Join us to celebrate the recently released Negative Girl with Libby Cudmore, in conversation with author Alex Segura!

About the authors:

Libby Cudmore is the author of NEGATIVE GIRL (Datura 2024) and THE BIG REWIND (William Morrow 2016) as well as the award-winning Wade & Jacks series in ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE, ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE and TOUGH. Her work has been published in THE DARK, HAD, SMOKELONG QUARTERLY, SHOTGUN HONEY, MONKEYBICYCLE, THE COACHELLA REVIEW, ORCA and STONE'S THROW, and is forthcoming in DARK WATERS and the anthology AT THE EDGE OF DARKNESS.

Alex Segura is the bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity, which The New York Times called “wittily original” and named an Editor’s Choice. NPR described the novel as “masterful,” and it received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist. Secret Identity was also listed as one of the Best Mysteries of the Year by NPR, Kirkus, Booklist, the South Florida Sun Sentinel and more, and was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Hardcover, the Lefty and Barry Awards for Best Novel, the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel, and won the LA Times Book Prize in the Mystery/Thriller category. His next novel, the YA Spider-Verse adventure Araña/Spider-Man 2099: Dark Tomorrow is out now from Disney Books/Marvel Press.

About the book:

For fans of Cottonmouths by Kelly J. Ford comes Negative Girl an evocative, moody, neo-noir thriller that explores obsession and people dying across America's forgotten spaces.

Martin Wade lived hard in his youth, but unlike many of his former bandmates and roadie friends, he didn't die young. Instead he hit the recovery path, cleaned up his life, and became a private investigator in a dying city in upstate New York.

When his heavily tattooed and scarred assistant Valerie sets up an appointment with a young woman who needs help keeping her biological father away from her, none of the three realize that the father is Martin's old bandmate, still using, and on a destructive path that will soon be headed straight for Martin's clean life. As Martin struggles, Valerie becomes increasingly obsessed with their new client's life.