Don't forget, folks. Mark your calendars for the release of the following books in May/June. Click the link for each title to read my thoughts; if they spark your fancy, then make sure to put a hold on them at the library, download them on audio, or buy the book from your favorite independent bookseller.

Today, May 29, 2012

So Far Away, by Meg Mitchell Moore is a coming of age tale set in Boston, combining the lives of three women at different points in their lives. One woman is about to retire, a teenager suffers from the results of her parents' divorce and school bullying, and an Irish maid's diary from the turn of the century is found in a basement. What a compelling and fraught with anxiety story.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn! The first two lines of my review are "Oh, my GAWD, Gillian Flynn can write. I am not kidding." A twisted story that is so engaging that you will not be able to put it down. The perfect couple moves from New York to a small town in Missouri, and the wife suddenly disappears with no trace. The search to find the wife reveals layers upon layers of dark secrets and the husband becomes the only suspect for her disappearance. and is vilified in the court of public opinion. This is one sick and twisted story and I promise you will have a hard time not wanting to find every excuse to get some quiet time to read it.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker is a quietly and beautifully told story of a young girl's coming-of-age when the world is about to end. When the reliable spinning of the earth on its axis begins to slow down, the subsequent effects of the "slowing" begin to take its toll, both physically and emotionally on society. Each day is a questioning step towards the potential end of existence, but the world tries to maintain order in spite of the obvious results. It's a frantically quiet book, and one that has been optioned for a film.

Oh, heck YEAH, I'm joining Trish's readalong for Stephen King's The Stand. This will be perfect for The Stephen King Project that Kathleen and I are hosting this year. The Stand is a book I wanted to read this year anyway, and I thought I'd be reading it more in the fall, but hey, if there are going to be a bunch of folks reading it around the same time, then sign me up!

There are two versions of this book, with Stephen King expanding on the story in 1990. I'm going with that "uncut" version for this readalong and I am stoked. I've heard that this is *the* book to read if you want to read Stephen King.

Here are Trish's basics for the readalong:

• When: June 1st through July 27th
• Where: Post your sign up by clicking here. Post midway through the book will go up July 1st, wrap-up will go July 27th. (If you are reading the original version, you should be at Chapter 38 for the midway check-in. If you are reading the "uncut" version, you should be at Chapter 48 for the midway check-in.)
• How: However you want. Original (shorter) version, Uncut version, Audio version.

Standalong Get to Know You

1. What makes you want to read The Stand? It's one I've always wanted to read, but my enthusiasm ramped up even more so since Kathleen and I started The Stephen King Project this year. I've heard it's the book to read!
2. Describe your preconceived notions of The Stand? It's insanely huge, it's going to consume my life, and I am so READY.
3. What was the last scary(ish) book you read or movie you saw? I love, LOVE scary books and movies. The last really scary book I read was another Stephen King book, 'Salem's Lot. That one had me looking over my shoulder.
4. Which version of the book will you be reading? I'll probably do a combo of the hardback from the library or ebook version.
5. What are your previous experiences with Stephen King? I've been reading a number of his works this year because of The Project, so I feel I've been getting a good education on his writing style. Which I LOVE.
6. Anything else you'd like to add (bonus points for being extra random). Stephen King is the MAN.

So why not join? Let's have fun with Stephen King over the summer!

"I know where I stand now," he said, looking with friendly eyes from one of the police-detectives to the other. "I'm sorry I got up on my hind legs, but you birds coming in and trying to put the work on me made me nervous. Having Miles knocked off bothered me, and then you birds cracking foxy. That's all right now, though, now that I know what you're up to."

Nothing says good ole Americana like Dashiell Hammett's 1920s detective novel The Maltese Falcon.

Tough Sam Spade never knew how it all would unfold when the beautiful and mysterious Miss Wonderley walked into his detective agency asking for help to find her sister. When his fellow detective and business partner Miles Archer decides to follow a man Miss Wonderley identifies as the reason for her sister's disappearance, Spade never realizes that the case he takes would result in his partner's murder and a chase for an historical artifact that carries a legend centuries old.

