Table of Contents
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Hotlists 2008
Crime Fiction - embedded
Seeing Stars
Lists of (mostly) hardcover books which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ).
The review journal assigns the star.
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Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .
Overbooked is the winner of the 2008 Louis Shores - Greenwood Publishing Award: to recognize excellence in book reviewing and other media for libraries. The award recipient is selected for significant achievement related to a reviewing process that helps librarians make selection decisions.
Starred Reviews
Fiction Stars 2008
September 9, 2008
January - June
Titles are listed by approximate date of publication, then alphabetically by author. Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine - unless otherwise noted.
January-June
January...
- There's No Place Like Home
Author: Ahern, Cecelia
Publisher: Hyperion $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781401301880 Date: 2008
Booklist
Since she was ten years old, Sandy Shortt has been obsessed with finding things. Now grown, Sandys obsession has become a calling, in this romance that explores the meaning of loss and love--Aherns most satisfying and entrancing novel yet
Updated 9.24.07
- A Golden Age
Author: Anam, Tahmima
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061478741 Date: 2008
PW Kirkus Booklist
In her deeply moving debut novel, Anam tells the story of a young widow who becomes embroiled in the violent political turmoil in 1971 that transforms a brutal Pakistani civil war into a fight for the death for Bangladeshi independence.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Debuts
Updated 11.19.07
- The Kept Man
Author: Attenberg, Jami
Publisher: Riverhead 24.95 $ ISBN: 9781594489525 Date: 2008
LJ
A riveting debut novel from a rising literary star, this story tells of a young woman whose husband has fallen into a coma, and her discovery of evidence that casts doubt on their marriage.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 10.23.07
- Children of the Book
Author: Brooks, Geraldine
Publisher: Viking $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780670018215 Date: 2008
Booklist
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March comes this novel--inspired by a true story--that traces the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war.
Updated 10.2.07
- Pig Did It
Author: Caldwell, Joseph
Publisher: Delphinium $ 22.95 ISBN: 9781883285296 Date: 2008
LJ
A poster pig, a pig of evil and redemption, and shall we go so far as to say a Pig of Peace? Why not? Joseph Caldwell does in this hilarious send-up of the Irish lyric novel. What the Pig did to the lives of the title characters-star-crossed lover-the heart broken and triumphant who act out ancient tales of passion and family feuds against a lush and wild Irish land and seascape could only have happened in the mind of a novelist as seasoned and freewheeling as Caldwell. When you stop laughing long enough, you'll want to go to the nearest pub, order a Guinness, and share the tale of what the pig did, or come to think of it-did he do it, and why? Fear not, you won't have to wait long for further laughs and yes, suspense, because this is only the first in the Pig Trilogy - Publisher Marketing
Updated 10.2.07
- Beginner's Greek
Author: Collins, James
Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.99 ISBN: 9780316021555 Date: 2008
LJ
Peter Russell finally meets the woman of his dreams, but in his room that night Peter discovers the paper on which she wrote her phone number is inexplicably gone. Both incisive and wonderfully funny, this is a brilliantly understated comedy of manners in which love lost is found again.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 10.2.07
- First the Dead
Author: Downs, Tim
Publisher: Thomas Nelson $ 22.99 ISBN: 9781595540249 Date: 2008
PW
Forensic entomologist Nick Polchek realizes that some of the bodies hes seeing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were dead prior to the storm. Nick must fight a desperate race against time and decomposing evidence--and the orders of his superiors--to raise the truth.
Updated 10.31.07
- The Deportees
Author: Doyle, Roddy
Publisher: Vikiing $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780670018451 Date: 2008
LJ
The eight tales in Doyles first-ever collection of stories have one thing in common: someone born in Ireland meets someone who has come to live there. Full of the authors unmistakable wit and his acute ear for dialogue, this collection takes a new slant on the immigrant experience.
Updated 11.6.07
- The Voyage of the Short Serpent
Author: Du Bucheron, Bernard
Publisher: Overlook $24.95 ISBN: 9781585679201 Date: 2008
LJ
Updated 1.3.08
- My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro
Author: Eugenides, Jeffrey
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061240379 Date: 2008
Kirkus LJ
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Middlesex presents this dazzling collection of outstanding love stories from such renowned writers as Alice Munro, William Faulkner, and Milan Kundera.
Updated 1.30.08
- Mambo Dogface
Author: Garigliano, Jeff
Publisher: Macadam Cage $ 23 ISBN: 9781596922587 Date: 2008
LJ
A sharp, dark, humorous debut about a teenage commando wannabe who runs amok in a boot camp for juvenile delinquents. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 9.24.07
- The Expeditions
Author: Iagnemma, Karl
Publisher: Dial $ 24 ISBN: 9780385335959 Date: 2008
LJ
From award-winning author Iagnemma comes a fierce and gorgeous story of an estranged father and son's unlikely journey though the wilderness of 19th- century America.
Updated 1.30.08
- Everything But a Groom
Author: Jacobs, Holly
Publisher: Avalon $ 21.95 ISBN: 9780803498648 Date: 2008
Booklist
Updated 10.31.07
- Yalo
Author: Khoury, Elias
Publisher: Archipelago $ 25 ISBN: 9780979333040 Date: 2008
PW
Khoury's novel follows the path of a young man, Yalo, who is growing up like a stray dog on the streets of Beirut. He is forced to confess to crimes of which he has no recollection. As he writes, he begins to grasp his familys past and recall all that his psyche has buried, until the true Yalo begins to emerge.
Updated 10.31.07
- Beaufort
Author: Leshem, Ron
Publisher: Delacorte $24 ISBN: 9780553806823 Date: 2008
Booklist LJ
By turns subversive and darkly comic, brutal and tender, Ron Leshem's debut novel is an international literary sensation, winner of Israel's top award for literature and the basis for a prizewinning film. Charged with brilliance and daring, hypnotic in its intensity, Beaufort is at once a searing coming-of-age story and a novel for our times--one of the most powerful, visceral portraits of the horror, camaraderie, and absurdity of war in modern fiction.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 11.19.07
- Accidently Yours
Author: Mallery, Susan
Publisher: Hqn $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780373772056 Date: 2008
Booklist
Kerri Sullivan courageously cares for her son Cody and convinces him that he has supergenes that will control his deadly disease. After wealthy developer Nathan King refuses to fund research that could prolong Codys life, Kerri wont take no for an answer.
Updated 11.19.07
- The Senator's Wife
Author: Miller, Sue
Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN :9780307264206 Date: 2008
Booklist
The author of the iconic The Good Mother and the bestselling While I Was Gone takes readers deep into the private lives of women with this mesmerizing portrait of two marriages, exposed in all their shame and imperfection and in their obdurate, unyielding love.
Updated 11.19.07
- How the Dead Dream
Author: Millet, Lydia
Publisher: Shoemaker & Hoard $ 24 ISBN: 9781593761844 Date: 2008
Booklist
T. is a young Los Angeles real estate developer consumed by power and political ambitions. His orderly, upwardly mobile life is thrown into chaos by the sudden appearance of his nutty mother, who's been deserted by T.'s now out-of-the-closet father. After his mother's suicide attempt and two other deaths, T. finds himself increasingly estranged from his latest project: a retirement community in the middle of the California desert. As he juggles family, business, and social responsibilities, T. begins to nurture a curious obsession with vanishing species. Soon he's living a double life, building sprawling subdivisions by day and breaking into zoos at night to be near the animals. A series of calamities forces T. to a tropical island, where he takes a Conrad-esque journey up a river into the remote jungle. Millet's devastating wit, psychological acuity, and remarkable empathy for flawed humankind contend with her vision of a world slowly murdering itself.
