Author Event: Ellery Adams and Kelly Mullen
Schedule
Tue, 18 Nov, 2025 at 06:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
415 Brooks Street, Wake Forest, NC, United States, North Carolina 27587 | Wake Forest, NC
The Tattered Cover is the 8th book in The Secret, Book, & Scone Society Series
It was a dark, rainy night at Nora Pennington’s Miracle Books when a mysterious death brings the Secret, Book, and Scone Society into the Halloween season on the trail of a murderer . . .
As the residents of Miracle Springs, North Carolina, select their costumes, plan parties, and get excited for a night of tricks or treats, Nora joins in on the festivities by hosting medium memoirist Lara Luz at the bookstore. Charismatic and compelling, Lara mesmerizes the audience with her life story. Struck by a bolt of lightning as a child, she was pronounced dead only to be resurrected with the ability to connect with those on the other side.
Lara performs a reading for a select group of bookstore patrons when the encroaching storm knocks out the power. In the sudden darkness, howling cold winds intensify, and Lara clutches her heart, collapsing dead without warning. But Nora doesn’t believe she died of natural causes. Not one member of the psychic’s reading group—which includes the town’s widower pharmacist, an urgent care nurse, a mystery author, and even truculent Deputy Hollowell—were admirers of Lara.
Nora confirms this when she stumbles upon Lara’s journal in the aftermath of her death. For within its leathery bound pages are the medium and her clients’ deepest and darkest secrets, written in code. Now, Nora and the Secret, Book, and Scone Society must sift through the suspects and their motives to uncover which one of them is a killer before he or she is tempted to strike again . . .
Ellery Adams is the USA Today & New York Times bestselling author of over forty mystery novels. Ellery grew up on a beach near the Long Island Sound but now writes from her home in central North Carolina. She considers herself “baked in the North and buttered in the South.” She loves rescue animals, jigsaw puzzles, coffee, black licorice, college football, reading on rainy days, wood-burning fires, and porch swings. To see her complete bibliography, as well as reading guides and bibliotherapy lists, please visit ElleryAdamsMysteries.com or find Ellery on Instagram @elleryadams.
This is Not a Game is described as Golden Girls meets Only Murders in the Building.
Widow Mimi lives on idyllic Mackinac Island, where cars are not allowed and a Gibson martini with three onions at the witching hour is compulsory. Her estranged granddaughter, Addie, is getting over the heartbreak of not only being dumped by her fiancé, Brian, but also being cut out of the deal for the brilliantly successful video game Murderscape they invented together (with Addie doing most of the heavy lifting).
When Mimi gets an invitation from local socialite Jane Ireland—a seventysomething narcissist who’s having a salacious affair with her son-in-law—to a charity auction, she invites Addie. But Mimi doesn’t tell her that a blackmail threat from Jane looms over the party’s invitation.
Once they arrive, a big storm rolls in, trapping everyone in the mansion. And then, Jane is murdered. Soon Mimi and Addie’s strained relationship is put to the test when they must team up to narrow down the suspects. When another body turns up, the sleuthing pair realize someone else is playing a deadly game, and they might not survive the night.
Kelly Mullen is an author, producer and marketing executive. Her creative work for brands has won over fifty awards, including Cannes Lions and Clios. As an executive producer, her credits include the Academy Award-nominated film Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren, and the Apple TV+ documentary Dads, produced with Ron Howard. Born and raised in Iowa, Kelly is now a dual citizen of the UK and US. She lives in London with her husband and their rescue cats.
Where is it happening?
415 Brooks Street, Wake Forest, NC, United States, North Carolina 27587Event Location & Nearby Stays: