Before we share info about this month’s book, we want to recognize that this month’s “Community Kindness Sponsor” (which helps offset the cost of the extra 20 book bundles we’ll be hiding after scavenger hunt weekend this month – the “random act of kindness” books) is our friends at the Tucson Spotlight! We are so grateful for their support in creating a bookish community rooted in kindness. Here’s a special note from her:
Do you know someone who might be interested in partnering with us as a Community Kindness Sponsor in 2027 ($250)? We are looking ahead to secure sponsors for 2027 (because, as we know, time flies!). Please send us an email (tucsontomegnome[at]gmail.com), and we can send you some information 🙂
FINALLY! We are raising money to keep hiding books in 2027! AND IT’S OUR FIVE-YEAR TOME GNOME ANNIVERSARY! If you want to support our work in a way other than a sponsorship, please consider making a donation (link below) to help us keep going for another five years!
https://givebutter.com/hiding-books-in-2027-jlgpqm
AND NOW, for what you’ve been waiting for: all about this month’s hidden book(s)!
About the books (YES, we’re hiding bundles of two books this month!!!), from Tor/Macmillan and Penguin Random House:
We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune: “Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good long life. Together they’ve experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world.
Now, the world is ending for real. A rogue black hole is coming for Earth and in a month everything and everyone they’ve ever known will be gone.
Suddenly, after 40 years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They’re in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it’s all over.
On the road they meet those who refuse to believe death is coming and those who rush to meet it. But there are also people living their final days as best they know how—impromptu weddings, bright burning bonfires, shared meals, and new friends.
And as the black hole draws near, among ball lightning and under a cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky, Don and Rodney will look back on their lives and ask if their best was good enough.
Is it enough to burn bright if nothing comes from the ashes?”
Take Me With You by Steven Rowley: “College professor Jesse del Ruth has been abandoned. Thirty years into their relationship, Jesse witnesses his husband, Norman, get out of bed late one night, walk into their Joshua Tree backyard, step into a strange beam of light and . . . disappear. How could Norman desert him after a lifetime together? Where did he go? And, most confoundingly . . . will he ever return? Jesse knew they were both feeling stuck, longing for something they couldn’t quite name. But was their rut so deep that Norman’s only option was to leave Jesse behind?
As Jesse struggles to understand Norman’s disappearance, he tries to piece together his new reality. Is he expected to wait patiently for a partner who may never come back? Or is this an opportunity for reinvention? He is, after all, alone for the first time in his adult life. Should he return to the classroom? Put in a pool? Get a dog? Call his estranged mother? What does it mean to be alone when you’ve always been one half of a whole?
When Norman’s sister, Lally, lands on Jesse’s doorstep with an urgent request, Norman’s absence becomes even more profound. Add to Jesse’s grief and confusion a conspiracy-theorist neighbor, a strange man following him, and suspicions that he may have had a hand in Norman’s disappearance, and Jesse starts to crack under the pressure. With his husband missing and the world closing in, all eyes are on Jesse. Before he can understand how Norman could leave it all behind, Jesse must confront what it means to stay.
In Take Me With You, Steven Rowley brings his resonant wit and emotional insight to an epic love story—an exploration of the forces that draw two people into the same orbit and the gravity that threatens to pull them apart.”
About the authors:
TJ Klune: “TJ KLUNE is the #1 New York Times and #1 USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award–winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door, In the Lives of Puppets, the Green Creek Series for adults, the Extraordinaries Series for teens, and more. Being queer himself, Klune believes it’s important—now more than ever—to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories.”
Steven Rowley: “Steven Rowley is the New York Times bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus, a Washington Post Notable Book of 2016, The Editor, named by NPR as one of the Best Books of 2019, The Guncle, a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist for 2021 Novel of the Year and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, The Celebrants, a TODAY Show Read With Jenna Book Club pick, and the instant USA Today Bestsellers The Guncle Abroad and The Dogs of Venice. His fiction has been published in twenty languages. Originally from Portland, Maine, he is a graduate of Emerson College and currently resides in Palm Springs with his husband, the writer Byron Lane, and three rescue dogs.”
Why we selected these two books for our five-year anniversary bookish scavenger hunt:
- Five years ago, the adventures of the Tome Gnome began with a TJ Klune book (The House in the Cerulean Sea!), and we’ve celebrated each tome gnomiversary since then by sharing the latest TJ Klune book. We Burned So Bright continues that tradition (while showing us a different side of TJ’s writing) and helps us celebrate the community that has grown around these books over the past five years ❤
- AND this year, there’s a second book in the bundle (!!!). To celebrate our anniversary, we asked TJ to choose a favorite book to pair with his, and he enthusiastically recommended Steven Rowley’s Take Me With You. These books are a perfect pairing – – – both books use strange, unexpected premises to get at deeply human questions about love, connection, loss, and what it means to remain open to one another when life does not go according to plan.
- I especially love that Take Me With You brings humor to some pretty big questions. A husband disappears into a mysterious beam of light, but underneath it all it’s a story about a longtime relationship, grief, belonging, and figuring out who you are when the person you’ve built your life around is suddenly gone.
- At their core, these are two books about love in very different forms and how we handle uncertainty. We Burned So Bright looks toward the end of the world, while Take Me With You asks what happens when one person’s world suddenly changes. Both ultimately show that when things are hard, we’re reminded to turn our attention back toward the people we love and the connections that make a life meaningful.
- And, perhaps most importantly, these books celebrate what happens when stories are shared. Five years of hiding books around Tucson has taught me that a book is never really finished when someone closes the cover. Books become a conversation, a recommendation, a new favorite, or a story passed along to someone else. So this year, I’m especially happy to send two stories out into the city at once: one from a founding member of our little bookish family, and one he chose to share with us.
