Hey, Readers! Are you ready for my favorite day of the year? It’s Independent Bookstore Day on April 27th! This is an annual holiday where the community gets to celebrate what makes their local bookstore so special, and we have an amazing day planned for you!
At Blue House Books on April 27th from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., shop at Blue House Books to get limited edition items, sales, and giveaways! We’re starting the day off strong by giving away our limited edition Indie Bookstore Day tote bags and stickers to the first 10 people who spend $50 or more!
That’s plenty of time to shop before or after our main event for the day: a panel discussion and book signing from four bestselling authors! From 2 to 5 p.m., join us at the Ralph J Houghton Performing Arts Center at Reuther to meet Jeneva Rose, Mary Jubica, Lindsay Currie, and John Milas! The authors will be chatting about writing, books, and of course, why they love their independent bookstores! All four authors will be available to sign books and take photos with readers after the discussion. A ticket is required for this portion of the day, so be sure to head to our website for more details!
Independent bookstores are at the heart of so many communities. We do so much more than just sell you a product; we are providing events for community members, prompting literacy, providing a space for friends to gather or to make new friends, and so much more! Just this morning, we hosted a morning book release party with excited readers, many of which came alone, but had new book besties by the time they left. Bookstores are a place for everyone to feel comfortable.
Reading can be a very lonely hobby, and while we all need a little alone time, bookstores are a great place to go when that solitude becomes overwhelming. I have seen introverts blossom and extroverts pause and take in a moment of calm at Blue House Books. It’s truly a place of comfort and serenity, and I’m so proud of this environment I have created.
I hope you will join us on Saturday, April 27th for Independent Bookstore Day to help us celebrate Blue House Books and the wonderful community we have created! Read on to learn more about the books we will be celebrating during the author panel discussion. And while you’re reading, be sure to stop by The Buzz to grab their Drink of the Week, a Cookie Crisp Latte, which you should enjoy cold since we are finally getting some sunshine and warmth in Wisconsin!
Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose
From Jeneva Rose, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Marriage and You Shouldn’t Have Come Here, comes a chilling family thriller about the (sometimes literal) skeletons in the closet.
After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before.
While going through their parents’ belongings, the siblings stumble upon a collection of home videos and decide to revisit those happier memories. However, the nostalgia is cut short when one of the VHS tapes reveals a night back in 1999 that none of them have any recollection of. On screen, their father appears covered in blood. What follows is a dead body and a pact between their parents to get rid of it, before the video abruptly ends.
Beth, Nicole, and Michael must now decide whether to leave the past in the past or uncover the dark secret their mother took to her grave.
She’s Not Sorry by Mary Kubica
The instant New York Times bestseller that BookTok is calling “absolutely A-M-A-Z-I-N-G” (@hollylovesbooks1519) and “impossible to put down” (@kurryreads), from the author of Local Woman Missing and Just the Nicest Couple.
Everyone has secrets, but not everyone has remorse…
A terrible accident.
Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse, when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over twenty feet to the train tracks below.
A shocking revelation.
When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin’s fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was a crime committed? Did someone actually push Caitlin, and if so, who… and why?
No one is safe.
Meghan lets herself get close to Caitlin until she’s deeply entangled in the mystery surrounding her. Only when it’s too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims…
The Mystery of Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie
Instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller!
Crack the codes. Find the treasure. Escape the house.
From the acclaimed author of Scritch Scratch and What Lives in the Woods comes a action-packed adventure novel about three friends who team up to find a hidden treasure in an abandoned 1950’s funhouse.
Twelve-year-old Sarah Greene wants nothing more from her seventh-grade year than to beat the hardest escape room left in her town with her best friends, West, and Hannah. But when a foreclosure notice shows up on Sarah’s front door, everything changes. Since her father became ill two years ago, things have been bad, but not lose your house bad…until now.
Sarah feels helpless until the day Hannah mentions a treasure rumored to be hidden in the walls of an abandoned funhouse. According to legend, Hans, Stefan, and Karl Stein were orphaned at eight years old and lived with different families until they were able to reunite as adults. Their dream was to build the most epic funhouse in existence. They wanted their experience to be more than mirror mazes and optical illusions, so they not only created elaborate riddles and secret passages, but they also claimed to have hidden a treasure inside the funhouse.
Once in, Sarah, West, and Hannah realize the house is unlike any escape room they’ve attempted. There are challenges, yes, but they feel personal. Like the triplets knew who would get in. It seems impossible, but so does everything about the house. As soon as they’re in she immediately worries that attempting the funhouse is a bad idea but Sarah has no choice but to continue, since her future is at stake.
The Militia House by John Milas
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize
“An extraordinary novel about the quiet and not so quiet horrors of war.” —Roxane Gay
Stephen King meets Tim O’Brien in John Milas’s The Militia House, a spine-tingling and boldly original gothic horror novel.
It’s 2010, and the recently promoted Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties here are straightforward—loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters—and their days are a mix of boredom and dread. The Brits they’re replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don’t need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it.
It’s a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house. In the days that follow they try to forget about the strange, unsettling sights and sounds from the house, but things are increasingly . . . not right. Loyette becomes determined to ignore his and his marines’ growing unease, convinced that it’s just the strain of war playing tricks on them. But something about the militia house will not let them go.
Meticulously plotted and viscerally immediate in its telling, The Militia House is a gripping and brilliant exploration of the unceasing horrors of war that’s no more easily shaken than the militia house itself.
