True crime’s been so hot lately and we love it! So when our friends from Efran Films, a production company based out of NYC, reached out to us recently to let us know they were on the search for a host for a new true crime series, we were pretty excited! Alas, while a lot of us here WISH we could take them up on it, we’re not quite ready to leave our current jobs in pursuit of cable television stardom….but we thought perhaps some of you might be! Here’s all of the info we’ve got below, but you’ll need to move quickly—they’re looking for submissions by this Friday, May 26th! If you apply, drop us a comment and let us know!

NOW CASTING A PASSIONATE HOST FOR A TRUE CRIME SERIES

Are you an amateur sleuth or a murder mystery junkie?

Are you an active member of a true crime group/podcast?

Have you ever tried to solve a cold case on your own?

Efran Films, an Emmy award-winning production company based out of NYC, is currently seeking a young host who has a verifiable passion for crime for a series on a cable network. A background in communications, law, journalism, forensics, or criminology is a huge plus! We’re also accepting submissions from people who are YouTubers, podcasters, true crime junkies or amateur sleuths.

This is a PAID opportunity. You must be willing and able to travel around the country and talk about sensitive source material with witnesses, police and family members of victims. Each episode will have the host talking about a particular crime case that happened somewhere in the country. They’d talk about the facts of the case and have their own input on it as well.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please complete the questionnaire and send us a 2 minute video of you talking about yourself (the first 30 seconds) and a particular crime case you are currently passionate about (1.5 minutes)— and not one of the top ten cases that’s been covered extensively in the media. We want to see how you can speak to a story, review the facts and information about it and also have your own opinion on it. If you have other videos that exist of you online that showcases you on camera talking about any topic (school project, professional shoot and/or home video) please also include those links. Smartphone videos are totally fine but please be close enough so we can hear and see you. Please keep the video to 2 minutes as saying everything you need in that amount of time is part of us seeing your potential.

Please create your personal video and the linked questionnaire by this Friday, May 26th. If you need an extension or have any questions, please reach out to efranfilmscasting@gmail.com.

We do NOT download videos so please upload your video submission to YouTube or Vimeo or similar site and send us a link as noted in the questionnaire. If it’s password protected, please provide us with that as well.

Here’s the Casting Questionnaire

Thank you so much and we look forward to your submission!

Happy Monday!

And what a glorious Monday it is! Why? Because this week…

LORD OF SHADOWS WILL FINALLY BE OUT!!!!

Tomorrow (May 23) is the big day, though you can start reading our excerpt right now to whet your appetite! Chances are good that if you’re reading this, you’re already more than familiar with author Cassandra Clare’s world of the Shadowhunters but on the off chance you’re visiting Riveted for the first time and have somehow never crossed paths with any of Cassie’s novels, don’t dive into Lord of Shadows just yet! You’ll need to at LEAST start with Lady Midnight, the first book in the Dark Artifices series, and we’re featuring an excerpt of it now so you can jump right in. In fact, here are six reasons why you should start reading it! Really though, if you’re new to the world of the Shadowhunters, you should go all the way back to the beginning and start with City of Bones and the rest of The Mortal Instruments series, and then you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t ALSO read Clockwork Angel and the Infernal Devices trilogy, but we digress…..

All caught up on Shadowhuntery goodness, or—gasp—maybe Cassandra Clare’s books aren’t for you?! It’s cool, we get it, and we’ve always got options for you! As we’ve been getting closer to summer, we’ve been featuring summery reads to get us all in the proper mindset and we’ve got two more this week. First, check out How My Summer Went Up in Flames from Jennifer Salvato Doktorski: when impulsive teen Rosie sets fire to her cheating ex-boyfriend’s car and is served with a restraining order, her parents send her on a cross-country road trip with her neighbor and his two friends. Then, we’ve got Summer of Yesterday from Gaby Triana: Haley’s not happy to be stuck on summer vacation with her dad and his new family…until she experiences a seizure that transports her back in time to 1982!