Updated 9.24.07
- Harriet and Isabella
Author: O'Brien, Patricia
Publisher: Touchstone $ 25 ISBN: 9781416552208 Date: 2008
LJ
From "New York Times" bestselling author OBrien comes an intelligent and deeply sensitive historical novel about the famous Beecher family and the sex scandal that nearly severed the loving bond between two sisters, even as it galvanized a nation.
Updated 10.2.07
- Bleeding Kansas
Author: Paretsky, Sara
Publisher: Puntam $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780399154058 Date: 2008
PW PW
The "New York Times" bestselling authors most remarkable novel yet--a story of two families, linked by their Midwestern pioneer pasts, and the dark family secrets that threaten to tear them apart.
Updated 11.6.07
- Silent in the Sanctuary
Author: Raybourn, Deanna
Publisher: Mira $ 13.95 ISBN: 9780778324928 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Lady Julia returns to celebrate the holidays only to find her fathers home crowded with family, friends, and Nicholas Brisbane, the one man she had hoped to forget. The celebrations take a ghastly turn after a guest is found brutally murdered, and one of Lady Julias cousins confesses to the crime.
Updated 10.23.07
- Homecoming
Author: Schlink, Bernhard
Publisher: Pantheon $ 24 ISBN: 9780375420917 Date: 2008
PW
A child of World War II, Peter Debauer grew up with his mother and scant memories of his father, a victim of the war. Now an adult, Peter embarks on a search for the truth surrounding his mothers unwavering--but shaky--history, and the possibility of finding his missing father.
Updated 10.23.07
- The Commoner
Author: Schwartz, John Burnham
Publisher: Talese $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780385515719 Date: 2008
PW LJ
It is 1959 when Haruko, a young woman of good family, marries the Crown Prince of Japan, the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. Told in the voice of Haruko, meticulously researched and superbly imagined, The Commoner is the mesmerizing, moving, and surprising story of a brutally rarified and controlled existence at once hidden and exposed, and of a complex relationship between two isolated women who, despite being visible to all, are truly understood only by each other. With the unerring skill of a master storyteller, John Burnham Schwartz has written his finest novel yet. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 1.4.08
- When the Ground Turns in Its Sleep
Author: Sellers-Garcia, Sylvia
Publisher: Riverhead $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781594489549 Date: 2008
LJ
In elegant, hypnotic prose, Sellers-Garcia delivers a story of divergent cultures and divided identities, of conflicts between generations and civilizations, of mourning, and, finally, of healing.
Updated 10.2.07
- The Unforgiving Years
Author: Serge, Victor
Publisher: NY Review $ 15.95 ISBN: 9781590172476 Date: 2008
PW
Updated 9.24.07
- The Book of Other People
Author: Smith, Zadie
Publisher: Penguin $ 15 ISBN: 9780143038184 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Updated 11.19.07
- Seventh Wall
Author: Wander, Fred
Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780393065381 Date: 2008
Kirkus Booklist
In 1938, Wander left his mother and sister behind in Vienna and fled to France, where later he was put on a train to Auschwitz. This novel, originally published in 1970, tells the stories of his fellow inmates and demonstrates that the survival of a single man is a collaborative enterprise.
Updated 10.2.07
- The Dead of Summer
Author: Way, Camilla
Publisher: Harcourt $ 23 ISBN: 9780151013708 Date: 2008
Booklist
Admit how your pulse quickens when you see those headlines: murder spree of schoolgirl loner; boy, 13, rapes classmate; child, 10, stabs pensioner." So says narrator Anita Naidu, and she should know. At thirteen, Anita was the sole witness to London's notorious cave murders of 1986, which left three children dead. Told seven years later to the police psychologist who interviewed her at the time of the killings, Anita's story reveals the savagery of the schoolyard one chilling detail at a time until the truth of what actually happened reveals itself with startling ferocity. Set against the bustling, tourist-packed streets of historic Greenwich, this novel examines sinister events that happen, quite literally, right below the surface.
An audacious debut, The Dead of Summer is written in spare, evocative prose with remarkable psychological acuity and the daring to examine the dark, intensely fragile point between childhood and adolescence, and the morbid impulses of those mutable years. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 10.2.07
- Mermaids in the Basement
Author: West, Michael Lee
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780060184056 Date: 2008
LJ
Updated 11.19.07
- My Enemy's Cradle
Author: Young, Sara
Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN:9780151015375 Date: 2008
PW
Cyrla has been warned that her neighbors know she is half Jewish--grounds for certain arrest in their Nazi-occupied town. A cruel twist of fate places Cyrla in a terrible dilemma in this page-turning debut novel.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 10.2.07
February...
- Split Estate
Author: Bacon, Charlotte
Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 9780374281830 Date: 2008
PW
Bacons luminous new novel tracks the King family as it struggles to survive the aftermath of Mrs. Kings suicide. Arthur King decides he and his children must move back to his home state of Wyoming, where they struggle to deal with the irrevocable damage to their lives and surroundings.
Updated 1.3.08
- Life Class
Author: Barker, Pat
Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780385524353 Date: 2008
Kirkus
In this superb new novel, Barker returns to her most renowned subject: the devastation and psychic damage wrought by World War I on all levels of British society.
Updated 10.11.07
- The Somnambulist
Author: Barnes, Jonathan
Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780061375385 Date: 2008
Booklist PW
This extraordinary tale involves Edward Moon, stage magician and detective, his silent sidekick the Somnambulist, and a devilish plot to re-create the apocalyptic prophecies of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and bring the British Empire crashing down.
Updated 11.19.07
- This Is How It Happened: (Not a Love Story)
Author: Barrett, Jo
Publisher: Avon $ 13.95 ISBN: 9780061241109 Date: 2008
PW
He lied, he cheated. He destroyed her life. How difficult could killing him be? Madeline Piatro devoted four years of her life to her boyfriend Carlton--and, in return, got romance, flowers, and the best sex she'd ever had. But then he dumped her--by e-mail, no less! He used her, he broke her heart...and he even cost her the marketing job she dearly loved. Now Maddy's on a mission. She wants revenge and she wants her career back. But Maddy's about to discover that getting even, no matter how justifiable, isn't as easy as it might at first appear--even with a batch of arsenic brownies, the help of a professional (if bumbling) hit man, and the advice and best wishes of her very best friends. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 1.30.08
- The Soul Thief
Author: Baxter, Charles
Publisher: Pantheon $ 20 ISBN: 9780375422522 Date: 2008
Booklist
In his extraordinary new novel, Baxter delivers one of his most beautifully wrought and unexpected works of fiction: at once lyrical and eerie, acutely observant in its sensual and emotional detail and audaciously metaphysical in its underpinnings.
Updated 1.3.08
- Beautiful Children
Author: Bock, Charles
Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 9781400066506 Date: 2008
LJ
Capturing Las Vegas with unprecedented scope and nuance, this debut novel not only rushes toward a climax of heartache and redemption, but provides a deviously funny and unyielding portrait of a tragedy readers are sure to recognize as their own.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 10.2.07
- His Illegal Self
Author: Carey, Peter
Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780307263728 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother, Che is the precocious son of radical student activists at Harvard in the late 1960s. Yearning for his famous outlaw parents, he bravely confronts his life, learning that nothing is what it seems.
Updated 1.3.08
- A Person of Interest
Author: Choi, Susan
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780670018468 Date: 2008
PW Booklist
Intricately plotted and emotionally riveting, A Person of Interest asks how far one man can run from his past, and explores the impact of scrutiny and suspicion in an age of terror.
