Bookseller Notes – Our Booksellers review and list their favorite titles
July 2024
July Has Been A Hot One!
The books that have come out this month have been just as hot as the weather and I cannot say enough about how enamored I have become with this month’s review book. It is spicy, but the fantasy hits just as hard.
On the 20th, we had an amazing dance performance provided by world renowned choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess that we were lucky enough to film. While the video isn’t up yet, it will be posted to all the applicable social media and of course on our website.
Now, on the 27th of July, we are having the enigmatic and incredible Lucy Taylor hold and event at our store! The book is an anthology titled Erotic Horror for Horny Housewives. Edited by Edward Lee, this collection features all female writers.The event begins at 5:00pm and we can’t wait to see everyone! As always, thank you all for being there for Eldorado’s local bookstore.
Kody Young
Purple Fern Bookstore
Book Review by Kody Young
Five Broken Blades
This story opens fast, vicious and doesn’t ever let up from its relentless pacing. And I promise you will love every moment of it. Told from the alternating perspectives of six different characters, Five broken blades tells the story of a suppressed people who seek freedom from their captor’s and from their king. The only problem is, that while he wears his crown, the king is immortal.
Now Aeri, Royo, Sora, Euyun, Mikhail, and Tiyung must band together and put aside their differences, their feelings and their cravings all in the name of revenge. A blistering tale of intrigue, suspicion and learning to trust. Did I mention that it’s a heist story? I cannot recommend this book enough. Mai Corland has made a strong name for herself as a new voice in fantasy.
6 Horror Books For Summerween 2024!
Don’t Fear the Reaper
By Stephen Graham Jones
A Locus Award Finalist
December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.
Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.
Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.
Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.
Don’t Fear the Reaper is the page-turning sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.
We Sold Our Souls
By Grady Hendrix
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires comes a hard-rocking, spine-tingling horror novel about a washed-up guitarist of a ’90s heavy metal band who embarks on an epic road-trip across America and deep into the web of a sinister conspiracy.
Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity.
Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes—a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band. Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival. A furious power ballad about never giving up, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul.
Unclean Spirits
By Chuck Wendig
LIFE BEGINS WHEN YOUR BOSS IS KILLED.
Five years ago, Cason Cole walked away from his wife and son and became a chew toy to an actual god. Now, as the being he both loves and hates lies dying at his feet, the explosion still ringing in his ears, Cason is finally free.
For the past thirty years, gods and monsters have walked among us, making us their pawns and playthings. But mortals aren’t the poor things they were in aeons past. It’s time for payback.
What Moves the Dead
By T. Kingfisher
An Instant USA Today & Indie Bestseller
A Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Finalist
A Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award Nominee
A gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” from Hugo, Locus, & Nebula award-winning author T. Kingfisher
*A very special hardcover edition, featuring foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*
When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.
Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.
Never Whistle at Night
Edited By Shane Hawk, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST EDITED ANTHOLOGY • BRAM STOKER AWARD NOMINEE FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN AN ANTHOLOGY • LOCUS AWARD FINALIST
A bold, clever, and sublimely sinister collection that dares to ask the question: “Are you ready to be un-settled?”
“Never failed to surprise, delight, and shock.” —Nick Cutter, author of The Troop and Little Heaven
Featuring stories by:
Norris Black • Amber Blaeser-Wardzala • Phoenix Boudreau • Cherie Dimaline • Carson Faust • Kelli Jo Ford • Kate Hart • Shane Hawk • Brandon Hobson • Darcie Little Badger • Conley Lyons • Nick Medina • Tiffany Morris • Tommy Orange • Mona Susan Power • Marcie R. Rendon • Waubgeshig Rice • Rebecca Roanhorse • Andrea L. Rogers • Morgan Talty • D.H. Trujillo • Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. • Richard Van Camp • David Heska Wanbli Weiden • Royce K. Young Wolf • Mathilda Zeller
Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.
These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.
Full Throttle
By Joe Hill
A New York Times Bestseller
Thirteen relentless tales of supernatural suspense, including “In the Tall Grass,” one of two stories cowritten with Stephen King and the basis for the terrifying feature film from Netflix.
A little door that opens to a world of fairy-tale wonders becomes the blood-drenched stomping ground for a gang of hunters in “Faun.” A grief-stricken librarian climbs behind the wheel of an antique Bookmobile to deliver fresh reads to the dead in “Late Returns.”
