In The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush, Susan Gregg Gilmore has crafted a compassionate story about a community of flawed people and the 12-year-old boy who tries his best to deliver them from the weight of the world. Susan Gregg Gilmore will appear at Novel in Memphis on September 2, Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 11, and the 2025 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 18-19.
In his new novel, Run for the Hills, Sewanee author Kevin Wilson takes readers on an unconventional road trip with four siblings eager to ask some hard questions of their long-lost father. Wilson will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 15 and Novel in Memphis on May 16.
Making sense of the land mines of life is the theme of Nashville author Mary Laura Philpott’s memoir in essays, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives. Philpott will appear with Margaret Renkl at a fundraiser for The Porch at Juniper Green in Nashville on May 2.
“I’m a baseball player,” 12-year-old Timothy “Pumpsie” Strickland declares. “Baseball is my life.” In Andrea Williams’ new middle-grade novel, Inside the Park, Pumpsie must overcome his fears and think fast to save the day when sinister forces threaten his beloved team, the Nashville Wildcats.
In Kerry Madden-Lunsford’s middle-grade novel, Werewolf Hamlet, something terrible is happening to Angus Gettlefinger’s 17-year-old brother, Liam. He’s turning into a monster, and Angus doesn’t know why. Madden-Lunsford will discuss Werewolf Hamlet at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 20 and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 24.
“I am Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Novis. … I am the candidate most likely to violate the Official Secrets Act. And I will be convicted of treason when I do.” Lizzie is half of the talented brother/sister team at the center of The Bletchley Riddle, a World War II novel for middle-grade readers by an equally talented team: award-winning writers Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin.
