Page Turners to take readers on a quest with this year's City Wide Read selection

Dec. 7—The Austin Page Turners are casting a spell with their latest pick for the City Wide Read.

The book club announced Thursday afternoon that the 2024 choice is "Ink Blood Sister Scribe," the debut fantasy novel from Minnesota author Emma Törzs.

It marks the first fantasy novel chosen by the Page Turners, who also announced that the date of Törzs' visit will be May 2.

"This is a different route for us to go," said the Page Turners' Bonnie Rietz. "But we try to choose something we haven't done before."

"Ink Blood Sister Scribe" follows three sisters described as quirky and endearing and whose family has served as guardians of a collection of magical spell books sought by many over the years.

A teacher of creative writing at Macalester College in St. Paul, Törzs was described by Page Turners member Jessica Raines-Jones as a character-first author.

"(Törzs) considers this as a work of speculative fiction," Raines-Jones said. "She has to know the characters and then the story comes next."

Raines-Jones describes Törzs' writing as prose that relates to her poetry background.

"You kind of get sucked in," she said. "She wrote poetry and you can tell that by the way she writes."

While the date of Törzs' visit has been set, the activities that usually accompany the event have yet to be established and is part of a process that takes place throughout a cycle each year.

No sooner does an event finish, then the search for the next author's pick begins.

This year, Bruce Richardson said, the initial slate of authors up for consideration by the group was eight.

"Every member of the committee tries to read all the books," Richardson said. "It usually comes down to 2-3 that we were mostly interested in."

The aim is always to get a Minnesota author. After that they look for new authors they can highlight.

The City Wide Read began in 2002 with the book "A Place the Sea Remembers," by Sandra Benitez.

Copies of "Ink Blood Sister Scribe" are available at Sweet Reads Books and Candy for purchase and around 30 copies of the book are available at the Austin Public Library for check out, as well as other formats including audiobooks.

Past Authors of the Page Turners Citywide Read

2002 Sandra Benitez: A Place Where the Sea Remembers

2003 Tim O'Brien: The Things They Carried

2004 Erin Hart: Haunted Ground

2005 Patricia Hampl: St. Paul Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

2006 Larry Engelmann: Daughter of China

2007 Lorna Landvik: A choice of her novels

2008 Will Weaver: Sweet Land: New and Selected Stories

2009 Leif Enger: So Brave, Young and Handsome

2010 William Kent Krueger: Thunder Bay

2011 Kao Kalia Yang: The Latehomecomer

2012 Ron Handberg: Deadly Reunion

2013 Peter Geye: Safe From the Sea

2014 P.S. Duffy: The Cartographer of No Man's Land

2015 Sarah Stonich: Vacationland

2016 Allen Eskens: The Life We Bury

2017 Faith Sullivan: Good Night Mr. Wodehouse

2018 Amy Thielen: Give a Girl a Knife

2019 Loretta Ellsworth: Stars Over Clear Lake

2021 Alison McGhee: Never Coming Back

2022 Diane Wilson: The Seed Keeper

2023 Cary J. Griffith: Wolf Kill

2024 Emma Törzs: Ink Blood Sister Scribe