Bookstores Coping with Coronavirus with Online Sales, RWA Announces Vivian Awards, The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Above the Bay of Angels by Rhys Bowen and Looking for Alaska by John Green

This is the new normal, now that the Coronavirus curve has flattened but not gone away completely, of course. So many things are bought online, from pizzas to pillows, from beds to books and back, and now, many states are opening up businesses, too early in most doctors opinions, for customers in masks to come crowding in and buy again to restart the economy. Still, some smart businesses are reluctant to open and become a vector for disease, so they offer customers online shopping for pick up or delivery, and they offer shipping or appointment-based browsing with social distancing guidelines in mind. 

How Bookstores Are Coping: Community Support, Increased Online Sales

Jan Weissmiller, owner of Prairie Lights http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz44343864 in Iowa City, Iowa, has not reopened her store to walk-in traffic, and does not plan to do so until Iowa sees a significant decline in new cases of novel coronavirus. Weissmiller closed her doors on March 19, but she and a small staff of booksellers have been "busy every minute" filling phone and online orders for free local delivery as well as curbside pick-up and free media mail shipping. Only five people are allowed to work in the store at any one time, Weissmiller said, and because the space is 10,000 square feet, it is easy to work safely and distantly.

Should case numbers start to decline over the summer, Weissmiller and her team may offer browsing by appointment. Then, if it looks like the store would be able to reopen safely in the early fall, Prairie Lights would close for a short time to renovate and rearrange the store.

Weissmiller said her furloughed booksellers have all been able to get unemployment benefits, as she closed the store before the state mandate was issued. Even though Iowa has allowed businesses to reopen, Weissmiller doesn't plan to bring back more employees until they feel safe. The store has maintained its health insurance coverage and will continue to do so.

Over the past six weeks or so, Prairie Lights has hosted frequent virtual events. The first was with Carmen Maria Machado and Evan James. Since then the store has done at least one per week, including a very successful event on Mother's Day with Honor Moore reading Our Revolution: A Mother and Daughter at Midcentury. The event was recorded, and Prairie Lights will post an edited version on Facebook. And next week, the store will host a virtual reading with John Grisham.

Weissmiller said the community is very supportive, and while her customers miss having Prairie Lights as a community gathering place, they are "thoughtful, responsible people who understand how imperative it is that we stay safe, and that our economy will be stronger in the long run if we prioritize health and well-being." Calls are coming in every day from people not only in the Iowa City area but also further afield. She added: "We are privileged to live in a community where people read broadly and constantly. Books are a solace we are proud to provide."

 So many bookstores have been saved from closing by customers buying books from them online and then either getting them mailed/shipped to their homes or going to the stores for outdoor, hands-free pick up.

Posted on Facebook by the English Bookshop in Uppsala and Stockholm, Sweden: "One thing that has quietly struck us these last couple of months has been the fact that you are placing more orders with us than ever before http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz44343874.

Both orders for books to be delivered and order for books to be picked up at the shop. This feels to us like a very conscious act of support and love that you are showing. We cannot stress enough how much this means and how grateful we are for this.

"It seems like a seismic shift in values from the large-scale logistics monsters to the small scale personal 'little shops on the corners.' Please understand how grateful we are and by all means please keep the orders coming--they are our lifeblood. YOU are our lifeblood."

 I am so glad that the RITA award situation has been cleaned up, and now they've got a diverse board and a newly named Vivian award for romance writers. Brava!

RWA's Rita Awards Replaced by the Vivian

After a series of controversies, the Romance Writers of America has retired the annual RITA Awards and created a new award, dubbed the Vivian http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz44373736.

The RITA was named after Rita Clay Estrada, RWA's first president, and the board thanked her for the past 30 years "as the award's namesake and for her service to RWA and romance authors everywhere."

The Vivian is named after RWA founder Vivian Stephens, "whose trailblazing efforts created a more inclusive publishing landscape and helped bring romance novels to the masses," the board said.

The board emphasized that its contest task force was "guided by the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access" and has aimed to develop a contest that recognizes "excellence in romance writing and showcases author talent and creativity. We celebrate the power of the romance genre with its central message of hope--because happily ever afters are for everyone."

Among other elements, the Vivian will offer "a clear rubric to enhance and streamline scoring guidelines in addition to judge training that will allow for more standardized judging, a sophisticated matching process so that entrants can be sure their books go to judges versed in their subgenre, and a category devoted to recognizing unpublished authors." The task force is presenting details about the Vivian to the full board at its May 30-31 meeting.

In January, the RWA cancelled this year's RITA Awards http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz44373737 after months of controversy and mass resignations by members and board members. At issue were charges involving a lack of diversity and inclusion by the RWA.

At the time the RITA Awards were cancelled, the board said it was hiring "a consultant who specializes in awards programs and a DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] consultant" and would seek member involvement in remaking the awards. "Recent RWA Boards have worked hard to make changes to the current contest, striving to make it more diverse and inclusive, relieve judging burdens, and bring in outside voices," but those kinds of changes have been "piecemeal," and the hiatus allowed the RWA, it said, "the opportunity to take a proper amount of time to build an awards program and process--whether it's a revamped RITA contest or something entirely new--that celebrates and elevates the best in our genre."

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall is a dark and somewhat grim YA fantasy with beautifully inclusive characters and elements of bright legend and magic woven throughout.  Here's the blurb: In a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic, a desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial lady find a connection on the high seas.

The pirate Florian, born Flora, has always done whatever it takes to survive—including sailing under false flag on the Dove as a marauder, thief, and worse. Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, a highborn Imperial daughter, is on board as well—accompanied by her own casket. But Evelyn’s one-way voyage to an arranged marriage in the Floating Islands is interrupted when the captain and crew show their true colors and enslave their wealthy passengers.
Both Florian and Evelyn have lived their lives by the rules, and whims, of others. But when they fall in love, they decide to take fate into their own hands—no matter the cost.
Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s sweeping fantasy debut, full of stolen memories, illicit mermaid’s blood, double agents, and haunting mythical creatures conjures an extraordinary cast of characters and the unforgettable story of a couple striving to stay together in the face of myriad forces wishing to control their identities and destinies.

What I loved about this book, besides the Asian legendary quality and the lush storytelling, was the lesbian and transgender characters, but by that same token, I found the gay male characters and really all of the male characters and heterosexual female characters to be cast in the most brutal and horrific light possible. In YA books I've come to expect the parents of at least one of the main characters to be truly awful people, if not monsters, but it just seems here that there are no good adults, other than the transgender Pirate Supreme, and Rake gets something of a pass for being a Pirate Supreme operative. The only truly kind parent/adult/mature figure is the Sea itself, and because the sea is considered female here, that wasn't surprising. Flora/Florian's brother is a weak, drunken wastrel and a lout, whose only good deed in the entire book is setting his sister free of his care, because he finally realizes he's holding her back. Still, the plot is as swift as a wave, and the prose is crisp and bright. I'd give this book an A, with the caveat that it should only be read by older teenagers 16-17+ and older, because there's a lot of violence, rape, abuse and gore in the book that would be disturbing for younger teenagers and tweens.

Above the Bay of Angels by Rhys Bowen is a historical "Downton Abbey" like romance about a servant of good breeding who makes her way in the world of the late 19th century under Queen Victoria's last days in England and France. Here is the blurb:

A single twist of fate puts a servant girl to work in Queen Victoria’s royal kitchen, setting off a suspenseful, historical mystery by the New York Times bestselling author of The Tuscan Child and The Victory Garden.
Isabella Waverly only means to comfort the woman felled on a London street. In her final dying moments, she thrusts a letter into Bella’s hand. It’s an offer of employment in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace, and everything the budding young chef desperately wants: an escape from the constrictions of her life as a lowly servant. In the stranger’s stead, Bella can spread her wings.
Arriving as Helen Barton from Yorkshire, she pursues her passion for creating culinary delights, served to the delighted Queen Victoria herself. Best of all, she’s been chosen to accompany the queen to Nice. What fortune! Until the threat of blackmail shadows Bella to the Riviera, and a member of the queen’s retinue falls ill and dies.
Having prepared the royal guest’s last meal, Bella is suspected of the poisonous crime. An investigation is sure to follow. Her charade will be over. And her new life will come crashing down—if it doesn’t send her to the gallows.

I've read more than a few books by Rhys Bowen, and though some didn't appeal to me, I found others delightful. I read the Tuscan Child and The Victory Garden, and in Farleigh Field, and I've read many of her Molly Murphy Mysteries. I didn't care for her Royal Spyness books, however. But it wasn't bad writing that put me off those books, because say what you will, but Bowen has a flair for engrossing plots, fascinating characters and page-turning storytelling in interesting locales. I found the main character in this book, Bella/Helen, to be a fascinating mix of naive young woman and ambitious, strong willed cook who was a quick learner and willing to pay her dues before moving up in rank in the kitchen. Though it seemed bizarre to me that nearly every man she encountered wanted to woo and wed or bed her (why there are no other good looking women available in the world Bowen has painted, I don't know), I was glad that she eventually found a man to love and start a new life with. At any rate, it's an easy, fast read and also holds some interesting insight into Queen Victoria's final days as a monarch. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to fans of Downton Abbey or Jane Austen films/books.

Looking for Alaska by John Green is Junes book for my Tuesday Night Book Group, which is held online while the library is closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This book impressed me as a modern reboot of the Catcher in the Rye type of story, of discontented, damaged teenage boys and the teenage girls they lust after. I'd read and loved John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars" which deserved all the good ink and awards and accolades it received. I've also read Paper Towns, which was okay, but I was somehow not expecting the deeply cynical and almost INCEL aspect of this book to be so strong. Green never seemed like the type of author to promote sexism or misogyny, but this book was loaded with it, in somewhat the same way that "Fight Club" was with it's one female character being drawn as a two-dimensional slut whose only importance was her sexuality. Here's the blurb: 

First drink. First prank. First friend. First love.
Last words.

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green’s arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction.
 

I didn't find Miles, or Pudge as his school mates nickname him (because he's skinny and undersized, of course), to be as mature as Holden Caufield, instead he seemed like an arrogant, autistic, whiny and narcissistic/sexist jerk whose only interest was how to provoke Alaska to have sex with him. He felt he was a better "man" than her actual boyfriend, and he is mostly pissed off when she dies because she had been making out with him just before she got a phone call, and she said "to be continued" so Pudge assumes that this means she will finish having sex with him and leave her boyfriend for him, because he feels his "love" (which is nothing more than obsessive lust, really) for her is stronger and deserves to be rewarded with her body for as long as he wants it. She's nothing more than his just prize for being the "genius" he believes himself to be. Miles treats everyone around him like crap, and is not a very clean guy to boot. Somehow he thinks this makes him attractive. He can barely even speak when he encounters Alaska, and he doesn't act too smart in most of his classes at the private school he attends. AS you can see, I found Miles Halter to be a crappy protagonist, and I didn't much like any of the other characters, either. Alaska spent too much time on stuff that didn't matter,and using her bright mind on stupid pranks. Whatever John Green was trying to say about teenagers in this novel, it wasn't anything good or uplifting or enlightening. I'd give this depressing book a C, and I can't think of many people I'd recommend it to, unless they find deeply cynical books about teenagers smoking and drinking and being jerks amusing.