Press Release

October 13, 2020

ReQueered Tales releases 3rd novel

Marking the 40th Anniversary of the Violet Quill

THE BOOK OF LIES by Felice Picano

LOS ANGELES—October 13, 2020— ReQueered Tales is restoring award-winning gay and lesbian fiction to print with a focus on mystery, literary and sci-fi genres. Since May 2019, we’ve reintroduced twelve authors to old friends and a new generation of readers.

“Based on Picano's involvement with the Violet Quill Club (which included and ), this is an absorbing Henry James-style comedy of manners about how even when some writers find their way out of the closet, others still get left behind.” — The Mail on Sunday

Bright, ambitious, and handsome, Ross Ohrenstedt is a high flier in the fashionable field of queer studies. He has just taken a prestigious university position in and has been appointed to oversee the collection of papers and works of a leading light of the gay literary salon known as the Purple Circle. Ross stumbles across a lost work by an unknown author and his quest to identify the mystery writer and achieve the glory of scholastic tenure unveils increasingly bizarre and unbalanced facts about a group of writers who in the 1970s and 1980s broke new ground in the creation of a gay literary sensibility. But the dark truth contained within The Book of Lies is even more startling.

With biting wit and a lush sense of place and character, Felice Picano’s daring novel is at once a stylish mystery, a comical roman-à-clef, and a wicked send-up of the new Ivory Tower.

First published to acclaim in 1998, this new edition features a foreword by David Bergman (The Violet Hour).

“Leave it to Felice Picano to add a walloping dose of melodrama and intrigue to a tale already redrawing genre boundaries … What Picano does is take an academic mystery (subject matter that might have proved tedious or solipsistic in lesser hands) and morphs it into something new – a page-turning, often campy, occasionally serious critique of academia and historical truth, literary celebrity, and the imminent future of America.” — Philadelphia Tribune

THE BOOK OF LIES by Felice Picano 440 pgs • ISBN 978-1-951092-31-3 Trade Paperback: US $19.95 • CAN $24.95 • UK £15.95 Ebook: US $5.95 • CAN $7.95 • UK £4.95 • EU €5.95 • AU $8.95

Paperback: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3gRBhJJ • Bookstores: please enquire at Ingram Ebook: Amazon - https://amzn.to/3gRBhJJ • Kobo - https://bit.ly/2EZvzbi • Nook - https://bit.ly/34YArbW • Apple - https://apple.co/31Qr0Jt

Also available:

LIKE PEOPLE IN HISTORY https://amzn.to/38EuIq8 Winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Best Novel. The saga of two cousins from the 1950s to 1990s, through coming of age, the ’60s California housing boom, Woodstock, Vietnam War, settling into New York of the ’80s and the arrival of AIDS and ACT-UP.

“It’s the heroic and funny saga of the last three decades by someone who saw everything and forgot nothing.” – Edmund White

ONYX https://amzn.to/2mkVJMw The intertwining of three men’s lives, Onyx is marked by shifting points of view, humor, descriptive brilliance and unexpected revelation. It is a multifaceted exploration of inner lives, motivation, love, and the sometimes hollow center beneath a polished surface.

“Picano's Onyx enhance[s] his reputation as a major chronicler of gay life and culture” — Publisher's Weekly

Many ReQueered Tales titles are also available to digital public lending libraries through Overdrive. Please ask your local librarian to purchase a copy for your community.

ABOUT REQUEERED TALES

At ReQueered Tales, we are honored to be custodians of a treasure trove of outstanding gay and lesbian fiction. Many titles published before 2000 are available for a new generation of LGBTQ readers and our allies. With twice monthly releases, ReQueered Tales offers a diverse catalog in modestly priced editions worldwide in e-book and in print. Established in 2019, we anticipate 35 releases through the end of 2020 including three ReQueered Tales Originals.

For more information about ReQueered Tales, and new releases, please contact us at:

Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ReQueeredTales/ E-mail: [email protected] Website: https://www.requeeredtales.com/ Blog: https://www.requeeredtales.com/blog/ Twitter: @ReQueered Instagram: www.instagram.com/Requeered Mailing list: https://bit.ly/RQTJoin