Year: 2024

US Tour Dates and Graveyard News

~ M. L. Rio

It’s been a busy couple of weeks behind the scenes for the Rio team but we have some great news. Graveyard Shift is an IndieNext pick for October and one of Amazon’s Best Mysteries & Thrillers of the month!

It’s so exciting to see this little book getting so much love from the bookselling community. We can’t wait to share it with readers, which brings me to our next piece of good news: we finally have our US tour finalized. You can find all the dates and relevant links on the Events page, or below. Some events are already sold out, so if you want to come get a book signed, grab your ticket now. (Be sure to check the links for the full lists, as some of our West Coast stops aren’t included on the graphic.) These events won’t be your typical book readings–we’ll have great conversation partners, prize drawings, and goodies for everyone–so I hope you’ll come and join the fun.

You can also catch me at the Brooklyn Book Festival on September 29, or at the Southern Festival of Books on October 26-7. If you can’t make it to any of these dates or I’m not coming to your city, never fear: at least one of these events will be taped and watchable online. Details to come.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll consider preordering the book! Preorders go a long way to giving a book a healthy launch, and making sure enough copies are in circulation ahead of pub day to prevent supply chain problems. This one will go down fast, so don’t want to make you wait. And don’t forget, the fresh new paperback of If We Were Villains drops the same day. My hard copies arrived last week, and they are a sight to behold. Don’t sleep on those scarlet spredges.

Finally, if you’re interested in writing craft conversations and more regular behind-the-scenes updates, you can always keep track of me on socials and on Substack.

Wishing you some fall weather, finally. More soon.

UK Tour Dates

~ M. L. Rio

Delighted to be returning to the UK this fall for some Graveyard Shift events. I hope you’ll come out and get a book signed–it promises to be a spooky good time. You can grab tickets here (and grab them fast, because space is limited).

M

New US Edition of IWWV

~ M. L. Rio

Excited to share the cover art for the new US paperback edition of If We Were Villains. It’ll be available on the same day as Graveyard Shift: September 24 of this year. It’s been a long time in the works, but we wanted to update the original black-and-white paperback, which will be discontinued once the new version hits the shelves–with those sexy red spredges and everything. If you want one of the originals and haven’t grabbed it yet, now would be a good time! And if you’re as enamored with the new version as we are, you can pre-order it wherever you buy your books.

Thanks for coming on this journey with us.

M

Upcoming Events

~ M. L. Rio

Checking in with a quick update from the first stop of my eight-week conference/wedding/speaking/research tour. I’m in Chicago at the moment for the Renaissance Society of America Conference, and really looking forward to continuing the scholastic conversation at Arizona State University next month. I’ll be making a few classroom appearances as well as doing a larger event open to the public on April 17, so if you’re in the Phoenix/Tempe area I hope you’ll come out and join us. This will be a rare opportunity to hear me talk about my creative writing and my academic research in tandem. I promise, not as boring as it sounds! You can find more info here.

I’ll also be making an appearance this Wednesday at the Charleston Craft & Canvas book club. If you can’t get enough of the Villains, this is a great opportunity to discuss the book with other fans of crime and mystery, and to do some collective crafting inspired by the story. Just to sweeten the deal, the organizer also happens to be the person who directed me in my first Shakespeare play when I was fourteen. It promises to be a great hang, so if you’re in or around Charleston, SC, I hope you’ll sign up. You can do that–and find more info–here.

Can’t wait to meet you.

M

GRAVEYARD SHIFT cover reveal

~ M. L. Rio

Short post today as I’m on All the Deadlines, but we’re excited to finally show you the cover art for Graveyard Shift, along with an official release date. Mark your calendars for September 24, 2024.

Don’t forget you can already pre-order the book if you’re in the U.S., and pre-orders are a huge help to bookstores, publishers, and authors because they take some of the guesswork out of the printing process. If you’re outside the United States, don’t worry–we’re working on getting foreign rights all lined up, and I’ll share more information on that front as soon as I have it. If you want to stay abreast of what’s going on behind the scenes with Graveyard Shift and Hot Wax, the best place to do that is over on Substack. Our first “Road to Publication” post will be live on Tuesday.

Hope you love this as much as we do.

M

New Work: HOT WAX

~ M. L. Rio

It’s been a busy few months for Team Rio. As is always the case with publishing, there’s a strange lag between when big things happen and when they can actually be big news. I’m thrilled to finally share this with you.

I wrote the first version of this book seven years ago. It’s been on a long, strange journey since then, and I’m so glad it’s found such a good home with Tim at Simon & Schuster. The next few years promise to be very busy, in a very good way. Without a great agent this never would have happened–I’m grateful for mine every day. But it also wouldn’t have happened without my readers, who have loved my first book so fiercely and made it possible for me to write more.

I can’t wait to bring you along on this fresh adventure. Because most of my online writing has migrated to my Substack newsletter, this is a great time to subscribe. You’ll still see all the big news here, but if you’re interested in the publishing process and want a peek behind the scenes as Hot Wax and Graveyard Shift go to press, Substack is the place to be. I hope you’ll join me. You can subscribe right here.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

M