Need a good summer read? How about scrapbook fiction?

Scrapbooking's popularity has spawned a whole crop of fiction books that have scrapbooking themes which are starting to show up in bookstores. If you are looking for a good summer read, here are a few suggestions (and a giveaway for one lucky Scrapbook Update reader!)

(A marketing idea for local scrapbook stores: you might want to try donating copies of scrapbook-themed fiction to your local library. It might get readers in the mood for scrapbooking, and even better, a lot of libraries allow labels to be placed in donated books that say "donated by..." which would be a great advertisement for your store! This might also be a productive use of unsold copies of scrapbook publications - turn them into advertising by donating them to places as reading material with your name on them.)

So let's take a look at the scrapbook fiction shelf...

Scrapbooking Mysteries by Laura Childs

I wrote a review of Laura Child's book Motif for Murder previously, but with another book out now in the series and a new one coming in September, this scrapbooking mystery series will soon total six titles. The most recent one that is available is last fall's Frill Kill, set during Halloween in New Orleans (the home of the series). Coming Sept. 2nd, is Death Swatch, available now for preorder on Amazon. I've gotten my hands on a pre-release review copy - I'll let you know how it is when I finish it!

This series centers around the New Orleans French Quarter scrapbook store of Carmela Bertrand and her adventures solving mysteries. I would classify them as "light" mysteries - I am not into heavy, scary mysteries and I very much enjoyed Motif for Murder.

Previous titles in the series are Keepsake Crimes, Photo Finished, and Bound for Murder. Those three titles are also available in a compilation called Death By Design. Most of the books are available in affordable paperback editions.

Now, here's the exciting news...I have a hardcover copy of the scrapbooking mystery book Frill Kill autographed by Laura Childs to give away to one lucky reader! Here's what you have to do to get your chance to enter: post in the comments of this article and tell everyone what is your favorite scrapbooking book (either fiction or non-fiction). Post your comment before midnight EST next Saturday night. I will put the names of everyone who comments before then into a bowl for my 5 year old to draw a winner from. The winner will be posted on Sunday the 15th and will have to contact me with their mailing information from the email address they gave when they commented to receive the prize (to verify their identity). So, comment away and I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say!

Sisters, Ink by Rebeca Seitz

If mysteries aren't your thing, Rebeca Seitz's titles of Christian fiction might be. Her Sisters, Ink, series focuses on the stories of four small town Tennessee sisters who are all adopted and from different racial and cultural backgrounds. Their stories unfold as they gather in their mother's attic scrapping room to share cropping time and their lives.

The first book, Sisters, Ink focuses on the story of sister Tandy, an Orlando lawyer, who comes home to Tennessee after an ethical issue forces her to take an extended leave of absence. Once home, she sees more than her sisters - she runs into old love Clay, home from the Marines.

Coming Unglued will be available July 1st. According to the Amazon preview, this one will focus on the artsy, musician sister Kendra, and the sisters have progressed out of the attic into a scrapbooking business:

Ten years after their mother Marilyn has died, the multi-racial Sinclair sisters (Meg, Kendra, Tandy, and Joy) still return to her converted attic scrapbooking studio in the small town of Stars Hill, Tennessee, to encourage each other through life’s highs and lows. They’ve even turned their artistic passion into a new local
scrapbooking business known as Sisters, Ink.

Coming Unglued focuses on painter and musician Kendra who struggles with her sense of self-worth—a struggle that only intensifies when she realizes a “friendship” developed with a guy at a jazz club is actually an emotional affair. With her sisters’ help, Kendra strives to do what’s right, embracing the call to safeguard her heart and mind and hold fast to God’s truth and grace.

Previous to writing the Sisters, Ink series, Rebeca Seitz also wrote another book with a scrapbook theme called Prints Charming. The book focuses on the travails of the newly divorced Jane Sandburg and her three scrapbooking friends as she moves ahead with her life (and has to decide whether to give her cheating ex-husband a second chance) and they support her through it.

And if you need something to look forward to...

The fall (specifically September) will bring the release of two new scrapbooking mystery series. One of them is even from a name that may be familiar to some in the scrapbook industry.

Paper, Scissors, Death: A Scrapbooking Mysteryby Joanna Campbell Slan will be released on Sept. 1st. The book focuses on Kiki Lowenstein, a recently widowed mom of one and scrapbook store employee, who must solve the murder of her husband's friend to avoid being next on a hit list.

Campbell Slan is familiar to many in the scrapbook community for her long resume of writing there and it will be exciting to see if she can deliver on the fiction side as well. She certainly has the knowledge of the scrapbooking arena to make her setting authentic.

Campbell Slan is having a contest on her website where the winner gets to name a character in her next book, Scraplifted, coming in the summer of 2009.
Stamped Out: A Stamping Sisters Mystery by Terri Thayer will be released Sept. 2nd in paperback. Terri is the author of a series of quilting mysteries but this will be her first stamping mystery. Along with Joanna Campbell Slan, Thayer writes for a site called Killer Hobbies, a blog by seven mystery writers that write hobby themed books.

Update: The winner of the book drawing is now posted.