The Red Garden

Alice Hoffman

 

"Hoffman brings us 200 years in the history of Blackwell, a small town in rural Massachusetts, in her insightful latest. The story opens with the arrival of the first settlers, among them a pragmatic English woman, Hallie, and her profligate, braggart husband, William. Hallie makes an immediate and intense connection to the wilderness, and the tragic severing of that connection results in the creation of the red garden, a small, sorrowful plot of land that takes on an air of the sacred. The novel moves forward in linked stories, each building on (but not following from) the previous and focusing on a wide range of characters, including placid bears, a band of nomadic horse traders, a woman who finds a new beginning in Blackwell, and the ghost of a young girl drowned in the river who stays in the town's consciousness long after her name has been forgotten. The result is a certain ethereal detachment as Hoffman's deft magical realism ties one woman's story to the next even when they themselves are not aware of the connection. The prose is beautiful, the characters drawn sparsely but with great compassion."  Publishers Weekly

 

The Breaking of Eggs

Jim Powell

 

"Dramatic change comes to the rigidly ordered, solitary life of Feliks Zhukovski. A naturalized French citizen living in Paris, the irascible 61-year-old Polish leftist is stunned by the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. He also gets the flu, and that spurs his first conversation in 36 years with his landlady. Feliks has always valued ideas and ideology over people, but events conspire to reunite him with the brother he hasn't seen for 50 years; take him to the hated U.S. to complete a business deal with capitalists (gasp!); discover the fate of his mother; and offer him a second chance at love. All of these events force Feliks to examine the choices he has made. Powell's delightful debut novel is by turns winsome and moving. Feliks is an indelible character, and the people who enter his life tell remarkable stories of the suffering that fascism and communism visited on Europe. The Breaking of Eggs is a book that thoughtful readers won't soon forget."  Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

 

"I love this book...very funny and very sad, often on the same page... I love the cover, I love the title..."
Nancy Pearl, Book Lust

  

The Theory of Light and Matter

Andrew Porter

 

"The narrators of Porter's Flannery O'Connor Award–winning collection tend to be young and clear-eyed beyond their years as they give voice to the secrets-family, their own-that haunt them. In the opening story, Hole, the narrator ruminates on the loss of a childhood friend and the slippery nature of guilt, memory and truth. In Storms, a young man considers his relationship with a troubled sister, who abandoned her fianc in Spain without a passport or money. The narrator of River Dog wonders if he should or could hate his brother for the things he did to other people, and for what they did to his brother. In the title story, a young woman ponders the nature of a May/December romance. If the events and secrets of these characters' pasts have not overtaken their lives, then their reverberations still threaten to corrupt the years yet to come. Throughout, Porter shows how love and pain often come hand in hand."  Publishers Weekly

 

The Man with Two Arms

Billy Lombardo

 

"This debut novel from Lombardo (The Logic of a Rose) follows ably in the cleat-prints of W.P. Kinsella and Bernard Malamud, chronicling the life of a talented Chicago pitcher. In their middle-class Chicago suburb of the mid-1980s, baseball nut Henry Granville and his wife, Lori, face marital discord regarding Henry's immediate, insistent campaign to commit their baby son Danny to a life in baseball. When Henry discovers his son's natural ambidexterity, visions of raising a superstar switch pitcher (an almost unheard-of athletic skill) kick his obsession into overdrive. One rocky boyhood later, Danny signs with the Cubs and finds instant fame (Danny can throw like Tom Seaver with one arm and Sandy Koufax with the other) as well as a bit of infamy; he's a freak in the eyes of opponents. Meanwhile, Danny falls in love with an art instructor and nurtures another rare talent: clairvoyance. Fans of sports fiction should find this an enjoyable trip to the mound, with just enough old-fashioned Americana magic to keep them guessing."  Publishers Weekly

 

Hector and the Search for Happiness

Francois Lelord

 

"Hector is a young psychiatrist in Paris who does not understand why his patients in this most beautiful of cities are unhappy. So he decides to take a trip around the world--from Paris to China to Africa to the United States--and to keep a list of observations about the people he meets, hoping to find the secret to happiness.

Combining the winsome appeal of The Little Prince with the inspiring philosophy of The Alchemist, Hector's journey around the world and into the human soul is entertaining, empowering, and smile inducing--as winning in its optimism as it is wise in its simplicity."  Amazon.com

 

 Undead and Unfinished

Mary Janice Davidson

"Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor is having a tough time getting through the Book of the Dead-until the Devil strikes a bargain. She offers Betsy a chance to finish the cursed (literally!) thing, and finally discover all its mysteries. There's just one catch...

"Betsy and her half-sister Laura have to go to Hell long enough for Laura to embrace her dark heritage (after a rebellious youth of charity work) and finally make nice with her mother, aka Lucifer. That means interacting with their family's past. In doing so, they're impacting the future in ways they never anticipated. Of course that's what Mother wanted all along. Damn her."  Amazon.com

 

The Red Queen

Philippa Gregory

 

"Nobody does the Tudors better than Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl), so it should come as no surprise that her latest-the War of the Roses as seen through the eyes of Henry VII's mother -is confident, colorful, convincing, and full of conflict, betrayal, and political maneuvering. Gregory gives readers Margaret Beaufort in her own words, from innocent nine-year-old to conspiring courtier who stops at nothing to see her son on England's throne. Gregory devotees will note the difference between the supernaturally gifted Yorkist White Queen and Lancastrian Margaret, who, despite saintly aspirations, grows worldly through three marriages; a powerless widow at 13, remarried and separated from her only son by 15, it is not until she's 29 that Margaret is ready to realize her most audacious ambitions. Gregory clones have made historical novels from a woman's perspective far too familiar to make this seem as fresh as her earlier works. Yet, like Margaret Beaufort, Gregory puts her many imitators to shame by dint of unequalled energy, focus, and unwavering execution."  Publishers Weekly