In “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain”—now an episode on Shudder TV’s Creepshow—two young friends stumble on the corpse of a plesiosaur at the water’s edge, a discovery that forces them to confront the inescapable truth of their own mortality. And tension shimmers in the sweltering heat of the Nevada desert as a faceless trucker finds himself caught in a sinister dance with a tribe of motorcycle outlaws in “Throttle,” cowritten with Stephen King.
Replete with shocking chillers, including two previously unpublished stories written expressly for this volume (“Mums” and “Late Returns”) and another appearing in print for the first time (“Dark Carousel”), Full Throttle is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche. Hypnotic and disquieting, it mines our tormented secrets, hidden vulnerabilities, and basest fears, and demonstrates this exceptional talent at his very best.
June 2024
Hello Everyone!
Here we are in June, officially half-way through the year. I want to start by saying that this has been one of our most wonderful and amazing months so far! Thank you to everyone who comes in and says hi and makes our days so much brighter and more amazing than they already are. You may have noticed that we have not announced an event for this month as of yet and unfortunately, a dear friend of ours who was going to do an incredible pride event had to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances. So as such we have decided not to do an event for this month. We decided that everyone needed a moment to recuperate after how hard they have worked. We wish our friend all the best. Don’t worry, we will be holding an event together in the future!
Kody Young
Purple Fern Bookstore
Book Review by Kody Young
The Gathering
By C. J. Tudor
With “The Gathering”, CJ Tudor offers their audience quite a unique take on the standard police procedural. Set in the snowy expanse of small town Alaska, The Gathering brings its readers into an incredible world where vampires not only exist, but are forced onto reservations. A world where every interaction with humans is met with fear and prejudice.
After a boy is discovered with his throat eviscerated and his blood drained, Barbara Atkins is called in to investigate the murder. If the murder was committed by a vampire as the town believes, then they can slaughter their neighbours in what is called a “Culling”. Fighting against the ingrown hatred between the two groups, Barbara must navigate the thin line of protecting the vampire reservations, all the while deciding if they will be slaughtered by small minded people who want nothing more than to kill what they don’t understand.
A stunning novel that offers something a bit deeper than your average mystery.
6 Books For Summer 2024
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
By Stephen Graham Jones
“Some girls just don’t know how to die…”
Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers” by Tommy Orange.
Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life.
Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.
Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.
Jaws
By Peter Benchley
A great white shark terrorizes the beautiful summer getaway of Amity Island, and a motley group of men take to the water to do battle with the beast. A heart-pounding novel of suspense and a brilliant meditation on the nature of humanity, Jaws is one of the most iconic thrillers ever written.
In addition to Wendy Benchley’s foreword, this edition features bonus content from Peter Benchley’s archives, including the manuscript’s original typed title page, a brainstorming list of possible titles, a letter from Benchley to film producer David Brown with candid feedback on the movie adaptation, and excerpts from Benchley’s book Shark Trouble, highlighting his firsthand account of writing Jaws, selling it to Universal Studios, and working with Steven Spielberg.
After writing Jaws in the early 1970s, Peter Benchley was actively engaged with scientists and filmmakers, and over the ensuing decades, joined many expeditions around the world as they expanded their knowledge of sharks and shark behavior. He encouraged each new generation of Jaws fans to enjoy his riveting tale and to channel their excitement into support and protection of these magnificent prehistoric apex predators
Summer People
By Elin Hilderbrand
“Things get more twisted at every turn, with enough lies and betrayals to fuel a whole season of soap operas…readers will be hooked.”—Publishers Weekly on Elin Hilderbrand’s Summer People
Every summer the Newton family retreats to their beloved home on Nantucket for three months of sunshine, cookouts, and bonfires on the beach. But this summer will not be like any other. When Arch Newton, a prominent New York attorney, dies in a plane crash on his way home from a business trip, his beautiful widow, Beth, can barely keep things together. Above all, though, she decides that she must continue the family tradition of going to Nantucket, and at the same time fulfill a promise that Arch made before he died.
Beth invites Marcus, the son of Arch’s final and most challenging client, to spend the summer with her and her teenage twins, Winnie and Garrett, who have mixed reactions to sharing their special summer place with this stranger. Always a place of peace before, Nantucket becomes the scene of roiling emotions and turbulent passions as Marcus, Winnie, and Garrett learn about loss, first love, and betrayal. And when they stumble upon a shocking secret from Beth’s past, they must keep it from destroying the family they’ve been trying so hard to heal.
