We hope you are able to join us for this event! You can join in to watch our Lives on FB & IG at 7:30pm tonight. RSVP to the event on FB to get notified when we get started: https://fb.me/e/XmqoscRd You can also watch past lives for the event on the event page. We've embedded the video here so you can watch straight from here, whether you're watching the night of the event or after it's ended.  

​We are going to cover a few of our favorite recent LGBTQIA+ titles & tell you a little about each. Plus, we'll talk about books we're excited to read next & some upcoming titles you should watch out for. We have them ALL linked here so you can easily make your purchase! If we run out of stock before your order & it says it's unavailable, please email us at orders@foggypinebooks.com. Our booksellers will be able to process your order & give you an estimate on arrival! 

These books are each bookseller's top pick for tonight's discussion:

The Jasmine Throne - Tasha Suri

This lush, sweeping epic fantasy is set in a world based on historical India & is populated with a cast of unforgettable characters. You'll love how Suri's prose effortlessly pulls you in & immerses you in a complex but compelling story of empire & resistance, blood & dangerous love. An imprisoned & vengeful princess and a maidservant who isn't who she appears to be must come together to find the things they're both looking for, family & power, and to save their empire from the clutches of the princess's despotic brother. The first book in a series you don't want to miss!

In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado
​
A somber and raw exposé interwoven with mythos and courage, In the Dream House is a gorgeous memoir that reads almost like a folk tale. Unwinding the thread of an abusive same-sex relationship, Machado illuminates her journey from long-distanced sweetheart to “haunted house” survivor. Unlike anything you’ve ever read, this is must-read for fans of surreal queer horror and lovers of honest and powerful memoirs.
​

Crier's War by Nina Varela

Crier is an Automae, a being engineered to be perfect, who have risen above humans in the past centuries. Ayla is a human, working in the estate of Crier's "father," the lord of the land in which they live. She is also a part of the human rebellion against the Automae. When Crier nearly falls to her death, Ayla saves her against all of her instincts. She is rewarded with a new job - becoming Crier's primary handmaid. Crier's War a novel of political intrigue and powerful women, with skyrocketing tension as both Crier and Ayla try to decide who they are and what exactly they value most. The second book of the duology, Iron Heart, came out in September of 2020. 

These are the books that we'll talk about briefly during the event! You can click each title to read the summary & buy online, if you find something you can't wait to read. 

Don't forget that 10% of all sales tonight will be donated to Equality NC! 

These books are newer releases that we are excited to read but haven't done it yet. 

February is here and no matter how you feel about Valentine's Day (😍/🤮), we know you'll agree that everyone wants to feel loved. You have certainly made that feeling real for us this year as we were honored to receive the Startup Business of the Year award from the Boone Chamber of Commerce. We know this award is directly related to community nominations and we literally could not have done any of this without you so thank you, from the bottom of our hearts! We are grateful to be part of such a generous and open-minded community of book lovers and we look forward to serving you for many years.

If you're a lover of Valentine's Day, be sure to come by the store for our First Friday Art Crawl, Friday, February 7th, and create your own love notes to distribute to your favorite people. We will have a Valentine's craft station, free wine (with valid ID), and a great giveaway!  Plus, if you make a shelf-talker for a book in our store, you get a coupon for 20% off ONE BOOK.

Not sure which book to purchase with your 20% off? Why not snag one of our new releases? There are several new titles available this month and you're sure to find something you love. You can choose from the following: A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Barry, Belle Révolte by Linsey Miller, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett, When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald, The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg, and Highfire  by Eoin Colfer.

Watching a show or texting with a friend and the name of a great new book comes up? Afraid you won't remember the title when you finally make it to the store? Jump online and order it while you're thinking about it! You can have it shipped directly to your home or order it for in-store pick-up.

When you're ready to recommend your new book to a friend, you can use Libro.fm's new service, Bookstore Link, to be sure those you love are supporting your local bookstore. Bookstore Link connects readers to their local independent bookstore for online book purchases. When you follow a link to a book on Bookstore Link, you'll choose your local independent bookstore and be connected directly to our website to complete your transaction. This ensures that Foggy Pine Books, not Amazon, is making book sales. It's a win for all of us!