 

The Typist

Michael Knight

 

"Post-surrender Japan must have been an odd assignment for a soldier. Van is spared from frontline duty due to his remarkable abilities as a typist and ends up in General McArthur's Tokyo headquarters. With a wife back home, Van shies from the romantic escapades so many of his fellow enlistees commit so much of their time to. Van's good-hearted roommate cannot stay away from the pan-pan girls and begins a small black-market operation to satisfy his desires and relieve his boredom. This operation is his downfall and even comes close to ruining Van. Knight cunningly details the confluence of the boredom of American soldiers and the economic plight of the post-bombing Japanese. Two cultures collide and gross exploitation occurs, but Knight is still able to craft heartfelt relationships amid the confusion. Such novels as this one-fiction, yes, but rooted in actual history-help contemporary readers make sense of the mayhem and heroism of WWII."  Booklist

 

"The Typist is Knight's best book yet. It reads with a combination of urgency and a quiet, rush-less path to the novel's slow reveal. There is not a misstep, not a mislaid sentence. I believed and breathed every single word. This book awed me. "  Elizabeth Gilbert

 

The Thieves of Manhattan

Adam Langer

 

"The famously false memoirs of James Frey may be yesterday's news, but as this funny riff reminds us, literary fakes are as old as literature itself. Ian Minot is an aspiring writer who labors over short stories that seem destined to remain unread. His beautiful Romanian girlfriend, Anya Petrescu, finds success more easily-and leaves Ian for Blade Markham, a bloviating ex-gangbanger whose "so-called memoir" is a best-seller. When Ian is approached by ex-editor Jed Roth, who wants Ian to publish Jed's pulpy tale of book theft and murder as a memoir, then renounce it, it's a chance for both of them to get revenge: Jed on his former employer, and Ian on the world. Although Langer may be too cute for some (he employs made-up slang in which a penis is a portnoy), he does an engaging job with the hall-of-mirrors plot. And if readers can predict that the book they're reading is the one that Ian ends up writing, they'll never guess the ending. Just when you want a surprising twist, Langer delivers several. The truth is, he's got a wild imagination."  Keir Graff, Booklist

 

The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life

William Nicholson

 

"Piercing insights into married life and smalltown living distinguish Nicholson's thoughtful if quiet latest. Laura Broad, a married mother of two, has her domestic agenda seriously disrupted when she receives a surprise letter from Nick, her first love who broke her heart when they were young. His proposed visit to Laura's small Sussex town has her pondering a series of "what-ifs" and replaying the course of their passionate but short-lived love affair in largely unnecessary flashbacks. But Laura is not the only one with a secret life of the mind; her neighbors and acquaintances--including her son's teacher, the mother of one of his classmates, a little old lady and her beloved dog, and Laura's own husband--also carry their own hidden agendas and desires. A YA novelist and Academy Award–nominated screenwriter, Nicholson (The Wind Seeker) has a knack for crystallizing his themes in pivotal moments and deserves credit for not clouting the reader over the head with his affirmative message about the viability of two rapidly fading institutions: long-term marriage and English country life."  Publishers Weekly

 

"The writing is unobtrusively brilliant. I can't remember enjoying and admiring a new novel more."  Elizabeth Jane Howard, author of Marking Time

 

 Corduroy Mansions

Alexander McCall Smith

 

"Set in present-day London, Smith's charming first in a new series offers a variation on his 44 Scotland Street books, centering on the eccentric occupants of Corduroy Mansions and their offbeat doings. William French, a wine merchant, hopes to force his son, Eddie, who refuses to take his hints about sharing a flat with other 20-somethings, to leave the nest by getting a dog whose presence in their apartment he expects will drive Eddie out. William's neighbors include Dee, who works at a vitamin shop and believes a coworker needs to purge his system of excess sodium, and her roommate, Jenny, who works for an odious MP, Oedipus Snark, who treats Jenny like dirt. Smith paints with broader strokes than in his subtle and often moving No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, and no one character is especially memorable, but the wry humor he elicits from the collisions of lives and their repercussions will bring smiles to the faces of many readers."  Publishers Weekly

 

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Aimee Bender

 

"Taking her very personal brand of pessimistic magical realism to new heights (or depths), Bender's second novel (following An Invisible Sign of My Own) careens splendidly through an obstacle course of pathological, fantastical neuroses. Bender's narrator is young, needy Rose Edelstein, who can literally taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, giving her unwanted insight into other people's secret emotional lives-including her mother's, whose lemon cake betrays a deep dissatisfaction. Rose's father and brother also possess odd gifts, the implications of which Bender explores with a loving and detailed eye while following Rose from third grade through adulthood. Bender has been called a fabulist, but emerges as more a spelunker of the human soul; carefully burrowing through her characters' layered disorders and abilities, Bender plumbs an emotionally crippled family with power and authenticity. Though Rose's gift can seem superfluous at times, and Bender's gustative insights don't have the sensual potency readers might crave, this coming-of-age story makes a bittersweet dish, brimming with a zesty, beguiling talent."  Publishers Weekly

 

