Laurie R. King

Award-winning, bestselling, thought-provoking mysteries

LAURIE'S NEWSLETTER

The BUZZ has a question

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My newsletter, The Buzz, just went out–and there’s a survey in it asking if you’d like to come to one of the FOUR Russell & Holmes events being held next year. We’re in the process of negotiating with the hotels, so we need to have a rough idea of numbers.
In case you didn’t get this Buzz, or aren’t a subscriber (Why aren’t you? You might want to sign up here) there’s a link to the online version, HERE
Because 2024 is the 10th anniversary of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and it’ll be all about Russell & Holmes.

Bees Abroad

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I had a perfectly charming Zoom meet on Friday with members of Bees Abroad, an organization in the UK that trains & supports African women & those with disabilities to become Beekeepers for Life.

But these lovely people not only teach beekeeping skills, they also help people figure out how to sell honey and beeswax products, and along the way support local woodworkers (who build the hives) and tailors (who make the beekeepers’ outfits) and boost the entire community of artisans and entrepreneurs and families.

Improving livelihoods across Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Ghana, and Rwanda, through the medium of the humble honeybee.

Our chat, which brings together books and bees, is half me and half poet/novelist Siya Turabi, and available on their YouTube channel.

The event was a part of their December fundraising efforts—and since

your donation WILL BE DOUBLED until midday, Tuesday,

I’d greatly appreciate anything you can send their way: HERE. (And maybe also help spread the word…)

Thank you, from the world’s bee friends!

The many faces of Beekeeper

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When you have a book that’s been around for 25 years, especially if it’s the first in a gratifyingly long series, the publishers tend to dress it in a lot of different ways.  Funnily enough, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice didn’t strike the imagination of the in-house reader, who decided to pass on the paperback rights.  They put both Beekeeper and A Grave Talent up for bid, and Bantam Books bought the rights.  Those were given covers that were very different from their St Martins Press hardbacks, first in a bright mass market edition, and later in more subdued trade paperback.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

England gave Beekeeper its own faces—in hardback, then trade,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and now the Allison & Busby paperback.

And although there’s the occasional reversion to the earlier YA sensibilities–

they also manage designs that are simply classic.

So as we celebrate Beekeeper‘s 25th anniversary this year, this gorgeous one is the cover that’ll be around the halls of Bouchercon.

Getting to Beekeeper

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The other day I posted (over here)  an image of the original cover proposal for The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, thanking the publishing gods that it went away in favor of the one St Martins Press ended up with.  But a couple of you were curious about how that happened—so here’s that story.

I first saw that cover in early September, 1993.  I was a really, really new author, with one book—A Grave Talent—that sold a few thousand copies and would go on to be nominated, then win, the Edgar award.  But that wasn’t for months, and I was less than nothing in the world of publishing.

I went to New York City for the first time on Labor Day weekend.  I know, stupid, right?  Half of New Jersey was in the shuttle line.

But I got to Manhattan, and I made my way to the Flatiron Building to meet my editor, and she was charming up until the moment she handed me…that cover art.

“Isn’t it great?”  Um.  “We’re so pleased with it.”  Well.  “I think it’ll do great.”  Uh…

I took that cover back to my hotel and looked at it and wanted to cry.  Big he-man Holmes, little shadow of a Russell literally looking up to him.  Had no one read the book?  And that flocked wallpaper.

Remember: I am nothing in the publishing world.  I am ridiculously grateful that they have offered me contracts, and I don’t want to be difficult, but…

That cover.

So the next day I summon my nerve and phone my editor.  I take a deep breath, pulse racing, knowing I am about to send my career down the drain, and I say, “So.  Thanks for lunch.  It was lovely to meet you.  And about that cover.  You know, I don’t think it… says what you want the book to say.”

I waited for indignation, for a polite sneer, for irritation at my temerity in thinking I knew better…

Instead, what I heard was this:  “Hmm.  You may be right.”  And we ended up here:

With a shadowy Holmes & pipe and Russell the primary figure.

[And that editor?  My beloved Ruth Cavin, who will be honored at the 2020 Malice Domestic.]

The Early Beekeeper

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This month, we’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. I wrote about the early editorial letters in my newsletter (There’s also a giveaway of the audio–here) and will be celebrating it in various ways at Bouchercon, the end of the month.

But this early cover proposal from St Martins Press has always cracked me up.  I mean, “always” in the sense of “once I got over the shock of it.” Because that little girly figure with the Big Manly Holmes against the flocked wallpaper…?

It’s never really been how I envisioned Mary Russell…

So I have to ask: If Beekeeper had worn that face when you first saw it, would you have bought it? Would you have even picked it up??

103 years ago today…

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…two people met on a patch of countryside:

I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs,

and nearly stepped on him. In my defence I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person

in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep

(which tended to move out of my way)

and the gorse bushes

(to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness)

I had never before stepped on a person.

(from The Beekeeper’s Apprentice)

Happy 103rd anniversary, Russell & Holmes!

Miss Russell’s Brilliant Friends

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Many and many a year ago, in a (LR)Kingdom by the sea, we started celebrating various events (new books, Library Week, St. Swithun’s Day) by running contests.20-weeks-of-buzz-copy Some of these involved art, others words. We did crossword puzzles, pirate haiku, Russellscapes, “My Dream Library”—you name it, we’ve done it (next up: videos.)

When we moved the web site this past spring, one of my demands was that these “fan” contributions be preserved. Despite the huge number of bytes all that art took up, despite the need to find high-res files for some of the older pieces, despite the hair-pulling of any number of programmers, developers, and (yes) authors, we kept our hands on all that art.

And now it’s there. Most of it anyway (let me know if we’re missing yours!) and more of it will be added as we locate missing files or fiddle with those we have to make them less minuscule. Take a look at our new FUN STUFF tab on the web site, screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-9-27-17-ambeginning with the soon-to-be-reinvented Maryorama (the art piece formerly known as Russellscape.)

Some of the art is by Team LRK (ie, me and the Photoshop Guru, Robert). Much of this (my web people had to shift me to a bigger, faster server) is of a printable size, in case you feel like framing a Pirate King movie poster for your wallpirate-king-movie-poster-copy

or printing off some Dreaming Haiku sheetshaiku-poster-dreaming-spies

for your book group.

There are also printable crossword puzzles, some samples of fan cosplay and tattoos, and even the original proposed cover for Beekeeper’s Apprentice that caused the author to quit before Russell’s memoirs even got underway.

And of course, the Maryorama (Russellscape), with a (yes!) contest, for prizes of a complete set of Russells (including the mouthwateringly gorgeous Mary Russell’s War) or some of those printable posters in full size.  The contest is in its last days, since it closes the 15th, so sharpen those pencils, run your mind over your favorite scene from the Memoirs, and get yourself creating.

Or puzzling, or printing, or just enjoying the amazing work of the Russell & Holmes community. Start here.

Novel therapy

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One of my favorite bloggers, The Passive Voice, reposted a piece about novel therapy:

British libraries offer full bibliotherapy services, including recommendations and exhaustive reading lists based on condition, to anyone, at every library in the U.K., at no cost.

 

Experts say books featuring characters or people that share a patient’s struggles can be an incredibly important piece of a larger treatment plan designed to give patients something a pill can’t always offer: Hope.

 

Bibliotherapy likely first came to the U.S. from Britain after World War I, English bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud said, when it was found that Jane Austen novels helped calm soldiers afflicted with PTSD (then called “shellshock”). Then, as now, the main premise of bibliotherapy is pretty simple: Personal transformation through reading.The Beekeeper's Apprentice US Cover

I am occasionally told by readers how incredibly helpful one or another of my books has been in getting them through a tough spot, either through distraction (Beekeeper’s Apprentice seems to be a popular read-aloud for long hours by a hospital bed) or through inspiration (the reader who wrote to say she’d been clean and sober for two years after reading the passage in Monstrous Regiment where Russell smashes the hypodermic needle.)  Such letters always leave me feeling very small and humble, that a collection of my words could serve such a function more profound than entertainment.

Do read the rest of this post, in the Deseret News, here.

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