Laurie R. King

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: 30 years of reading magic

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Every writer of historical mystery fiction writes in the shadow of Ellis Peters, whose first Brother Cadfael novel was published in 1975, and Elizabeth Peters, whose first Amelia Peabody novel was published the same year.  Elizabeth Peters, an incredibly influential figure, created not only the historical cozy-slash-adventure novel, she also foregrounded a woman as the central figure.  Anne Perry’s first Pitt novel was published in 1979.  There was, in other words, a cluster of work, a zeitgeist.  This pop zeitgeist worked it’s way through mystery fiction for the next 20 or so years, and with the publication of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice in 1994, Laurie R.King upended the historical mystery genre once again. Once again there was a cluster of novels written around the same time – Sharan Newman’s Death Comes as Epiphany (1993), Margaret Frazer’s The Novice’s Tale (1992) and Candace Robb’s The Apothecary Rose (1993) – all of which featured, as King’s novel does, a woman at the center of the action. read more

March & May Book clubs – Laurie R. King rules the month of May!

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Laurie R. King

In March, we’ll meet on zoom on Sunday, March 17 at 2 p.m. to discuss Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Edgar nominated Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.  This meeting was moved to March so we’d have copies available, and we do!  This is such a fun, hilarious, yet sweet read.  Look forward to the discussion.

We’re skipping April and meeting twice in May.  Join us May  5 at 2 p.m. on zoom to discuss Laurie R. King’s classic, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.  And, wonderful news – Laurie will be joining us!  This is the 30th anniversary of the first Mary Russell novel, where Mary meets the elderly Sherlock Holmes.  From Kirkus, in 1994: “Nothing in King’s brooding debut A Grave Talent (1993) could have prepared you for this uncommonly rich Sherlockian pastiche, in which the great detective is brought out of retirement among the bees of Sussex by a new amanuensis, budding theologian Mary Russell. Meeting the great man at the awkward age of 15, Russell (as he calls her) proves herself his intellectual equal even before their first case- -mysterious bouts of illness that befall their victims only in clear weather. After investigating a robbery and a kidnapping with Holmes, Mary goes to Oxford, and just when you’ve resigned yourself to more unrelated adventures, the story takes off with a series of bombings that put both Holmes and Mary in danger, and call forth both their sharpest mental efforts and their deepest feelings.” read more

Best of 2022

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I had a really, really hard time keeping this to 10 books – hence my lengthy honorable mention list this year.  This is the first year this list is all women!  That was my goal when I closed the store – to cover new series and books by women and it looks like that’s what’s happening organically.  These are the books that stuck with me all year, books that when I read them, I was entranced and transported. They appeared in different ways. Mariah Fredericks pressed an early advance copy of The Lindbergh Nanny into my eager hands at Malice Domestic last spring – it was a book I was very excited to read and I was not disappointed.  I saw the cover of Blackwater Falls and it called to me – again, I was not disappointed.  I was interested to see Deanna Raybourn doing something so different – again, no disappointment.  It’s such a fun journey of discovery. Some on this list are veterans turning in great books, some are new series or standalones – all have that great, memorable sparkle.  What a wonderful year to be a reader. I did include one reference book this year, one so exceptional it would be criminal not to give it a shout out. read more