The Misadventures of Oliver Booth:  Life in the Lap of Luxury

David Desmond

 

"High society is rarely what it's cracked up to be, but that doesn't stop some people. The Misadventures of Oliver Booth: Life in the Lap of Luxury tells of the titular character's overwhelming desire to live the good life, the life of the filthy rich. Opportunity presents itself and there are no lengths Oliver won't go to mount himself among the most elite in the world. Hilarious and biting satire, The Misadventures of Oliver Booth is riveting and recommended reading."  Midwest Book Review

 

The Devil Amongst the Lawyers:  A Ballad Novel

Sharyn McCrumb

"The story begins with a train ride, a magic carpet that carries us back to the year 1935 and into the heart of a famous murder trial. As we head for the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, we get to know the characters, those journalists and photographers and sensation-seekers who always turn up for a good spectacle. 

"Sharyn McCrumb re-creates this time and place with such precision, the reader forgets that seventy-five years have passed since that faraway event in that isolated place where the outer world clashes with superstition and folklore. This is storytelling as those Celtic bards meant it to be: lyrical, haunting, and truly unforgettable." Cathie Pelletier, author of The Funeral Makers and Running the Bulls

 

 Insignificant Others

Stephen McCauley

 

"Winter in Boston sets the mood for Richard Rossi's reflections. Once a psychologist, now working in HR for a high-tech company, he is often bemused by corporate nuances. His relationship with live-in lover Conrad has reached a level of mundane confusion, and the spice that insignificant other Benjamin provides now has less savor. What to do? Richard is an exercise junkie, performing two sessions a day, one in a sunny upscale gym, the other in a basementlike facility. The fact that Richard is on a quest for a more meaningful life is apparent to us, but not him, so he is astonished to find that his conversations at work and with friends and family have a new, more substantive feel and are having a greater effect than any of his therapy sessions. McCauley's turns of phrase give Richard's jaded, ironic, and terse observations a magnificently elitist snarkiness, and as amusing as the story is, readers will truly care about Richard's fate.   Danise Hoover, Booklist

 

An American Type

Henry Roth

 

*Roth made an astonishing comeback in 1994 with his first novel since Call It Sleep (1934), A Star Shines over Mt. Morris Park, which introduces New Yorker Ira Stigman, the high-strung son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Ira's story quickly filled three subsequent novels to create the provoking and dramatic series Mercy of a Rude Stream. Now, 15 years after Roth's death, we have the final book in the saga. America is in the grip of the Great Depression, and even though Ira has become a published novelist, his self-loathing goes unabated, due in part to his smothering relationship with Edith, his mentor, lover, and sugar mama. When Ira falls in love with a young composer, he decides the only way to end things with Edith is to journey cross-country with Bill, a Communist working-class hero he hopes to write about. So begins a gritty, surreal, and darkly comic on-the-road adventure through a tattered America of decrepit flophouses, grimy bars, and boxcars full of hobos. As Ira discovers Bill's true nature and confronts bigots, crooks, and madmen, he searches for the key to transmuting raw experience into art, infatuation into sustaining love. A passionate, life-embracing conclusion to Roth's bold and cathartic magnum opus. Carolyn Phelan, Booklist

 

Seven Year Bitch

Jennifer Belle

 

"Welcome to not-so-happily-ever-after. Soon-to-be-40 Izzy just lost her Wall Street job, has a husband who runs a struggling publishing operation from their apartment, a year-old son, and a growing suspicion she's living life in captivity. It's not that you get a seven-year itch, divorced pal Joy confides. It's that they turn you into a seven-year bitch. And so Izzy goes all in, railing at hubby Russell; becoming involved in her son's nanny's quest to get pregnant; lusting after the rich, handsome guy who got away; and discovering her own heart thanks to her uncommon new job: judging promotional contest essays for 25 cents each. Belle's (Little Stalker) smart and hilariously ridiculous paean to love, marriage, and a baby carriage proves you can't always get what you want and you rarely get what you need, but you always get to choose. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that come uncomfortably close to the truth about less-than-perfect relationships, which helps salvage an ending wrapped just a little too tight. Still, style and wit count, and on that, Belle doesn't disappoint."  Publishers Weekly

 

 Island Beneath the Sea

Isabel Allende

 

*Starred Review* Allende, an entrancing and astute storyteller cherished the world over, returns to historical fiction to portray another resilient woman whose life embodies the complex forces at work in the bloody forging of the New World. Zarit, called Tt, is born into slavery in the colony of Saint-Domingue, where enslaved Africans are worked to death by the thousands, and European men prey on women of color. So it is with Tt and her "master," the deeply conflicted plantation owner Toulouse Valmorain, who relies on her for everything from coerced sex to caring for his demented first wife, his legitimate son, and their off-the-record daughter. When the slave uprising that gives birth to the free black republic of Haiti erupts, Toulouse, Tt, and the children flee to Cuba, then to New Orleans. In a many-faceted plot, Allende animates irresistible characters authentic in their emotional turmoil and pragmatic adaptability. She also captures the racial, sexual, and entrepreneurial dynamics of each society in sensuous detail while masterfully dramatizing the psychic wounds of slavery. Sexually explicit, Allende is grace incarnate in her evocations of the spiritual energy that still sustains the beleaguered people of Haiti and New Orleans. Demand will be high for this transporting, remarkably topical novel of men and women of courage risking all for liberty." Donna Seaman, Booklist

 

The Art of Disappearing

Ivy Pochoda

 