Updated 1.4.07
- Shavetail
Author: Cobb, Thomas
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 9781416561194 Date: 2008
LJ
Shavetail traces the brutal coming of age of a boy soldier stationed at a remote U.S. Army outpost in the harsh Arizona desert, and his companys search to save a young woman captured by a band of Apaches.
Updated 1.3.08
- Silver: My Own Tale as Written by Me With a Goodly Amount of Murder
Author: Chupack, Edward
Publisher: Thomas Dunne $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780312373658 Date: 2008
PW
These are the savage, heart-pounding memoirs of Treasure Island's Long John Silver--a pirate and a charming, unapologetic murderer in search of lost treasure.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 1.3.08
- The Secret Between Us
Author: Delinksy, Barbara
Publisher: Doubleday $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780385518680 Date: 2008
PW Lj
The Secret Between Us tells an unforgettable story about making bad choices for the right reasons, and the terrible consequences of a lie gone wrong. Delinsky has delivered a riveting study of family and a superbly crafted, thought-provoking, novel.
Updated 1.30.08
- The Palace of Illusions
Author: Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee
Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780385515993 Date: 2008
Booklist LJ
A reimagining of the world-famous Indian epic, the Mahabharat--told from the point of view of the wife of an amazing woman. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 1.30.08
- The Konkans
Author: D'Souza, Tony
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 9780151015191 Date: 2008
PW LJ
Francisco D'Sai is a firstborn son of a firstborn son in a long line of proud Konkans. His mother and his uncle Sam feed Franciscos imagination with proud visions of India and Konkan history, in this novel filled with romance, comedy, and masterful storytelling.
Updated 10.23.07
- The Monsters of Templeton
Author: Groff, Lauren
Publisher: Hyperion $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781401322250 Date: 2008
PW
Wilhelmina Cooper is told that the key to her biological fathers identity lies somewhere in her familys history. She buries herself in the research of her twisted family tree and finds that a chorus of voices from the towns past--some sinister, all fascinating--rises up around her to tell their side of the story.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 1.3.08
- And Sometimes Why
Author: Johnson, Rebecca
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780399154522 Date: 2008
Booklist
With wit and warmth, Johnsons debut novel captures the fragile rhythm and unpredictable drama of family life.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 1.30.08
- Dark Roots
Author: Kennedy, Cate
Publisher: Grove $ 13 ISBN: 9780802170453 Date: 2008
PW
Following her American debut in "The New Yorker," Australian Cate Kennedy delivers a mesmerizing collection of award-winning stories that daringly travels to the deepest depths of the human psyche.
Updated 10.31.07
- Tyrants: Stories
Author: Klimassewiski, Marhsall N.
Publisher: Norton $ 14.95 ISBN: 9780393330960 Date: 2008
PW
The short stories in Tyrants trace the many forms of emotional inheritance--cultural, romantic, and historical. Some deftly portray both time and place, while others mine interpersonal relations with such intimacy and truth that they could be set anytime, anywhere.
Updated 10.11.07
- Sizzle and Burn
Author: Krentz, Jayne Ann
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780399154454 Date: 2008
Booklist
The "New York Times" bestselling author of White Lies presents her newest Arcane Society novel. A member of the Society must recruit a reluctant woman to use her psychic gift against a powerful enemy, in this a delightful new caper filled with suspense and wit.
Updated 1.3.08
- My Revolutions
Author: Kunzru, Hari
Publisher: Dutton $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780525949329 Date: 2008
LJ
Mixing the public with the personal, concocting a volatile stew of politics, idealism, violence, isolation, and unrequited love My Revolutions asks the question: What turns a radical into a terrorist?
Updated 1.3.08
- Ellington Boulevard: A Novel in A-Flat
Author: Langer, Adam
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780385522052 Date: 2008
Kirkus
The author of Crossing California now delivers this ode to New York: the story of why people come to a city they can't afford, take jobs they despise, sacrifice love, find love, and eventually become the people they never thought they'd be--for better and for worse.
Updated 10.11.07
- Song Yet Sung
Author: McBride, James
Publisher: Riverhead $ 25.95 ISBN: 9781594489723 Date: 2008
PW Kirkus
A runaway slave and a determined slave catcher become tangled in a web of intrigue and adventure in James McBride's intricately constructed and impressive second novel, set in pre-Civil War Maryland.
Updated 10.26.07 - Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories
Author: Millhauser, Steven
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 9780307267566 Date: 2008
Booklist PW
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author hailed by "The New Yorker" as "a virtuoso of waking dreams" comes a dazzling new collection of darkly comic stories united by their obsession with obsession
Updated 1.30.08
- The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
Author: Ogawa, Yoko
Publisher: Picador $13 ISBN: 9780312426835 Date: 2008
Kirkus
From Akutagawa Prize-winning author Ogawa comes a trio of novellas about love, motherhood, fertility, obsession, and how even the most innocent gestures contain a hairline crack of cruel intent.
Updated 1.3.08
- Courting Shadows
Author: Poster, Jem
Publisher: Overlook $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781590200322 Date: 2008
PW
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 10.2.07
- What I Was
Author: Rosoff, Meg
Publisher: Viking $ 23.95ISBN: 9780670018444 Date: 2008
Kirkus Booklist
Set in the 1960s at an English boarding school, this novel chronicles an unlikely friendship between two boys and a scandal that shatters the idyll that has shielded and nurtured their relationship.
Updated 1.30.08
- Names on a Map
Author: Saenz, Benjamin Alire
Publisher: Perennial $ 14.95 ISBN: 9780061285691 Date: 2008
LJ
The Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, is like so many others in America in 1967, trying to make sense of a rapidly escalating war they feel does not concern them. But when the eldest son, Gustavo, a complex and errant rebel, receives a certified letter ordering him to report to basic training, he chooses to flee instead to Mexico. Retreating back to the land of his grandfather--a foreign country to which he is no longer culturally connected--Gustavo sets into motion a series of events that will have catastrophic consequences on the fragile bonds holding the family together. Told with raw power and searing bluntness, and filled with important themes as immediate as today's headlines, Names on a Map is arguably the most important work to date of a major American literary artist. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 1.30.08
- The Unforgiving Years
Author: Serge, Victor
Publisher: NY Review $ 15.95 ISBN: 9781590172476 Date: 2008
PW
Never before translated into English,The Unforgiving Years is the most ambitious, the bleakest, and the most lyrical of the novels of Victor Serge, best-known for his gripping evocation of Stalinist Terror in"The Case of Comrade Tulayev. - - Publisher Marketing
Updated 1.3.08
- Resistence
Author: Sheers, Owen
Publisher: Talese $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780385522106 Date: 2008
PW
After the fall of Russia and the failed D-Day landings, a German counterattack lands on British soil. Within a month, half of Britain is occupied. Imbued with immense imaginative breadth and confidence, Sheers's debut novel unfolds with the pace and intensity of a thriller.
Updated 10.23.07
- Standing Still
Author: Simmons, Kelly
Publisher: Atria $ 23 ISBN: 9780743289726 Date: 2008
PW
This riveting debut novel explores the darker side of motherhood and marriageas a kidnapped woman is forced to confront her own harrowing secrets.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 1.30.08
- Daughter of York
Author: Smith, Anne Easter
Publisher: Touchstone $ 16.95 ISBN: 9780743277310 Date: 2008
LJ
From the Book Sense bestselling author who has taken the historical fiction category by storm with her debut, A Rose for the Crown comes a stunning new novel, and a new theory about the life of one of historys most fascinating heroines.
Updated 1.30.08
- Age of Shiva
Author: Suri, Manil
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780393065695 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Following his debut novel The Death of Vishnu, Suri returns with a mesmerizing story of modern India richly layered with themes from Hindu mythology.