Swan Song
By Robert McCammon
Swan is a nine-year-old Idaho girl following her struggling mother from one trailer park to the next when she receives visions of doom—something far wider than the narrow scope of her own beleaguered life. In a blinding flash, nuclear bombs annihilate civilization, leaving only a few buried survivors to crawl onto a scorched landscape that was once America.
In Manhattan, a homeless woman stumbles from the sewers, guided by the prophecies of a mysterious amulet, and pursued by something wicked; on Idaho’s Blue Dome Mountain, an orphaned boy falls under the influence of depraved survivalists and discovers the value of a killer instinct; and amid the devastating dust storms on the Great Plains of Nebraska, Swan forms a heart-and-soul bond with an unlikely new companion. Soon they will cross paths. But only Swan knows that they must endure more than just a trek across an irradiated country of mutated animals, starvation, madmen, and wasteland warriors.
Swan’s visions tell of a coming malevolent force. It’s a shape-shifting embodiment of the apocalypse, and of all that is evil and despairing. And it’s hell-bent on destroying the last hope of goodness and purity in the world. Swan is that hope. Now, she must fight not only for her own survival, but for that of all mankind.
A winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, Swan Song has become a modern classic, called “a chilling vision that keeps you turning pages to the shocking end” by John Saul and “a long, satisfying look at hell and salvation” by Publishers Weekly.
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Duma Key
By Stephen King
Master storyteller Stephen King’s classic, terrifying #1 New York Times bestseller of what happens when the barrier between our world and that of the supernatural is breached.
After a terrible construction site accident severs Edgar Freemantle’s right arm, scrambles his mind, and implodes his marriage, the wealthy Minnesota builder faces the ordeal of rehabilitation, all alone and full of rage. Renting a house on Duma Key—a stunningly beautiful and eerily undeveloped splinter off the Florida coast—Edgar slowly emerges from his prison of pain to bond with Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick, elderly woman whose roots are tangled deep in this place. And as he heals, he paints—feverishly, compulsively, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. For Edgar’s creations are not just paintings, but portals for the ghosts of Elizabeth’s past…and their power cannot be controlled…
The Fireman
By Joe Hill
From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Heart-Shaped Box comes a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman.
The fireman is coming. Stay cool.
No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.
Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.
In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.
May 2024
Hello Everyone!
It’s already May. Here we are nearly halfway through the year and I could not be more grateful and
happy for all of our wonderful customers. On Friday the 31st at 5PM, we are ecstatic to welcome
author David Berg to the store for an amazing evening of NM film history! Check out all of his
amazing books. Available now in store of course.
Don’t forget to check out Stephen King’s new one You Like It Darker., on sale 05/21/2024. As always
I enjoy seeing and speaking with everyone of you and I can’t wait to see you again.
~Kody Young – Purple Fern Bookstore
Book Review by Kody Young
The Watchers
By A.M. Shine
The Watchers as you may know is the latest horror book to receive the movie adaptation treatment from Hollywood. It was that trailer that sent me screaming to this book based on concept alone. A. M. Shine creates a literary horror that drags folk tales through dark brooding horrific action.
When artist Mina, seeking an escape from herself, agrees to transport an exotic bird for some cash, she sees only a quick opportunity for escape and a much needed payday. She isn’t ready for what follows. None of them are.
After her car breaks down and she spends the night being assaulted with horrid sounds Mina has come to the only safe place left. Through a forest that offers little light and seems to eat up all the warmth and sound she has found herself trapped within a small concrete box. More a shed than a bunker. A life raft in an ocean.There are others here as well and they let Mina know the rules. Don’t be outside in the dark. Always let them see you.
They come at night and watch the group through a pane of dirty glass. You can’t see them, but they can see you.
6 New Releases for 2024 So Far
The Women
By Kristen Hannah
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.
As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.
But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.
The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.
Long Island
By Colm Toibin
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.
One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.
Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis’s life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.
The Calamity of Souls
By David Baldacci
Jack Lee is a white lawyer from Freeman County, Virginia, who has never done anything to push back against racism, until he decides to represent Jerome Washington, a Black man charged with brutally killing an elderly and wealthy white couple. Doubting his decision, Lee fears that his legal skills may not be enough to prevail in a case where the odds are already stacked against both him and his client. And he quickly finds himself out of his depth when he realizes that what is at stake is far greater than the outcome of a murder trial.