Not only does Libro.fm provide thousands of DRM-free audiobooks and independent bookstore support via Bookstore Link, they also offer FREE ALC's (Advanced Listening Copies) for all teachers and librarians. That's right! If you are a teacher or librarian, you can sign-up and download the books everyone else is waiting to read! Get started here! 

Wondering what titles you can expect in your ALC's? Chances are, some of our most popular upcoming pre-orders will be available! These include: Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, If It Bleeds by Stephen King, Conjure Women by Afia Atakora, The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickles, Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi (Book 3 of the Pandava Series), and Stormsong by C.L. Polk. If you're wanting to get your hands on a hard copy of these titles you'll be happy to know that all pre-orders are marked 15% off the cover price. So browse away and, when you're ready to order, head over to the website to choose your favorite one(s)!

If you've been by lately, maybe for a book club or author event, you may have noticed a new face around the store. We would like to formally introduce y'all to Elly Murray, our newest staff member. Elly is interning with Foggy Pine Books as she pursues her professional writing degree at App State. She is writing content for the blog and newsletter and, closer to the end of the semester, will be doing an intern takeover of all our social media. Keep your eyes peeled for her exciting, literary content and be sure to give her a wave if you see her around the store!

Speaking of book clubs and author events, we are excited to be hosting/co-hosting a ton of amazing events in February. First up is Story Slam at Noble Kava on Saturday, February 8th at 7pm. Come out and tell your true, 5 minute story on the theme "Moral Dilemma". Not ready to share your own story? Come listen and enjoy this welcoming and supportive community storytelling event. Foggy Pine Books also hosts a monthly open mic in partnership with Out of Your Mind, a local, non-profit mental health community. We'll be meeting on Feb. 10 at 5:30pm at the bookstore. This open mic provides a space for our local high school students (& extended community) to creatively express themselves and socialize with other artists. Musicians, poets, comedians, dancers, and magicians are welcome!

We are, once again, hosting a TRIO Live event on February 18th at 7pm. TRIO is a testament to the way words, music and art can come together around the power of a single story. We will be hosting the following authors/songwriters/visual artists this year and we hope you'll join us for this free event brought to you by Working Title Farm and check out some of the books, music, and art promoted by TRIO: PJ Brunson, Mark Bumgarner, Kay and Patrick Crouch, Eric Erdman, Radney Foster, Joanie Gardner, Jim Hamilton (The Last Entry), Caleb Johnson (Treeborne), Liz McKay, Dale Neal (Appalachian Book of the Dead), Bobbie Pyron (Stay), Kimberly J. Simms (Lindy Lee: Songs on Mill Hill), Shari Smith (I Am A Town), and Terry H. Watkins (Darling Girl).

On the 20th we are thrilled to offer a reading/signing/Q&A session with Lees-McRae professor Scott Huffard for his new book, Engines of Redemption. In his book, Huffard examines the rapid growth, systematization, and consolidation of the southern railroad network, demonstrating how economic and political elites used the symbolic power of the railroad to proclaim a New South had risen. The railroad was more than just an economic engine of growth; it was a powerful symbol of capitalism’s advance. Come by the store at 6:30 to learn more!

Our book clubs will meet as usual this month. Silent Book Club will be meeting February 11th @ 1pm and February 15th @ 6pm. Bring any book you're currently enjoying for an hour of quiet reading in the company of other book lovers. If you want to discuss what you're reading afterwards, the conference room is available for discussion. If you want to read and leave, you can do that too! Whatever makes you comfortable.

Our Fantasy/Sci-Fi Book Club will meet on the 27th @ 6:30pm to discuss Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Foggy Pine Book Club will meet on the 29th @ 7:30pm to talk about My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithewaite. We'll share wine & conversation as we discuss the books. These book clubs are open to anyone & we want to hear what you thought about the book, even if you didn't finish it. Book club is an excellent way to meet fellow book nerds in your community!