"A terrific page-turner about a stage magician and a traveling textile designer who meet in Vegas and marry two days later, and all the mystery and mayhem that ensues." Elle

 

"A lyrical novel that will enchant you with a love story and with poetic, evocative prose." Shelf Awareness

 

"An uncommonly good first novel about the unlikely love between a lonely woman and a most unusual magician. It's a magical story, full of passion, heart break, and wonder." Peter Hedges, author of What's Eating Gilbert Grape

 

The Go-Between:  a Novel of the Kennedy Years

Frederick Turner

 

"The sordid and fabled history of the American Camelot comes to life in this highly stylized, faux-journalistic reconstruction of the life and wild times of Judith Campbell Exner, reputed mistress to Frank Sinatra, JFK, and mob boss Sam Giancana. Our unnamed guide is an old-school Chicago journalist who talks in a hard-bitten voice about crooked prosecutors and pot-smoking car-dealers. But these marginal characters offer him his first glimpses into Exner's strange life and all the secret deals, trysts, and high-stakes maneuvers involved. Soon, he becomes obsessed and convinced that Exner was no high-class hooker, but an innocent believer attracted to romance and the high life, though ultimately in over her head as she goes from a party girl who catches Sinatra's eye to a paramour of the president and later a somewhat-unwitting go-between between the Kennedys and the mob. Turner paints her as a dark-haired counterpart to Marilyn Monroe, a quintessentially American tragic figure who enjoyed a charmed ascent and fell out of grace thanks to her flaws. Beneath the book's gossipy veneer, Turner (Redemption) cunningly probes notions of power, glamour, and notoriety."  Publishers Weekly

 

 Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter

Seth Grahame-Smith

 

"Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

"Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

"When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

"While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

"Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation." Amazon.com

  

Writing Jane Austen

Elizabeth Aston

 

"When author Georgina Jackson, stalled after one chapter into her second book, is offered a lucrative opportunity by her agent to finish an incomplete Jane Austen manuscript, she has to face up to the fact that she has never read any Jane Austen. But she needs to have a job to stay in England and she needs money to pay her rent, so she buckles down to learn about one of England's most famous authors and, in the process, learns about herself. A surrounding cast of charming characters (Henry, her landlord; his teenage sister, Maud; and Henry's Polish housekeeper, Anna), all thunderstruck that Georgina has never read Austen, are eager to help her get the job done. Despite her best attempts to procrastinate, Georgina ends up with a real appreciation for Austen and a remarkable novel to call her own. Aston writes with appreciation and respect for Austen and great affection for her own characters. Austen derivatives have become their own genre, but Aston is doing something different. She's written a witty page-turning love letter to Austen's work."  Publishers Weekly

 

Beatrice and Virgil

Yann Martel

 

"*Starred Review* Martel's mesmerizing Man Booker Prize–winning Life of Pi (2002) has become a cult classic, its richness of depth and meaning belying the startling basic story line of a young Indian man stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for 227 days. So it is with Martel's latest novel, also a fable-type story with iceberg-deep dimensions reaching far below the surface of its general premise. Henry, a young author, has written a book that has been successfully received, but the idea underpinning his follow-up work-a combination of fiction and essays thematically linked by his concept that writers shy away from fictional depictions of the Holocaust in favor of strict documentation-results in a manuscript deemed unacceptable by his publisher. Henry and his wife then flee their home country of Canada to live in "one of those great cities of the world," which is never specified. One day Henry receives a packet of materials obviously sent by someone familiar with his once-celebrated status, and in tracking down the source of the packet, Henry encounters what will turn out to be a life-threatening acquaintance with a taxidermist, whose personality is as enigmatic as his stuffed creatures are haunting. Ultimately, Henry finds redemption in terms of his fiction writing but not before facing a leviathan-size example of the human capacity for inflicting cruelty, assuaging guilt, and engaging in creative deception."  Brad Hooper, Booklist

"Dark but divine…This novel might just be a masterpiece about the Holocaust…Martel brilliantly guides the reader from the too-sunny beginning into the terrifying darkness of the old man's shop and Europe's past. Everything comes into focus by the end, leaving the reader startled, astonished, and moved."  USA Today

 

ReBecoming:  the Way of Opportunity

J. R. Maxon

 

Can you teach me to be happy and content?

"With these words, Diana Archer embarks on a fateful quest for the answers that elude us all. Guided by a mysterious teacher and her own knowing heart, she awakens to the preciousness of life and soon discovers that the secrets of the universe really aren't secret. Adventure, danger, and even romance are drawn to Diana as she searches for the tools she needs to change her fortune and her life. Everything hangs in the balance when she faces the ultimate challenge: can she alter her destiny and can she do it in time? ReBecoming is a hopeful and humorous spiritual odyssey, merging fiction with ageless wisdom. Find out why it's the only relationship guide you will ever need and how a tale of today can improve your future forever."  Amazon.com

 

Matterhorn:  a Novel of the Vietnam War

Karl Marlantes

 

"Matterhorn is a marvel--a living, breathing book with Lieutenant Waino Mellas and the men of Bravo Company at its raw and battered heart. Karl Marlantes doesn't introduce you to Vietnam in his brilliant war epic--he unceremoniously drops you into the jungle, disoriented and dripping with leeches, with only the newbie lieutenant as your guide. Mellas is a bundle of anxiety and ambition, a college kid who never imagined being part of a "war that none of his friends thought was worth fighting," who realized too late that "because of his desire to look good coming home from a war, he might never come home at all." A highly decorated Vietnam veteran himself, Marlantes brings the horrors and heroism of war to life with the finesse of a seasoned writer, exposing not just the things they carry, but the fears they bury, the friends they lose, and the men they follow. Matterhorn is as much about the development of Mellas from boy to man, from the kind of man you fight beside to the man you fight for, as it is about the war itself. Through his untrained eyes, readers gain a new perspective on the ravages of war, the politics and bureaucracy of the military, and the peculiar beauty of brotherhood."  Daphne Durham, Amazon.com

 

The Interrogative Mood:  a Novel?