Desiree DuBose is a Black lawyer from Chicago who has devoted her life to furthering the causes of justice and equality for everyone. She comes to Freeman County and enters a fractious and unwieldy partnership with Lee in a legal battle against the best prosecutor in the Commonwealth. Yet DuBose is also aware that powerful outside forces are at work to blunt the victories achieved by the Civil Rights era.
Lee and DuBose could not be more dissimilar. On their own, neither one can stop the prosecution’s deliberate march towards a guilty verdict and the electric chair. But together, the pair fight for what once seemed impossible: a chance for a fair trial and true justice.
Over a decade in the writing, A Calamity of Souls breathes richly imagined and detailed life into a bygone era, taking the reader through a world that will seem both foreign and familiar.
Table For Two
By Amor Towles
Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.
The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.
In Towles’s novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles.
Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.
You Like It Darker
By Stephen King
“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,” and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.
“Two Talented Bastids” explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,” a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man” asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.
King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.
The Demon of Unrest
By Eric Larson
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.
Apr 2024
Hello Everyone!
Wow! I am so late with this issue! I apologize for being late friends, but it was for the best reasons. Purple Fern Books was presented with a unique opportunity this month to put on an event for the amazing children and staff at the Busy Bugs headstart! Author Michael Sampson was amazing
and signed all the books we donated.
As usual, I also need to say thank you to all the incredible customers that come into our store. You are all the most amazing and unique people and I have had the most amazing conversations. We have increased our bestsellers’ to better accommodate everyone as well. I hope you all enjoy it! I would like to finish by giving a shout out to the Coffee Corral, they are now open and serving amazing products.
Thank you all for listening to me and I hope to see you all soon!
~Kody Young –Purple Fern Bookstore
Book Review by Kody Young
The Ruins
By Scott Smith
While not sold as such, the Ruins is a deeply considered literary horror book written by Scott Smith. A simple tale with simple characters that reads with the ease of our favorite Baldacci’s and Patterson’s, but with characterization that rivals Dickens or King. A group of vacationing kids in their twenties decides to accompany their friend to an archeological dig site in the Mexican jungle that his missing brother has run off to in search of his true love. What they find once they arrive is a simple mound. Covered in deep greenery and beset by a moat of salted earth. Over the course of
the next three days, the friends will bicker and deteriorate and fight off a malignant and sadistic horror that has taken over the world around them. The ruins is a masterfully told tale that never tries to deny its simplistic nature, but embraces it and in turn presents the reader with a
meditation on the plight of its characters. I highly recommend this book.
6 Great Books to Pass the Time With
Cooking with Weed
By Margie Stone
35 quick and easy recipes for snacks, drinks, dinners, and lunches that will send you
stratospheric!
They say that your wedding day or the day your children are born are the best ones of your life. And, sure, they were great days… but if I’m going to be really honest, there were three days in the August of ’69 that go down in history as the best days of my life. Between the 15th and 18th August, 1969, I lost myself and found myself on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York. Woodstock—the festival that rocked the world and defined my generation—was pure, unadulterated fun, love, harmony… and marijuana.
I Will Find You
By Harlan Coben
David Burroughs was once a devoted father to his three-year-old son Matthew, living a dream life
just a short drive away from the working-class suburb where he and his wife, Cheryl, first fell in
love–until one fateful night when David woke suddenly to discover Matthew had been murdered while
David was asleep just down the hall.
Half a decade later, David’s been wrongly accused and convicted of the murder, left to serve out
his time in a maximum-security prison—a fate which, grieving and wracked with guilt, David didn’t
have the will to fight. The world has moved on without him. Then Cheryl’s younger sister, Rachel,
makes a surprise appearance during visiting hours bearing a strange photograph. It’s a vacation
shot of a bustling amusement park a friend shared with her, and in the background, just barely in
frame, is a boy bearing an eerie resemblance to David’s son. Even though it can’t be, David just
knows: Matthew is still alive.
David plans a harrowing escape, determined to achieve the impossible – save his son, clear his own
name, and discover the real story of what happened. But with his life on the line and the FBI
following his every move, can David evade capture long enough to
reveal the shocking truth?
The Angel of Indian Lake
By Stephen Graham Jones
The final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror novels picks up four
years after Don’t Fear the Reaper as Jade returns to Proofrock, Idaho, to build a life after the
years of sacrifice—only to find the Lake Witch is waiting for her in New York Times bestselling
author Stephen Graham Jones’s finale.