For more information on book clubs, author events, and featured events, check our our Facbook page or online calendar.

Take a peek at what we're reading behind the scenes this month. As always, if you've read any of these titles, we'd love to chat with you about them!

And last, but not least, our labor of love is finally ready to share with you! We have been fine-tuning our local consignment page and we are beyond excited to announce that it is open for submissions! If you are an author who lives in NC full time, who is independently published, and whose book is not published via CreateSpace, which is an Amazon-owned company, we would love to talk with you about stocking your book in-store. Please read our FAQ here and, if you think your book would be a good fit for the store, fill out the application and we will be in touch!

And that's a wrap for February. We can't wait to see you around the store for an event or just to chat about what you're reading. You can find more information about any of our events or readings on our Facebook page. Read on!

Hello fellow bookworms! As the weather turns colder, there's more time for snuggling up with a good book. So why not make it a new book? We are now offering a 15% discount for any book ordered more than 30 days before its release date! Now's your chance to get the hottest titles at a steal. And remember, any special order will, as always, receive our 10% discount. Can't come and browse during the day? Our new weekend hours are perfect for you! Swing by this Friday or Saturday until 9pm. We can't wait to see you!

Our booksellers also have a staff picks shelf, in addition to having their current titles included in these blog posts. Mary (our owner) is almost always reading at least 3 books at once (how does she do that?!). Lillian and Rasier (our booksellers) read often and eclectically. Katharine (our marketing manager) loves anything inspired by fairy tales and includes a title she's reading with her kids (marked "with the littles"). If you pick up one of these titles - and even if you don't - we would love to chat with you about books so stop by any time! 

As always, there are lots of events and readings coming up this month so be sure to subscribe to our calendar. A couple final notes: we now require a minimum purchase of $5.00 on all card purchases, but that should be easy to hit with these spooktacular savings! Our credit card fees were increased and we can't afford them on anything lower than $5. Also, for the month of October only, shop our fall sale to get 10% off all hardcover picture books (fiction & nonfiction), fantasy, chapter books, young adult, and mystery books.

​We look forward to seeing you soon. Read on!

Happy new year, y'all! 2018 was a year of big change for Foggy Pine Books and we couldn't have done it without your support--from painting walls and helping move to the new location to shopping with us all year long and sharing our store with friends, family, even strangers. We are deeply grateful, as well, to the other businesses & non-profits who supported and worked with us this past year: Hatchet Coffee, Out of Your Mind, SAGA, and more. This community of giving, creative, thoughtful book lovers is precisely what we'd hoped to foster in Boone. Thank you for everything. Now, keep reading to find out what 2019 will bring and how you can be involved!

Are self improvement books not your style but you resolved to read more in 2019? Check out the "Best of 2018" list that our booksellers made for you! We had Mary & Saide list their favorite books that were released in 2018 & then compiled them on out website for you to browse. You can also check out the "Staff Picks" section in the bookstore which is on the bestseller shelf.

​If you like to pick out your own books but would like to challenge yourself to read outside the box, consider doing the Foggy Pine Reading Challenge! Our booksellers created this challenge to help our community read things they might not read otherwise. If you decide to do this challenge and complete it, bring us your filled out challenge list to get a FREE book! Check out the webpage for details. 

Moving on to store announcements--we do have a few updates about our event schedule. First, the Young Adult Book Club is currently on hiatus. It didn't get a lot of interest or engagement last year so we're taking a break this winter to develop an excellent reading list and a marketing strategy that will bring this group to the members of our community who need it most.

In addition to this hiatus, the Foggy Pine Storytime is also on hold indefinitely. We spent a lot of time picking stories and creating activities for kids but the event rarely brought anyone in. We tried moving the days & times but there was no change. We still do the Playhouse Storytime on the first Wednesday of every month at 11am, however, and will be considering a renewal of the Foggy Pine Storytime later this year.

