Breaking Littsburgh News! :)
A very cool thing happened yesterday: Paste Magazine ran an interview (and cover reveal) with Littsburgh’s co-founder Rachel Ekstrom Courage, who’s been spending every spare second over the last couple of years writing two debut novels—one adult and one Young Adult—that are both coming out in April 2025!
“Nothing Bad Happens Here will hit shelves on April 22, 2025, but we’ve got a first look at its sinister, summery cover—as well as a chat with Rachel Ekstrom Courage herself about the inspiration behind the story and what to expect…”
Her cover reveal over on Instagram is pretty fun, too :)
From the Publisher: “A carefree New England vacation is just what sixteen-year-old Lucia needs to chase her sadness away. At least, according to her mom, who whisks them away for the summer with her ridiculously wealthy new boyfriend. Nothing bad happens in Nantucket, a charming island with cobblestone streets and million-dollar cottages.
But when Lucia stumbles upon the body of a teenage girl on a beach, the discovery reopens old wounds from her past. With the dead girl’s identity a mystery, Lucia takes it upon herself to investigate and crosses paths with Selah and her pack of devil-may-care besties. The three girls are beautiful, chaotic, and a little wild—and they help Lucia forget her crushing sense of grief and loneliness. But as Lucia becomes a part of their shimmering world, she begins to suspect that there are dark secrets hidden in this quiet enclave, and that uncovering them may be the key to solving the dead girl’s murder. Not everything on this island is what it seems…”
Rachel’s adult debut is the Golden Girls mystery (“The first novel in the all-new Golden Girls Cozy Mystery Series!” we shared last month…
And we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon—event listings and excerpts and interviews!—but we wanted to give a very special shout-out to Rachel, who has always believed that Pittsburgh is one of the world’s most literary cities (she’s the one who convinced us to start this site way back in 2015) . . . and who somehow has two debut novels coming out in the exact same month next year.
Only in Littsburgh! :)
Check out Rachel’s website and Substack for more info, and if you’re interested in helping this book out into the world: the best ways to do that are to pre-order from your favorite local bookstore, request from your library, add to your Goodreads “To Read” shelves, and forward this email far and wide. On that last one, if you’re reading this far and you’re the kind of person who’s forwarding this email…
Truly, thank you for being a friend!