Updated 11.19.07
- A Fraction of the Whole
Author: Tolz, Steve
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau $ 24 ISBN: 9780385521727 Date: 2008
PW Booklist
An uproarious indictment of the ridiculousness of the modern world and its mores, this novel also tells the moving, memorable story of a father and son whose spiritual symmetry transcends all their many shortcomings
Updated 1.4.08
- Between the Sheets
Author: Wells, Robin
Publisher: Forever $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780446618410 Date: 2008
LJ
After the president-elect suffers a fatal heart attack during an illicit sex romp with a call girl, Emma Jamison is mistaken for the woman and finds herself in the middle of a scandal. Emma packs up and moves to a small Louisiana town to escape her infamy. However, the quiet life she seeks soon blows up in smoke.
Updated 1.3.08
- Fanon
Author: Wideman, John Edgar
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 9780618942633 Date: 2008
Booklist
Wideman's fascinating new novel weaves together fiction, biography, and memoirto evoke the life and message of Frantz Fanon, the influential author of The Wretched of the Earth and acute critic of racism and oppression.
Updated 10.31.07
- All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well
Author: Wodicka, Tod
Publisher: Pantheon $ 21.95 ISBN: 9780375424731 Date: 2008
Kirkus
A wildly inventive, mesmerizing, and deeply moving debut novel that features one of the most winning, oddball characters to come along in years.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 1.30.08
March...
- The Book of Dahlia
Author: Albert, Elisa
Publisher: Free $ 23 ISBN: 9780743291293 Date: 2008
PW LJ
From the author of the acclaimed story collection How This Night Is Different comes a fearless, arresting, outrageously funny exploration of one young woman's terminal illness.
Updated 2.26.08
- Deep Dish
Author: Andrews, Mary Kay
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780060837365 Date: 2008
LJ
Deep Dish offers a delicious treat full of Southern sass, wit, and charm from the author of Savannah Breeze and Hissy Fit.
Updated 2.26.08
- The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai
Author: Anyi, Wang
Publisher: Columbia Univ $ 29.95 ISBN: 9780231143424 Date: 2008
PW
Updated 2.26.08
- A Richer Dust
Author: Boaz, Amy
Publisher: Permanent $ 26 ISBN: 9781579621599 Date: 2008
PW
Updated 10.31.07
- The View from the Seventh Layer
Author: Brockmeier, Kevin
Publisher: Pantheon $ 21.95 ISBN: 9780375425301 Date: 2008
LJ
Updated 4.24.08
- Johnny One-Eye: A Tale of the American Revolution
Author: Charyn, Jerome
Publisher: Norton $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780393064971 Date: 2008
PW LJ Booklist
This comic masterpiece reimagines the American Revolution with a one-eyed spy, a heroic whorehouse madam, and a cunning George Washington.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 1.30.08
- The Rain Before It Falls
Author: Coe, Jonathan
Publisher: Knopf $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780307268037 Date: 2008
PW
Following The Rotters' Club and The Closed Circle, Coe now offers his first stand-alone novel in a decade, a story of three generations of women whose destinies reach from the English countryside in World War II to London, Toronto, and France at the turn of the new century.
Updated 2.26.08
- Pravda
Author: Docx, Edward
Publisher: Mariner $ 13.95 ISBN: 9780618534401 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Inspired by the author's own family history, Pravda is a haunting chronicle of suspicion and loss, love and loyalty, and the destructive legacy of deceit.
Updated 1.30.08
- The Blue Star
Author: Earley, Pete
Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.99 ISBN: 9780316199070 Date: 2008
LJ
Seven years ago, readers were introduced to the precocious ten-year-old at the heart of Earley's bestseller Jim the Boy. Now a teenager, Jim returns in another tender and wise story of young love on the eve of World War II.
Updated 1.30.08
- Souvenir
Author: Fowler, Therese
Publisher: Ballantine $ 22 ISBN: 9780345499684 Date: 2008
LJ
Unfolding with warmth and passion, Fowler's vibrant and moving debut illuminates the possibility of second chances, the naive choices of youth, the tensions within families, and the wondrous designs of fate.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 11.19.07
- Dervishes
Author: Helms, Beth
Publisher: Picador $ 14 ISBN: 9780312426194 Date: 2008
PW
This richly textured, panoramic story of an American mother and daughter stuck in the expatriate community of Ankara, Turkey, in 1975, shows both of them trying to discover a life in the larger world--hungry for experience but dangerously naive.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 10.23.07
- The Sorrow of an American
Author: Hustvedt, Siri
Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 9780805079081 Date: 2008
Booklist PW
The Sorrows of an American is a soaring feat of storytelling about the immigrant experience and the ghosts that haunt families from one generation to another.
Updated 3.3.08
- Rommates Wanted
Author: Jewell, Lisa
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 14.95 ISBN: 9780061137471 Date: 2008
LJ
1990. Please write and tell me why you should live here.Toby Dobbs received a big Victorian house with too many bedrooms to count as a wedding present from his father, but his marriage is over within a month. Very alone, and very lonely, Toby posts an advertisement seeking the "Unexpectedly Alone" to become his roommates. Fifteen years later the wayward souls he takes in are still living with him, with no intention of leaving.
2004. Please tell me how I can convince you to move out.
Toby Dobbs has met Leah Pilgrim from across the road, and they're falling in love. But before they can begin a new life together, Toby and Leah must help Toby's house of sweet slackers and lovelorn misfits grow up, solve their problems, and set themselves free. But can their new relationship survive the test? - Publisher Marketing
Updated 2.26.08 - The Outcast
Author: Jones, Sadie
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061374036 Date: 2008
PW Booklist Kirkus
In this brilliant debut, Jones tells the story of a boy who refuses to accept the polite lies of a tightly knit community that rejects love in favor of appearances. Written with nail-biting suspense, The Outcast is an emotionally powerful testament to the powers of love and understanding.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | All Stars
Updated 1.31.08
- Mudbound
Author: Jordan, Hillary
Publisher: Algonquin $ 21.95 ISBN: 9781565125698 Date: 2008
Booklist LJ
Winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, Mudbound is storytelling at the height of its powers: the ache of wrongs not yet made right, the fierce attendance of history made real (Barbara Kingsolver), as men and women from two families become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale.
Updated 1.3.08
- The Paper Marriage
Author: Law, Susan Kay
Publisher: Berkley $ 14 ISBN: 9780425219355 Date: 2008
LJ
Ann McCray's husband has been in a coma for 12 years, and now she finds herself childless and approaching 40. As Ann is drawn to her new neighbor and his daughter, there may be hope for a new life with him--if she can reconcile the dividing lines between love and loyalty.
Updated 2.26.08
- The End of the Jews
Author: Mansbach, Adam
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780385520447 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Boldly reworking the story of Jewish assimilation around the tale of a familyof fierce individuals, this is the story of anyone willing to fight for love, art, and a place in the world.
Updated 11.19.07
- Deadly Deceptions
Author: Miller, Linda Lael
Publisher: Hqn $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780373772568 Date: 2008
PW
Feisty Mojo Sheepshanks from Deadly Gamble is now coming to grips with her ability to see ghosts. She soon finds herself in over her head as a blackmailer terrorizes her wealthy sister and hard truths about the family begin to surface.
Updated 2.26.08
- The Philospher's Apprentice
Author: Morrow, James
Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780061351440 Date: 2008
LJ
For Mason Ambrose, a failed philosopher with lots of smarts but not much common sense, the prospect of tutoring a lonely adolescent for a small fortune seems irresistible. But all is not as it seems, in this beguiling book from one of America's premier satirists.
