Note: This post was originally scheduled to post on Monday. And then Boston happened… it didn’t feel right to post about novels that have murder elements in relationship to running on that day. I considered bypassing this post completely, but then I realized that I was writing it to help the authors spread the word about their books. Why should I let the deeds of some miscreant(s) take away from their hard efforts? Writing a book is a lot of work and they deserve the recognition. So I’m posting it now. I hope you don’t find it insensitive.

A while back I reviewed the book Dead Running by Cami Checketts. The book revolves around a girl who starts training for her first marathon, falls in love with running along the way, while getting caught up in a mystery that involves human trafficking and missing family members. Aren’t you glad your day-to-day running doesn’t include all that?!

To celebrate the launch of the 3rd book in the series, the first book is available free and the sequel and new book are just 99 cents on Amazon!

• Dead Running (Free: April 16-20, 2013)
• Dying to Run
• Running Home

The second book doesn’t have any running in it, it is more of a novella and picks up shortly after the first book ends. I’m going to begin reading the third book soon, as I just finished…

Resolve by JJ Hensley, a fascinating book and approach to writing a book. Each chapter is a “mile” in the running of the Pittsburgh marathon. The chapter starts with the runner’s thoughts/feelings of things happening at that moment in the race, then it flashes back to build up the story. You learn right at the beginning that the runner is going to kill someone in the race, so each chapter is building to the motivation and reason for the deed. I found it very engrossing and thought it was a unique structure for a book.

I’m really enjoying finding intersections between novels and running, not novels where the character happens to “go for a jog”, but novels where the characters are really runners as part of their personality and the plot development.