This is just how I like my rainy day weekends. With shady characters like Gutman and Cairo, it's only Sam Spade and his code of honor, along with his tough-talking, level-setting secretary Effie who will always keep him on the straight and narrow. Dashiell Hammett's story is slick and savvy old-time detective noir and I loved every moment of it. This is what later novels of tired and smart detective stories are based on, and the formula that Hammett creates will remain timeless. After all, who doesn't love a good story of figuring out how to get the prized treasure and falling in love, all while never once breaking any ethics? I know I sure love it.

When I took a deeper dive into Dashiell Hammett's history, I found that he's just as interesting as the stories and characters he invented. After he dropped out of school at fourteen-years-old, he worked a variety of jobs before he got a job at the world-famous detective agency, Pinkerton's. Serving in both World Wars, Hammett began to write about sleuthing and was one of the major players who set the foundation for great mysteries. I mean, when you think about it, before there was some dude named Dan Brown, Dashiell Hammett was already crafting the art of true detection and legendary treasures. Sounds pretty good to me, and I think I might stick with this time period a little while longer.

I'm all about picking up The Thin Man next. Dashiell Hammett has just the right way to sweep me up into another time and place.

"We begin well, sir," the fat man purred, turning with a proffered glass in his hand. "I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink too much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does."

Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, Vintage Books, a division of Random House
Release Date: 1929
Pages: 217

FTC Disclosure: Straight off my shelf, personal copy.


About the Author

Dashiell Hammett is the famous American author of classic detective noir novels The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man. Serving in both World War I and II, Hammett continued his writing and eventually died in 1961.

Well, another week starts and I'll be in Atlanta Monday through Wednesday. This trip is strictly work, so I'll have limited reading time. You know how it is, in work meetings all day long and you head back to the hotel to catch up on work emails. Ugh.

Anyway, I'm really digging my two whole months with no review commitments. After reading American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century, I was hit with the pre-war bug and now I'm reading:

• The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Which I am loving. Sam Spade is the original bad-a$#, I must admit.
• Exodus by Leon Uris will be next. I've flipped through this but wrote it off as a book my grandparents would read (not sure why that would matter). Suffice it to say I read the first few pages and I'm hooked. So, that'll be next.
• After that? I think I might stick with books written from 1900 to 1960. It's fun to read the way we all used to chit-chat with each other. So much so that my husband and I looked up slang from the 1940s and started calling each other "angel cake" all day, and then kept saying to each other when we wanted to head to a restaurant and eat a lot "let's grab the percolator and make tracks. I could bash." Not like we were rolling in beans, but you understand what I'm saying.

See ya cats next week.

I am the type of reader that reads fiction most of the time. It's books like this (like Erik Larsen and his brilliant The Devil in the White City) which remind me that truth is much stranger, and many times much more interesting, than fiction.

The full title of this true crime non-fiction book is American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century. A fitting and dramatic title of results following the terrorist attack on the building of the Los Angeles Times on October 1, 1910. In the months that followed, the war between capital and labor was brought to the forefront in not just the world of case-making and detection, but in legal battles in the courthouse, and with silent film and the birth of Hollywood. Three men would become involved in the "crime of the century," either directly or on the periphery of the labor movement, at the time in America's history when unions and capitalists were battling for victory.

As the dust was settling on the collapse of the building that housed the plant supporting the Los Angeles Times, it was discovered that at least twenty-one people, if they had survived the explosion, had subsequently perished in a horrible and suffocating fire. It was a terrorist attack of paramount proportions and the city of Los Angeles was left reeling, searching for an answer and looking for help. The city didn't expect that history would be made yet again.

• Billy Burns, a world-famous detective often compared to America's version of the fictional Sherlock Holmes, was hired by the Mayor to find the perpetrators.
• Clarence Darrow, the famous lawyer who fought for the poor, would represent the culprits.
• And the infamous D.W. Griffith, the man whose talents as a filmmaker and initiator of the eventual land of Hollywood, would forever be overshadowed by a sweeping epic movie of racism.

What follows is Howard Blum's readable and effective narrative of the "crime of the century." Put simply, it is non-fiction that is actually interesting. Easy to understand. And most importantly, generates the type of enthusiasm for a reader to research more. I spent my night looking up pictures and reading annotated papers...