Padgett Powell

 

"Powell (Mrs. Hollinsworth's Men) is in playfully provocative, top form in this slender book fashioned solely as a series of questions beginning with his limpid first: Are your emotions pure? and ending with his prickly last: Are you leaving now? Would you? Would you mind? Thoughtful, cajoling and absurdist, Powell's random non sequiturs are not without their method, sounding some tenderly recurring themes, such as a middle-aged ruefulness for simpler times, a longing for more elegant forms in clothes, tools, cars and looks and a tenderness for elephants, dogs and children. At moments the questions become self-revelatory, as if the narrator is interviewing for a partner or friend (Would you believe me if I tell you that I am a little fragile, psychologically speaking...?), while also challenging the reader with pointed questions regarding ethical gravitas: Are you bothered by your cowardice? Hilarity, irony, and sheer perverseness vie to question essentially what we know and how what we know makes us what we are.  Publishers Weekly

"[A] peculiar and mind-popping experience. . . . Most novels take us away from ourselves, into the lives and minds of other people. The Interrogative Mood goes boldly in the other direction - and really, wouldn't you like to talk about yourself?" (St. Petersburg Times )

"You don't so much read [The Interrogative Mood] as let it shove and jangle you into unexpected and highly pleasurable states of mind. Powell is a master of nouveau Southern lyricism....How this book works is beyond me, but, miraculously, it does." (Village Voice )

The Girl Who Chased the Moon

Sarah Addison Allen

 

"Allen's latest (after The Sugar Queen) takes the familiar setup of a young protagonist returning to the small town where her elusive mother was raised, and subverts it by sprinkling just enough magic into the narrative to keep things lively but short of saccharine. Seventeen-year-old Emily Benedict, intent on learning more about her mother, Dulcie, moves in with her grandfather, but is disappointed to find that her grandfather doesn't want to talk much about Dulcie. She soon discovers, though, that many still hold a grudge against Dulcie for the way she treated an old sweetheart before dumping him and disappearing. Luckily, Dulcie's high school adversary, Julia Winterson, back in town to pay down her deceased father's debt, takes a shine to Emily. She's working another quest as well: baking cakes every day with the hope that they'll somehow attract the daughter she gave up for adoption years ago. There are love interests, big family secrets, and magical happenings (color-changing wallpaper, mysterious lights) aplenty as Allen charts the spiraling inter-generational stories, bringing everything together in an unexpected way." Publishers Weekly

 

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Muriel Barbery

 

"In a bourgeois apartment building in Paris, we encounter Rene, an intelligent, philosophical, and cultured concierge who masks herself as the stereotypical uneducated "super" to avoid suspicion from the building's pretentious inhabitants. Also living in the building is Paloma, the adolescent daughter of a parliamentarian, who has decided to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday because she cannot bear to live among the rich. Although they are passing strangers, it is through Rene's observations and Paloma's journal entries that The Elegance of the Hedgehog reveals the absurd lives of the wealthy. That is until a Japanese businessman moves into the building and brings the two characters together. A critical success in France, the novel may strike a different chord with some readers in the U.S. The plot thins at moments and is supplanted with philosophical discourse on culture, the ruling class, and the injustices done to the poor, leaving the reader enlightened on Kant but disappointed with the story at hand."  Heather Paulson, Booklist

"By turns very funny and heartbreaking . . . [Barbery s] simple plot and sudden denouement add up to a great deal more than the sum of their parts." Publishers Weekly

 
"Gently satirical, exceptionally winning and inevitably bittersweet." The Washington Post

  

The Things That Keep Us Here

Carla Buckley

 

"In her first novel, Buckley delivers a medical thriller with a very credible premise. When research scientist Peter Brooks is called to the site of a massive duck die-off, he immediately suspects that their bucolic midwestern town has been invaded by the avian flu. Peter knows the virus is equally harmful to animals and humans, has a fatality rate of 50 percent, and has no vaccine. The town is immediately thrown into an uproar as schools are closed and grocery stores are overrun by panicked customers. Peter moves back in with his estranged wife and two daughters, and the family hunkers down, in total survival mode. Soon, however, the electricity fails, the family runs out of food, and the adults are faced with some stark life-and-death decisions as their neighbors sicken and die. Although Buckley's prose, at least initially, is sometimes awkward, her story gradually gains depth and momentum, operating both as a psychological profile of a family under duress and as a scary, gripping look at the effects of a pandemic. For fans of Robin Cook, Michael Palmer, and Daniel Kalla." Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist

 

The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson

Jerome Charyn

 

