New Books

New Book Round-up

The beauty of a kick-ass blog like Naked Authors is that there are no rules. I can write about just about anything. Sex, violence, politics, religion, false teeth – nothing is off-limits.

So today I’m going to talk about books. Not just any books but books that have either been recently released or soon to be released by authors whom I happen to know. Now that’s cool; Knowing people who write books that I like and being in a position to mention them on a blog. I’m obviously in a good mood today and I have to admit I have no idea why and no special reason to be happy other than having an abundance of good books to read.

This weekend I was at the Southern Festival of Books and saw the lovely J.T. Ellison who’s debut novel, All the Pretty Girls, has just come out. I am particularly fond of this thriller about a Nashville homicide detective named Taylor Jackson and her pursuit of a serial killer. If you were to check the inside cover you’d see a blurb by an author named James O. Born. That should be all you need to know about this fine novel. Oh yeah some guy named Lee Child liked it too. I’m not even sure he’s an American.

Next on my list of new novels is Shallow Grave by Lori Armstrong. This is the third novel in a series about a South Dakota P.I. named Julie Collins. Aside from the best titles in the business with the first two novels named Blood Ties and Hallowed Ground, Lori has an interesting character who must deal with issues alien to most Americans: Tribal issues and politics.

Lori has been nominated for the Shamus Award and Shallow Grave is her best novel yet.

Now those of you who follow details and look at photos closely might think I’m only blogging about tall, blond, beautiful authors today but I assure you that is not entirely true. The third book in my round up is by California author Tim Maleeny. Although tall and arguably beautiful, wait a minute, I guess he is sort've blond too. My mistake, that must be the criteria this week. Sue me, I'm not a professional critic.

His newest novel, Beating the Babushka, is the second in his series featuring P.I. Cape Weathers. In this outing he investigates an apparent suicide in the film industry and must navigate a wild array of quirky characters from all walks of life.

I met Tim at this year’s Thrillerfest in New York and he impressed me as a funny guy. Sometimes that’s all I need to start reading someone’s books and in this case I was glad I did.

Now this is just a short list of the recent new books but what better criteria to use than personally liking the authors? Unlike many TV commentators I try to be completely upfront about my prejudice but in this case I’m pretty confident you’ll like these authors if you give them a shot.
What about you? Read any good books lately? I’m always interested in finding new authors.