Updated 2.26.08
- Lush Life
Author: Price, Richard
Publisher: FSG $ 26 ISBN: 9780374299255 Date: 2008
Booklist Kirkus PW LJ
In Lush Life, Price tears the shiny veneer off the "new" New York to show the underground networks of control and violence beneath the glamour, in this novel that reads like a movie in prose" ("New York Times").
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 3.3.08
- Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
Author: Rice, Anne
Publisher: Knopf $ 25.95 ISBN: 9781400043521 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Rice's second book in her hugely ambitious and courageous series on the life of Christ begins during his last winter before his baptism and concludes with the miracle at Cana. As with "Out of Egypt," this novel is based on the Gospels and on the most respected New Testament scholarship.
Updated 2.26.08
- Tarnished Beauty
Author: Samartin, Cecilia
Publisher: Atria $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781416549505 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Jamilet is a beautiful young woman marred by a shockingly gruesome birthmark. It spills over her back and down her legs, twisting and writhing like a hideous cape of blood, causing her to be shunned by the villagers of her rural Mexican town. In search of medical salvation, this angel with the devil's mark is finally driven to escape north and cross the border illegally to Los Angeles.
After acquiring false documents, Jamilet finds work at a mental hospital, where she is assigned to look after Senor Peregrino, an elderly man from Spain who is as disagreeable as he is mysterious. Jamilet is given strict orders to keep her distance, but when he cleverly snags possession of her papers, he bargains to return them upon the condition that she listen to his story. Jamilet begrudgingly agrees, and Senor Peregrino takes her back to the days of his youth, when he embarked upon a mystical and romantic journey along the legendary Road to Santiago in Spain.
Jamilet and Senor Peregrino forge a spiritual bond that is more healing to them both than modern medicine could ever be. In an inspiring story of redemption, faith and the enduring power of love, Samartin offers an enlightening perspective on the true meaning of beauty. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 1.30.08
- Embrace Me
Author: Samson, Lisa
Publisher: Thomas Nelson $ 14.99 ISBN: 9781595542106 Date: 2008
LJ
A scarred woman immersed in the strange world of a traveling circus finds love of another kind. A dread-locked and scarred local with a hidden history and a compelling present may provide Valentine with the embrace she longs for.
Updated 2.26.08
- Trouble the Water
Author: Seitz, Nicole
Publisher: Thomas Nelson $ 14.99 ISBN: 9781595544001 Date: 2008
LJ
Set in the South Carolina Sea Islands, Seitz's second novel follows two sisters--one seeking to recreate her life yet again, and the other reexamining hers.
Updated 2.26.08
- Animal's People
Author: Sinha, Indra
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: Sinha, Indra Date: 2008
Kirkus Booklist
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Animal's People is by turns a profane, scathingly funny, and piercingly honest tale of a boy so badly damaged by the poisons released during a chemical plant leak that he walks on all fours.
Updated 2.26.08
- Certain Girls
Author: Weiner, Jennifer
Publisher: Atria $ 26.95 ISBN: 9780743294256 Date: 2008
LJ
Described by "The Miami Herald" as a breezy, sweetly oddball urban fairy tale, this sequel to the bestselling Good in Bed picks up with an older, wiser, and thinner Cannie Shapiro raising her 13-year-old daughter, Joy.
Updated 3.3.08
- Captivity
Author: Wesselmann, Debbie Lee
Publisher: John F. Blair $ 22.95 ISBN: 9780895873538 Date: 2008
PW LJ
When someone releases the chimpanzees at the South Carolina Primate Project, its director, Dana Armstrong, is forced to confront the complexity of both her past and the present as she struggles to preserve the chimps' sanctuary.
Updated 2.29.08
- Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
Author: Yan, Mo
Publisher: Arcade $ 29.95 ISBN: 9781559708531 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Updated 2.26.08
April...
- The Future of Love
Author: Abbott, Shirley
Publisher: Algonquin $23.95 ISBN: 9781565125674 Date: 2008
Booklist
Set in 2001, Abbott's debut novel exposes the inner lives and the tangled relationships of eight characters--before and after New York's tragedy.
Updated 2.26.08
- The Hakawati
Author: Alameddine, Rabih
Publisher: Knopf $25.95 ISBN: 9780307266798 Date: 2008
Kirkus PW LJ
Alameddine's astonishingly inventive, wonderfully exuberant novel takes readers from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of 21-century Lebanon. The Hakawati is a modern Arabian Nights--a funny, captivating novel that enchants and dazzles.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 3.3.08
- Peace
Author: Bausch, Richard
Publisher: Knopf $ 19.95 ISBN: 9780307268334 Date: 2008
PW Kirkus Booklist
Taut and propulsive, Peace is a feat of economy, compression, and imagination, an unmistakably contemporary commentary on the corrosiveness of violence and the human cost of war.
Updated 4.24.08
- A Lady's Secret
Author: Beverly, Jo
Publisher: Signet $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780451224194 Date: 2008
LJ
Amused by a cursing nun in a French inn, English earl Robin Fitzvitry offers to help her reach England. Petre d'Avernio is not exactly a nun, though she spent years in an Italian convent with her mother, whose death has left her in danger. Now she must find her true father, an English lord who does not know she exists.
Updated 4.24.08
- The Story of Forgetting
Author: Block, Stefan Merrill
Publisher: Random $ 25 ISBN: 9781400066797 Date: 2008
PW
Three narratives intertwine to create a story that is by turns funny, smart, introspective, and revelatory. Through the fusion of myth, science, and storytelling, this novel offers the hard-learned truth that only through loss can one understand the value of what remains.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 2.26.08
- Adam
Author: Dekker, Ted
Publisher: Thomas Nelson $ 25.95 ISBN: 9781595540072 Date: 2008
LJ
New York Times bestselling author Dekker unleashes his most riveting novel yet about an elusive serial killer whose victims die of unknown causes and the psychologist obsessed with catching him.
Updated 4.24.08
- Belong to Me
Author: De Los Santos, Marisa
Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061240270 Date: 2008
LJ
The bestselling author of Love Walked In returns with this luminous story about neighbors, family, friends, and love.
Updated 3.3.08
- Winter Haven
Author: Dickson, Athol
Publisher: Bethany $ 18.99 ISBN: 9780764201646 Date: 2008
LJ
In this exquisitely-crafted suspense novel, one woman's search for answers into her brother's death opens dark secrets in a town's past--and explores God's response to her questions.
Updated 4.24.08
- The White King
Author: Dragoman, Gyorgy
Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 9780618945177 Date: 2008
Kirkus
An international sensation, this startling and heartbreaking debut recounts the adventures of eleven-year-old Djata in one life-changing year. The depiction of life in a totalitarian state--the only world Djata knows--is tempered by the sheer, hilarious absurdity of the situations he finds himself in.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 1.30.08
- Painter from Shanghai
Author: Epstein, Jennifer Cody
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780393065282 Date: 2008
PW LJ
Reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, this novel is a re-imagining of the life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionist.
Updated 2.26.08
- The Reavers
Author: Fraser, George MacDonald
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 9780307268105 Date: 2008
Booklist
After 12 gloriously scandalous Flashman novels, the incomparable Fraser takes a break to give readers a totally hilarious tale of derring-do from a different era.
Updated 3.3.08
- All the Sad Young Literary Men
Author: Gessen, Keith
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780670018550 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Updated 2.26.08
- The German Bride
Author: Hershon, Joanna
Publisher: Ballantine $ 25 ISBN: 9780345468451 Date: 2008
Kirkus
A new novel by the author of Swimming, this elegant story describes one woman's quest for identity as she leaves Germany in the mid-19th century and makes a new life in the wild and untamed American frontier.