​Finally, we are also putting a hold on the Swap Shop that we partner with Noble Kava to bring to the community. The Swap Shop generated a lot of interest but we're taking a break during the winter to catalog all the items, make donations to local charities, and get ready to come back this spring--just in time for spring cleaning!

Not everything is leaving our even calendar though. We still have the Foggy Pine and Hatchet Coffee Book Clubs, the Foggy Minds Open Mic that we partner with Out of Your Mind to bring to you, the Watauga Witches community group, and all the awesome literary events we host throughout the year, like--TRIO, the Queer Arts Series, Indie Bookstore Day, Banned Books Week, and more! We're also excited to offer new programs this year. We are currently developing a book subscription service and a book club discount program. The most current news about these developments will come through our newsletter, which offers, in addition to exclusive news, the first announcements of sales and a coupon for our readers. You can sign up for it here, but we'll also make announcements on our social media pages: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as this blog.

Lastly, we just have some reminders for you. Don't forget while you're Kon Mari-ing your house and getting rid of all your books that Foggy Pine Books will be happy to take them off your hands! Read up about our used book program here, then call us to make an appointment for your book collection. You'll get credit for other used books in the store so you can keep reading without investing a lot of money or space in your newly organized home!

​Or maybe you didn't use the Kon Mari method but you're still supposed to host your book club meeting this month? Don't worry, we have you covered there too! Rent out our conference room to get a clean, cozy space for up to 12 people to meet. We have store parking, a comfy couch to sit on, a table to work at, and coffee available to all. If your meeting is during business hours, you can make your appointment online here. If you would like to meet outside of business hours, give us a call and we'll make the arrangements together. If you have any questions about the rental space or would like to check view it, please reach out to speak with Saide or Mary.

That's it for all our biggest updates at the beginning of 2019. We'll be posting on this blog several times throughout the year but the best way to get news about Foggy Pine Books is to sign up for the newsletter. If you sign up before the end of January, we will email you a special coupon to use on your next purchase!

Thank you again, Boone! We look forward to seeing you at our events this year and can't wait to see what great tings 2019 brings for us.

     You already know we love books, but we love our literary swag as well! Check out our totes, mugs, pins, socks, coasters, and much more for 10% off. We've got something for everyone, so come take a peek at our nerdy merch and take home something that marks you as a true bibliophile!     
     And as a true bibliophile, if you see a book during your browsing Saturday that you've read a million times over, sit yourself down and write us a review! Let us know which book you're writing up, give us a thoughtful and descriptive review, and you'll earn yourself a coupon for 20% off any book in the store (one per customer, pretty please). You might even get published on Our Community Reads!
    Didn't know we offered special orders or hosted community events? Sign up for our monthly Foggy Pine newsletter and get a sneak peek into the bookstore world. There are loads of perks for signing up! You'll be the first to know when new titles are coming out and what events are happening that month AND you'll be entered into a raffle to win a Libro.fm shirt and sticker!
     Speaking of Libro.fm, get a FREE audiobook when you create an account with them, Saturday only. Already a Libro.fm member? You still get that audiobook for free - they're so great like that! They have a huge selection of indie audio for you to enjoy (and a really pretty website to boot!
     We can't wait to see you Saturday to celebrate books and the places that offer them to you!

As you can tell from the lengthy amount of time between blog posts, we've been quite busy here at Foggy Pine Books. At the end of 2017, we acquired a larger space across the street from our location at the time and moved into it in January. We're so grateful to have the opportunity to move into this space and, now that we're settled, are looking forward to more involved community engagement. We hope you'll stop by to visit us in our new space at 471 W. King St, the Harmon House between Boone Saloon and the Turchin Center. 

We are also starting a children's story time series with Kindly Kitchen. The first event will take place on Saturday, March 17th (St. Patrick's Day!) and will continue on the third Saturday of every month for three months. The story times will start at Foggy Pine Books at 11:30am and will continue at Kindly Kitchen at 12:30pm. At Foggy Pine, parents will be able to get a free cup of coffee and at Kindly Kitchen a healthy snack will be available for children. The stories read will focus on food, community, and activism. Stay tuned to our Facebook page and the Events tab on our website for a list of the books we'll be reading together. So, bring your young ones downtown on the 17th to join in our brand new story time and stay to watch the parade!

