The Toadstool Bookshops of Keene, Milford, and Peterborough, NH

We are pleased to have Edgar-nominated local author STEVE ULFELDER return to our store and chat about his latest mystery featuring Conway Sax (Purgatory Chasm, The Whole Lie), SHOTGUN LULLABY. 

Conway is a man with a deeply checkered past seeking redemption. As a member of the AA group The Barnburners, he pays for his sins by aiding those in trouble. Enter wise-ass Gus Biletnikov, son of a wealthy investment banker, who drives him nuts. Keeping him straight and sober will take all his resolve, but the kid reminds him of his own estranged son. And so Conway finds himself deeply invested.

When a triple murder takes place in Gus's halfway house, Conway suspects Gus was the intended victim, and wades in to find the killer in his usual full-tilt, no-holds-barred fashion.

A great new series for fans of Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane. All three are Brian picks -please check Steve out! 

STEVE is an amateur race car driver and co-owner of Flatout Motorsports, a company that builds race cars in Bellingham, MA. He was a business and technology journalist for twenty years. Visit him to learn more at www.ulfelder.com.

The Among the Elms Writer’s Group meets at the Keene Toadstool the first and third Wednesday of the month.  

Among the Elms is a writer’s group for those with a love for the written word. Come for feedback, fellowship, support, inspiration, and information. All writers are welcome.  

*The book shown is not one that will be talked about, it is simply to highlight books from our writing section that me be found interesting.

Our Socrates Cafe, hosted by Cliff Anderson & Jim Serna, meets on the first THURSDAY each month for philosophic discussion.

Next meeting inJUNE: 6 and JULY: TBA

New members and curious thinkers are welcome to join the forum!

A note: the book(s) displayed will not necessarily be discussed. Rather, they represent new titles in our Philosophy section. Please browse our stores!

Bring your knitting and join hostess Patty Poisson for an informal evening of knitting, chatting and tea on the 2nd Monday evening each month.

Next meeting in JUNE: 10, and JULY: 8.

Please note that this group is for experienced knitters.

Exquisite tea is generously provided by Danielle Beaudette of The Cozy Tea Cart. Look for her new series "Second Tuesdays with the Author" featuring an evening at the CTC sampling delicious teas and chatting with a local writer. Please visit their brand new location on Route 13 in Brookline, NH. All this and more at www.thecozyteacart.com

The book(s) displayed here are new & interesting in our CRAfts section. Please browse while you're here! There's a bonus for participation.*

Our SF&F group meets on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays each month to talk about the speculative fiction they have recently read.

Open to all teens and adults. Sometimes snacks, always a 'bonus'! Ask the moderator.

Meetings in JUNE: 12, 26 and JULY: 10, 24.

The book(s) displayed here will not necessarily be discussed. Rather, they are examples of what's new and exciting on our shelves. Please browse!

Just for kids! Join fellow readers and take home free (yes, free!) books to review for the following month's meeting. Many of these titles are compliments of the publishers, in advance of the official 'on sale' date.

Sign up is required. Please ask for Sue or Sarah. Meetings are usually on the second Thursday each month. Did we mention snacks?

Next monthly meeting: JUNE 13 and JULY 11

The Among the Elms Writer’s Group meets at the Keene Toadstool the first and third Wednesday of the month.  

Among the Elms is a writer’s group for those with a love for the written word. Come for feedback, fellowship, support, inspiration, and information. All writers are welcome.  

*The book shown is not one that will be talked about, it is simply to highlight books from our writing section that me be found interesting.

That's right fans. We heard you and I lobbied hard with the publisher. CRAIG JOHNSON, author of the popular Walt Longmire series will be appearing at our store this summer to promote his latest mystery, A SERPENT'S TOOTH.

Stay tuned for more details. PS, I got to preview a copy and it is excellent. -Brian

Join us as we welcome authors Page Morgan and Erin Bowman who will be leading a book discussion and signing their books The Beautiful and the Cursed and Taken, respectively.

The Beautiful and the Cursed. After a bizarre accident, Ingrid Waverly is forced to leave London with her mother and her younger sister, Gabby, trading a world full of fancy dresses and society events for the unfamiliar city of Paris.

In Paris there are no grand balls or glittering parties, and, disturbingly, the house her twin brother Grayson found for them isn't a house at all. It's an abbey. A creepy, old abbey with a roof lined in stone gargoyles that one could almost mistake for living, breathing creatures. And Grayson is missing.

Yet no one seems to be concerned about Grayson's whereabouts save for Luc, a devastatingly handsome servant who has some secrets of his own. There's one secret about the city that he can't keep hidden, though. There's a murderer on the loose. And every day Grayson is missing means that there's less of a chance he's alive. Ingrid is sure her twin isn't dead--she can feel it deep in her soul--but she knows he's in grave danger, and that it's up to her and Gabby to find him before all hope is lost.