I was caught up in the story and fascinated by the early fights and battles between the unionists and capitalists. Granted, I know enough about that history to answer a question here or there in a game of Trivial Pursuit, but for the most part, it's a fairly foreign history for me and I regret that. Howard Blum's book has motivated me to read more non-fiction. While we all know bribery and corruption exists, it's always fascinating to read how casual and accepted it can be. And public displays of dramatic behavior? Who better than a brash bruiser of a detective and an alcoholic lawyer later in history to get into a public fist-fight in a courthouse? I can just imagine the dramatics of the time, the flurry of reporters rushing to phone booths to put their story in. I need to read more about this time, no excuses.

Alexandria Hotel

The only subjects I wanted more information about were the Alexandria Hotel and the journalist Mary Field. The hotel just seemed majestic and fascinating. I love design from the turn of the century and the face of the city as told by its buildings. The Alexandria Hotel was *the* place where everyone who was anyone stayed, which I found intriguing. I wanted to feel the luxury of it more, and I wanted to get a better sense of how it could ironically fit into the landscape of this war between capital and labor. It certainly was the complete representation of all things rich. How D.W. Griffith and Clarence Darrow could stay in such splendor when they were apparent advocates of the poor and downtrodden struck me as bizarre. I could completely appreciate that Billy Burns would stay there; after all, he never made any pretense about his enjoyment of fame and money. But, it just struck me as odd for the other two, most especially for Darrow, then Griffith, I guess. Griffith told the stories of the downtrodden only to serve his own purposes of achieving fame. But Darrow?

And what about Mary Field's history? Mary Field was a journalist in the early 1900s, who covered stories near and far from New York. A successful female journalist in the 1900s! To me, that is exciting. I wanted more. Instead, that seemed to be less interesting compared to the fact that she was Clarence Darrow's lover and confidante. A shame to not explore her backstory, even just a few pages more. (I couldn't find a picture of her anywhere, so I included the actress Mary Pickford, who was Griffith's muse.)

Griffith's muse, actress Mary Pickford

And while I thought D.W. Griffith was definitely an important part of movie history, for all of his eclectic and egomaniacal ways, I thought the subject of his most known and epic film that cost so much money seemed a bit glossed over in the description of how racist it was. Cinematic talent, sure, but D.W. Griffith certainly etched himself in history as representative of early preconceptions and stereotypes, inflaming audiences with even more discrimination and depicting the Ku Klux Klan with a "fairytale" gallantry. It was easy to see that Howard Blum is by trade a reporter, so he definitely retains his objectivity, but I wanted something to be included that showed how, while Griffith's film-making was ahead of its time, it still continues to affect us today when we watch its blatant disregard for real history.

Even for those minor moments, the true core of the story kept me motivated to pick up the book at each break and evening. For those who read much quicker, you'll finish it easily in a day. Howard Blum does not dive into confusing moments with too many annoying words getting in the way of the actual story; in that, he's like a modern-day Hemingway. It is what it is and he will not extrapolate ridiculously to flower up the language to tell you what happened. (Kinda like what I did in that sentence, huh?)

I enjoyed this book and I suspect that those who enjoy true crime and non-fiction will enjoy it, too. I'll definitely pick up his other books, which are listed below.

Publisher: Crown Publishers

Release Date: 2008

Pages: 321

FTC Disclosure: Straight off my bookshelf.

About the Author

Howard Blum is the author of the New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award winner American Lightning, as well as such bestselling books as Wanted!, The Gold Exodus, and Gangland. He is currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. While at the New York Times, he was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. The Floor of Heaven: A True Story of the Old West and the Yukon Gold Rush was released in April 2011. Twentieth Century Fox is developing FLOOR as a major motion picture.

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The radio was her lifeline, the games her life preserver. Without them to look forward to, she thought she would simply give up. (p.174)

Do you remember when you were a little kid, say around nine-years-old, and your dark bedroom was scary? With the covers up to just below your eyes, you'd listen to every creak or see the moonlight shift the shadows throughout the night and think that something was in there with you. Now imagine again that you're nine-years-old and you have this fear, but let's pretend you're not in your safe bedroom at home, but instead you're lost. Lost in the big, bad woods in northern New England that stretch for hundreds of miles and you cannot find your way out.