It’s been four years in prison since Jade Daniels last saw her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, the
day she took the fall, protecting her friend Letha and her family from incrimination. Since then,
her reputation, and the town, have changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business in
Proofrock, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s
one aspect of Proofrock no one wants to confront…until Jade comes back to town.
The curse of the Lake Witch is waiting, and now is the time for the final stand.
New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones has crafted an epic horror trilogy of
generational trauma from the Indigenous to the townies rooted in the mountains of Idaho. It is a
story of the American west written in blood.
Toxic Prey
By John Sandford
Lucas Davenport and his daughter, Letty, team up to track down a dangerous scientist whose latest
project could endanger the entire world, in this latest thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling
author John Sandford.
Gaia is dying.
That, at least, is what Dr. Lionel Scott believes. A renowned expert in tropical and infectious
diseases, Scott has witnessed the devastating impact of illness and turmoil at critical scale.
Society as it exists is untenable, and the direct link to Earth’s death spiral; population levels
are out of control and people have allowed disarray and disorder to run rampant. While most are
concerned about deadly disease, Scott knows that it is truly humanity itself that will destroy
Gaia. It’s only by removing the threat that the planet can continue to prosper, and luckily, Scott
is just the right man for the job…
When Scott then disappears without a trace, Letty Davenport is tasked with tracking down any and
all leads. Scott’s connections to sensitive research into virus and pathogen spread has multiple
national and international organizations on high alert, and his shockingly high clearance levels at
various institutions, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, make him the last person they’d
like to go missing. As the web around Scott becomes more tangled, Letty calls in her father, Lucas,
help her lead a group of specialists to find Scott as soon as possible. But as Letty and Lucas
begin to uncover startling and disturbing connections between Scott and Gaia conspiracists, their
worst fears are confirmed, and it quickly becomes a race to find him before the virus
he created becomes the perfect weapon.
Head Wounds
By Michael McGarrity
Clayton Istee, son of retired police chief Kevin Kerney, goes up against an elusive Mexican hitman
in a mesmerizing story of murder, revenge, and redemption.
Given a chance to salvage his law enforcement career, Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Detective Clayton
Istee catches a bizarre late-night double homicide at a Las Cruces hotel. Both victims, a man and a
woman, have been scalped with their throats cut.
The murders show all the signs of a signature hit, but national and state crime databases reveal no
similar profiles. Digging into the victims’ backgrounds, Clayton discovers that six months prior
the couple had walked out of a nearby casino with
$200,000 of a high-stakes gambler’s money.
He also learns the crime had been hushed up by an undercover federal DEA agent, who resurfaces and
recruits Clayton for a dangerous mission to seize the Mexican drug lord responsible for the
killings.
Thrust into the nightmare world of borderland drug wars and corrupt cops, Clayton duels with a
cunning assassin poised to kill him and his family in a ferocious climax to the
Kevin Kerney series that is sure to stun.
Local Author, Signed Copies are available in store!
The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties
By Jesse Q. Sutanto
What should have been a family celebration of Chinese New Year descends into chaos when longtime
foes crash the party in this hilariously entertaining novel by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author
of Dial A for Aunties.
After an ultra-romantic honeymoon across Europe, Meddy Chan and her husband Nathan have landed in
Jakarta to spend Chinese New Year with her entire extended family. Chinese New Year, already the
biggest celebration of the Lunar calendar, gets even more festive when a former beau of Second
Aunt’s shows up at the Chan residence bearing extravagant gifts—he’s determined to rekindle his
romance with Second Aunt and the gifts are his way of announcing his courtship.
His grand gesture goes awry however, when it’s discovered that not all the gifts were meant for
Second Aunt and the Chans—one particular gift was intended for a business rival to cement their
alliance and included by accident. Of course the Aunties agree that it’s only right to return the
gift—after all, anyone would forgive an honest mistake, right? But what should have been a simple
retrieval turns disastrous and suddenly Meddy and the Aunties are helpless pawns in a decades- long
war between Jakarta’s most powerful business factions. The fighting turns personal, however, when
Nathan and the Aunties are endangered and it’s up to Meddy to come up with a plan to save them all.