If those aren’t enough for you, we’ve still got last week’s reads! Check out the extended excerpt of Laurent Linn’s Draw the Line, the story of quiet artist Adrian and his alter ego, the Renaissance-art-inspired superhero of his own design, Graphite. Dive into some Shaun David Hutchinson with the extended excerpt of We are the Ants, about abductee Henry Denton who’s been given a frightening ultimatum from his alien tormentors, or check out the full read of FML about a party, a plan, and a kiss that can change everything! Or read either of last week’s summer reads, The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler and Fifteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton. The Summer of Chasing Mermaids follows a talented singer who loses her voice but finds the romance of a lifetime, while Fifteenth Summer is about a romance that should last a lifetime…but may only get one summer.

Find out more about this week’s reads:

Happy Monday!

It’s the beginning of a new week, which means you’re due for some new reads! We’ll start with the extended excerpt of Draw the Line by Laurent Lin, which will finally be available in paperback tomorrow (May 16)! In Draw the Line, talented artist and self-proclaimed sci-fi geek, Adrian, gets spurred into action when a hate crime occurs in his small town. Though he prefers to stay quiet and concentrate on creating his own world through the Renaissance-art-inspired superhero of his own design, Graphite, Adrian must step out of the shadows and into the real world to decide what kind of person he truly wants to be—no matter the risk. Intriguing right? Take this quiz and find out which character you are from Draw the Line!

Then, we have some great reads by Shaun David Hutchinson. First, there’s the extended excerpt of We Are the Ants in celebration of the release of the paperback, which also releases tomorrow (May 16)! Next, there’s the full read of FML, available both for your enjoyment and so you can remember what an amazing writer Shaun is. The first is the story of Henry Denton, who must decide if the world is worth saving. The second is about a party, a plan, and a kiss that can change everything!

Next, we’re happy to confess that we consider it our duty to get you in a summer-ready mindset. How? With summer-y reads of course! Our two summer reads this week are Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler, and Fifteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton. Summer of Chasing Mermaids follows a talented singer who loses her voice but finds the romance of a lifetime. Fifteenth Summer is about a romance that should last a lifetime but may only get one summer.

Finally, last week’s reads are still available for one more week! Check out the extended excerpt of Reaper by Kyra Leigh, the story about a girl who must reap three souls to get to Paradise. Then take a look at the full reads of In Honor by Jessi Kirby (think: road-trip romance), Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson (think: family, love, and loss), and Clean by Amy Reed (think: rehab, recovery, and self-discovery).

Find out more about this week’s reads:

Happy Monday!

With the reads we have lined up for this week, we just KNOW you’re going to discover something you’ll love!

Let’s begin with the extended excerpt of Kyra Leigh’s Reaper, which will be available in bookstores everywhere tomorrow (May 9)! What would you give up if a life hung in the balance? When sixteen-year-old Rosie Wolf dies, she learns that she must reap three souls before she can move on to Paradise. But nothing is ever simple when love, life, and death are involved—especially when they’re intertwined.

Next we’re celebrating the five year anniversaries of three amazing books from three amazing authors! These are books that you may have missed when they were new, but we’ve reread them and guarantee they’re still just as riveting now. Enjoy the full reads of In Honor by Jessi Kirby, Clean by Amy Reed, and Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson. In Honor explores loss, friendship, and romance. Clean follows five teens and their self-discovery in rehab. And Second Chance Summer examines the power of family, hope, and heartbreak.

Plus, last week’s reads are still available for one more week! First, there’s the extended excerpt of Jenny Han’s Always & Forever, Lara Jean (the third book in Jenny’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy that surprised everyone when it was announced). Then there’s the extended excerpt of One Cut by Eve Porinchak (the first book in the new Simon True series that follows “Real stories. Real teens. Real crimes.”). Next, there’s the extended excerpt of the delightful Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch (the New York Times bestselling novel about a girl who spends a summer in Italy). Finally there are the full reads of Rebecca Serle’s When You Were Mine (a very creative retelling of Romeo & Juliet) and Anna Davies’ Wrecked (a reimagining of The Little Mermaid)!

Find out more about this week’s reads:

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon is a hot topic right now. Chances are, you’ve already heard of it, but if not, here’s what it’s about:

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?

Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.

The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?

Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

Can’t get enough of When Dimple Met Rishi? Sandhya has you covered: she’s created a quiz so you can find out if you’re a Dimple or a Rishi! Take the quiz and let us know your results in the comments!

In case you missed it the first time around, this ebook sale ends this weekend! Strike now while you can to pick up any of these 12 YA eBooks for only $1.99 each!

We love keeping you supplied with great YA to read (YA fiction is our addiction, after all), both on AND off Riveted. This week, we’ve got an especially good variety of options for your reading pleasure, but we know you’ll need some things to read when you’re forced to go outside, stuck on public transportation, or in any number of unfortunate situations that require being away from an internet connection.

There’s no need to panic! We’re going fill you in on a great deal running this month.

For a limited time, we’ve got 12 great YA eBooks on sale for only $1.99, including titles from bestselling authors like Neal Shusterman, Morgan Matson, Margaret Peterson Haddix and more! There are some great reads here and at $1.99, there’s no better time to buy them than now. Future you will thank you for it!

Our office is currently buzzing with excitement because this weekend is YALLWEST—AKA, a bookish day of “panels, book signings, food trucks, bad jokes, rock ‘n’ roll, killer photo ops, & general geeky shenanigans!” If you’re going to be in the Santa Monica area between April 28 and April 29th, you should definitely come check it out. Riveted will have a booth there and we’ll be doing fun stuff all day!

Say Hi to Us!

We promise we’re friendly and we love to talk books (even though some people refuse to smile with teeth…)

Play Riveted BINGO!

Complete a row, column, or diagonal of 7 and return to the Riveted booth to win a mystery book. 

Stop by for Free Stuff!

We’ll be giving swag away all day long, and doing an ARC drop nearly every half hour. We’ll also be having authors sign books in our booth.

Catch Your Favorite Authors at Their Signings and Panels!

An impressive line-up of YA and middle-grade authors will be converging on YALLWEST this weekend, including our own Cassandra Clare, Simon Curtis, Lisa McMann, Sandya Menon, Cindy Pon, Lilliam Rivera, Neal Shusterman, and Rachel Renee Russell!

Have a Snack and a Laugh!

Don’t miss our Cookies & Competition event! We’ll be giving away tasty Riveted cookies and inviting audience members to join our authors in competing to win exclusive prizes! Yes, you and your favorite author could end up on a team together and become instant besties as you bond over your competitive natures and love of cookies (that’s how friendship works, right?)!

Are you excited for YALLWEST yet?!

Happy Monday!

We’re kicking off this week with swashbuckling action and smoldering passion in Nicole Castoman’s Blackhearts AND its sequel, Blacksouls! Castroman’s reimagining of Blackbeard the pirate entranced readers everywhere when it published last year and with the sequel on sale tomorrow (4/11), we’re so excited to dive back into the crystal blue water of the Caribbean sea to follow along with Edward “Teach” Drummond and Anne Barrett on a dangerous mission sure to test their love and loyalty! Join the voyage with us with a full read of Blackhearts and then be sure to go and start the extended excerpt of Blacksouls!

Also this week, we’re bringing back Scott Westerfeld’s Afterworlds with a full read just in time for “National Encourage a Young Writer day!” Afterworlds tells the story of Darcy Patel, a young aspiring author who moves to New York City to pursue her dream of publishing a teen novel. At the same time, woven into Darcy’s personal story is the story of Afterworlds, the suspenseful thriller Darcy’s written. If you’re an aspiring author yourself, you’ll appreciate the trials and tribulations of Darcy’s pursuit of publication, but if you just want to lose yourself in a good book, the novel-within-a-novel that is Afterworlds will definitely suck you in.

Finally for this week, we’re featuring a full read of Delilah S. Dawson’s Hit, a dystopian thriller set in a frightening future world where one bank has essentially taken control of the USA…thanks in large part to a tricky clause hidden deep in the fine print of credit card applications! When the time is finally up for Patsy to pay her debt, she’s forced to agree to become an indentured assassin, completing a hit list of ten names. How does Patsy find her way out of such a predicament? Read Hit now to find out, and then look out for the sequel Strike which goes on sale in paperback this week (4/11)!

