Many of us suddenly find ourselves with more hours to fill, now that we’re under a staetewide Shelter-in-Place order, and the 2020 Spring Okra Picks from the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance couldn’t come at a better time.
Each season, SIBA offers a list of books in various categories that booksellers across the Southeast are especially looking forward to handselling in the coming months.
For the full list, click here.
Notable among the titles is Lee Smith’s new novel Blue Marlin (Blair).
“Lee Smith is a remarkable voice and someone you hope to spend an afternoon with. Her sense of humor and attention to detail make this quick read a delight. How would you feel when your parents try to take you away on a ‘we have to patch up the family’ trip? You can sense the tension and laugh out loud at the lens of Jenny’s point of view.”
—Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books, Wake Forest
New York Times bestselling author Smith is an inductee of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. She lives in Hillsborough, and was a longtime professor at North Carolina State University.
Also among the 2020 Spring Okra Picks is North Carolina native and current Virigina resident John Hart, whose mystery The Unwilling comes out in June from St. Martin’s Press.
“With his signature beautiful writing style, Hart leads readers on a mystery that ends up not being the one you might not have thought it would be, and each twist and reveal brings up new questions to keep the reader engaged in a big way.”
—Melissa Oates, Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC
Hart, a recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature, is a New York Times bestselling author and the only author in history to win the Edgar Award for Best Novel consecutively.
Visit www.authorsroundthesouth.com/okra to read more, and see a sneak peak of the first chapters of some of the forthcoming books.