Determined to rescue her loved ones, Meddy embarks on an impossible mission—but with the Aunties by
her side, nothing is truly
impossible…
Feb 2024
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Thank you everyone for such an amazing start to the 2024 year! Your continued love and support for the store is absolutely one of the highlights of my life. I wanted to wish you all a happy holiday and also to let you know that we are having an event featuring author Ellen Wilder Bradburry – Reid and her book “A Nuclear Family” that chronicles her life growing up in Los Alamos during her father’s work with Oppenheimer during World War II. The event will take place on February 23rd at six o’clock PM. I’ll keep this short and sweet, you all have an incredible day!
-Kody Young
Purple Fern Bookstore
Book Review by Kody Young
Gerald’s Game
By Stephen King
In a marriage on the verge of monotony, Jessie Angela Mahout Burlingame finds herself agreeing to her husband’s suggestion for spicing up their failing sex life. A little bondage can go a long way. Shortly after being tied up, Jessie finds herself at the mercy of her situation. Gerald is dead. He has left the keys to her freedom just out of reach. She is in an isolated cabin for a loud and private weekend. She has no water. No one is coming. Jessie must use her ingenuity and all of her mental acuity to free herself before dehydration or starvation kills her. Coming face to face with herself, her mortality and her strength, Gerald’s Game is Jessie’s fight for survival and meaning and the story of her evolution.
6 Romance Novels That Keep Things Exciting
House of Flame and Shadow
By Sarah J. Maas
The stunning third book in the sexy, action-packed Crescent City series, following the global bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath. Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she’s going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that’s no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust. Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he’s in the Asteri’s dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce’s fate. He’s desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri’s leash, his hands are quite literally tied.
In this sexy, breathtaking sequel to the #1 bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath, Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent City series reaches new heights as Bryce and Hunt’s world is brought to the brink of collapse-with its future resting on their shoulders.
Book Lovers
By Emily Henry
Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
The Longest Ride
By Nicholas Sparks
Ira Levinson is in trouble. At ninety- one years old, in poor health and alone in the world, he finds himself stranded on an isolated embankment after a car crash. Suffering multiple injuries, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes and comes into focus beside him: his beloved wife Ruth, who passed away nine years ago. Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together – how they met, the precious paintings they collected together, the dark days of WWII and its effect on them and their families. Ira knows that Ruth can’t possibly be in the car with him, but he clings to her words and his memories, reliving the sorrows and everyday
joys that defined their marriage.
A few miles away, at a local rodeo, a Wake Forest College senior’s life is about to change. Recovering from a recent break-up, Sophia Danko meets a young cowboy named Luke, who bears little resemblance to the privileged frat boys she has encountered at school. Through Luke, Sophia is introduced to a world in which the stakes of survival and success, ruin and reward — even life and death – loom large in everyday life. As she and Luke fall in love, Sophia finds herself imagining a future far removed from her plans — a future that Luke has the power to rewrite . . . if the secret he’s keeping doesn’t destroy it first.
Ira and Ruth. Sophia and Luke. Two couples who have little in common, and who are separated by years and experience. Yet their lives will converge with unexpected poignancy, reminding us all that even the most difficult decisions can yield extraordinary journeys: beyond despair, beyond death, to the farthest reaches of the human heart.
Endless Summer
By Elin Hilderbrand
Bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand revisits her most treasured and iconic characters in this magical collection of stories. Collected in a single volume for the first time, Endless Summer ranges from fan favorites to original, never-before-seen works. In “The Surfing Lesson,” the marriage at the heart of Beautiful Day crosses uncertain territory when Margot Carmichael encourages her husband to reunite with his ex-girlfriend. The legendary weekend of a Harvard-Yale football game in “The Tailgate” recharts the course of Matchmaker Dabney Kimball’s first—and abiding
—true love. And in a brand-new novella, “Summer of ’89,” we reconnect with the Levin sisters, whose distant adult lives collide once again at a tumultuous family reunion on Nantucket.
The Fourth Wing
By Rebecca Yarros
Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from New York Times bestselling
author Rebecca Yarros
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life
among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has
ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon
riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat
away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances
of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the
most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards
are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership
is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter,
there are only two ways out: graduate or
die.
A Dowry of Blood
By S. T. Gibson
This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . .
Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval
peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a
starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable
of terrible things.
Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark
secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between
her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken
by death.
