VJ Books Blog

VJ Books Honors Chelsea Cain as August 2014 Author of the Month!

Chelsea CainVJ Books is located in a suburb of Portland, Oregon, an eclectic city, where sophisticated and alternative styles coexist peacefully – a place that hundreds of authors call home. As you wander around a mix of open scenic spaces and parks combined with bustling city life and diverse neighborhoods you may run into ​Ursula K. Le Guin, ​Chuck Palahniuk, ​Stephen Greenleaf, ​Greg Rucka, newcomer ​Roger Hobbs or even the remarkable Beverly Cleary.

Or just maybe . . . Chelsea Cain. While not quite a native – she moved from Iowa to Portland to New York and back to Portland with brief stays in Florida and Pennsylvania, and in the process wrote some really amazing books. Chelsea Cain’s thrillers are masterful blends of psychological suspense and straight-up gore, chronicling the twisted bond between a police detective and a serial killer. Her main characters, Portland detective Archie Sheridan, and the manipulative murderess, Gretchen Lowell, have brought her considerable fame with a string of bestsellers – Heartsick, Sweetheart, Evil at Heart, The Night Season, Kill You Twice, and Let Me Go. Her newest book One Kick (releasing this month) is the first in her Kick Lannigan thriller series. Heartsick was named one of the best 100 thrillers ever written by NPR, and Heartsick and Sweetheart were named among Stephen King’s Top Ten Books of the Year.

Cain is the master of the gory thriller. The New York Times calls them “steamy and perverse.” In her own words, “. . . I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised to find myself writing thrillers. It does bring together many of my interests: forensic pathology, medicine, damaged heroes, dead pets, Nancy Drew, TV cops shows, my home of Portland, Oregon, and having an excuse to be alone in a room for long periods.” Each novel in this scorching series leaves readers wanting more of the twisted and destructive relationship between Archie and Gretchen, and now we get the first in a nail-biting new series featuring Kick Lannigan, a young woman whose complicated past has given her a very special skill set. The new book, One Kick, earned Cain a starred review in Publishers Weekly, “Above all, this is an edge-of-the-chair thriller, and Cain negotiates the twists and turns with finesse while keeping her foot firmly on the gas pedal. Excruciating yet always compelling.”

Chelsea Cain, our Author of the Month for August 2014!

– John