You’re stuck at home, entrenched in front of the TV. You’re glued to your smart devices and Twitter is blowing up in front of your eyes and you can’t run and you can’t hide from the ever-pervading end of the world that’s being shot directly through the air on invisible beams and straight into your brain. But: you can UNPLUG from the outside world and JOIN us at The Big Texas Read. As featured in Poets&Writers, Forbes, The Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Express-News, U.S. News & World Report, San Francisco Chronicle, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Houston Chronicle, and Texas Highways, we’ll be reading ONE work of prose or poetry written by a Texas author every month! We’ll be with you all the way from page one to “THE END” with our Zoom author chats and Q&A’s, scheduled every two weeks. It’s a big virtual book club, and we’d love for you to join in the fun!

We’re excited to partner with Interabang Books in Dallas and The Twig Book Shop in San Antonio for The Big Texas Read. You can order your book directly from either bookstore and have it delivered to your front door!

Keep a lookout for giveaways that come with being a book lover and taking part in The Big Texas Read, from free online WWD and Gemini Ink workshops to manuscript consultations. Help us celebrate the diverse literary voices of our robust state, and we’ll join you in making the most of these unexpected times by keeping you company with great Texas authors and like-minded fellow readers. In these unsettling times, what could be better than a good book, a dynamic discussion, and meeting new friends?

We’ll read the first two books in New York Times, bestselling author, Kathleen Kent’s the Betty Rhyzyk series: The Dime, and The Burn. We’ll discuss The Dime on 6/24 and follow it with The Burn on 7/8. In each book, Brooklyn’s toughest female detective takes on Dallas—and neither is ready for the fight.

Kathleen Kent is the author of the Edgar Award-nominated The Dime, as well as the bestselling historical novels The Heretic’s Daughter, The Traitor’s Wife, and The Outcasts. Kent lives in Dallas, TX.

“Gripping . . . Briskly paced, The Burn barely allows the reader to take a breath as believable twists careen throughout.”—Oline Cogdill, Associated Press

“Deeply satisfying . . . [Betty is] an obsessive, borderline unstable, fascinating, Brooklyn-born seeker of truth. . . . With Betty Rhyzyk, Kathleen Kent brings those mean streets to life as excitingly as anybody has in years.”—The Washington Post

“Harsh, violent reality is the daily farefor Dallas police detective Betty Rhyzyk, the narrator of Kathleen Kent’ssatisfying The Burn.”— The Wall Street Journal

“Kent’s Dallas setting is so meticulously drawnthat one can practically smell the streets, the sour odor of the street people.All of her characters are memorable, and not a single one, even the minorcharacters, is less than three dimensional.”—New York Journal of Books

“A suspensefulmystery right up until the end — and an effective exploration of trauma andits ongoing repercussions, not only for survivors but also for those who careabout, and for, them.”—BookReporter

“Kent continues to reinvent and subvert traditional noir expectations with the larger-than-life, damaged, courageous Betty. . . . Action-driven mystery anchored by dynamic, deep characters.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“A gripping, powerfully human procedural”—Booklist

“Exciting [and] moving… Grisly but likable.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Terrific… Kent’s own ability to avoid predictable outcomes and keep the reader on edge bodes well for future installments in this series.”—Chicago Tribune