Whispering Pines Bookstore hosted a ribbon cutting and grand opening celebration on August 8 at 8 North Main St. in Pennington, N.J. MercerMe reported that after months of building a following through pop-up events, owner Jamie Ensley welcomed customers inside "and a steady stream of community members eager to explore the shop."

Ensley later posted on social media: "Yesterday was a whirlwind, but wow. Y'all really showed up, and I feel so excited to be a part of this vibrant community's downtown space. I feel like 'thank you' doesn't quite cover it, but I'll say it anyway. THANK YOU. I loved to see you all crammed into that cozy little space (I know my air conditioner wasn't cutting it!) and seeing you leave with bags full of bookish goodies and new reads. Your support and intentional choice to shop small could make a girl swoon. And a ribbon cutting? That's a real life thing?"

Whispering Pines offers a curated selection of new and used books, along with gifts and merchandise. Ensley also hopes to host events and gatherings for readers.

For Ensley, the storefront was not something that happened overnight. "I wasn't able to go from nothing to having a brick-and-mortar right away," she said. "I felt like that was a way that I could do it, but the biggest inspiration for doing the pop-up was that I wanted to promote other small businesses.... I really feel like every town deserves to have a bookstore," she said. "I really felt like we were missing that in our community."

She added that she loves the idea of an indie bookstore "because we really care about what we're doing and we really care about the community. Every independent bookstore is going to have a different selection, and that makes us all unique in our own ways.... We're a very small space, but I feel that it's cozy. We can offer a space that's safe and comfortable, and just a place for people to be in and breathe and relax."

Society House Books and Cafe will open in Valdosta, Ga., this fall, the Valdosta Daily Times reported.

The bookstore and coffee shop will span multiple floors in an historic building at 132 N. Patterson St., with the bookstore and cafe on the first floor and a reading space and events space above. The bookstore will carry a selection of general-interest titles for all ages, along with a variety of gifts, and the cafe will serve coffee, espresso drinks, bottled beverages, and a selection of pastries. Community members will be able to rent the bookstore's event spaces for dinners, bridal and baby showers, receptions, book clubs, and more.

When owners James and Amanda Davis bought the building, they intended to fix it up and sell it. But, Amanda Davis told the Valdosta Daily Times, they "fell in love with the building" and decided to "invest in downtown." 

The building had previously housed a restaurant, and the biggest obstacles were getting rid of the kitchen equipment and having the space tested for safety. At the same time, neither of the owners had experience running a bricks-and-mortar business, let alone an independent bookstore, and they had a lot to turn. The most fun parts, Amanda Davis noted, have been designing the building's interior and curating the offerings.

"I love interior design," she remarked. "Trying to envision how this space is going to flow has been great."

The owners are aiming for an October opening.

Kinokuniya USA will be opening its first bookstore in the Fort Worth, Tex., area this fall, in the shopping center at 3930 NE Loop 820, Suite 300, in Haltom City, the Star-Telegram reported. The company operates 18 U.S. stores, including two other North Texas locations, in Carrollton and Plano, along with stores in Austin and Katy. The Haltom City Kinokuniya Books will open in September.

Robert Gwaltney has been named the new executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, S.C., effective September 1. He succeeds Jonathan Haupt, who resigned from the position last January to pursue other projects. 

Robert Gwaltney

A nonprofit executive and an author, Gwaltney brings more than 25 years of mission-driven leadership and community service, "along with a deep personal connection to the work and legacy of Pat Conroy," the Center noted. He most recently served in an executive leadership role with Easterseals North Georgia. As an author whose works include Sing Down the Moon and The Cicada Tree, he has cited Conroy as one of the writers who inspired his own literary path. 

"Pat Conroy understood that stories can change the way we see ourselves, our communities, and one another," Gwaltney said. "I am honored to join an organization that carries that belief forward, and I look forward to working with the staff, board, authors, educators, supporters, and community partners who make the Center such a special place." 

