Book club friends join forces
in comic ‘Tale of Two Biddies’
Though the French will celebrate Bastille Day tomorrow as a national holiday, it’s observed only here and there in the United States. In A Tale of Two Biddies, second in Kylie Logan’s League of Literary Ladies comic mystery series, Bastille Day is an excuse for the residents and merchants of South Bass Island to blow off some steam at a party before a huge influx of tourists.
The narrator, Bea Cartwright, and her book club friends are reading A Tale of Two Cities while drinking wine and eating shrimp cocktail. Their camaraderie is an improvement over Book One, Mayhem at the Orient Express, in which the bickering neighbors were sentenced by a judge to form a reading group and quit squawking. The strategy worked, and even helped the mutual friends solve a murder.
Bea’s bed-and-breakfast is completely booked, her guests including the members of a past-their-prime boy band who have brought a working guillotine as a stage prop, contestants in a Charles Dickens look-alike contest, and a mainland car dealer whose island house exploded when a careless handyman left a gas line open.
When the handyman, the town loser having fallen on hard times, is found dead, there are plenty of suspects, including one of the band members. It’s not necessary to have read A Tale of Two Cities to enjoy Logan’s references, such as a knitting shop run by the Defarge sisters. Extra fun comes from the Dickens impersonators, each with great expectations of winning the contest.
A Tale of Two Biddies (304 pages, softcover) costs $7.99 from Berkeley Prime Crime. Brecksville author Kylie Logan also writes the Button Box and Chili Cook-Off series; Death by Devil’s Breath in the latter will be released Aug. 5. As Casey Daniels, she writes the Pepper Martin series.
Logan will be among more than 40 authors who will appear at the fourth annual Ohio Author Book Fair from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Hudson Library & Historical Society, 96 Library St. The event will be preceded by a panel of children’s illustrators from 9:30 to 11 a.m., and include book appraisals by Andrea Klein of Akron’s Bookseller Inc. See the list at http://hudsonlibrary.org.
Story for teens thrilling
Also at the Hudson Library’s book fair will be Pickerington author Natalie D. Richards, whose Six Months Later is a terrific teen thriller about a high-school junior who loses six months of her life.
Chloe Spinnaker, a self-described “last slacker standing” with iffy grades, falls asleep in study hall in late May and wakes up in November a senior with astronomical SAT scores, a gorgeous boyfriend who creeps her out and a best friend who isn’t speaking to her. She has no memory of the interval, and her paranoia increases as she tries to determine what happened. Her parents grow impatient, and her boyfriend seems too perfect. Another boy, the school delinquent, seems to be the only one she can trust.
Six Months Later (336 pages, softcover) costs $9.99 from Sourcebooks Fire.
Accolades
Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Cleveland native Daniel Stashower, which already has won the Edgar and Agatha awards, now is a nominee for both the Anthony Award in the category of Best Critical or Nonfiction Work, presented by the Mystery Writers of America, and the Macavity Award for Best Nonfiction, presented by Mystery Readers International.
Events
Hudson Library & Historical Society (96 Library St.) — Cleveland author Michael Grant Jaffe discusses his novel When Blackness Was a Virtue and is interviewed by WKSU’s Kabir Bhatia, 7 p.m. Monday. Bhatia also will interview Case Western Reserve University associate professor Michael Clune, who discusses White Out: The Secret Life of Heroin at 7 p.m. Thursday. It was named a Best Book of 2013 by the New Yorker.
Cuyahoga County Public Library (Beachwood branch, 25501 Shaker Blvd.) — Tim Tibbits launches his novel Echo Still, about an unwilling boy whose widowed father insists on planning his bar mitzvah, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. Registration requested; call 216-831-6868.
Mac’s Backs (1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights) — Bryan Fritz, author (with Ken Krsolovic) of League Park: Historic Home of Cleveland Baseball, 1891-1946, and Vince McKee, author of Jacobs Field: History & Tradition at the Jake, sign their books from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in the “Tuesdays on Coventry” summer vendor village across the street from the bookstore; James Browning, spokesman for Common Cause, a government watchdog group, talks about and signs The Fracking King, his enjoyable satire about a boy who attends a prep school on a scholarship sponsored by a gas company, 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, accompanied by Anne Caruso from the Northeast Ohio Sierra Club.
Cuyahoga County Public Library (Parma-Snow branch, 2121 Snow Road) — Karin Slaughter, author of thrillers including the bestselling William Trent series, discusses her new standalone novel Cop Town, set in 1974 Atlanta, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. Registration required; call 216-661-4240.
Quaker Station (135 S. Broadway, Akron) — Former North Canton resident Diane Laney Fitzpatrick addresses the Akron Roundtable luncheon, talking about her cross-country moves and her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves, noon Thursday. $20; call 330-247-8682.
Medina County District Library (Buckeye branch, 6625 Wolff Road, Medina) — Robert Sberna talks about and signs House of Horrors: The Shocking True Story of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Strangler, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
MAPS Air Museum (2260 International Pkwy., North Canton) — Ravenna author Fred Tribuzzo talks about and signs American Sky, his memoir of life as a private pilot, at a pancake breakfast from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. $8, includes museum admission.
Cuyahoga County Public Library (Berea branch, 7 Berea Commons) — Author Lori Zoss and illustrator Cheri Polk, accompanied by Fred the Basset Hound, present their storybook A Bed for Fred, 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday.
— Barbara McIntyre
Special to the Beacon Journal
Send information about books of local interest to Lynne Sherwin, Features Department, Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309 or lsherwin@thebeaconjournal.com. Event notices should be sent at least two weeks in advance.