*Starred Review* "Versatile and puckish Charyn extends his rascally improvisations on American history, following the Revolutionary War–era Johnny One-Eye (2008) with an audacious take on the life and spirit of Emily Dickinson. In his author's note, Charyn explains his fascination with the poet and, most importantly, her "fiercely imagined life." In a voice as precise and unnerving as that of her revolutionary poems, Dickinson narrates with droll wit, bemused rhapsody, and acid fury, often mockingly describing her redheaded self as a bird, mouse, kangaroo, spinster, "Uncle Emily," and the Queen Recluse. Now and then, she alludes to the inner lightning strikes that prompt her to write, but flinty Dickinson focuses most on her knotty relationship with her father, her adoration for her dog, infatuation with her volcanic sister-in-law, and abiding, impossible love for Tom, the tattooed handyman turned thief. Bawdy, intrepid, and passionate, Dickinson ponders the shackles of women's lives and class prejudice as she shares her surprisingly wild adventures. In this brilliant and hilarious jailbreak of a novel, Charyn channels the genius poet and her great leaps of the imagination, liberating Dickinson from the prim and proper cameo image of a repressed lady in white, and revealing just how free she truly was." Donna Seaman, Booklist

 

Do They Know I'm Running?

David Corbett

 

*Starred Review* "Eighteen-year-old Roque Montalvo must travel from California's East Bay to El Salvador to help Tio Faustino illegally reenter the U.S. Faustino has been arrested in an illegal-immigration sweep in Oakland and immediately deported. Faustino's son has made the arrangements for passage with MS-13, the Salvadoran multinational gang. But Roque soon learns that he must also shepherd a mysterious Arab as well as rescue Lupe, a beautiful, terrified, embittered, young Salvadoran woman, who is to be given to a psychotic MS-13 lieutenant en route. The journey is perilous, but so, author Corbett makes clear, is life for illegal aliens in California. Corbett is covering familiar ground (Blood of Paradise, 2007), but in this powerful, evocative, character-driven novel, he has written what should be a breakout success. What drives Corbett's characters to risk death, violent gangs, ICE, armed "Minutemen," deportation, and life as fugitives in the U.S. As the Arab says to Lupe: "Yes, there is little hope in the world. But without America, there is none. Despite everything, you will have a chance." Readers who devour and then forget formulaic crime novels won't soon forget this one." Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

 

Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show

Frank Delaney

 

"Set against the backdrop of the political and social turmoil of 1932 Ireland, Delaney's latest novel opens with young Ben McCarthy's father abandoning the farm to join a traveling theater troupe. Devastated, Ben's mother sends him off to bring his father home. He finds the troupe and falls in love with the same young actress who seduced his father. Venetia is a stunning young woman, the child of a famous actress and a villainous political opportunist named King Kelly. Furious that his daughter's affairs with common farm folk might tarnish his political aspirations, Kelly plots revenge against the McCarthys. In the manner of Greek tragedy, he steals their farm, has them set upon by political mobsters, destroys the troupe, and robs himself of the love of his life. VERDICT Delaney (Shannon ) is a master storyteller, and this expansive tale of politics, tragedy, and revenge is Irish storytelling at its best. Full of vibrant, well-crafted characters and satisfyingly high drama, it will appeal to fans of sweeping Irish sagas."  Library Journal

 

The Changeling

Kenzaburo, Oe

 

"Starred Review"  "In 1997, Juzo Itami, one of Japan's most successful film directors, jumped to his death in Tokyo. Nobel laureate Oe (Hiroshima Notes) was Itami's brother-in-law, and he transposes Itami's suicide, under a fictional disguise, into a dazzling and elaborate maze of memories and meditations centering on the suicide of film director Goro Hanawa. Goro has made a series of tapes for Kogito, his world-famous writer brother-in-law, as groundwork for a possible film, which Kogito listens to obsessively after Goro's suicide. To rid himself of Goro's ghost, Kogito travels to Berlin, but even there he runs into pieces of Goro's past. Eventually, the reader is led back to the two men's youthful involvement with a right-wing paramilitary group founded by Kogito's late father. What begins as a weekend spent at the group's camp turns into something sinister from which Goro emerges fundamentally changed. Oe's deft mix of high intellectual reflection and absurd slapstick scenarios is polished to a high gloss, giving this book a tone that may remind American readers of Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift." Publishers Weekly

 

Model Home

Eric Puchner

 

"Warren Ziller moved his family to California in search of a charmed life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of Southern California in the 1980s. But his American dream has been rudely interrupted. Despite their affection for one another--the "slow, jokey, unrehearsed vaudeville" they share at home--Warren; his wife, Camille; and their three children have veered into separate lives, as distant as satellites. Worst of all, Warren has squandered the family's money on a failing real estate venture.

"As Warren desperately tries to conceal his mistake, his family begins to sow deceptions of their own. Camille attributes Warren's erratic behavior toan affair and plots her secret revenge; seventeen-year-old Dustin falls for his girlfriend's troubled younger sister; teen misanthrope Lyle begins sleeping with a security guard who works at the gatehouse; and eleven-year-old Jonas becomes strangely obsessed with a kidnapped girl.

"When tragedy strikes, the Zillers are forced to move into one of the houses in Warren's abandoned development in the middle of the desert. Marooned in a less-than-model home, each must reckon with what's led them there and who's to blame--and whether they can summon the forgiveness needed to hold the family together. Subtly ambitious, brimming with the humor and unpredictability of life, Model Home delivers penetrating insights into the American family and into the imperfect ways we try to connect, from a writer "uncannily in tune with the heartbreak and absurdity of domestic life" Los Angeles Times

 

Sins of the Father

Angela Benson

 

"A wonderful twist on a story that's as old as the ages-conflict and competition between siblings-with scandal and suspense added to the mix. An entertaining, enjoyable novel that deserves to be on every bestseller's list." Victoria Christopher Murray, bestselling author of Too Little, Too Late

"[Benson's] themes will resound with many readers and her portrayal of a newly reformed, albeit occasionally backsliding, sinner is masterful." Booklist

"Successful media mogul Abraham Martin has great wealth, an elegant wife, Saralyn, and a rebellious son, Isaac. He also has a secret: a second family that no one knows about. Now, after thirty years-driven by the urging of his long dormant conscience-Abraham is determined to do the right thing by finally bringing his illegitimate children into the light...and into the family fold.