The path t Grayson will be twisted, leadig Ingrid to discover dark secrets and otherworldy truths that, once uncovered, can never  again be buried.

Taken. There are no men in Claysoot. There are boys - but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends...and he's gone.

They call it the Heist.

Gray Weathersby's eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he's prepared to meet his fate - until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he's been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets, the Heist itself, and what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot - a structure that on one can cross and survive.

Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken - or risk everything on the hop of the other side?

About the authors: Marlborough author Page Morgan has been fascinated with les grotesques ever since she came across an old, black-and-white photograph of a Notre Dame gargoyle keeping watch over the city of Paris. The gargoyle mythologies she went on to research fed her imagination, and she became inspired to piece together her own story and mythology for these remarkably complex stone figures. Page lives in New Hampshire with her husband and their three children.  

Londonderry author Erin Bowman knew she wanted to write from the moment she uttered her first "once upon a time." Now a full-time writer, she lives in New Hampshire with her husband. You can visit her online at www.embowman.com. 

Join us as we welcome radio host and New York Times bestselling author Howie Carr as he discusses and signs his books, including the most recent Rifleman: The Untold Story of Stevie Flemmi, Whitey Bulger's Partner.

Stevie "the Rifleman" Flemmi was for 40 years one of the most feared gangsters in Boston, and for much of that time, he was the partner of Whitey Bulger, the 16-year fugitive with a $2 million reward on his head who was captured in 2011.

Flemmi has been convicted of 10 murders and took the Fifth Amendment when asked about 10 others. His cohort, Bulger, is charged with 19 more. Their hitman, John Martorano, was convicted of 20 others. Rifleman is the story of Flemmi’s life of crime, as told to federal and state law enforcement after he pleaded guilty in 2003. The original document that the book is based on is called a DEA 6, and it ran 146 single spaced pages, covering dozens of extortions, assaults and murders, including two of his girlfriends, one of whom was also his common law stepdaughter.

The book spans the years from the days of dime bets and fedora-wearing gangsters to the modern world of highflying drug smugglers, who promised Flemmi and Bulger a million dollars each in "protection money" for every boatload of drugs they could bring into Boston Harbor. Along with Flemmi’s statements, the text includes Carr’s notations whenever Flemmi appears to be stretching the truth, which is often.

Supplementing the text are close to 300 photographs from Carr’s own collection, a treasure trove of mugshots and noir-style pictures of slain gunmen, hoods being taken into court under guard, as well as never-before-seen wanted posters and FBI documents. This is truly a must-have for any True Crime fan, a combination police procedural and a coffee table book of unforgettable photographs.

Flemmi, now 78, is serving a life sentence at a penitentiary the Bureau of Prisons declines to identify. He is expected to be a major witness in the federal trial of Whitey Bulger, which is scheduled to begin in Boston June 6. 

Howie Carr is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, The Brothers Bulger and Hitman. Before Bulger fled in 1994, Carr was such an implacable foe of the serial killing gangster that Whitey tried to kill him as he left his house in suburban Boston—an incident reported in 2006 on 60 Minutes. Whitey's younger brother, Billy Bulger, then the president of the Massachusetts State Senate, publicly referred to Carr as "the savage." Carr is also the host of a daily syndicated four-hour radio program heard throughout New England, and is a member of the national Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago. He won a National Magazine Award in 1985 for essays and criticism in Boston magazine. 

Join us as we welcome author Kit Grindstaff as she discusses and signs copies of her new dark fantasy for young adults The Flame in the Mist.

Set in an imagined past, this dark fantasy-adventure is for fans of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. It features Jemma, heroine held captive in Agromond Castle, yet destined to save mist-shrouded Anglavia.

Fiery-headed Jemma Agromond is not who she thinks she is, and when the secrets and lies behind her life at mist-shrouded Agromond Castle begin to unravel, she finds herself in a chilling race for her life. Ghosts and misfits, a stone and crystals, a mysterious book, an ancient prophecy—all these reveal the truth about Jemma's past and a destiny far greater and more dangerous than she could have imagined in her wildest fantasies. With her telepathic golden rats, Noodle and Pie, and her trusted friend, Digby, Jemma navigates increasingly dark forces, as helpers both seen and unseen, gather. But in the end, it is her own powers that she must bring to light, for only she has the key to defeating the evil ones and fulfilling the prophecy that will bring back the sun and restore peace in Anglavia.

Kit Grindstaff was born near London, England. After a brief brush with pop stardom (under her maiden name of Hain), she moved to New York and became a songwriter. Kit now lives with her husband in Pennsylvania. The Flame in the Mist is her first book.