Updated 2.26.08
- The Third Angel
Author: Hoffman, Alice
Publisher: Crown $ 25 ISBN: 9780307393852 Date: 2008
Booklist PW
Veteran heartstring-puller Hoffman examines the lives of three women at different crossroads in their lives, tying their London-centered stories together in devastating retrospect--"Publishers Weekly."
Updated 1.3.08
- The Sorrows of an American
Author: Hustvedt, Siri
Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 9780805079081 Date: 2008
PW Booklist
The Sorrows of an American is a soaring feat of storytelling about the immigrant experience and the ghosts that haunt families from one generation to another.
Updated 2.26.08
- Genghis: Eagle of the Mountain
Author: Iggulden, Conn
Publisher: Delacorte $ 25 ISBN: 9780385339520 Date: 2008
PW
From the co-author of the bestselling The Dangerous Book for Boys comes this historical novel based on the life of Genghis Khan.
Updated 1.30.08
- The Unaccustomed Earth
Author: Lahiri, Jhumpa
Publisher: Knopf $25 ISBN: 9780307265739 Date: 2008
Kirkus Booklist PW
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lahiri delivers eight dazzling stories that take readers from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life.
Updated 2.26.08
- Turning Tables
Author: MacDowell, Heather and Rose
Publisher: Dial $ 24 ISBN: 9780385338561 Date: 2008
PW
Debut novelists and sisters Rose and Heather MacDowell treat readers to a fictional feast at one of New York's poshest restaurants--perfect for fans of The Devil Wears Prada and Kitchen Confidential.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 1.30.08
- Wild Nights! Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway
Author: Oates, Joyce Carol
Publisher: Ecco $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061434792 Date: 2008
Booklist
A wonderfully bizarre new collection of short stories by Oates, Wild Nights! reimagines the final days of five major American writers--Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway.
Updated 10.31.07
- Dictation
Author: Ozick, Cynthia
Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 9780547054001 Date: 2008
Kirkus Booklist
From the acclaimed author of Heir to the Glimmering World comes this new work of fiction that brings together four long stories, including the novella-length Dictation, all of which showcase this incomparable writer's sly humor and piercing insight into the human heart.
Updated 2.26.08
- In the Mouth
Author: Pollack, Eileen
Publisher: Fourway $ 15.95 ISBN: 9781884800825 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Pollack writes about times of tragedy and transition insightfully, aware of their everyday quality and of their gravity. In the Mouth is a window onto the amazing tenderness and irrationality of human life.
One story, "The Bris," has been selected for The Best American Short-Stories 2008 (Edited by Stephen King and Heidi Pitlor). - Publisher Marketing
Updated 4.24.08
- Three Girls and Their Brother
Author: Rebeck, Theresa
Publisher: Crown $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780307394149 Date: 2008
Kirkus Booklist LJ
In this sharp-edged drama that unfolds in New York's celebrity fast lane, it takes an awful incident with a famous movie star to blast three famous girls--and their brother--out of their self-destructive spiral.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.26.08
- The Age of Dreaming
Author: Revoyr, Nina
Publisher: Akashic $ 15.95 ISBN: 9781933354460 Date: 2008
Booklist
The award-winning author of The Necessary Hunger and Southland has penned a stunning work that is part historical novel, part mystery, and part unrequited love story.
Updated 4.24.08
- Wolf Totem
Author: Rong, Jiang
Publisher: Penguin $ 26.95 ISBN: 9781594201561 Date: 2008
Kirkus
An epic Chinese tale, Wolf Totem depicts the dying culture of the Mongols--the ancestors of the Mongol hordes who at one time terrorized the world--and the parallel extinction of the animal they believe to be sacred: the fierce and otherworldly Mongolian wolf.
Updated 1.30.08
- All Souls
Author: Schutt, Christine
Publisher: Harcourt $ 22 ISBN: 9780151014491 Date: 2008
Booklist
n 1997, at the distinguished Siddons School on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the school year opens with distressing news: Astra Dell is suffering from a rare disease. Astra's friends try to reconcile the sick girl's suffering with their own fierce longings and impetuous attachments. Car writes unsparing letters, which the dirty Marlene, in her devotion, then steals. Other classmates carry on: The silly team of Suki and Alex pursue Will Bliss while the subversive Lisa Van de Ven makes dates with Miss Wilkes. The world of private schools and privilege in New York City is funny, poignant, cruel, and at its heart is a sick girl, Astra Dell, "that pale girl from the senior class, the dancer with all the hair, the red hair, knotted or braided or let to fall to her waist, a fever and she consumed."
National Book Award Finalist Christine Schutt has created a wickedly original tale of innocence, daring and illness. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 2.26.08
- Olive Kitteridge: A Novel in Stories
Author: Strout, Elizabeth
Publisher: Random $ 25 ISBN: 9781400062089 Date: 2008
PW Booklist Kirkus
"New York Times" bestselling author Strout binds together 13 rich, luminous narratives through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge, who offers profound insights into the human condition.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.26.08
- The Ginseng Hunter
Author: Talarigo, Jeff
Publisher: Talese $ 21.95 ISBN: 9780385517393 Date: 2008
LJ Booklist
Set at the turn of the 21st century in China along the Tumen River, which separates northeast China and North Korea, The Ginseng Hunter is an unforgettable portrait of life along a fragile border.
Updated 11.19.07 - The Delighted States: A Books of Novels, Romances, & Their Unknown Translators, Containing Ten Languages...
Author: Thirlwell, Adam
Publisher: FSG $ 30 ISBN: 9780374137229 Date: 2008
PW
The Delighted States follows a carousel of literary influence that shows how translation and emigration lead to a new and true history of the novel. This book is a provocation, a box of tricks, a bedside travel book; it is also a work of startling intelligence and originality from a young writer.
Updated 2.26.08
- Private Arrangements
Author: Thomas, Sherry
Publisher: Bantam $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780440244318 Date: 2008
PW LJ
Filled with unforgettable characters, a refreshingly clever plot, and seductively witty writing, this dazzlingly sensual debut by an exciting new voice in historical romance is a love story about a lord and lady's seemingly perfect marriage.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 2.26.08
- The Cure for Modern Life
Author: Tucker, Lisa
Publisher: Atria $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780743492799 Date: 2008
PW
From the bestselling author of The Song Reader comes a powerful and poignant story about three successful friends forced to confront what they truly believe when a homeless boy disrupts their carefully planned lives.
Updated 1.3.08
- Certain Girls
Author: Weiner, Jennifer
Publisher: Pocket $ 26 ISBN: 9780743294256 Date: 2008
LJ
Described by "The Miami Herald" as a breezy, sweetly oddball urban fairy tale, this sequel to the bestselling Good in Bed picks up with an older, wiser, and thinner Cannie Shapiro raising her 13-year-old daughter, Joy.
Updated 4.24.08
- The Stone Gods
Author: Winterson, Jeannette
Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 9780151014910 Date: 2008
Booklist
What begins as a witty, satirical futurist adventure deepens into a dazzling exploration of humankind's relationship to environment, power, and technology, and to what defines us as humans.
Updated 4.24.08
- Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
Author: Wolff, Tobias
Publisher: Knopf $ 26.95 ISBN: 9781400044597 Date: 2008
PW
One of our most exquisite storytellers ("Esquire") delivers his first collection in over a decade: ten potent new stories that, along with 21 classics, display his mastery over a quarter century.
Updated 1.3.08
- The Ten-Year Nap
Author: Wolitzer, Meg
Publisher: Riverhead $24.95 ISBN: 9781594489785 Date: 2008
Kirkus
From the bestselling author of The Wife and The Position comes a feverishly smart novel about female ambition, money, class, motherhood, and marriage--and what happens in one community when a group of educated women chooses not to work.