Hello, everyone! I can't believe I almost let this month get away without giving you an update. We have so much to talk about!

I'll start with events first. We have two more February events left and both take place this week. Tomorrow, Thursday, February 23 we'll meet at Hatchet Coffee at 7:30pm for our first Hatchet Coffee Book Club. We'll be discussing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and they will have Butterbeer Lattes available for $3, all day. I'm so excited for this meeting and to kick off this new book club in partnership with Hatchet Coffee. We still have copies of the screenplay available for purchase at the store. 

Saturday, February 25 we'll meet at the store for the February meeting of the Foggy Pine Book Club. We'll be discussing the beautiful novel, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. We'll also be finalizing our book choices for the next 6 months of reading! And, as always, we'll have wine and snacks to share. 

​There are also some March events that I'd like to go ahead and tell you about. We'll be jumping back into Spring with our First Friday event. It begins at 7pm on March 3rd and will last until 9pm. We'll have free wine. a giveaway, 10% off the entire store, and a Thirty-One vendor available for questions and orders. 

We'll also be returning to our children's story time. This event will take place on Saturday, March 11 at 3pm. We'll read a story together and have some kind of activity related to the story. This event usually lasts about 30 minutes and we'll have free coffee available for the parents. 

Finally, on Saturday, March 18 at 6:30pm, we have an author reading and signing with Lynn C. Willis for her book, Tell Me No Lies. This event will take place at the bookstore and books will be available for purchase beforehand at 10% off their list price. ​

We will also be sending out a new email newsletter in partnership with the literary website: Shelf Awareness. Currently, if you have signed up for the store e-newsletter, you are signed up for the Shelf Awareness e-newsletter. If you would like to be removed from the Shelf Awareness mailing list in advance, you can email Mary to have that done. If you check it out but decide that you don't want it, there's an unsubscribe button in the e-newsletter that you can click to have yourself removed. That said, we're really excited to send this newsletter out to our customers. Not only does it keep you up-to-date with the most current releases in hardback/paperback/children's books, you'll also find author interviews, book reviews, and links to other interesting articles on literary sites around the web. Plus, if something sounds so great that you can't live without it, you can click right on the "add to cart" button to buy it from us online. If you would like to register for this newsletter, please use the newsletter sign up. It has been adjusted to let you make a choice of which newsletter you'd like to have delivered to your inbox. 

One of the things we believe bookstores exist to do is to function as a community space. Right now, we don't have the space to do a lot of the things that we'd like to do but that doesn't mean that we can't start to offer more community events. So, in the spirit of community interest, we want to know which events you would be the most interested in participating in at the bookstore. We've created a quick, two question survey for you and would really appreciate you taking the time to answer it. We will definitely be reading and acting on responses so the more we have, the better we can serve the Boone community. Since it's such a short survey, we thought we'd just post it here:

The program we're most excited about offering is the Foggy Pine Ambassador Program. We love our customers and we love that our customers love us back. So, we've created an ambassador program for those that want to spread the good news about Boone's new bookstore. Here's how it works: starting in March, you will have the opportunity to become an Ambassador. We will include a signup link in the March newsletter, across social media, and on our website.

To be an Ambassador, you must agree to:
-be vocal about supporting FPB--word of mouth is the best form of advertisement
-write reviews for the store online or write book reviews for the Our Community Reads project
-give interested parties the FPB business card
-volunteer in at least one event every 6 weeks

In exchange, we will:
-give you a 10% discount on all purchases
-let you choose 1 ARC/month (doesn't have to be one we already have! Mary will ask publishers for you!)
-create a private Ambassador page on Facebook to connect Boone's most dedicated bibliophiles
-make sure you're the first to know about upcoming events, store changes, and community updates

So, stay tuned for the signup link coming soon!

