGEROUS THING by Laura Lippman.