With one older brother, Peter, together they've moved with their mother into a new neighborhood after their parents recently divorced. Trisha and Peter only get to see their father every other weekend or so, and only then is when she can talk about baseball, and her love for her favorite baseball pitching closer, Tom Gordon. When they're not visiting their father, they attend their new school and visit a museum one weekend, the movies the next. Divorce is never easy, and their mother is trying to make things as much fun as possible to make the transition easier.

On a clear day, Trisha, Peter, and their mother go on a new venture and take a hike through the woods. With a few supplies and food for the day, they begin their trek. It's only when her mom and Peter are in yet another argument about the change in schools that Trisha decides to slip off the trail to use the bathroom. Without telling either of them where she's going, she steps off the path and makes her way  further into the woods to find a private spot where no one can see her. When she tries to return to the path, she realizes she's turned around and doesn't know where to go. With a fateful step in the wrong direction, she gets immediately lost and begins a journey that will make her grow up much, much too soon. Carrying her meager supplies and a small Walkman that brings her the Red Sox games on AM stations, Trisha's coming-of-age tale with thoughts of her family, the divorce, baseball, and survival, is heart-breaking. I was absorbed in this story and cheered for Trisha, hoping that she would somehow make it out and be back home with her family. I was struck yet again by how Stephen King can just tell a story and make it feel so real.

And there's just something about the way Stephen King writes about kids that makes you feel like you're always choking back tears.

I loved everything about this story. While I missed how Stephen King brings the back story of minor characters into the mix of it all, I was completely okay with that because the overall story is so refreshingly different than what he's done before in the books I've read this year. The story of a nine-year-old relying on herself to survive, battling the elements and her own inner doubt, coming to terms with divorce and the change in seeing her father consistently because of it, her love of the Red Sox and particularly Tom Gordon, was all incredibly genuine and touching. When Trisha listens to the Red Sox games on the radio, my heart broke, and when she began to see visions of Tom Gordon accompanying her through the woods in his baseball uniform, it broke a little bit more.

This is one of Stephen King's books that seem to pit fans on one side of the fence or the other. A quick scan through the StephenKing.com fan forum reflects this polarization and a lot of it seems to come down to whether or not it's good because it does, or doesn't, include a strong supernatural element. Granted, there was just enough to cut your teeth on, but this was not a horror story at all; rather, it's a story of a little kid's survival through the woods of New England all on her own. With her limited knowledge of things that you can eat in the wild, she makes a lot of good choices and some bad ones. Some fans feel Trisha acted a lot older for her age, but I honestly didn't think so. I felt like it was a good representation of the body and mind willing itself to survive, fighting death no matter what, and I could completely believe that a nine-year-old who might be lost in the woods during the summer might be able to make it through, and I was hoping for it. It didn't seem like such high-falutin' nonsense to me. Her thoughts were "young-like," especially her own chatter to herself when she needed to hear a voice. Even if she was talking to the reassuring image of Tom Gordon in his Red Sox baseball uniform. It all fit just right.

If anyone read Lisey's Story, part of me thinks that maybe Trisha got lost in the land of Boo'ya Moon.

Final Thoughts? In comparison to Stephen King's chunkster books, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a quick read at 219 pages and is daggone good. It would be a good selection for those who want to try Stephen King but don't want to start out with his books that include supernatural elements.

Image credit

Tom Gordon was the Red Sox closer for a few seasons, and man, he was good. Pitching with the likes of Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield, it was Tom Gordon who was brought in at the end to seal the deal, his famous finger-pointing to the sky acknowledging the one above for the win. Trisha's fan reverence of Tom Gordon centers around his consistent talent and his incredibly calm demeanor as he looks in to the catcher, Jason Varitek, for the signal, swirling the ball behind his back before his wind-up. It's this strength in "stillness" before the pitch Trisha's always admired and what she now needs to rely on within herself in order to do everything she can to make her way out of the woods.

Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: 1999
Pages: 219

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is now also a pop-up children's book and was being discussed for a film adaptation, but looks like talks on it have stalled.