​We're also extremely excited to tell that we are now able to offer digital audiobooks to our customers! Just go to the Libro.fm website to shop for audiobooks. They start as low as $5 per book and include new releases and children's books! Once you've made your purchase, you simply download the FREE Libro.fm app to your iOS or Android device and sign in. You'll be listening in no time. If you prefer to download your book and listen from your laptop or desktop computer, it's a very simple process. Every purchase you make supports Foggy Pine Books. So, shop away and please let us know if there's anything we can do to help you with this new program. 
​

Last, but not least, we want to talk about Black History Month. We've had an excellent time sharing our favorite authors of color with people celebrating BHM. Though we are dedicated to promoting the voices of marginalized people through literature every day, this month has been a special time to reflect on the contributions that black people have made to literature and to the world. We have thoroughly enjoyed the warm, friendly conversations that we've been able to have with our customers about Black History Month. So, we wanted to take this moment to let you know that we are always okay to have those conversations. We want you to feel comfortable, regardless of race/gender/ethnicity/sexuality/religion/citizen status expressing yourself at Foggy Pine Books. We want to help you find your favorite book or a new author you heard about. We want to help you find the stories and the information that you long to see. We're here to support you. So, please, don't hesitate to make our store your space. Bookstore's belong to community. Let's make sure Foggy Pine Books belongs to Boone. 

Thanks for being a part of our community. ​

Hello, everyone. We're a few days out from the election and it's hard to know the right thing to say. I'm going to try but I'm not perfect and I'm not immune to my own emotions on the topic. So, here goes. 

There are a lot of different emotions roiling around your hearts and minds. I know a lot of you are scared right now. Or angry. ​However, I want to take this time to make sure everyone knows they are loved and accepted at Foggy Pine. We don't tolerate hate speech and we support the rights of EVERY person. If you are scared, you can come be among the books and feel less afraid. If you are angry, you can come run your fingers along the spines and let the rows and rows of letters pressed together to make stories calm your mind. Books don't judge you. They don't ask who you voted for. They aren't going to debate with you. (Neither will I.) They will educate, entertain, and aid in your escape from this reality. They will expand your mind. They will deepen your empathy. Books, honestly, are a sanctuary and a weapon. You can choose what you need right now. Our doors are open. 

For me, books have always been a sanctuary and that's the place I've fled to in my mind the last few days. I've been thinking a lot about Harry Potter, which makes sense if you're a Potterhead like me. The theme that keeps returning to me over and over again is to not give up HOPE. Hope is the only thing that sustains us through dark times and, while it may be hard to grasp (or even reach!), we need it as much as we need love and acceptance. So, keep your wands on Lumos because we're going to need the light. 

I do have other updates. 

We have a lot of events going on this month and we'd love for you to be involved. Tomorrow, 11/12, we have Baby Storytime at 6pm. Bring your child that's 2 years old or younger and we'll read a story together, sing songs and maybe play a game. There will be free coffee for parents. We'll have Toddler Storytime on 11/19 at 6pm with a similar program: story, songs, play, free coffee. This event is for children age 2 -5 years old. Also, this month is National Family Literacy Month and all children's books are 10% off!! Perfect time to get a little holiday shopping done!

We have an author reading and signing this month on 11/18 at 6pm. We will be hosting Sara Rich, our Spotlight local author, as she reads from her novel, Ligatures. You can read my review of it here. We'd love to see you at the event and you definitely won't want to miss Sara's reading. 

This month is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and we are hosting a write-in on 11/21 from 11am-2pm for any local participants that are looking to meet up with other writers or just have a space to write outside of their home for a while. We are hosting this on a Monday so the store will be closed and you can spread out, relax, and get some work done without worrying that you might bother shoppers or be in the way. It's being held during lunchtime so, if you still have your day job, you can come over during your lunch and add to your word count! That evening, we are also hosting a closed write-in for 4th, 7th, & 8th grade students from Two Rivers Community School who are participating in NaNoWriMo. This will be held from 4:30pm-7pm so parents have plenty of time after work to come by with their kid. There will be drinks & snacks during both events. We are *so* looking foward to it!