Updated 1.3.08
- Drop Edge of Yonder
Author: Wurlitzer, Rudolph
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio Movement $ 15 ISBN: 9780976389552 Date: 2008
PW
Updated 2.26.08
May...
- The Sister
Author: Adams, Poppy
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780307268167 Date: 2008
LJ
This lyrical and haunting story of two sisters, their troubling past, and the terrible secrets they each want buried will stay with you long after you close the book. "A wonderful book loaded with twists and turns that come straight from the heart"--Harlan Coben.
Updated 4.24.08
- The Outlander
Author: Adamson, Gil
Publisher: Ecco $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780061491252 Date: 2008
PW
Adamson's debut work is simply enough, a superb novel. . . . The frayed material of the North American west is rendered in an astoundingly fresh light. . . . a condition only occasioned by first rate fiction (Jim Harrison).
Updated 2.26.08
- The White Tiger
Author: Adiga, Aravind
Publisher: Free $ 24 ISBN: 9781416562597 Date: 2008
PW LJ
This rambunctious story of contemporary India shows how religion doesn't create morality, and money doesn't solve every problem--but a person can gets what he wants out of life by eavesdropping on the right conversations.
Updated 2.26.08
- City of Thieves
Author: Benioff, David
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780670018703 Date: 2008
PW Kirkus LJ
A writer visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. His grandmother won't talk about it, but his grandfather reluctantly consents. The result is the captivating odyssey of two young men trying to survive against desperate odds.
Updated4.24.08
- RED CAR: Stories
Author: Bingham, Sallie
Publisher: Sarabande $21.95 ISBN: 9781932511598 Date: 2008
PW
Updated 2.26.08
- The View from the Seventh Layer
Author: Brockmeier, Kevin
Publisher: Pantheon $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780375425301 Date: 2008
LJ
From the fantastic to the concrete, the stories in this breathtaking collection are crafted by the award-winning author of The Brief History of the Dead.
Updated 4.24.08
- Black Flies
Author: Burke, Shannon
Publisher: Soft Skull $ 14.95 ISBN: 9781593761912 Date: 2008
LJ
Novelist Shannon Burke earned stunning reviews for his debut book, Safelight, and now he returns with the same minimalist intensity in this arresting follow-up. Black Flies is the story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first year on the job in mid-'90s New York. It is a ground's eye view of life on the streets: the shoot-outs, the bad cops, unhinged medics, the hopeless patients, the dark humor in bizarre circumstances, and one medic's struggle to balance his desire to help against his own growing callousness. It is the story of lives that hang in the balance, and of a single job with a misdiagnosed newborn that sends Cross and his partner into a life-changing struggle between good and evil.
Updated 4.24.08
- Bobbie Faye's (kinda, sorta, not-exactly) Family Jewels
Author: Causey, Toni McGee
Publisher: Griffin $25 ISBN: 9780312354503 Date: 2008
Booklist
Hilarious, pitch-perfect . . . Causey doesn't miss a beat in this wonderful, wacky celebration of Southern eccentricity--"Publishers Weekly."
Updated 6.18.08
- Dark Obsession: A Novel of Blackheath Moor
Author: Chase, Allison
Publisher: Signet $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780451223876 Date: 2008
LJ
They wed in haste--Nora Thorngoode, to save her ruined reputation, and Grayson Lowell, to rescue his estate from foreclosure. Soon the lover that Nora has married becomes a dark stranger. Can Grayson and Nora discover what really had happened the night his brother died, and free themselves as well?
Updated 4.24.08
- Summer Blowout
Author: Cook, Claire
Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781401322410 Date: 2008
LJ
A string of Italian beauty salons run by a lovably insane Boston Irish familyis the backdrop for this hilarious, rambunctious novel that is fully of juicy conflict and unconditional love.
Updated 6.18.08
- The Courtesan's Secret
Author: Dain, Claudia
Publisher: Berkley $ 14 ISBN: 9780425221365 Date: 2008
Booklist
This second novel in a Regency-set series features the matchmaking schemes of an infamous ex-courtesan.
Updated 4.24.08
- The Gift of Rain
Author: Eng, Tan Twan
Publisher: Weinstein $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781602860247 Date: 2008
PW LJ
An epic novel nominated for the Man Booker Prize, this epic debut tells the story of a young man's perilous journey through the betrayals of war and into manhood.
Updated 3.31.08
- So Brave, Young and Handsome
Author: Enger, Leif
Publisher: Atlantic $ 24 ISBN: 9780871139856 Date: 2008
Kirkus
The rugged successor to Enger's bestselling Peace Like a River is a nimble story about an aging train robber on a quest to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life, and the failed writer who goes with him.
Updated 2.26.08
- The Plague of Doves
Author: Erdrich, Louise
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780060515126 Date: 2008
PW Booklist LJ
In this multigenerational tour-de-force of sin, redemption, murder, and vengeance ("Publishers Weekly"), a senseless and horrific crime in 1911 forever changes the lives of several families living in and around Pluto, North Dakota, a white town on the far western edge of an Ojibwe reservation.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.26.08
- The Answer Is Always Yes
Author: Ferrell, Monica
Publisher: Dial $ 24 ISBN: 9780385339292 Date: 2008
Booklist
This darkly exuberant debut novel--by turns a fierce, funny coming-of-age story and a teasing work of literary suspense--traces the precipitous rise and fall of a teenage impresario at the zenith of the New York club scene.
Updated 6.18.08
- Attachment
Author: Fonseca, Isabel
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780307266910 Date: 2008
Booklist LJ
Assured, funny, and provocative, this novel from the author of Bury Me Standing is unflinching in its depiction of desire, of the responsibility that comes with age and family, and of the impulses that color and disrupt lives even as they reveal the true nature of love.
Updated 5.2.08
- Enlightenment
Author: Freely, Maureen
Publisher: Overlook $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781590200742 Date: 2008
PW LJ
The celebrated translator of Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize-winning Snow offers an arresting vision of contemporary Turkey, in a story of first love, betrayal, and one American girl trapped in the fray.
Updated 4.24.08
- The Cellist of Sarajevo
Author: Gallaway, Steven
Publisher: Riverhead $ 21.95 ISBN: 9781594489860 Date: 2008
Kirkus
A spare and haunting, wise and beautiful novel about the endurance of the human spirit and the subtle ways individuals reclaim their humanity in a city ravaged by war.
A novel of great intensity and power, and inspired by a true story, The Cellist of Sarajevo poignantly explores how war can change one as definition of humanity, the effect of music on our emotional endurance, and how a romance with the rituals of daily life can itself be a form of resistance. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 4.24.08
- A Dangerous Age
Author: Gilchrist, Ellen
Publisher: Algonquin $23.95 ISBN: 9781565125421 Date: 2008
Booklist
The award-winning author returns with her first novel in more than a decade to tell the story of the women of the Hand family, three cousins in a Southern dynasty rich with history and tradition, who are no strangers to either controversy or sadness.
Updated 2.26.08
- Moonstruck
Author: Grant, Susan
Publisher: HQN $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780373772599 Date: 2008
LJ
Coalition starship captain Brit Bandar is one tough woman. A mere intergalactic treaty can never get her to trust the Drakken Horde. Now a peaceful accord has made Finn Rorkken, a notorious Drakken rogue, second in command on "her" starship.
Updated 6.18.08
- The Story of a Marriage
Author: Greer, Andrew Sean
Publisher: FSG $ 22 ISBN: 9780374108663 Date: 2008
PW
Set in a climate of fear and repression--political, sexual, and racial--The Story of a Marriage portrays three people trapped by the confines of their era, and the desperate measures they are prepared to take to escape it.
