In his ongoing effort to identify books that will turn kids onto reading, James Patterson has joined forces with acclaimed children’s literature expert Judy Freeman to start ReadKiddoRead.com – a web site designed to help parents, teachers, and librarians ignite the next generation’s excitement about reading by recommending books carefully chosen for their ability to make kids’ mouths water – books kids can really sink their teeth into.

Complete with age designations, thoughtful book descriptions, author and celebrity interviews, and more, ReadKiddoRead.com will help make finding a book for a young person easy and, ultimately, rewarding.The site will feature:
- Book selections in appropriate age categories by Patterson and Freeman
- Thoughtful descriptions of each recommended book with easily accessed links to online retailers where books can be purchased
- A lively community network which will promote helpful discussions about personal experiences with books found on the site – or off of the site – that are great for kids
- Personal input and messages from James Patterson about the importance of getting kids excited about reading and his own experience as a father of a ten-year-old son
- Contributions from other authors and celebrities who believe in the importance of getting kids excited about reading
- Seasonal lists of books and reading strategies for parents, teachers, and librarians

The site will officially go live in October 2008. And with promotional support from Scholastic Book Fairs, People magazine, and many others, word about ReadKiddoRead.com will spread fast and wide over the fall 2008 months.

John Sandford‘s Dark of the Moon made Publisher’s Weekly #2 on the Paperback Bestsellers / Mass Market list (Oct. 20).

Their review: “Unlike the harder-edged Prey series, Moon is more of an entertainment, allowing Flowers to supplement his determed quest for justice with witty conversation and several romantic interludes. . . But when the action demands it-such as the grim opening murder scene or the suspenseful storming of the cult leader’s encampment-Conger’s voice takes on a properly hard-boiled intensity.”

(Publisher’s Weekly, Aug. 25)

The line between cop and criminal becomes dangerously blurred in Mark Billingham‘s excellent stand-alone thriller (In The Dark). Told from multiple points-of-view and full of red herrings, the story begins in the London suburbs with a gang initiation. Hoping to climb the ranks in a local gang and egged on by his friends, 17-year-old Theo Shirley fires a gun into a woman’s car on a rainy night. The woman isn’t killed, but her car plows into a crowded bus stop, killing Det. Sgt. Paul Hopwood. Paul’s pregnant girlfriend, Det. Constable Helen Weeks, also a member of the Metropolitan Police, can’t accept that his death was an accident. She retraces his footsteps and discovers unsettling connections between Paul and Frank Linnell, a powerful player in the shadowy London underworld with his own reasons for unraveling Paul’s death. Best known for the Det. Insp. Tom Thorne series (Buried, etc.), Billingham does for South London what Richard Price does for Manhattan’s Lower East Side in Lush Life. (Oct. 2008)

Get your copy of In The Dark today from www.vjbooks.com!

(Publisher’s Weekly, Sept. 29)

October 8 – R.L. Stine turns 65.  The Stephen King of children’s thrillers has created numerous YA series, including Goose-bumps, Fear Street, Horrorland, Nightmare Room and Rotten School.

See VJ Books inventory of R.L. Stein

(Publisher’s Weekly, Aug. 25)

Fans of bestseller Lippman‘s long-running series featuring Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan (Another Thing to Fall, etc.) will be pleased to find that the 17 selections in her first short story collection are as intricate and witty as her novels. Part one, “Girls Gone Wild,” focuses on women engaged in all manner of shady enterprises, from first-time drug buyers in “The Crack Cocaine Diet” to an unassuming femme fatale with a secret in “Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft).” Lest readers think Lippman can only work her magic in her Maryland hometown, she devotes a section, “Other Cities, Not My Own,” to stories in settings as disparate as New Orleans during Mardi Gras (“Pony Girl”) and Dublin, Ireland, full of jilted lovers (“Honor Bar”). The book’s climax is “Scratch a Woman,” a novella written for the collection and starring Heloise, the enterprising heroine of “One True Love,” an earlier entry. George Pelecanos provides an appreciative introduction. (Oct.)

Get your copy of Hardly Knew Her today at www.vjbooks.com!

(from Publisher’s Weekly, Aug. 25)

Last seen in A Necessary Evil (2006), FBI special agent Maggie O’Dell pursues a vengeful monster and his sadistic assistant who infect innocent people with the deadly Ebola virus in bestseller Kava’s most terrifying psychological thriller to date.  While investigating a bomb threat in suburban Elk Grove, Va., Maggie and her boss, Assistant Director Dunningham, become exposed to the virus.  The pair wind up in the “the Slammer,” an isolation ward within the U.S. Army medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Md.  On the outside, Maggie’s partner, R.J. Tully, investigates other cases of exposure to the virus, including an entire Chicago hospital.  After Maggie’s release, a clue Tully uncovers from his past sends him racing to save Maggie from the evil mastermind responsible for the viral threats.  Full of authentic details taken from similar real-life crimes, the smart, thrill-a-minute plot builds to a cliffhanger ending that will leave fans eager for the next installment.

Order Alex Kava’s signed first edition of Exposed today!

Steve Berry burst onto the scene in 2003 with The Amber Room.  He has followed that highly acclaimed debut with a string of bestsellers that has propelled him to the top of his craft.  Berry’s books deliver elements of the thriller genre with classic mystery fare,  producing provocative, enthralling novels that will captivate readers across all genres. Each is meticulously researched and exquisitely plotted.  The Charlemagne Pursuit is his sixth novels, the fourth featuring Cotton Malone.

(John Sellers, Publisher’s Weekly, Aug. 25)

“Though Neil Gaiman has been plenty busy in the years since his 2002 Coraline, The Graveyard Book is his first full-length middle-grade novel since that title.  In it, a toddler-whose family has been murdered-finds his way to a graveyard, where he is raised by ghosts, werewolves and other phantasms.  Kate Jackson, editor-in-chief at HarperCollins say, “Neil has a passionate fan base.  They hang on everything he does.”  The novel arrives with a 250,000-copy first printing.”