Lev AC Rosen, Lavender House
(Forge)
“A tense character-driven story … Rosen sculpts fully realized characters … Each character’s personal struggles are expertly shown. Like in most families, there are squabbles, pettiness and annoyances punctuating every day, but there also is pure, unconditional love and acceptance that elevate Lavender House. Rosen leaves the door open for what would be a most welcomed sequel.”
–Oline Cogdil (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
Ian Rankin, A Heart Full of Headstones
(Little, Brown and Co.)
“Rankin captures both the heroism and the pathos of that ultimately doomed quest in this cleverly constructed and deeply moving novel.”
–Bill Ott (Booklist)
Ava Barry, Double Exposure
(Pegasus)
“I was absorbed in the world Ava Barry concocted in Double Exposure to the point where I found myself irritated when I had to do other tasks that took me away from reading. And yet, when the big reveal arrived, I was annoyed — largely at myself, for not seeing what was coming, and especially for not picking up on Barry’s reliance on noir conventions … The red flags are not just visible, they’re waving wildly … The writing is evocative, especially when Rainey narrates her tortured past, her longing for normalcy and especially her propensity for self-sabotage.”
–Sarah Weinman (New York Times)
Samanta Schweblin, Seven Empty Houses
Translated by Megan Mcdowell
(Riverhead Books)
“Takes aim at the place we feel safest: home. Darker and more tinged with terror than her breakthrough novel, Fever Dream, this is Schweblin at her sharpest and most ferocious … Arranged as peepholes into the private lives of others, each of these seven stories centers on a domestic dwelling, exploring how the things that constitute our most intimate spaces are relational and interconnected, and therefore in many ways the most unstable. There are absences on many levels … Schweblin is never explicit. Any implied creepiness is a product of the reader’s own imagination … Scarier than any fall horror movie…is the knowledge that the various assemblages of our lives are merely delicate scaffolding, liable to come crashing down at any moment.”
–Liska Jacobs (New York Times Book Review)
Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, Mad Honey
(Ballantine Books)
“… timely, gripping … The courtroom drama makes for gripping reading; a reveal about Lily at the midway point adds another dimension to the case, and Olivia grapples with the possibility that her son could take after her ex-husband more than he does her. This timely and absorbing read will make readers glad these two powerful writers decided to collaborate.”
–Kristine Huntley (Booklist)
Jonathan Freedland, The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
(Harper)
“Riveting … Freedland…reveals many of the details of the escape in the book’s prologue. The real suspense begins afterward: not just the journey home…but what happened after they arrived … The Escape Artist includes harrowing details about Auschwitz that still have the power to shock. But the reactions to Vrba’s testimony by those in power…are nearly as horrifying.”
–Ruth Franklin (The New York Times Book Review)
Katherine Corcoran, In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, a Cover-Up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press
(Bloomsbury Publishing)
“Chilling and nuanced … The author’s search for answers leads her into a hall of mirrors … I will not give away where all this leads, other than to say that in nonfiction the journey can be more important than the ending. Those of us raised on detective novels, TV shows and movies want stories with a satisfying conclusion, something rare in real life. She is a fine and honest writer, a dogged reporter, and her story paints a dystopian portrait of our southern neighbor … Corcoran is recording a tragedy far more sweeping, and perhaps familiar, than the death of Regina Martínez, which is awful enough.”
–Mark Bowden (The New York Times Book Review)
Aimee Pokwatka, Self-Portrait with Nothing
(Tordotcom)
“Beautiful … Pokwatka’s voices are tantalizing and elusive. Most affecting are Pepper and Ike’s text exchanges as Pepper travels farther and farther away from home: tender and funny and sad, rippling with the subtle inflections and repetitions developed between intimate partners that are very difficult to represent convincingly. They’re a kind of poetry anchored at the heart of the book while Pepper journeys toward Ula in pursuit of something she can’t quite name, trying to translate the reality of Ula into something she can finally comprehend.”
–Amal El-Mohtar (New York Times Book Review)
Stacy Schiff, Samuel Adams: The Revolutionary
(Little, Brown and Co.)
“Schiff paints a vivid portrait of a demagogue who was also a decorous man of ideals, acknowledging Adams’s innovative, extralegal activities as well as his personal virtues … Any book from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Schiff is reason for excitement … Brisk … Schiff writes beautifully and lyrical passages provide a great deal of reading pleasure … Filled with fun facts.”
–Amy S. Greenberg (New York Times Book Review)
Adam Hamdy, The Other Side of Night
(Atria)
“… stellar … Intelligently plotted and powerfully told, Hamdy’s deviously twisty tale of fate and coincidence, love and courage, and profoundly tough choices will shock, stir, and haunt readers long after the final page. Hamdy has upped his game with this one.”
–Publishers Weekly