Updated 2.26.08
- The Other
Author: Guterson, David
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780307263155 Date: 2008
Kirkus
From the author of the bestselling Snow Falling on Cedars comes a compelling new novel about youth and idealism, adulthood and its compromises, and two powerfully different visions of what it means to live a good life.
Updated 4.24.08
- A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Author: Hanif, Mohammed
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 9780307268075 Date: 2008
PW
Teasing, provocative, and funny, Hanif's debut novel imagines a connection between the still mysterious 1988 plane crash that ended the life of the Pakistani dictator General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq and the events of 9/11.
Updated 2.26.08
- Exiles
Author: Hansen, Ron
Publisher: FSG $ 23 ISBN: 9780374150976 Date: 2008
Kirkus Booklist
Hansen tells the story of a notorious shipwreck that had prompted Gerard Manley Hopkins to break years of silence with an outpouring of dazzling poetry. Combining a thrilling tragedy at sea with the seeming shipwreck of Hopkins's own life, this novel dramatizes a passionate inner search.
Updated 4.24.08
- The Girl with no Shadow
Author: Harris, Joanne
Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061431623 Date: 2008
LJ
The "New York Times"-bestselling author returns with an exquisite treat that continues the story begun in her novel, Chocolat.
Updated 2.26.08
- Open Line
Author: Hawley, Ellen
Publisher: Coffee House $ 14.95 ISBN: 9781566892094 Date: 2008
PW
Updated 2.26.08
- The Lazarus Project
Author: Hemon, Aleksandar
Publisher: Riverhead $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781594489884 Date: 2008
Kirkus PW LJ
The much anticipated novel from MacArthur Award-winning writer Hemon is a story of historical sweep and contemporary insight crafted in a dazzlingly original style.
Updated 4.24.08
- The Diplomat's Wife
Author: Jenoff, Pam
Publisher: Mira $ 13.95 ISBN: 9780778325123 Date: 2008
PW
In this dramatic follow-up to her international bestselling debut novel The Kommandant's Girl, Jenoff explores the sacrifices and heartbreak that come in a time of uneasy peace and rising paranoia, when love and desperation can make liars of us all.
Updated 4.24.08
- Beijing Coma
Author: Jian, Ma
Publisher: FSG $ 30 ISBN: 9780374110178 Date: 2008
Kirkus Booklist
At once a powerful allegory of a rising China, racked by contradictions, and a seminal examination of the Tiananmen Square protests, Beijing Coma is a novel spiked with dark wit, poetic beauty, and a deep rage.
Updated 6.20.08
- Beneath That Starry Place
Author: Jordan, Terry
Publisher: McMurray $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781878448033 Date: 2008
Kirkus
This haunting and magical novel introduces Nathan Mann, the youngest of a family of hustlers and dreamers, whose memories of family history are a jumble of the unreliable. When he visits his grandmother to fill in the gaps, she provides him with a series of watercolors that hold clues to the family's murky history.
Updated 4.24.08
- The Boat
Author: Le, Nam
Publisher: Knopf $ 22.95 ISBN: 9780307268082 Date: 2008
LJ
In this stunningly inventive fiction debut, stories transport readers from the slums of Colombia to the streets of Tehran, from a fishing village in Australia to the South China Sea.
Updated 4.24.08
- Soul
Author: Learner, Tobsha
Publisher: Forge $ 14.95 ISBN: 9780765320100 Date: 2008
Booklist
Learner relates the story of Lavinia and Julia Huntington, passionate women separated by a century, yet trapped in similar emotional whirlpools that threaten to drown them and everyone they love.
Updated 4.24.08
- Lavinia
Author: Le Guin, Ursula K.
Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 9780151014248 Date: 2008
PW Kirkus LJ
In "The Aeneid," Vergil's hero fights to claim the king's daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to found an empire. Le Guin gives Lavinia a voice in a this novel set in the half-wild world of ancient Italy, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 3.3.08
- Adam the King
Author: Lewis, Jeffrey
Publisher: Random $ 21.95 ISBN: 9781590512845 Date: 2008
PW
Taut, startling, and dramatic, Adam the King depicts the inexorability of fate against the backdrop of the money-mad '90s, the emptiness of raging ambition, and the fallout of the drift toward conservative politics and values. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 4.24.08
- The House on Fortune Street
Author: Livesey, Margot
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061451522 Date: 2008
Kirkus
Through four ingeniously interlocking narratives, Livesey skillfully reveals how luck--good and bad--plays a vital role in life, in this work that radiates with compassion and intelligence and . . . mystery (Alice Sebold).
Updated 2.26.08
- Anybody Any Minute
Author: Mars, Julie
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780312378691 Date: 2008
LJ
Ellen Kenny has a big mouth and a penchant for telling the truth, which is why she's just been fired from yet another high-profile NYC job. Determined to make the most of this unexpected free time, she heads to Montreal to visit her sister. On the way, she spots a tumbledown upstate farmhouse---one she's seen in her dreams for years---and impulsively buys it on a hefty credit card advance. Over her husband's protests, Ellen decides to drop out of the rat race and spend the summer living out her woman-who-runs-with-the wolves fantasy, communing with nature---her own included---in an effort to confront middle age and figure out how on earth she got there. Rather than peacefully tend her garden and puzzle things out, however, Ellen soon becomes embroiled in the exceedingly unique problems of two redneck, social misfit neighbors---an ex-biker and an aging chainsaw sculptor---while taking care of a narcoleptic dog and a child who doesn't speak English.
With Ellen's quest for meaning and her concern for the welfare of others driving the plot, Anybody Any Minute is deeply layered, heartbreaking . . . and hilarious. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 6.18.08
- The House at Riverton
Author: Morton, Kate
Publisher: Atria $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781416550518 Date: 2008
PW
Updated 1.3.08
This gorgeous debut novel is set in England between the two World Wars. The story of an aristocratic family, a mysterious death, and a vanishing way of life is told in flashback by a woman who witnessed it all and kept secrets for more than 50 years.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
- 1940
Author: Newgeboren, Jay
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio $ 15 ISBN: 9780976389569 Date: 2008
LJ
Updated 4.24.08
- Netherland
Author: O'Neill, Joseph
Publisher: Pantheon $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780307377043 Date: 2008
PW
The author of the "New York Times" Notable Book Blood-Dark Track delivers a mesmerizing novel about a man trying to make his way in an America of shattered hopes and values, and the unlikely occurrences that pull him back into an authentic, passionately engaged life.
Updated 3.3.08
- Killing Rommel
Author: Pressfield, Steven
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780385519700 Date: 2008
LJ Kirkus PW
Hitler's legions have swept across Europe, leaving Churchill and the English isolated. In North Africa, Rommel and his Panzers have routed the British Eighth Army and stand poised to overrun Egypt, Suez, and the oil fields of the Middle East, in Pressfield's latest riveting historical novel.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.26.08
- Fine the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3
Author: Proulx. Annie
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 9781416571667 Date: 2008
Booklist PW LJ
Returning to the territory of "Brokeback Mountain," National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winner Proulx has written a stunning and visceral collection of new stories.
Updated 6.20.08
- Evening Is the Whole Day
Author: Samarasan, Preeta
Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 9780618874477 Date: 2008
Booklist LJ
Set in Malaysia, this spellbinding first novel by an acclaimed young writer introduces the prosperous Rajasekharan family as they slowly peel away their closely guarded secrets.
Updated 4.24.08
- Harry, Revised
Author: Sarvas, Mark
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781596914629 Date: 2008
LJ
A sophisticated, sterling debut by a wonderful emerging talent--the founder of the popular literary blog "The Eleg