Celebrate the Release of "Welcome to M**der Week" with Author Karen Dukess!

Join Athena Books to celebrate the release of Karen Dukess' new novel, ! We couldn't be more thrilled to host Karen for this exciting evening of fun, cozy M**der conversation and laughter. Karen will be joined in conversation by bestselling author and friend of the store, Annabel Monaghan. This is such a fantastic read to kick off your summer reading, and also a great gift for all the readers in your life. Join us!

Your ticket to the event includes Welcome to M**der Week, wine, seltzer and light dessert.

About Welcome to M**der Week:

In this delightfully funny and heartfelt new novel from the author of the The Last Book Party, an American woman travels to the English countryside when she discovers tickets her late mother had purchased for a M**der mystery simulation in a small British town.

When thirty-four-year-old Cath loses her mostly absentee mother, she is ambivalent. With days of quiet, unassuming routine in Buffalo, New York, Cath consciously avoids the impulsive, thrill-seeking lifestyle that her mother once led. But when she’s forced to go through her mother’s things one afternoon, Cath is perplexed to find tickets for an upcoming “M**der week” in England’s Peak District: a whole town has come together to stage a fake M**der mystery to attract tourism to their quaint hamlet. Baffled but helplessly intrigued by her mother’s secret purchase, Cath decides to go on the trip herself—and begins a journey she never could have anticipated.

Teaming up with her two cottage-mates, both ardent mystery lovers—Wyatt Green, forty, who works unhappily in his husband’s birding store, and Amity Clark, fifty, a divorced romance writer struggling with her novels—Cath sets about solving the “crime” and begins to unravel shocking truths about her mother along the way. Amidst a fling—or something more—with the handsome local maker of artisanal gin, Cath and her irresistibly charming fellow sleuths will find this week of fake M**der may help them face up to a very real crossroads in their own lives.

Witty, wise, and deliciously escapist, Welcome to M**der Week is a fresh, inventive twist on the M**der mystery and a touching portrayal of one daughter’s reckoning with her grief, her past—and her own budding sense of adventure.

Reviews of Welcome to M**der Week:

“Full of intrigue and adventure, charm and heart, Welcome to M**der Week is downright enchanting! With characters you’ll want to befriend and an irresistible setting you’ll long to visit, this captivating story is as wise as it is fun. A double mystery, a touch of romance, and, above all, a truly perfect ending—I adored this book!” —Amy Poeppel, author of The Sweet Spot

“An aching family mystery wrapped in a comedic whodunit with a delicious dose of travelogue and romance to boot? That’s Welcome to M**der Week: steamy, grief-struck escapism–as genre-defying as it is delightful.” —Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich

“A trio of Americans trying to solve a fake M**der in an English village is the novel I didn’t know I was waiting for. Get ready to lose yourself in this smart, funny, utterly original, five-star read.” —Annabel Monaghan, bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script

About Karen Dukess:

Karen Dukess is the author of (Henry Holt, 2019), which was an IndieNext and Discover New Writers pick. Her new novel, Welcome to M**der Week, will be published on June 10, 2025, by Scout Press, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Karen is also the host of The Castle Hill Author Talks, a series of virtual and in-person interviews with some of today’s most exciting authors. Karen has been a tour guide in the former Soviet Union, a newspaper reporter in Florida, a magazine publisher in Russia, and a speechwriter on gender equality for the United Nations. She has a degree in Russian Studies from Brown University and a Master’s in Journalism from Columbia University. She lives with her family near New York City and spends as much time as possible in Truro on Cape Cod.

About Annabel Monaghan:

Annabel Monaghan is the USA Today bestselling and Library Reads Hall of Fame author of , , , and , as well as two young adult novels and Does This Volvo Make My Butt Look Big?, a selection of laugh-out-loud columns that appeared in The Huffington Post, The Week, and The Rye Record. She lives in Connecticut with her family. Her novels have been translated into twenty languages.

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