Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Judy Bolton #9 The Mysterious Half Cat Glossy Internal Illustrations

The early Judy Bolton books have glossy internal illustrations.

Click on each image in order to see it at a higher resolution.

Glossy frontispiece used from 1936 to 1942:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1936 to 1937:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1936 to 1937:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1936 to 1937:


Sunday, March 24, 2024

The Plague Land Trilogy by Alex Scarrow

The Plague Land Trilogy by Alex Scarrow is a science fiction horror series published by Sourcebooks Fire, 2017-2019.

Publisher's summary:

A thrilling tale about one family's survival against a devastating virus that sweeps across the world and leaves the survivors touched by fire.

Leon and his younger sister, Grace, have recently moved to London from New York and are struggling to settle into their new school when rumors of an unidentified plague in Africa begin to fill the news. Within a week, the virus hits London. The siblings witness people turning to liquid before their eyes, and they run for their lives.

A month after touching Earth's atmosphere, the plague has wiped out most of the population.  Desperate to stay alive, Leon and Grace are reluctantly taken in by a tight-knit group of survivors. But as they struggle to win their trust, the siblings realize that the virus isn't their only enemy, and survival is just the first step…

Perfect for those looking for:
  • Pandemic Fiction
  • A thrilling plague book series
  • Post-apocalyptic fiction
  • Stories of survival in the wake of the apocalypse
  • Books for teen boys

This series consists of three books:

1.  Plague Land, 2017
2.  Plague Land: Reborn, 2018
3.  Plague Land: No Escape, 2019

While the series is marketed as post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction, it is actually science fiction horror.  That's an important distinction, because it lets readers know that this series will not conclude like typical post-apocalyptic fiction.  Readers should know for sure where the plot is heading by the beginning of the second book.  

While I enjoyed reading all three books, the plot is grim, much more so than the typical dystopian fiction.  Seriously.  These books are not for the faint-hearted and might be a bit disturbing even for many people who enjoy dystopian fiction.

Since the books are young adult, the grimness of the plot is bearable.  If these books were adult novels with the kind of graphic descriptions found in adult novels, I would not have been able to read them.  Since the graphic scenes are described minimally, I was okay with it.  A vague description of a character's horrific death is sufficient.  I prefer to avoid the gore.

Overall, this series is excellent, but it is tough to read due to the grim content.

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Judy Bolton #8 The Voice in the Suitcase Glossy Internal Illustrations

The early Judy Bolton books have glossy internal illustrations.

Click on each image in order to see it at a higher resolution.

Glossy frontispiece used from 1935 to 1942:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1935 to 1937:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1935 to 1937:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1935 to 1937:


Plain paper frontispiece illustration used from 1943 to 1967:


Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Sale + Books Listed + Some Thoughts

I listed quite a few books on Etsy.  The books listed include the following:

tweed Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew original text picture cover
tweed Judy Bolton
tweed Dana Girls
Dana Girls picture cover
hardcover Nancy Drew Digest
Three Investigators
Rick Brant
Vicki Barr
Trixie Belden

Jennifer's Series Books on Etsy

My Etsy inventory is 10% off this week.  I have excluded the tweed Nancy Drew books, since they are consistently selling and often quickly.  My stock continues to diminish steadily, so discounting them would be illogical.  The point of running a sale is to move books that aren't selling. 

My eBay books are also 10% off this week.  

Jennifer's Series Books on eBay

On eBay, I ended around 50 listings and moved them into bulk lots.  I'd like to get my eBay inventory down to no more than 300 items.  This is a long-term goal, since it's not happening anytime soon.  Sales are rather poor, and books are moving very slowly.  Bulk lots that I created months ago still aren't moving, so even cheap books in bulk are a hard sell.

I've listed just a few books on eBay so far, mainly Kay Tracey and some new bulk lots.  I also lowered some prices.

I find that Nancy Drew books are now very hard for me to sell on eBay.  While I did have 15 orders in the last 90 days that included Nancy Drew books, most of them were from repeat buyers.  The repeat buyers are people who follow me.  Outside of those buyers, my Nancy Drew books barely sell on eBay.

I am toying with the idea of removing most of my Nancy Drew books from eBay and placing them on Etsy.  I think they'd do better.