Jan 2024
2024. Wow! Bookseller Notes
Despite the many times it felt as though 2023 might have never ended, we are hereat the start of a new year. The first thing I would like to get off my chest and say is simply this: Thank You. From the bottom of my heart and with the utmost pertinence, I say thank you to everyone of you for shopping with us.
Last year was quite a thing. After a soft opening in February and an official grand opening on April 1st, we went on to have a pretty successful year. We met a slew of amazing people and many more amazing authors and others who serve our literary addictions. Last year was definitely one of the great years of our lives and it was only possible because of all of your generosity.
So, to give you just a bit more information on what exactly you are reading, please allow me to welcome you all to the inaugural edition of the monthly Purple Fern Bookstore Newsletter! Inside you will find a book review for the Chuck Wendig novel “The Book of Accidents” as well as a list of a few cookbooks that might give you a leg up with any new year’s health goals you might have.
With a new year comes many new things. This year especially promises to be an interesting one to say the very least. With both a presidential election coming up as well as our first leap year in four years, we have a few things to look forward to.
Now whether you want to be like me and seek escapism as your means of coping with the excitement to come, or you wish to further educate yourself, we have got you covered.
Book Review by Kody Young
The Book of Accidents
By Chuck Wendig
A prolific writer whose horror offerings range from the bestselling Wanderers to the delicious apples of Black River Orchard, Chuck Wendig gives us a literary horror journey that will leave readers breathless. After the graves family returns to patriarch Nate’s family home following the death of his father, skeletons from both Nate and his partner Maddie’s pasts resurface and threaten to consume their son Oliver and maybe the world right along with it.
And where does the enigmatic Jake fit into it all? After saving Oliver from a potentially life threatening encounter with his bullies Jake presents Oliver with an intoxicating mix of definite danger and incredible wonder. A book about the strength of family and the lengths that we will not hesitate to go to for the ones we love, The Book of Accidents is a masterwork of modern horror that should have a permanent place in any home library.
6 Cookbooks to Help You Reach Your New Year’s Food Goals
The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
By Deborah Madison
In this book you will find a fully realized and comprehensive study of vegetarian recipes in what seeks to be the all around primer for vegetarian cooking. Deborah Madison is to Vegetarian cooking what Julia child was to French cooking, an educator and demystified. From soups to desserts ending on a sweet note, The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone will teach you techniques for cooking, combining ingredients and presenting with a flair of style.
Local Author
The Low Carb Italian Kitchen
By Katie & Giancarlo Caldesi
Following the recent trend of Mediterranean dieting comes a book with recipes that are definitely focused on weight loss, but make no mistake, first and foremost these dishes are delicious! Enjoy food that is both healthy and utterly craveable. If there is one diet that has been touted and proven to have immense and wide ranging benefits, it is the Mediterranean and this book is a perfect entry point. Featuring all of your Italian favorites handled by both food and low calorie experts, this book is a must have for anyone looking to start out the year tackling their health head-on.
Fish for Dinner
By Nathan Outlaw
Driven by a passion in both sustainability and accessibility, Nathan Outlaw has crafted a masterwork of Fish focused dishes That are sure to make you the envy of every pescatarian you invite to your dinner table. Fish for Dinner was created to give the home cook a starting point to approach fish cooking sustainably. This book will teach you all you need to know about purchasing the best quality fish from your local suppliers and how to combine it with the best ingredients for amazing meals!
The Fast 800 Keto Recipe Book
By Dr. Clare Bailey
The incredible companion cook book to Dr. Michael Mosley’s #1 bestselling Fast 800 Keto is here! This book contains a plethora of meals ranging from healthy soups and salads to more robust meals and even the occasional indulgent treat! Complete with a wealth of information on how to incorporate the Fast 800 Keto into your daily life, this book is sure to be just what you need to help boost that weight loss goal!
The Slimming Foodie in Minutes
By Pip Payne
The slimming foodie returns with a recipe book offering meals that all come in under 600 calories! One of our biggest barriers for healthy eating is time and with this book The Slimming Foodie shows us that fast food doesn’t have to lack any nutrition. With 100 delicious recipes, this book is exactly what you need to stay on track of all your fitness goals in the new year!
The Hungry Student Vegetarian Cookbook
By Spruce
The student cookbook with a difference, this book seeks to offer more to the time crunched and study- brained of us. With over
200 distinct plant based recipes, this book will remove any excuse you have for not finding something doable and fun! A perfect book for the student in our family, as well as of us life long learners!