Jay's Year in Books 2023!

MY YEAR IN THE BOOKLIFE

By Jay Roberts

It is that time of year once again. Everyone else is doing or has already done their own lists of what they liked reading the most this year and I am not immune to this year-end look back stuff either. I've already done a few articles related to music or movies but now it's time for a look back my own personal year in book. (A separate article about my favorite books of the year will be forthcoming)

My daily love of the blogs from Jungle Red Writers and Wicked Authors continues. I'm also active on both sites Facebook pages as well. The Wicked Authors page, The Wickeds, has been active for a while but the Jungle Red Writers group, Reds and Readers, is brand new and officially launches on January 1st, 2024. I also continue to read the blogs for Bolo Books and Dru's Book Musings. And I'm still writing my own reviews over on Goodreads.

But last year I wrote about how Mystery Scene magazine was ceasing publication. And while it was true that the print edition ended, it turned out that they were going to continue publishing reviews, interviews and articles on their website and I was able to contribute a few reviews to the site throughout the year.

And thanks to author Hank Phillippi Ryan, I was connected to the guy in charge of The Strand magazine and I've submitted a couple reviews to them so far (though neither has been published as yet). But I've got a few more books to review for them in the pipeline so hopefully they'll make their way to publication sometime in the new year.

Speaking of Hank, in early March I got to attend one of her book signings for her latest book The House Guest. That's where she told me about the opportunity with The Strand and gave me a nice shout out in front of the audience once the interview part of the evening started. When people say "Hank is the best!", I am always in wholehearted agreement!

I also attended a signing for Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell). In fact, thanks to my friend Ann we went out to dinner with Edith twice this year. The first time we were joined by author Julie Hennrikus.

The second time we broke bread with Edith was when she was down on the Cape and did a talk/signing for the latest Cozy Capers Book Group book Murder in a Cape Bookstore.

That first dinner turned out to be quite fortuitous because it led into a fantastic three month run towards the end of the year for the Wareham Free Library's Mystery Book Club.

I am still co-running it with my fellow mystery fan Nancy and thanks to some incredible luck we managed to play host to three writers whose books we read. The first two appearances were virtual ones. Author Craig Johnson (The Longmire Mysteries) appeared in October. It was one of the rare nights he was home during the month of October in the midst of his massive book tour.

In November, Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) also appeared virtually and was nice enough to send ARCS of her latest Country Store Mystery Deep Fried Death for us to give out to people in attendance.

December saw us play host to an in-person visit from Julie Hennrikus (in-person).

Each of these three events went off nicely and hopefully we'll be able to do more of this type of thing for the book club in the future.

And if all that wasn't great enough, I got to meet and thank one of the key three authors who rekindled my love of reading for entertainment's sake after it was destroyed by going to high school.

I'm speaking of Sara Paretsky, the author of the V.I. Warshawski series. She appeared at the annual Author's Brunch for the Claire T. Carney Library Associates in mid-October and thanks to Diana Grady, I had a ticket to hear her brief remarks and got to meet her (and get some books signed) afterwards. Being able to tell her what her writing did for me was huge and she really seemed to like hearing that.

Oh, and I can't forget that I was once again selected to be a Mitch Rapp Ambassador this year as well.

Other great highlights of my year in the #booklife included: A bookstore opened in my town, got a number of ARCS to read, pull quotes from two of my reviews appeared either on the back of a book cover or in industry trade ads and I was thanked in the acknowledgements for the Murder Uncorked, the first book in Maddie Day's new CeCe Barton mystery series and got a nice shout out from Edith about that on a podcast she guested on too! You can hear that podcast HERE! (The shout out occurs around the 26:55 mark)

Last but not least, I was asked to be part of the 3rd episode of the new Bolo Books Youtube series We Are What We Read where I got to talk about how the Sherlock Holmes book The Hound of the Baskervilles influenced the entire path of my reading journey. (My part begins around 34:27 but I recommend watching the whole episode!)

I'm sure there's some other stuff I've forgotten to include here but just so anyone and/or everyone who might read this piece knows, I love and appreciate every moment I am able to have in this crazy #booklife I am having!

So now that 2023 is just a few hours from being laid to rest, here's to 2024 being filled with just as much fun for me interacting with authors, reading books, talking about books and more signed editions. If that happens, well 2024 will likely get just as big a thumbs up from me as 2023 did!