Welcome to August!

Quick update on our sister site Book Notification, Launched last year, you can get notified of new books by your favourite authors, track your “want to read” list, rate and review books, see what books you are still to read by an author and so much more.

We’re now at over 51,000 authors audited and listed, more than 10x the size of Order Of Books.

My goal is for it to become the ultimate website for book readers. We’re always hard at work catering to all users and adding features that will make your experience better. I’m one of many people who used Goodreads for years, but unfortunately became disenchanted with it for many reasons, so my dream is one day this will become the alternative that people flock to.

What I really enjoy about the site is that I get to make the site what I want as well. If there is a feature I’d like to see in a book site, I get to implement it on my own site. It’s quite neat as sometimes we’ll implement a feature based purely on one of my interests, and then get e-mails from users thanking us for such a great inclusion. I love that sort of thing.

One big feature we launched last month is in relation to ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) reviews. You can read our July newsletter for all the details but in short – while ARCs serve a great purpose, they can taint book ratings. I’ve run the data on a lot of books, and when you don’t factor in ARC reviews, the overall ratings are universally lower. We now offer the option to filter out ARC reviews from average ratings etc. if you so choose.

One of my favourite features on there is “Booktalks”, where I interview people inside the book world, but not authors. I’ve conducted author interviews in the past, and honestly I feel they get quite boring after awhile. Plus, you can read author interviews everywhere.

Last month we interviewed J.D. Barker, who hosts the Writers Ink., Podcast, and I just finished interviewing Kerry Young, a book reviewer who participates in book “blog tours”. I find that sort of information really neat to read and learn about.

So if you’re not registered yet – head over to Book Notification, and if there are any features you ever want on there, big or small, don’t hesitate to reach out.

We’ve also started a reader mailbag over there. This month’s question was “Top 10 Book Series To Have When Stranded on a Deserted Island” and we had over 15,000 responses. I know many of you will be nodding knowingly when you see what is #1.

The only negative with the site is that it currently takes up so much of my time! It’s affecting the amount of books I read!

What’s even more frustrating about that is if I read fewer books, and don’t like them. Which, unfortunately, happened a couple of times this month.

First up – The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley. I won’t beat about the bush on this one: I absolutely hated it. I read it alongside my wife, and when we were done we just talked about how disappointed we were.

The book started very weirdly – as if the author had received a Word of the Day calendar and wanted to show off her new vocabulary. It wasn’t like her writing style at all and felt weird. She dropped that a few chapters in and I started to really enjoy the book.

Then it just got messy. There’s not much I can say without spoiling it. But she repeated the exact same “twist” over and over again about characters not recognizing other characters that they should have recognized, and it was really played out. And there was all this nonsense with crows and people dressing up as crows and yeah – not a book I enjoyed. With that and The Paris Apartment, Lucy is unfortunately not on my “blindly buy” list anymore. Let’s move on.

I finished listening to A Noise Downstairs by Linwood Barclay. Here’s the story of this one: Paul Davis happens upon a man who has murdered two women. The man attacks Paul and knocks him out, but the police show up and save him from death.

He’s suffering from PTSD, and his wife buys him an old typewriter to encourage him to work on the novel he has always planned. At night, he hears noises from the typewriter and when he goes down there are messages written in it – and he believes it is from the two girls who were murdered.

So he believes it’s possessed. No Linwood books have ever dealt with a horror aspect before, so as a reader, that’s just not something you really believe is the case. On top of that, at a point later in the book, he declares that it HAS to be ghosts, as he has “exhausted every possibility”.

But he hadn’t. He hadn’t changed the locks to the garage door entrance, or set up cameras in the office to see if anyone came in. He didn’t take it to an electronics shop to see if it was malfunctioning. It’s funny as it was just a phrase, but it really stood out and bothered me.

The book itself? The main character was a bit all over the place. There didn’t seem to be any real attempt to dive into the mystery of it.

The final act started with a BIG twist that stunned me though. I always love it when a book catches you off guard like that. Like – complete shock. And it had dragged it into the above-average star rating category. Only to ruin it with one of those silly endings. My wife was laughing because I had 10 minutes to go in the audiobook, had said I was enjoying it, then out loud yelled “NO! Why did you have to do that!” – not towards a specific character, but towards the author itself.

Unfortunately, A Noise Downstairs is another one I can’t recommend.

I’m listening to The Lie Maker by Linwood right now. It’s a cool concept about an author who gets a job writing for the US Marshals. His job is to write “characters” for the witness protection program. I should have that finished shortly. I’ve enjoyed it so far and entering the final act, and my overall thoughts hinge on that.

A reader recommended Identical by Saskia Sarginson. I’ve never read anything by Saskia, but it sounded like an interesting plot. Two twin sisters and one needs to leave her family for a week, so she asks the other sister, who her family doesn’t know exists, to step in and take her place.

While a neat premise, it didn’t follow through. The big “twist” seemed fairly obvious early on, and it was one of those books that stumbles at the end, getting worse with each chapter.

So yeah – three books read, and all three of them got ratings lower than 5/10 from me. Not the best month.

I’ve started reading The Vanishing by Bentley Little. It’s the usual Bentley Little one – just completely messed up. Not an author you can binge but I think he is superb and always read a book by him every couple of months.

After that, I’ll be reading It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. My daughter wants us to both read it and then go see the adaptation. I’ve heard so much about Colleen so it’ll be interesting to read.

I’ll also take any excuse to promote the excellent Survivalist series by A. American. I had read the first five books in that series when my wife started reading the first one and she loved it. I told her I’d wait for her to catch up then we could read together, but she got into other books.

Thankfully she got motivated to read that again and is binging it and just about caught up. So I’ll be able to get that going as well.

I thought I might start sharing some of the “fun” we have to deal with running websites such as this. It’s already so much work as it is, and then there are a few “nightmare” authors who create so many random issues for us.

Here are two scenarios and I’ll never actually name the authors but these two cause us a big headache:

1: An author who will list about 6 upcoming new books in a series at once complete with ISBN. All different dates about 6 months in the future. Then they’ll randomly change the date and release them that day. And completely out of order. So the book scheduled for January 2025 which is Book 12 in the series, is then released out of nowhere August 1st and becomes Book 8 in the series.

2: An author who issues books under an ISBN, and then changes them or re-uses old ISBNs. We notice we are missing a new book by an author. Import the ISBN, only to be told “Book B” in “Series ABC” is actually already in the system, but it’s titled “Book XYZ” and it’s already in “Series XYZ”.

That sends us down a rabbit hole as we find a trail of books like that. And what should have been a simple job – adding one book to an existing series – becomes a two-hour job as we have to completely re-audit the author. Then in a few months, they do it again!

Just some of the fun we deal with.

Each month we give away 5 $25 Amazon gift certificates to random subscribers. 

To win all you have to do is be a subscriber. Nothing more! When we go to hit “Publish” we take a list of all of our subscribers, throw them into a random draw and those are the winners.

Our winners this month are:

Patricia D V from Fort Lauderdale, FL

Christine (email begins with clep) from Ballwin, MO

Dub B from Aiken, SC

Laurel K from Candler, NC

John (email begins with cor) from Paoli, PA

All of you have been e-mailed. If you don’t see anything, check your junk folder or contact me.

Graeme

OrderOfBooks.com

Quotes of the Month

“TIME MACHINES EXIST. THEY exist in stories. All that is necessary to open the portal is a trip to your local library. Browse the bays, select your title, and settle in to be transported into history.

The first stories, told around fires, passed on lessons of battle and of the hunt in an effort to keep the family, the tribe, the community, and even the species, alive. We are all here today because our ancestors listened to those stories, heeded their lessons and in turn passed them along to the next generation. We all share this connection to the past. We are all here today because of the power of story.”

– Jack Carr, author notes in Red Sky Mourning.

“Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.”

– John Steinbeck, East of Eden

– Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul

– Joyce Carol Oates

Thanks to Jan and Fred for submitting quotes this month. Submit your own quotes; just hit reply. Book-related is great but happy to share non-book related too! Love seeing quotes from books!

Book recommendations

In this section, I give 3-5 random book recommendations from readers of the newsletter. They can be old books, they can be new. Feel free to e-mail suggestions to me. Just hit reply. If you wish to add a description for the book around the same size as the ones below that’d be great too! 

Amy Cornwall Series by James Patterson and Brendan Dubois: Only two books in this series so far, but it’s proving very popular. Judy finished the second book and wrote in to recommend it, describing it as a nail-biter where Amy has just five days to save the world.

In the first book, Amy Cornwall, an Army Ranger, receives a phone call telling her she must find and free a captive within 48 hours. If she doesn’t, then they will kill her husband and ten year old daughter.

Blood In The Cut by Alejandro Nodarse: A debut novel by Alejandro, released in June. Our good friend Keith wrote in to recommend it after listening to the audiobook. Here is what he said:

“I thoroughly enjoyed actor Danny Pino’s (L&O – SVU, etc.) outstanding performance of Alejandro Nodarse’s excellent first novel, “Blood In The Cut”. The book is another installment in the burgeoning Southern Noir genre, sharing the tone and “feel” of S. A. Cosby’s books.”

“However, instead of rural Virginia, this book is set in the world of poor Cuban immigrant families in Miami’s “Little Havana” neighborhood and the fringes of the Everglades.”