"But beautiful, manipulative Saralyn will never accept the proof of her husband's indiscretions. Isaac, the heir, shaken by his father's revelations, will fight mercilessly when his world is threatened, and may lose everything that matters as a result. And while Abraham's forgotten daughter, Deborah, is open to the undreamed-of possibilities suddenly awaiting her, his son, Michael, cannot forgive the man who cruelly abandoned them to near poverty. And he's driven by only one desire: revenge!

"Angela Benson's Sins of the Father is a powerful story of a house bitterly divided-a rich, multilayered family saga of betrayal and redemption, rage and compassion, faith, forgiveness, and ultimately, of love."  Amazon.com

Once in a Blue Moon

 Eileen Goudge

 

"As children, sisters Lindsay and Kerri Ann are shunted into the foster care system after their mother is arrested for selling drugs in Goudge's (The Diary) charming newest. Lindsay is fortunate enough to be adopted by a loving family, while younger Kerri Ann bounces from family to family, becoming a teenage runaway, getting into drugs and eventually losing custody of her own daughter. Thirty years after they last saw each other, Kerri Ann shows up on Lindsay's doorstep in a last ditch effort to save herself. Lindsay, of course, has troubles of her own, and her nearly unrecognizable sister turning up is the last thing she needs. The tension in the sisters' relationship is believable, and while romantic subplots are completely predictable, family dynamics are beautifully handled, particularly between the girls and the woman who tried to save them from foster care, stripper Miss Honi. A touching story with wide appeal, Goudge's novel is a sharp example of dysfunctional family fiction."  Amazon.com

 

The Immortal Hunter:  a Rogue Hunter Novel

Lynsay  Sands

"Even vampires need a vacation. But Decker Argeneau's ends abruptly when he's asked to help hunt the group of rogue vampires targeting mortals -- one that might include a defector in his own family. Before he can worry about that, though, he's got to rescue the latest victim. It's all part of the job, including taking a bullet for a beautiful doctor.

"Dr. Danielle McGill doesn't know if she can trust the man who just saved her life. There are too many questions, such as what is the secret organization he says he's part of, and why do his wounds hardly bleed? However, with her sister in the hands of some dangerous men, she doesn't have much choice but to trust him.

"Except now Decker's talking about life mates and awakening a passion that's taking Dani beyond anything she's ever known. Being undead may not be half-bad...especially if it means spending forever with a man who would love her with his mind, body, and immortal soul."  Amazon.com

Canterbury Tales

Peter Ackroyd

 

"Renowned critic, historian, and biographer Peter Ackroyd takes on what is arguably the greatest poem in the English language and presents the work in a prose vernacular that makes it accessible to modern readers while preserving the spirit of the original.

A mirror for medieval society, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales concerns a motley group of pilgrims who meet in a London inn on their way to Canterbury and agree to take part in a storytelling competition. Ranging from comedy to tragedy, pious sermon to ribald farce, heroic adventure to passionate romance, the tales serve not only as a summation of the sensibility of the Middle Ages but as a representation of the drama of the human condition.

Ackroyd's contemporary prose emphasizes the humanity of these characters-as well as explicitly rendering the naughty good humor of the writer whose comedy influenced Fielding and Dickens-yet still masterfully evokes the euphonies and harmonies of Chaucer's verse. This retelling is sure to delight modern readers and bring a new appreciation to those already familiar with the classic tales."  Amazon.com

 

Invisible

Paul Auster

 

"In his latest, Auster is in classic form, perhaps too perfectly satisfying the contention of his wearied protagonist: there is far more poetry in the world than justice. Adam Walker, a poetry student at Columbia in the spring of 1967, is Auster's latest everyman, revealed in four parts through the diary entries of a onetime admirer, the confessions of his once-close friend, the denials of his sister and Walker's own self-made frame. With crisp, taut prose, Auster pushes the tension and his characters' peculiar self-awareness to their limits, giving Walker a fractured, knowing quality that doesn't always hold. The best moments from Walker's disparate, disturbing coming-of-age come in lush passages detailing Walker's conflicted, incestuous love life (paramount to his education as a human being, but a violation of his self-made promise to live as an ethical human being). As the plot moves toward a Heart of Darkness–style journey into madness, the limits of Auster's formalism become more apparent, but this study of a young poet doomed to life as a manifestation of poetry carries startling weight."  Publishers Weekly

 

John the Revelator 

Peter Murphy

 

"In the hallowed pantheon of Irish coming-of-age novels, Murphy's strongly written debut splits the difference between the sensitivity of Portrait of an Artist and the freakishness of Butcher Boy. John Devine lives a marginal life with his single mother in the small Irish town of Kilcody. He has a love for the lore of creepy-crawly things (thanks to his favorite book, Harper's Compendium of Bizarre Nature Facts). His mother, a maid for the rich folks in the area, is versed in Irish myth, which gives him an enchanted, slightly sinister sense of the world. As a teenager, John befriends the posh James Corboy, who fancies himself quite the young Rimbaud. Two events define John's coming into manhood: one involves James, a video camera and a drunken rampage; the other, John's mother, who is dying and whose weakness necessitates the frequent assistance of nosy neighbor Mrs. Nagle. Murphy understands the gracelessness of teenage boys and that peculiar delinquent wisdom shared by all the great coming-of-age novelists. With this novel, he doesn't have to bow to any of them."  Publisher's Weekly