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty novels, including The Stand, The Dark Tower series, It, The Shining, oh...what more can be written that one doesn't already know. So here you go, click here to visit this wicked cool author's official website.

The Stephen King Project. My education (and others') continues! The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is another selection for the challenge Kathleen and I are hosting. The site can be found (with other participants' reviews) here.

Well, my, oh my. It's been a while since I put together a Sunday Salon post. I wish I could be more consistent with this, but it's been a crazy five months (is it really May?), and I've got a few things to share:

• Work: is crazy and I got a promotion, which is great, but the new role requires a lot of new things that I've never done before and I'm held to a much different standard and I. Am. Nervous. I really hope I can do well.
• Smash: Has anyone been watching the TV show, Smash? I had the entire season recorded on the DVR and took a lazy weekend to watch and now I'm all caught up. I watched The Voice this year and kept meaning to watch Smash and never did until now. Hello, Ellis? You sleaze.
• Non-Fiction is just the ticket: To cure the "I-just-read-a-book-I-didn't-like-at-all" issue. I love old movies, silent films, and Old Hollywood so American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum is helping pull me out of that reading funk. Apparently, it's going to combine the birth of Hollywood and a major crime that happened in Los Angeles in 1910. I have a sense it might be a little like The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen and I am A-ok with that type of non-fiction.
• No review commitments: I have no review commitments for two months! I CAN READ ANYTHING I WANT! Woot-woot!

Okay, that's all. Have a Happy Mother's Day to all.

A terrible fire consumes a private school and two people are hurt. Grace, and her seventeen-year-old daughter Jenny, suffer extreme injuries and are in the hospital, both in deep comas. The results of the fire leave a family broken, waiting to see if Grace and Jenny will survive, and Adam, Grace's eight-year-old son, is blamed for starting the fire.

Grace and Jenny hover in an in-between state. They are outside of their bodies and can communicate with each other, move around the hospital and follow others, completely unseen. They firmly believe Adam didn't cause the fire, and they investigate to find who did. Since Jenny can't remember events right before the fire, it's up to Grace to do the legwork, and unbeknownst to Sara, her sister-in-law who is also a police officer, Grace follows her throughout the investigation to exonerate her son. All the while, Grace keeps watch over her husband and children and feels the strong love which, when it comes to family, will never die.

Guys, I'm really sorry. I tried but I found this extremely difficult to enjoy. While the mystery was intriguing, Rosamund Lupton employs the second person point-of-view, which means that the primary character, Grace, is communicating in a "you" format. The "you" she is referencing is her husband, and while there were several tender moments that clearly expressed Grace's strong foundation of devotion to her husband and children, it just became tough to read the book with "you" instead of "he" in every moment with her husband. I unexpectedly realized that around page 250, I had started to skim to get a better idea of what was happening, and skipping over each "you" as much as I possibly could.

While I found it tough, I applaud the author for her creative attempt and I know that others will (and have) enjoyed this book so far. I do feel the opportunity to have the primary characters conduct the investigation through their out-of-body experience was really interesting, but at the end of the day, it didn't work for me. I even started to think that it might be more engaging if Grace's sister, Sara, the police officer, was the central character. Which means that it certainly would have been more difficult to insert the supernatural element into it, and ultimately would have destroyed the ambition to do something extremely unique, so I then ask myself, what the heck do I know? I'm no expert, but the second person POV just became so difficult to be comfortable with, that I started daydreaming and wondering what it would have been like if other characters led the perspective in first person.

As I mentioned earlier, the mystery itself is very interesting, and I definitely was surprised when certain twists popped up. I do wish it was a little shorter, but I think that feeling is only because the POV was challenging.

The bottom line is this: I'm no ultimate authority, and I am definitely in the minority with my thoughts. Anyone can jump onto Goodreads and other sites which reflect many more positive reviews than negative ones. I am certain something is wrong with me, so I encourage you to take a look at what other reviewers thought before making a final decision to read or not to read it. And, yes, I'm still going to read Sister.

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Release Date: April 24, 2012

Pages: 400

Giveaway

The publisher is kind enough to give one copy to a lucky winner (U.S. entries). Leave a comment with your email address. Entries accepted through Sunday, May 13, 2012.

About the Author

Rosamund Lupton is the best-selling author of Sister. She lives in London with her husband and two sons.

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Thanks to TLC Book Tours for inviting me to participate. The full list of reviews on this tour can be found here.

Oh, my gawd, Gillian Flynn can WRITE. I am not kidding. When Sharp Objects came out, I read it in a day on a business trip and was freaked out. How can a person write about the dark side of people so realistically and not be sitting in a mental institution? (I mean that in a very complimentary way, of course.)

This was undeniably one of the best books I've read in a while, and I usually get nervous to pronounce this, but not this time. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is, without question, going to end up on my "Best Books Read in 2012" list.

Amy and Nick are the quintessential perfect couple, and while they've had their ups and downs, they're now at their five-year anniversary and it's time to celebrate. Every year, Amy creates a treasure hunt for Nick to track down each gift, and pick up another clue to the next stop, and this year will be like every other. What Nick doesn't realize is that before the day is over, his wife will disappear. Before a few days go by, he becomes the best suspect that the cops in his small town in Missouri can find for Amy's disappearance. The national news picks it up and Nick is vilified, tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion within a couple of weeks.

In a shocking and chilling tale of the insane way our society jumps on cases of pretty women gone missing, Gillian Flynn delivers the personal tale of Nick and Amy, the love they found with each other when they first met in New York and the decline of their relationship as they move back to Nick's home town to take care of his ailing parents, each chapter switching from Nick's current reflections to Amy's diary. But as with any Flynn novel, there are so many more layers to the story than what I just described above. This is an incredible story and I could NOT put this down. I dare you to try to read it and not get so swept up in the personalities for both Nick and Amy, Nick's twin sister Margo (known as 'Go'), Amy's back story of being the inspiration for her parents' successful children's book series called Amazing Amy. It will be a marathon attempt to determine which character you feel the most comfortable with, but at the same time try to swallow that not every person is innocent and instead accept that all are potentially very, very corrupted. You'll take a break from reading the book and realize that an entire evening has passed by.

Sharp Objects powerfully delivered Gillian Flynn's talent so shockingly, even Stephen King was wowed. While Stephen King might be best known for horror (in my recent studies, however, I've come to the realization that he is SO much more than that), it's important to be aware that he is instead more recognizable as a magnificent storyteller. So for King to laud Flynn might initially identify her as a horror writer, let me be clear: Gillian Flynn writes about the dark side of people, the sick and twisted sociopathic ways people control others. It is gritty and uncomfortable, but I think truthful and honest are much more accurate descriptions of how she brings her characters to life. She can tap into the miserable side of human beings, and in a really unnerving way, as a reader, you devour the story and enjoy every single page.

Gillian Flynn can build tension and clearly describe a scene so believably and effectively that you are left reeling; you can smell the stale smoke in a bar, you can taste each scene as though you are living it at that exact moment in time and Gone Girl is just another example of this brilliance in writing. It is every bit as absorbing and compelling, reminding the reader that there are some messed up people in the world. This is a knock out novel of the underside of human nature. The scary thing is that you're going to enjoy it. You want to read more about each of these characters and their tangled, desperate (or perhaps brilliant?) choices they make.

I LOVED this book. LOVED it. You should read it. Ooh, and if this was a book club pick? I would so want to be a fly on the wall for those discussions.

For those attending BEA, Gillian Flynn is scheduled to be there, so make sure you stop by to meet her.

Others said:
Red Headed Book Child

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Release Date: 6/5/2012 (available for pre-order now)
Pages: 432

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley.

About the Author

Gillian Flynn started out as a Human Resources writer for a trade magazine, and then moved on to Entertainment Weekly in New York City for ten years, writing about movies and visiting film sets internationally, including New Zealand for The Lord of the Rings, and to Prague for The Brothers Grimm. Her 2006 debut novel Sharp Objects was an Edgar Awards finalist, and the winner of two of Britain's Dagger awards, the first book ever to win multiple Daggers in one year. It has been published in more than 20 countries. She is currently writing the screenplay adaptation. Her second novel is Dark Places, and her third novel, Gone Girl, will be released in June 2012.

Flynn lives in Chicago with her husband and a giant black cat named Roy.

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