We're wrapping up the month with a couple things on the weekend after Thanksgiving, for which we'll be closed. First, we have Small Business Saturday on 11/26. We'll be opening early that day (and Black Friday!) at 10am to give you extra time to shop with our store-wide 25% off discount! Plus, the first 10 people to make a purchase will get a free reusable tote! The Black Friday discount changes throughout the day. 20% off for the first 3 hours and then 15% off during the rest of the day. Plus, we'll have a giveaway for a $25 gift card that you can sign up for all day! We'll do the drawing before we close Friday night. You don't want to miss these deals for your holiday shopping. 

Finally, our last event is this month's book club meeting. We are discussing Stuart O'Nan's West of Sunset, a book about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. We'll be meeting on Sunday, November 27 at 6:30pm. We'll have drinks & snacks to share around and plenty of fun as we discuss this month's book. You can read more about it and RSVP here. 

The last thing I'd like to mention is that we now carry Out of Print literary themed socks for just $10/pair. Stay up-to-date by following us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. 

The leaves are changing color rapidly and the peepers are in town in full force to witness the beauty that is the Blue Ridge Mountains in the fall. If you haven't had a chance to go outside and enjoy the unseasonably warm weather we've been having, I highly suggest you take a breather from whatever you're doing and feast your eyes upon the glory that surrounds you. If you don't live here, well, you should probably come for a visit before all these colors fall to the ground and are blown away by winter winds. 

We have a lot going on this month and shared some of that in our newsletter. If you haven't signed up for our newsletter already, you can do so here. 

Finally, all our fall related and horror books are 15% off for the rest of the month! We look forward to seeing you around the store and hope you'll join us for #patconroyweek and all our other various events. 

​Read on!

P.S.--If you wanted to nominate Mary, the store's main bookseller, for one of the James Patterson Bookseller Grants, that would be totally cool. You can do that here. 

This weekend is a very special one. A new Harry Potter story will be released for the first time in 9 years on Harry's birthday, July 31st. Being HUGE Harry Potter fans, we couldn't pass up this opportunity to celebrate! So, we partnered with Galileo's to bring you a super dank release party for Harry Potter & The Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2. Starting at 9pm on Saturday, July 30th, we will be celebrating the magical world of Harry Potter and the release of a new story after almost a decade of waiting and hoping. There will be a trivia contest, a costume contest, themed cocktails (virgin & nonalcoholic), activity sheets, a Muggle wall (to express what HP means to you), and SO MUCH MORE. Plus, we'll have tons of Harry Potter merchandise there for you to snag, including house candles, journals, and coloring books. Then, at midnight, we'll bring it all to a stop and those who have preordered their copy can pick up their book! We will (well, should) have a limited number of copies for people to buy after midnight as well. We have also ordered more copies for those who aren't able to make it to the release party that will be available when we open on Tuesday, after the weekend. We are still accepting preorders for the midnight release though. All you need to do to reserve your copy is call or come by the store to give us your information and payment! We can't wait to see you on Saturday night! It's going to be a fantastic time. Don't forget to RSVP on Facebook if you're going to make it!

​As you know, we are passionate about our role in helping local authors succeed. That's why we started our Local Author Spotlight and are continuously seeking new talent. We are very excited to present our VERY FIRST local author to grab the Spotlight here at Foggy Pine. 

Lisa Muir is a Watauga County resident who also teaches at Wilkes Community College. She has been an active member of the literary community for many years but this is her first fiction release. Her collection of short stories, Taking Down the Moon, was picked up and published by 67 Press, an independent press out of Winston Salem which is also dedicated to fringe voices. Mary has written a review for the collection in the Reviews blog and there's even more information about the author and book on the Spotlight page. We highly recommend grabbing a copy at the store, only $9.99! Lisa will also be speaking and signing books at the Watauga County Library on Wednesday, August 3rd at 5:30pm. You definitely won't want to miss this, even if you haven't read the book!