Books from series that are more scarce do better on eBay.  Those sales are slow as well but not as bad as Nancy Drew sales.

eBay now has an offsite ad program where sellers can pay to be included.  The offsite ad program has a prohibitive daily minimum fee of $5.  That would be $150 per every 30 days, which is a scary high fee. I would never do it.

I am required to pay for offsite ads on Etsy.  I only pay the extra offsite ad fee on listings that are sold via offsite ads.  In the last month, I was assessed $16.33 in offsite ad fees on Etsy.  That's doable.

Aside from eBay's extreme offsite ad fees, I am suspicious as to whether paying those fees would gain me anything.  eBay has given me a $100 credit, but I don't plan to use it.  A number of sellers who have used the credit reported that it did little and that they cancelled the offsite ads once their credit ran out.  The free trial doesn't seem worth it.

Monday, March 18, 2024

Month/Year Code in Modern Simon & Schuster Books

Many of us purchase the modern Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books as they are released.  If you're like me, once you have each new book, you verify the first printing number line on the copyright page and then never look closely at the rest of the copyright page.  The modern copyright pages are quite crowded with information.

The Simon & Schuster books of yore (pre-2009) had much less information on the copyright pages.  I've often looked at those copyright pages, but I guess the information overload of the modern ones has caused me never to look at them closely, at least not until this weekend.

I've mentioned my obsession with the Keeper of the Lost Cities (KotLC) series, which is also published by Simon & Schuster under the Aladdin imprint.  I'm now searching for first printings.  I will get more into that in an upcoming post.  Here, I stick to what's relevant to the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books.

I have managed to acquire the second printing of the first KotLC book.  As I examined the number line, 2468109753, I saw what was printed on the line immediately above. 

Please click on all images in order to see them clearly.


I circled two areas of the page.  The book was published in October 2012 (see top circled area).  Look at the line immediately above the second printing number line (see bottom circled area).  That line ends with "0912 FFG."  I haven't worked out what "FFG" means, but I believe that "0912" indicates that this specific book was printed in September 2012.  That would indicate that the first two printings of KotLC #1 were run before the book was ever published.

You might think that "0912" is a suggested age range, like 9-12, but it definitely can't be that based on what I've seen in other books.  Let's look at some of those other books.

Here's the copyright page from one of the Keeper books I purchased last year.


This book has "0622 FFG" above the number line.  "0622" cannot be the recommended age range, since age 6-22 makes no sense for a children's book.  It must mean that the book was printed in June 2022.

I then started checking Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books.  I found that the first printing of Nancy Drew Girl Detective #39 has the expanded copyright page.  I have a later printing of #38 that also has the expanded copyright page, but I'm not sure if the first printing of #38 did.  All I know is that the expanded copyright page came into use sometime in late 2009 at the time of publication of either NDGD #38 or #39.

Here is the copyright page of the first printing of NDGD #39.  


It has "1009 OFF" above the first printing number line.  The book was published in December 2009, so it looks like the first print run was in October 2009.

Here is the copyright page of the first printing hardcover of Nancy Drew Diaries #24 What Disappears in Vegas..., which was published in January 2024.


"1223 BVG" is on the line above the number code.  The book must have been printed in December 2023.

This might be old news to many of you, but I found it enlightening.  This will help me in figuring out the age of modern Simon & Schuster books that are not first printings.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Spring Break Sale at Jennifer's Series Books

All of my books are 10% off this week.

Jennifer's Series Books on eBay

Jennifer's Series Books on Etsy

Sales have remained very slow, and I hope to get some books to move this week.  I also hope to motivate myself into listing books on both sites.  I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by my unlisted extras.  Here are photos of my unlisted extras.  Some books are organized, but you'll notice that many are random.

Always click on images in order to see them at a higher resolution.











Whenever I post pictures like this, some people will try to shop from the photos.  I am not offering books through private transactions.  As it is, I'm feeling stressed about listing the books.  Just the idea of answering any possible private inquiries is causing me even more mental stress.  I won't do it, and I won't get into the reasons why.  Hopefully, I will be able to get started listing some of these books.

Friday, March 15, 2024

The Warning and The Fallout by Kristy Acevedo

A two-book series by Kristy Acevedo was published by Jolly Fish Press in 2016 and 2017.

1.  Consider, 2016
2.  Contribute, 2017


The books were republished in 2023 by Sourcebooks Fire under new titles.