But wait, that’s not all! We still have several reads from last week available for your reading pleasure! Enjoy extended excerpts of Jenn Bennett’s new YA novel Alex, Approximately, as well as Morgan Matson’s The Unexpected Everything, and Deb Caletti’s Essential Maps for the Lost.  Plus, check out our full reads of the anthology Zombies Vs. Unicorns, Deb Caletti’s The Last Forever, and Richard Paul Evans Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 (and if you’re so inspired, there’s still time to enter the Michael Vey Commercial Contest!)

Find out more about this week’s reads:

So you’ve probably heard already that as of last week, Cassandra Clare’s beloved City of Bones is ten years old, right? And you’ve probably seen that we’re currently featuring it as a free read here on Riveted until April 10, right?

What you may NOT have known though is……there is a super special 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION coming out this fall!

That’s right, the deluxe hardcover 10th Anniversary Edition of City of Bones will be hitting bookstores everywhere on November 7 and it’s going to be glorious! Now, we don’t know what it will look like just yet since the cover hasn’t been revealed (stay tuned, though—the second it’s out there, we’ll let you know!) but we DO have a good idea of what it’s going to include! Some of these details could very well change between now and when the book comes out, but here’s what we know so far:

• It will feature new cover art! (We have no idea what it’s going to look like but we’re hoping for something elegant and old school like a book right out of the Shadowhunter library!)
• It will have gilded edges! (You KNOW a book is deluxe when it has gold edges!)
• It will include over THIRTY black & white interior illustrations throughout!  (We vote for more Malec art!!)
• It will include SIX new full-page color portraits of our favorite characters! (Who wouldn’t want new eye candy?!)
• It will include FOUR bonus stories (These will probably be the various bonus stories Cassandra Clare has written in the past for other special editions but we’re looking forward to having them all together in one convenient place!)
• It will include NEW CONTENT written by Cassandra Clare (We can only daydream about the possibilities: Will it be letter to fans?  Will it be a secret Shadowhunter recipe? Will Cassandra do what she does best and come up with something completely new and mind-blowing that we couldn’t even guess right now?)

Between the original hardcover, the paperback, the movie tie-in edition, and the NEW paperback, most of us here at Riveted already proudly display several copies of City of Bones on our shelves, but that does NOTHING to diminish our excitement over acquiring this new version! If you’re in the same boat, you can already pre-order this new edition from a few retailers, you’ll find those links here!

Until then, please join us in re-reading the Mortal Instruments series, coloring in our Mortal instruments coloring book, and daydreaming about the Shadowhunter world. Because we’re definitely not obsessed.

This fall, fans worldwide will be devastated when Richard Paul Evans’ bestselling Michael Vey series comes to an end with the as-yet-unnamed seventh and final book in the series. During the peak of dystopian YA, Evans observed that the genre was flooded with dark and hostile themes and set out to write a series focused on hope, loyalty, and courage. Evans’ series about a fourteen-year-old with mysterious electric powers and Tourette’s syndrome (like Evans himself) hit the mark, resonating with teens and adults alike, and growing considerably from book to book. If you’re not already a “Veyniac” yourself, see what you’re missing out on—we’re featuring the first book in a series as one of our featured reads from now until April 17!

With the series coming to a close, Evans has launched the Michael Vey Commercial Contest, in which fans are invited to create and post a Michael Vey commercial on YouTube for the chance to win a slew of prizes, including the opportunity to win a lunch with Evans himself! If you’re interested in entering (perhaps after reading Michael Vey here on Riveted), you’ll find all of the details here on Evans’s blog. The contest wraps on April 16 so you’ll need to get moving!

There have been some AMAZING entries so far, it’s really evident how much this series has meant to kids! We rounded up a few of our favorites, though to be honest, it was hard to pick a favorite. We’re glad we’re not the ones responsible for choosing a winner! Take a look and see what you think. And if you’re inspired to enter, be sure to leave a link to your entry in the comments on this post so we can take a look!