Are you so overwhelmed with the dazzling array of books published each year that you have a difficult time choosing your next read? Whether you are part of a book club, a library, other reading group, or an individual reader who could use a little assistance in helping you choose your 2024 reads, allow us to Pitch in and help you decide with our PitchFest: a FREE Choose Your Fall/Winter 2024 Reads Virtual Adventure!

Prepare your fall/winter reading list by meeting an incredible lineup of 18 fan-favorite authors, including New York Times, international, and bestselling authors, as well as authors you may be meeting for the first time. We will even provide you with a PitchFest “cheat sheet” with information about the authors and their new book releases, and a section for you to take notes during the presentation (emailed the week of the event).

And, there will be book giveaways, so you won’t want to miss it!

To top it all off, there’s even more great news: a little birdie told us that all 18 authors are members of Adventures by the Book, meaning that every single one of them is available to meet with your book club, library, or reading group to chat about their incredible new books. Visit Adventures by the Book or click on the direct links below to schedule an author visit now and avoid the rush, or plan a visit with your favorites after Pitchfest.

Your FREE Adventure includes 18 fast-paced and fun presentations by all 18 authors that are sure to help you choose your 2024 reads. You’ll also have the opportunity to Q&A the authors when you meet them virtually via Zoom.

Book Pre-Orders

Books are available for pre-order below at the bottom of this page.  Please note some titles below have not yet been published, so you will receive your book(s) once they have been published.

Registration

This event is FREE and open to the public. Simply select the Free PitchFest Registration (8/14/24) option below and a Zoom link and a Pitchfest Cheat Sheet will be emailed to you 3 days before the event.

About the Authors

Donna Jones Alward has enchanted readers with stories of happy endings and homecomings that have won several awards and been translated into over a dozen languages. She’s worked as an administrative assistant, teaching assistant, in retail and as a stay-at-home-mom, but always knew her degree in English Literature would pay off, as she is now happy to be a full-time writer. Her novel, When the World Fell Silent, is about the 1917 Halifax Explosion in Nova Scotia. Two women will never be the same again as their paths cross in the most unexpected way, trailing both heartbreak and joy its wake…

To schedule a book club visit with Donna or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg is an award-winning and bestselling author and essayist. Her book, The Nine (She Writes Press 2019) was honored with the 2019 Foreword Indies Gold Award in Thriller & Suspense, and the Gold Medal and Juror’s Choice in the 2019 National Indie Excellence Awards, among others. Her newest novel, Daughter of a Promise, is a modern retelling of the legend of David and Bathsheba.

To schedule a book club visit with Jeanne or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Anna Bliss is a debut novelist with an MA in Literature and Visual Culture from the University of Sussex, where she wrote her dissertation on women’s narratives of the London Blitz during World War II. An alumna of the juried Northern California Writers’ Retreat, she also has studied at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Social Welfare, the American Jewish University, and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. Anna’s debut novel, Bonfire Night, is a wrought novel set during World War II which brings together a young Irish Catholic photographer and a British Jewish medical student, each discovering the price of love, art, and ambition.

To schedule a book club visit with Anna or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

A member of the Patawomeck Indian Tribe of Virginia, Lora Chilton tells the story of her people and their unlikely survival due to the courage of three Patawomeck women. As a part of the process, she interviewed tribal elders, researched colonial documents and studied the Patawomeck language. Chilton graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. Her novel, 1666, is a fictional retelling of the survival of the Patawomeck Tribe of Virginia through the lives of three women.

To schedule a book club visit with Lora or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Intrigued by the discovery that an ancestor was a founder of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, Janis Robinson Daly found her next career direction: unearthing the stories of women whose lives have remained in the shadows. With a love of history, she balances a need for authenticity and details with a fictional flair to create deeper emotional connections to characters than what biographies provide. Her latest novel, The Path Beneath Her Feet, is the emotionally charged sequel to The Unlocked Path which follows Dr. Eliza Edwards’ commitment to limit suffering and save lives amid the tumultuous landscapes of 1930s and 1940s America.

To schedule a book club visit with Janis or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Becky Ellis is a Timberwolf Pup. The daughter of a highly decorated World War II combat sergeant, she is a veteran of a war fought at home. She earned a BA in English Literature at UC Berkeley and has over twenty years of experience in the publishing industry. Her novel, Little Avalanches, is a gorgeously written memoir of breathtaking scope that propels readers from the beaches of California in the early ‘70s to the battlefields of World War II.

To schedule a book club visit with Becky or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Loretta Ellsworth earned a master’s degree in Writing for Children from Hamline University. She’s the author of four young adult novels: The Shrouding Woman, In Search of Mockingbird, In a Heartbeat and Unforgettable as well as her adult debut, Stars Over Clear Lake. Her new novel, The French Winemaker’s Daughter, set during World War II, is an unforgettable historical novel about love, war, family, and loyalty told in the voices of two women, generations apart, who find themselves connected by a mysterious and valuable bottle of wine stolen by the Nazis.

To schedule a book club visit with Loretta or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Crystal King is the author of forthcoming novel, In The Garden of Monsters, as well as The Chef’s Secret and Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed at the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and designated as a MassBook Awards Must Read. A social media and AI professor by trade, her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. Crystal has taught writing, creativity, and social media at Harvard Extension School, Boston University, and GrubStreet. A Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and former co-editor of Plum Ruby Review, she holds an MA in critical and creative thinking from UMass Boston. Her newest novel, In the Garden of Monsters, is a retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone, inspired by Salvador Dalí’s 1948 visit to the Sacro Bosco Mannerist statue garden.

To schedule a book club visit with Crystal or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Christina Lynch’s picaresque journey includes chapters in Chicago and at Harvard, where she was an editor on the Harvard Lampoon. She was the Milan correspondent for W magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, and disappeared for four years in Tuscany. In L.A. she was on the writing staff of Unhappily Ever After; Encore, Encore; The Dead Zone and Wildfire. Under the pen name Magnus Flyte, she is the co-author of the New York Times bestsellers City of Dark Magic and City of Lost Dreams. Her newest novel, Pony Confidential, is a mystery told from the point of view of a pony who is trying to reunite with the one little girl he really loved, twenty-five years after he last saw her.

To schedule a book club visit with Christina or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Anesa Miller is a bestselling fiction author who was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Creative Writing from the Ohio Arts Council in 1998. Her poems and prose have been published in The Kenyon Review, The Cream City Review, The California Quarterly, Spoon River Poetry Review, and many others. One of her novels, Our Orbit, was a finalist in regional fiction in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her newest novel, I Never Do This, is a compassionate, thoughtful narrative about hard-won self-realizations.

To schedule a book club visit with Anesa or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Simi Monheit is a graduate of Stanford’s Novel Writing program, has a Master’s degree in Computer Science and an undergraduate degree in English. Her work has appeared in JewishFiction.net, The Forward, Moment, Chautauqua, HerStry, Pacifica Literary Review and Lilith Magazine. Her award-winning debut novel, The Goldie Standard, is an unapologetically Jewish story that delivers a present-day take on a highly creative grandmother trying to find her Ph.D granddaughter a husband who is a doctor—with a yarmulke, of course.

To schedule a book club visit with Simi or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Michelle Moran is the internationally bestselling author of eight historical novels. A native of southern California, she attended Pomona College, then earned a Masters Degree from the Claremont Graduate University. Her novels, translated into more than twenty languages, include icons like Nefertiti, The Heretic Queen, Cleopatra’s Daughter, Madame Tussaud, The Second Empress, Rebel Queen, and Mata Hari. In her newest novel, Maria, she takes readers back to New York of the 1950s for the remarkable tale of the woman who inspired The Sound of Music and the man who penned it.

To schedule a book club visit with Michelle or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Gill Paul is the bestselling author of twelve historical novels, many of them about real women from the past whom she thinks have been marginalized or misjudged by historians. Her novels have reached the top of the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Toronto Globe & Mail charts, and have been translated into twenty-two languages. Her newest novel, Scandalous Women, is about Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann, two dynamic, groundbreaking writers renowned for their scandalous and controversial novels, and the beleaguered young editorial assistant who introduces them.

To schedule a book club visit with Gill or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Anna Quinn is the author of The Night Child, (Blackstone, 2018) listed as #1 Best Real Psychological Fiction on Goodreads, and Ingram’s 2018 Best Book Club Book. Her second novel, Angeline, (Blackstone 2023) is a Foreword Review Award Winner, and nominated for a Washington State Book Award. Her work has garnered blurbs from Garth Stein, Pam Houston, Lidia Yuknavitch, Erica Bauermeister, Elizabeth George, Luis Alberto Urrea and Library Journal. Quinn’s writing has appeared in Psychology Today, New York Times Book Review, Medium, Writer’s Digest, and the Alone Together Anthology. She is the founder of The Writers’ Workshoppe in Port Townsend, WA., and has thirty years of experience teaching and leading writing workshops. In her newest novel, Angeline, she explores the complexity of our past selves and the discovery of our present truth; the enduring imprints left by our losses, forgiveness and acceptance, and why we believe what we believe.

To schedule a book club visit with Anna or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Julia Park Tracey is an award-winning journalist, essayist and poet. She has written for and edited several newspapers and magazines in Northern California. Julia has written for Huffington Post, Salon, Paste, Scary Mommy, Thrillist, Redbook, Narratively, Oakland Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Insight, and many other publications in print and online. She writes about history, books, and the arts. Her upcoming novel, Silence, is a literary Puritan tale of loss and redemption, based on the author’s own ancestor, her seventh great-grandmother.

To schedule a book club visit with Julia or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Suzy Vitello’s award-winning short fiction and nonfiction has appeared in The Rumpus, Mississippi Review, Plazm, Tarpaulin Sky, The Southampton Review and various anthologies and other literary journals. She holds an MFA from Antioch Los Angeles, and has been a prize winner in The Atlantic Monthly Student Fiction Contest, and The Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, and has been a recipient of an Oregon Literary Arts fellowship. Her newest novel, Bitterroot, is about a forensic artist who confronts a crime against her own family, while MAGA politics, racism and violence rage in a small town in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho.

To schedule a book club visit with Suzy or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

Tracey Enerson Wood is an international and USA Today bestselling author of four books, as well as a published playwright whose family is steeped in military tradition. Tracey has authored magazine columns and has written and directed plays and screenplays. Her newest novel, Katharine, the Wright Sister, is an unforgettable novel that shines a spotlight on one of the most important and overlooked women in history, and the sacrifices she made so that others might fly.

To schedule a book club visit with Tracey or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):

As one of the world’s most respected musicians, Zoro the Drummer has sat on the drummer’s throne commanding some of the most famous stages in the world of rock and R&B music. Throughout more than thirty years of his career, Zoro has been consistently voted the number one R&B drummer and clinician by the premier music industry publications Modern Drummer, Drum!, and Rhythm Magazine. Zoro’s novel, Maria’s Scarf: A Memoir of a Mother’s Love, a Son’s Perseverance, and Dreaming Big, is a beautiful and transformative memoir that tells the story of a family fighting for survival against almost insurmountable odds.

To schedule a book club visit with Zoro or any of our authors on Adventures by the Book® (formerly NovelNetwork®):