” The story revolves around recently released convict Iggy Guerra, his family, and the family business – a failing butcher shop (Carniceria). Iggy is grieving his recently deceased mother, coping with his alcoholic father, dealing with an aggressive upstart competitor, contending with an eco-terrorist, and trying to stay out of prison while working side jobs for an unethical hunter / rancher (who may also be a neo-Nazi). This is a grimly realistic story about a family beset by trouble from all directions, and what they will do to survive. I highly recommend this book, but especially the audiobook version. Danny Pino’s English and Spanish voices gave his performance an air of authenticity which sounded more personal than most readings. I look forward to more work from both actor and author.”

Always appreciate Keith’s recommendations and I’m planning on listening to this one soon.

Knitorious Murder Mystery Series by Reagan Davis: Reagan is a Canadian author, and this is a cozy mystery series. Janet wrote in to recommend it, saying that her knitting group discovered it and found it delightful.

The series has a short novella prequel, but you can dive right in with Knit One, Murder Two, the first book in the series.

It’s a very popular series which takes place in Harmony Lake in Canada. The books are all standalone as well, although it’s best to read in order for the character development.

Dragonfly by Leila Meacham: Linda recommended this one. She said it’s a WWII story with a new twist, and one that she “couldn’t put down”.

During WWII, five idealistic young Americans from diverse backgrounds are recruited by the OSS to fight for their country, forming a group code-named Dragonfly.

After being dropped behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Paris, they navigate a dangerous cat-and-mouse game, culminating in the capture and apparent execution of one team member, raising questions about the true nature of their mission.

Replay by Ken Grimwood: One that I’ll recommend once per year in here – probably my favourite book of all time. I went out and bought over 100 copies of it, and give them to friends, stick them in little libraries etc.

43-year-old Jeff Winston dies suddenly of a heart attack in 1988 and awakens in his 18-year-old body in 1963, retaining all his memories of his previous life and gets to “replay” his life. Again. And again. And again.

I really don’t want to say any more. Just an absolutely superb book which covers so many scenarios and leaves no stone unturned.

August Book Of The Month

Shadow of Doubt by Brad Thor: Brad Thor is one of the main reasons this website is around today, so when he has a new book coming out, I’ll always promote it strongly.

Long story short – OrderOfBooks.com was a six month old website getting about 2-3 visitors per day.

Brad Thor went on the Piers Morgan show on CNN in 2011, and suddenly everyone was searching for his books. We happened to rank #1 for the list of his books, and we went from 2-3 visitors per day to thousands overnight, and it just continued to roll on from there. So thank you Brad – I owe a lot to you.

Oh yeah – the book. It’s “Shadow of Doubt”. It’s the latest Scot Harvath novel. If you like spy thrillers, enjoy Mitch Rapp, Jack Reacher, the Gray Man etc then you will love this series. This is the 23rd book and it’s still going strong.

10 More Notable Books Releasing in August

Brought to you by BookNotification.com where you can get updated on all the upcoming books by your favourite authors with your own personalized calendar!

August Charities

While I appreciate all offers of donations to show your appreciation for the site and newsletter, I’d much rather you do that by supporting some great causes.  Each month I pick a few select charities broken down by our most popular countries or topics that you can support instead.   Thanks! Feel free to donate to a similar charity but in your own area.

Asher House Dog Rescue

Hobbitstee Wildlife Refuge

Unicef

Water First

I rotate this list each month.  Feel free to suggest a favourite charity – hit reply.

Pictures of the Month

Kansas City Library’s Community Bookshelf Kansas City, Missouri. Submited by Deborah.

Submitted by Noel and by Debbie Ridpath

Submitted by Mike.

Send in your own to site@orderofbooks.com or by replying! Images, jokes, etc. We’ll take it all! Bit of a backlog but working my way through it.

Your Thoughts!

Last month I asked “what odd reasons have caused you to read a particular book”?. The replies are later in the newsletter.

This month, the question is twofold:

What book character has the best name? And what book character has the worst name?

For best name – I mean I like the simple short ones we get from a lot of spy thriller books. Mitch Rapp. Jack Reacher. That sort of thing.

There’s also a lot of names that just stick with you, such as Atticus Finch or Horatio Hornblower. Very memorable.

As for worst names? I mentioned the “spy thriller” names above. Two of the worst names for me would be “Courtland Gentry” from the Gray Man novels, and “Dewey Andreas” from the Ben Coes novels. Neither of those roll off the tongue and always seem such weird choices.

What About You? What do you think the best and worst character names are?

E-mail us your feedback to site@OrderOfBooks.com  or just reply to this e-mail, and we’ll pick the best comments and feature it in next month’s newsletter.  Five people will also randomly win a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.

Book Notification
Order of Books » Newsletter » OrderOfBooks August 2024 Newsletter

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