Orenda Books is a British-based publishing house that primarily publishes literary and crime fiction. This London publisher was founded in 2014 by Karen Sullivan, the former managing editor at Arcadia Books and publishes debut and existing authors. 

When I joined Twitter in the spring of 2019, I found myself exposed to a world of new authors and independent publishing houses. The algorithms of Twitter apparently picked up on my anglophile leanings and plunked this Pittsburgh PA girl right down in the middle of the UK version of Bookish Twitter.

Repeatedly I would come across "must read" titles by authors I hadn't heard of--only to find out that the books either hadn't been published in the States or had not yet crossed over to my shore.

I began to follow Karen Sullivan @OrendaBooks as all of their offerings seemed like "must be read" titles but I as I was quick to find out the majority of these books were only available on Amazon. Amazon is great don't get me wrong but I felt there must be better ways to support a small independent book publisher and Amazon not the best way to keep brick and mortar stores alive.

So I sent a tweet to the publisher @OrendaBooks who was extremely kind and helpful. She said that I could find the books I was searching for at Barnes & Noble. I accepted this challenge and proceeded post hast to the nearest location. I selected books by three authors for the challenge and alas I did not find any of the books in store.

It turned out that Barnes & Noble couldn't even order any of my selections but they were able to secure me two different books by another two of my selected authors.

Figuring I had to start somewhere I started with Breakers by Doug Johnstone and The Lingering by SJI Holliday--I was not disappointed as both books made for reading time well spent.

Cue the 2020 COVID pandemic apocalypse and strolling into a book store to browse is a thing of the past. I want to continue to support fellow small businesses (I own a tiny yoga studio) so today as was looking for information to share about Orenda Books I ended up ordering 4 e-books. Here's hoping I have the technical know how to download these books to my IPad. In retrospect perhaps I should have done a test drive with one book---but I couldn't resist. That mission has since been successful as I write this in September 2021--I have read all my Orenda Books and now its the time to go out searching for more...