He plans to build on the Center's legacy while focusing on expanding educational programming, strengthening community partnerships, growing philanthropic support, and broadening its reach throughout the Lowcountry and beyond. 

Sean Scapellato, board chair of the Center, added: "Robert brings an impressive combination of nonprofit leadership experience, a deep commitment to community, and a real passion for the power of literature. We're thrilled to welcome him to the Pat Conroy Literary Center. We look forward to seeing him build on the center's strong foundation and help take our work to the next level." 

Eddie Bell, former HarperCollins UK chairman and CEO, as well as co-founder of literary agency Bell Lomax Moreton, has died. He was 77.

The Bookseller reported that Bell left school when he was 16 to work in whisky-buying at Inver House Distillers. He "later moved into a sales role, selling Wicked Ladies and Baby Bubbly cocktails around the pubs and clubs of Scotland, before being recommended for a sales rep role in central Scotland at Hodder & Stoughton Publishers."

In 1973, Bell moved to for Hodder, where he became sales and marketing director, championing the acquisition of Jeffrey Archer's Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. He also established Hodder's romance imprint Silhouette Books and was involved in publishing many bestsellers of the 1970s and 1980s including James Clavell's Shōgun, Noel Barber's Tanamera, Joan Collins's autobiography and The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel. In 1984, he was promoted to deputy managing director at Hodder.

In 1985, he was offered the role of managing director at William Collins, where he attracted authors like Archer (from Hodder), Jack Higgins, Sidney Sheldon, and Mikhail Gorbachev. The Bookseller noted that three years later, "following News Corp.'s acquisition of Harper & Row, Bell was asked to move to the U.S. to establish HarperPaperbacks, creating a successful mass-market imprint and assembling a highly respected publishing team." 

He eventually returned to England to lead HarperCollins U.K. "through a period of significant change" as chairman and CEO. He also served as chairman of World Book Day.

Kate Elton, HarperCollins CEO, said: "We were sorry to hear of the death of Eddie Bell, who had a long and successful career in publishing and for a decade served as executive chairman and publisher of HarperCollins UK. Eddie was a huge personality, still fondly remembered by many current staff who worked for him in those years. He was a great champion of authors both as a publisher and latterly as an agent and our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time."

After his retirement from HarperCollins in 2000, Bell spent two decades at Haynes Publishing, first as non-executive director and then as chairman, helping secure the sale of the company. He established the Bell Lomax Moreton Literary Agency and shared his management experience with a number of other companies. 

At a sold-out Literary Luncheon at Story & Song Bookstore Bistro, Fernandina Beach, Fla., Spelman College alum Tayari Jones (left) talked about her latest novel, Kin (Knopf), with her "Spelman Sister," Dr. Johnnetta Betsch-Cole (right), former president of Spelman College.

"As the official bookstore manager, Hollie would like to personally thank this town for understanding that errands, coffee runs, boutiques, and bookstore visits are all significantly better with a pup!" Pig City Books in Lexington, N.C., posted. "Bring your pup Uptown to say Hello! Hollie the Bookstore Collie is in store most mornings ready to greet you (or bark... she's not perfect)."

In HarperCollins marketing & publicity:

Matthew Sciarappa will join the company on September 8 as senior director of marketing. He will lead marketing strategy and execution for the Mariner Books Group, as well as spearhead his own campaigns across other groups. He formerly was at Knopf.

Alyssa Miller has been promoted to assistant director of marketing and publicity for Amistad, where she will now help shape and lead publicity strategy in addition to her marketing work.

Kasey Feather has been promoted to associate director of marketing and will serve as imprint lead for Dey Street, overseeing day-to-day campaign development and execution. 

Rachel Berquist has been promoted to associate director of marketing and will serve as the second imprint lead for Morrow fiction.

"Keep 'er movin' Dominick!" Janke Book Store in Wausau, Wis., posted, along with a photo of the store's hardworking FedEx driver making a books delivery. 

Today
Fresh Air remembers Dave Marsh, rock critic and biographer of Bruce Springsteen and other stars, who died August 14 at age 76.

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Naima Coster, author of Take What You Can: A Novel (Pamela Dorman, $30, 9780593833278).

Aoife Hinds (Dune: Prophecy, Normal People) and Billy Howle (The Perfect Couple, Under the Banner of Heaven) will star in the BBC and A24 TV series The Ministry of Time, based on Kaliane Bradley's bestselling debut novel. Deadline reported that Hinds will play Sophy and Howle will be Commander Graham Gore, with filming beginning in and around London. Additional casting will be announced "in due course," the BBC noted.

The BBC's director of drama Lindsay Salt commissioned the six-part show, which has been adapted and written by Alice Birch, who is an exec producer alongside Aneil Karia and Jo McClellan for the BBC. Frances du Pille is the producer, and A24 has international distribution rights. 

"The Ministry of Time is a truly distinctive, genre-defying series with a beautiful central relationship and we are thrilled to have Aoife and Billy leading the cast," said Salt.

"If I could travel back in time six years to tell past me what was going to happen with that polar explorer she'd just started writing about, I think she would have done some very Victorian swooning," Bradley added.

A shortlist has been released for the New Adult Book Prize, which was founded last year by the Bookseller to "recognize and affirm new adult fiction as an established space for books that celebrate the joys and challenges of early adulthood." It is run in partnership with the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Among the Burning Flowers by Samantha Shannon
Dawn of the Firebird by Sarah Mughal Rana
Swept Away by Beth O'Leary
And Now, Back to You by B.K. Borison
Nearly Departed by Lucas Oakeley
It Might Never Happen by Emily Slapper
Sugartown by Caragh Maxwell
The Merge by Grace Walker 
Hekate by Nikita Gill
The Tiny Things Are Heavier by Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo

The shortlisted authors will appear at Cheltenham Literature Festival as part of its VOICEBOX program on October 11, when the winner will also be named.

photo: Matt Kallish

Archer Sullivan is a ninth-generation Appalachian who's moved 37 times and lived everywhere from Monticello, Ky., to New York, N.Y., and from Black Mountain, N.C., to Beverly Hills, Calif. She is the author of the Annie Gore novels; the second in the series is Brimstone Hollow (Minotaur, August 11, 2026), which takes the former Air Force special investigator back to the Appalachian Mountains.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Annie Gore returns to Appalachia and confronts deadly vipers, dangerous criminals, and her own demons to uncover the truth behind a snake-handling preacher's suspicious death.

On your nightstand now:

Laura Lippman's Murder Takes a Vacation and Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I loved Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak's Little Bear and Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends to literal pieces. Once I was a bit older, Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown and Edith Hamilton's Mythology were the next to be read ragged. In high school, I carried around dog-eared paperback copies of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

Your top five authors:

In no particular order, the authors I return to over and over are: Lois McMaster Bujold, Robert B. Parker, John le Carré, William Goldman, Dava Sobel.

Book you've faked reading:

As a kid, I used the CliffsNotes of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield to get the Accelerated Reader police off my back. I saw it as a small price to pay to read Douglas Adams and Spider Robinson without being hassled. Later, when I actually read the novel, I loved it. Though Bleak House was my first and still favorite Dickens.

Books you're an evangelist for:

Hardcover: The Vanishing Velázquez by Laura Cumming
Paperback: Looking for Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker
Audio: Unruly by David Mitchell (read by the author)

Book you've bought for the cover:

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. I was a teenager and so enamored of the cover that I spent precious grocery money to possess it. Then--maybe because by the time I got home, I'd built it up too much in my head--I didn't actually get around to reading it. It sat on my shelf for almost 20 years but once I finally cracked the spine of that thing, I couldn't put it down. I think I read the whole Phèdre trilogy in about a week.

Book you hid from your parents:

Thankfully, my folks never policed my reading. Though, if they'd had any idea what was in that Jacqueline Carey book, they might've started.

Book that changed your life:

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit. My mom found an ancient copy in a thrift store and gave it to me when I was in second grade. The book instilled a love so deeply ingrained that I found myself forever threading Shakespeare into my life.

I studied Shakespeare in college and was lucky enough to be cast in a few excellent plays. I met my husband at an audition for Romeo and Juliet and our first words to each other were the balcony scene. Together, we ran a summer Shakespeare program (an hour-long cut of a real Shakespeare play with the original language from audition to fully lit and costumed production in a week) for kids in Appalachia.

Those plays and sonnets--those stories and characters and individual lines--continue to impact my life as I approach my own work. I never think about writing without thinking about Shakespeare's pithiness, his ruthlessness, and his astounding empathy.

Favorite line from a book:

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." --The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Five books you'll never part with:

I've moved around a lot (37 times; I went to 13 different schools before high school) and wasn't able to hold on to many items from my childhood/young adulthood, including some of my most treasured books. As an adult, I've finally managed to collect (and fiercely guard) the following items:

The Complete Works of Shakespeare, inherited from my great-grandmother.

Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee, given to me by my own fairy godmother at my high school graduation.

The little hardcover Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel my grandma taught me to read from, which I found on her bookshelf after her death.

The first book I ever wrote: Princess Lollipop and the Purple Unicorn, which my mother had bound by an artist friend when I was eight and which she kept in a trunk and gave to me when I was an adult pursuing a career as an author.

Robert B. Parker's complete Spenser novels (which I'm going to count as one book since I acquired the series as a set upon marriage to a guy with excellent taste in books).

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

My favorite crime novel: True Grit by Charles Portis. I'd give just about anything to meet Mattie and Rooster for the first time all over again.

A young woman from Revolutionary-era France enters a dangerous magical game in the mysterious, romantic dark fantasy Château Reverie by Natasha Siegel (As Many Souls as Stars).

In 1790, noblewoman Genevieve de Vienne and her maid and lover, Claire Marchand, flee the Revolution, but unidentified attackers stop their carriage. In the end, the narrator pronounces, "Claire Marchand died that night. And Genevieve de Vienne died, too." Five years later, Genevieve now lives in Devon, England, with her grandfather, but memories of her tragedy in France and Claire's loss still haunt her dreams. An invitation arrives for her to attend the Auction of Secrets at Château Reverie. Genevieve need only write her heart's desire on the reverse of the invitation and burn it to accept. She is not sure what to make of the offer, but she knows her heart's desire: "To forget Claire Marchand."

Leander Sterne is a prisoner of the Château Reverie with no memory of his life before he came there. He receives an invitation to the Auction of Secrets as well, and his wish is simply for "liberty." He knows all too well the auction and its games and penalties--and the château's ruler, Lady Reverie, who calls herself his mother. He knows the only way to win is to bid the best secret. Amnesiac Leander has no secrets and will have to steal from someone else, such as the "guileless, wide-eyed woman" called Genevieve. Their genuine connection catches him off guard. As the five other auction contestants begin to disappear, Leander and Genevieve will have to decide what matters more: winning or each other.

Siegel builds an opulent atmosphere with lavish clothing. In this luxurious environment, characters feast on delicacies that allow Lady Reverie to steal into their memories or find themselves turned into home furnishings after breaking a rule. The resulting air of dissolute wonder enchants and disturbs. At the novel's heart lies an examination of how grief and memory shape lives and minds, and whether it is better to suffer pain for the sake of experience and wisdom or to live in forgetful comfort. Readers who love Caitlin Breeze's The Fox Hunt, Holly Black's Folk of the Air series, or Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde adventures will sink into Siegel's graceful fever dream of a novel like they're slipping into a bath of delicious chaos. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Shelf Talker: A dangerous magical auction ensnares a grieving young Frenchwoman and an amnesiac prisoner in this dark, secret-laden fantasy.