Misery Loves Cabernet

Kim Gruenenfelder-Smith

 

The sequel to Gruenenfelder's debut, A Total Waste of Makeup (2005), finds endearingly neurotic Los Angeles denizen Charlie Edwards facing a separation from her hunky boyfriend, Jordan. When Jordan announces that he's going to Paris for several months to work on a film, Charlie suggests they take a break-a decision she regrets. Her best friends, Dawn and Kate, try to cheer her up, convincing her to go to a Halloween party where she runs into Liam, a handsome movie producer who wants Kate to convince her employer, megastar Drew Stanton, to star in his independent film. Eccentric Drew agrees, then starts making demands that include moving into Liam's house, where the movie is being shot. This forces Liam to relocate to Charlie's house, fanning the flames between them. Charlie is torn between wanting the gorgeous Liam and missing Jordan, who is never far from her thoughts. Gruenenfelder's second novel provides plenty of laughs courtesy of its colorful cast of characters. --Kristine Huntley

 

Busy Woman Seeks Wife

Annie Sanders

 

"The winning duo behind the pseudonymous  Annie Sanders-Annie Ashworth, and Meg Sanders-puts forth a highly entertaining story, high concept but fleshed out with realistic, contemporary characters of modern London. What sets it apart are the rich inner lives given not just to the lead couple but also to a sampling of their family and friends. Female sports executive Alex may be too busy to breathe, and struggling actor Frankie may have a rare gift for the home arts; but Frankie's best friend, Saffron, and his kid sister Ella have their own troublesome problems and complicated situations. This book is equal parts funny, thoughtful, and touching, and it's sheer joy to watch all of the characters grow and change, adjusting to fit into their own lives." --Valerie Hawkins, Booklist

 

The World to Come

Dara Horn

 

"Following in the footsteps of her breakout debut In the Image, Dara Horn's second novel, The World to Come, is an intoxicating combination of mystery, spirituality, redemption, piety, and passion. Using a real-life art heist as her starting point, Horn traces the life and times of several characters, including Russian-born artist Marc Chagall, the New Jersey-based Ziskind family, and the "already-weres" and "not-yets" who roam an eternal world that exists outside the boundaries of life on earth.

"At the center of the story is Benjamin Ziskind, a former child prodigy who now spends his days writing questions for a television trivia show. After Ben's twin sister Sara forces him to attend a singles cocktail party at a Jewish museum, Ben spots Over Vitebsk, a Chagall sketch that once hung in the twins' childhood home. Convinced the painting was wrongfully taken from his family, Ben steals the work of art and enlists his twin to create a forgery to replace the stolen Chagall. What follows is a series of interwoven stories that trace the life and times of the famous painting, and the fate of those who come into contact with it.

"From a Jewish orphanage in 1920s Soviet Russia to a junior high school in Newark, New Jersey, with a stop in the jungles of Da Nang, Vietnam, Horn takes readers on an amazing journey through the sacred and the profane elements of the human condition. It is this expertly rendered juxtaposition of the spiritual with the secular that makes The World to Come so profound, and so compelling to readers. As we learn near the end of the beautiful tale, The real world to come is down below--the world, in the future, as you create it.'" Gisele Toueg, Amazon.com

 

The Forgotten Garden

Kate Morton

 

"In 1913, a little girl arrives in Brisbane, Australia, and is taken in by a dockmaster and his wife. She doesn't know her name, and the only clue to her identity is a book of fairy tales tucked inside a white suitcase.  When the girl, called Nell, grows up, she starts to piece together bits of her story, but just as she's on the verge of going to England to trace the mystery to its source, her grandaughter, Cassandra, is left in her care. When Nell dies, Cassandra finds herself the owner of a cottage in Cornwall, and makes the journey to England to finally solve the puzzle of Nell's origins. Shifting back and forth over a span of nearly 100 years, this is a sprawling, old-fashioned novel, as well-cushioned as a Victorian country house, replete with family secrets, stories-within-stories, even a maze and a Dickensian rag-and-bone shop. All the pieces don't quite mesh, but it's a satisfying read overall, just the thing for readers who like multigenerational sagas with a touch of mystery." --Mary Ellen Quinn, Booklist

 

Plea of Insanity

Jilliane Hoffman

 

"Julia Vacanti may seem to be an up-and-coming Florida prosecutor, but dig a little deeper, and it's easy to see she's living a lie-or at least half a lie, the half that pretends her parents weren't murdered by her brother when she was a child. Then along comes the case of a lifetime: a prominent young doctor is accused of brutally murdering his wife and his three young children. The state claims the man is a monster. The defense claims he's suffering from schizophrenia-the same illness, Julia realizes, that was behind her brother's crime. Could the state, which will ask for the death penalty, be denying justice to a victim of mental illness? Courtroom dramatics are less the point here than in many legal thrillers. It's Julia's torment as she comes to terms with her family's tragic history and Hoffman's dissection of the legal and moral arguments surrounding the insanity plea that push things along-and the questions raised will linger long after the story ends." --Stephanie Zvirin, Booklist