1.  The Warning, 2023
2.  The Fallout, 2023

The books are no longer available under their original titles.  The books must have been revised at least slightly when they were republished.  From The Warning, page 110:

I really hope I don't pass out and some custodian finds me naked on the gross tile floor.  Probably crawling with foot fungus.  E. coli.  COVID.  Ebola.

The term "COVID" originated in early 2020, so it would not have been present in a book published in 2016.  It must have been added to the new version in 2023.

Publisher's summary of The Warning:

The end is coming.  What would you do?  The first in a fast-paced and gripping YA dystopian series for anyone who's ever felt like their life—their world—is on the brink of destruction.

Like most high school seniors, Alexandra Lucas is caught between living in the moment and an unknown future.  Her anxiety disorder doesn't make that any easier.  But she's coping—until her train stops on the way home from a concert with her boyfriend.  At first, she's worried about breaking curfew.  Then terror echoes through their train car.

A mysterious doorway has appeared beside the tracks, and a hologram claiming to be a human from the future shares a sinister warning.  A comet is on a collision course with earth.  All life there will end in six months' time.  To survive, people must step through one of the many portals that have opened around the world.

The holograms claim to offer safety.  But how can anyone be sure?  Stay or go—everyone must make their own choice.  Alex's family, her friends, her boyfriend all have different ideas.  Alex is only sure of one thing: she wants to decide for herself. But every decision comes at a price.

These books fall under both the dystopian fiction and science fiction categories. 

Alex has generalized anxiety disorder and suffers from panic attacks.  Even minor stress causes her to have paranoid thoughts.  Significant stress makes her spiral out of control to where she can end up in the fetal position, shaking uncontrollably.  Some readers might find this aspect of the books to be either disturbing or annoying.  Those who suffer from anxiety will likely be able to relate to it. 

Here is one example from the first book.

Page 74:

You would think that remembering I forgot something would make me feel better, but instead it justifies my anxiety, which starts a loop in my brain thinking that I must be forgetting something else.

What else am I forgetting?  There's something else.  I know there's something.  Something.  Something.  If I forget it, something bad will happen.  Something really bad.  And I won't be able to fix it.

STOP IT.

The loop continues.

I dig through my dirty laundry, then open and close every drawer in my room, searching and double-checking for something to remind me what I could be forgetting.  My body sweats as I spin in circles. 

STOP IT.  Everything's fine.

But what if it's not fine?  What if I left an iron plugged in?  What if I start a fire?  What if I go fishing and then come back and the house is burned down?  What if my parents and Benji are burnt to a crisp and they have to use their dental records to identify the bodies?  What if the police think I did it on purpose?  What if

I take a pill and wait for it to rescue me.

For me, Alexa's anxiety added to the suspense and even caused me some anxiety.    At one point in the second book, I quickly swiped through over 50 pages to verify what would happen with a certain character.  I just had to know in order to reassure myself.

I also worried that Kristy Acevedo was going to pull a Veronica Roth with her ending.  If you've read the Divergent Trilogy, then you know what I mean.  [Upon rereading this review prior to publication, I realized that I indirectly spoil the ending of the third book in the Divergent Trilogy, so if you care, then skip the rest of this paragraph.]  I will never read the Divergent books again because of how the third book ended.  I decided to have faith that Alex would make it out of the second book alive.  That calmed me down. 

The countdown in each book fuels the reader's anxiety.  Each chapter begins with how many hours remain before humans must make an important decision.  For instance: 

Chapter 7

Day 24: August3,854 hours to decide

Each time I started a chapter, I took the number of hours and divided it by 24 to see how many days remained before the decision would be final.  For 3,854 hours, 160.6 days were left.

These books have some very unexpected twists.  I truly didn't know what was going to happen.

These are excellent books.  It took me just 4 1/2 days to read both books, and the books are moderate in length.  How fast I read is a good measure of how much I enjoy a book.  These books make for great reading.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Judy Bolton #7 The Mystic Ball Glossy Internal Illustrations

The early Judy Bolton books have glossy internal illustrations.

Click on each image in order to see it at a higher resolution.

Glossy frontispiece used from 1934 to 1942:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1934 to 1937:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1934 to 1937:


Glossy internal illustration used from 1934 to 1937: