"In eighteen exhilarating stories, Caio Fernando Abreu navigates a Brazil transformed by the AIDS epidemic and stifling military dictatorship of the 80s. Tenderly suspended between fear and longing, Abreu's characters grasp for connection. A man speckled with Carnival glitter crosses a crowded dance floor and seeks the warmth and beauty of another body. A budding office friendship between two young men turns into a surprising love, "a strange and secret harmony." One man desires another but fears a clumsy word or gesture might tear their complot to pieces. After so many precarious offerings - a salvaged cigarette, a knock on the door from within the downpour of a dream, or a tight-lipped smile - Abreu's schemes explode and implode. Junkies, failed revolutionaries, poets, and conflicted artists face threats at every turn. But, inwardly ferocious and secretly resilient, they heal. For Caio Fernando Abreu there is beauty on the horizon, mingled with luminous memory and decay"-- Provided by publisher.
In this short story collection set in the Indian city of Kittur sometime between the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and that of her son Rajiv in 1991, Adiga creates a cast of characters--from a twelve-year old boy to a Marxist-Maoist Party member--who are immersed in class struggles and their own personal denouements.
"For fans of Shuggie Bain and A Burning, a queer coming-of-age novel set in 1990s India, about a young man who joins a traveling theater troupe Shagun knows he will never be the kind of son his father demands. After the sudden deaths of his beloved twin sisters, Shagun flees his own guilt, his mother's grief, and his father's violent disapproval by enrolling at an all-boys boarding school. But he doesn't find true belonging until he encounters a traveling theater troupe performing the Hindu myths of his childhood. Welcomed by the other storytellers, Shagun thrives, easily embodying mortals and gods, men and women, and living on the road, where his father can't catch him. When Shagun meets Marc, a charming photographer, he seems to have found the love he always longed for, too. But not even Marc can save him from his lingering shame, nor his father's ever-present threat to send him to a conversion center. As Shagun's past begins to engulf him once again, he must decide if he is strong enough to face what he fears most, and to boldly claim his own happiness. Utterly immersive and spellbinding, The Sea Elephants is both dark and beautiful, harrowing and triumphant. An ode to the redemptive joys of art, Shastri Akella's debut novel is a celebration of hard-won love-of others and for ourselves"-- Provided by publisher.
"It's 1981 in Sacramento, and thirteen-year-old Lorena Saenz has just been paired with Jenny Stallworth for the science fair by a teacher hoping to unite two girls from starkly different worlds. Lorena begins to spend time at the Stallworth residence and finds herself seduced, not just by Jenny but her parents: Rosemary, her glamorous, needy mother, and Marcus, a scorpiologist who recognizes Lorena's passion for learning and her confused desires. When Lorena's troubled older brother, Tony, picks her up at the Stallworth mansion late one night, he and Marcus exchange tense words--an encounter that draws the Saenz family into the dark heart of America's criminal justice system. To uncover the truth, Lorena must embark on an unforgiving odyssey into the desert and through the gates of a religious cult in Mexico. As she stalks a fate guided by forces beyond her reckoning, shocking secrets explode into view"--Book jacket flap.
"From prize-winning Bangladeshi novelist Tahmima Anam, her deeply moving second novel about the rise of Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh seen through the intimate lens of a family"-- Provided by publisher.
"Gina Apostol's debut novel, available for the first time in the US, tells of a young woman caught between a lifelong desire to escape into books and a real-world revolution. It is the mid-eighties, two decades into the kleptocratic, brutal rule of Ferdinand Marcos. The Philippine economy is in deep recession, and civil unrest is growing by the day. But Primi Peregrino has her own priorities: tracking down books and pursuing romantic connections with their authors. For Primi, the nascent revolution means that writers are gathering more often, and with greater urgency, so that every poetry reading she attends presents a veritable "Justice League" of authors for her to choose among. As the Marcos dictatorship stands poised to topple, Primi remains true to her fantasy: that she, "a vagabond from history, a runaway from time," can be saved by sex, love, and books"-- Provided by publisher.
In Atlanta, a black woman searches for her missing son with help from volunteers of the city's committee to stop child murders. Suspected is a Ku Klux Klan porn ring. A look at the lot of the black working class in urban America.
"From the author of the widely acclaimed She Weeps Each Time You're Born--a new novel, at once comic and moving, set in 1989 Danvers, Massachusetts, where a high school field hockey team discovers that the witchcraft of their Salem forebears may be the key to a winning season. In this tour de female force, the Danvers High School Falcons Varsity is on an unaccountable streak. In chapters dense with '80s iconography--from Heathers to Big Hair--Quan Barry expertly weaves the individual and collective journeys of this enchanted team: the quiet, husky goalie Mel Boucher, who signs her name to a pledge of darkness in a notebook with heartthrob Emilio Estevez on the cover; the top bitch forward, Jen Fiorenza, whose bleached blond "Claw" sees and knows all; the good-girl captain Abby Putnam (a descendant of the famous Salem witness Ann Putnam), who is hesitant to sign her name to the Emilio pact; AJ Johnson, the team's one black player, for whom enchantment brings racial awakening; the untouchably beautiful Girl Cory and her name-twin Boy Cory, who plays this female sport for his own reasons. These "witches" and their teammates are as wily and original as their North of Boston ancestors, flouting society's stale notions of femininity to find their true selves in a celebration of teen girldom in all its glory"-- Provided by publisher.
"The youngest of six daughters raised by a widowed mother, Meena is a young woman struggling to find her place in the world. Originally from India, her family still holds on to many old-world customs and traditions that seem stifling to a young North American woman. She knows that the freedom experienced by others is beyond her reach. But unlike her older sisters, Meena refuses to accept a life dictated by tradition. Against her mother's wishes, she falls for a young man named Liam who asks her to run away with him. Meena must then make a painful choice--one that will lead to stunning and irrevocable consequences"--P. [4] of cover.
The Reverend Theophilus Simmons, now married with three children and ministering to a congregation in Memphis, must face off against a sleazy den of corrupt clergy, who are illegally tapping church funds and trying to buy enough power to run a mega-church.
Growing up in a riverside region of 1980s Maine, three brothers from the Penobscot Nation find their childhood innocence shattered by a nearby paper mill fire that divides their community.
"Hold You Down is an edgy novel from rising star Tracy Brown about the perils of love and the ties that bind... New York City. Late 1980s to early 1990s. Mercy and Lenox Howard have always only had each other. Growing up on the mean streets of Harlem with an absentee mother meant that they had to have each other's backs. Now young, smart mothers they are determined to survive in New York City while raising their two sons, who have bright futures ahead of them. Mercy is the quiet, straight laced hospital administrator, struggling to make ends meet. At night and on weekends, she pours her heart into her cooking and her dream of owning her own restaurant. Lenox is the diva, the wild child, looking for excitement and her big come up in life and love. Their boys, Deon and Judah, have been raised more like brothers than cousins, forging a bond that is unbreakable. When Lenox heads down a path that she believes will bring success and power, it changes the entire course of her life and her family's life forever. As a result of their mother's choices, cousins Deon and Judah soon find themselves in uncharted territory"-- Provided by publisher.
"A gritty and gorgeous debut that follows a cast of gay and transgender club kids navigating the Harlem ball scene of the 80s and 90s, inspired by the real House of Xtravaganza made famous by the seminal documentary "Paris is Burning""-- Provided by publisher.
After fleeing the Philippines, Hero De Vera arrives at her uncles where she is given a fresh start. He asks no questions about her disturbing political past, but his daughter, the first American-born family member, is unable to resist her curiosity especially about her cousin's damaged hands.
"A dazzling portrait of a young woman coming into her own, the youthful allure of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and what we lose-and gain-when we leave home. The small town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is an unlikely location for a Playboy Resort, and nineteen-year old Sherri Taylor is an unlikely bunny. Growing up in neighboring East Troy, Sherri plays the organ at the local church and has never felt comfortable in her own skin. But when her parents die in quick succession, she leaves the only home she's ever known for the chance to be part of a glamorous slice of history. In the winter of 1981, in a costume two sizes too small, her toes pinched by stilettos, Sherri joins the daughters of dairy farmers and factory workers for the defining experience of her life. Living in the "bunny hutch"-Playboy's version of a college dorm-Sherri gets her education in the joys of sisterhood, the thrill of financial independence, the magic of first love, and the heady effects of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But as spring gives way to summer, Sherri finds herself caught in a romantic triangle-and the tragedy that ensues will haunt her for the next forty years. From the Midwestern prairie to the California desert, from Wisconsin lakes to the Pacific Ocean, this is a story of what happens when small town life is sprinkled with stardust, and what we lose-and gain-when we leave home. With a heroine to root for and a narrative to get lost in, Christina Clancy's Shoulder Season is a sexy, evocative tale, drenched in longing and desire, that captures a fleeting moment in American history with nostalgia and heart"-- Provided by publisher.
1989. Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. An Italian mob murders a black teenager named Yusuf Hawkins. That same night, across the Hudson River in New Jersey, Lisa and Marc meet at a party. Lisa’s black. Marc’s Italian.They eventually hook up. But interpersonal conflict, racist family and friends, and previous relationships loom. Their lives also play out in the charged political context of New York City’s mayoral race, which pits David Dinkins, African-American Democrat, against Rudolph Giuliani, law-and-order Republican. Back to Life is a heady mix of taboo relationships, racial politics, and social commentary that begs the question: Can love really conquer all?
"This story is told in dual perspective by Miriam (a second-generation Iranian immigrant living in Edinburgh with her family) and George (a visitor from Wales). Their relationship throughout the decades mirrors the Beatles's. In the other stories in this book, thematically bound by relationship flux and the impact of culture, Dean experiments beautifully with style and storytelling devices in each piece."
"Delhi, the near future: a former journalist goes in search of answers after she finds herself stripped of identity and citizenship and thrust into a vast conspiracy involving secret detention centers, government sanctioned murders, online rage, nationalist violence, and a figure of shifting identifies known as the "New Delhi Monkey Man." Bhopal, 1984: an assassin hunts a whistleblower through a central Indian city that will shortly be the site of the worst industrial disaster in history. Calcutta, 1947: a veterinary student's life and work connect him to an ancient Vedic aircraft. And in 1859, a detachment of British soldiers rides toward the Himalayas in search of the last surviving leader of an anti-colonial rebellion. These timelines interweave to form a kaleidoscopic, epic novel in which each section is a pursuit, centered around a character who must find or recover crucial but hidden truths in their respective time. Mirroring the future and the past, these narratives illuminate and reimagine Indian identity and history. The Light at the End of the World, Siddhartha Deb's first novel in a decade and a half, is an astonishing work that brilliantly reimagines the structure of one of the world's oldest civilizations.Delhi, the near future: a former journalist goes in search of answers after she finds herself stripped of identity and citizenship and thrust into a vast conspiracy involving secret detention centers, government sanctioned murders, online rage, nationalist violence, and a figure of shifting identifies known as the "New Delhi Monkey Man." Bhopal, 1984: an assassin hunts a whistleblower through a central Indian city that will shortly be the site of the worst industrial disaster in history. Calcutta, 1947: a veterinary student's life and work connect him to an ancient Vedic aircraft. And in 1859, a detachment of British soldiers rides toward the Himalayas in search of the last surviving leader of an anti-colonial rebellion. These timelines interweave to form a kaleidoscopic, epic novel in which each section is a pursuit, centered around a character who must find or recover crucial but hidden truths in their respective time. Mirroring the future and the past, these narratives illuminate and reimagine Indian identity and history. The Light at the End of the World, Siddhartha Deb's first novel in a decade and a half, is an astonishing work that brilliantly reimagines the structure of one of the world's oldest civilizations"-- Provided by publisher.
"It's fall 1987 and life as normal is ending for the Malone family. With their sterile Dallas community a far cry from the Irish-American Bronx of their youth, Pat and Anne Malone have reached a breaking point. Pat, faced with a debilitating MS diagnosis, has fallen into his drinking. Anne, his devoutly Catholic wife, is selected as a juror for a highly publicized murder trial, one that raises questions - about God, and about men in power - she has buried her entire life. Together, they try to raise their only son, Daniel, a bright but unmotivated student who is shocked into actual learning by an enigmatic English teacher. For once, Dan is unable to fly under the radar, and is finally asked to consider what he might want to make of his life."--Provided by publisher.
"In the summer of 1987, 25-year-old Eve Rosen is an aspiring writer languishing in a low-level assistant job, unable to shake the shadow of growing up with her brilliant brother. With her professional ambitions floundering, Eve jumps at the chance to attend an early summer gathering at the Cape Cod home of famed New Yorker writer Henry Grey and his poet wife, Tillie. Dazzled by the guests and her burgeoning crush on the hosts' artistic son, Eve lands a new job as Henry Grey's research assistant and an invitation to Henry and Tillie's exclusive and famed "Book Party"-- where attendees dress as literary characters. But by the night of the party, Eve discovers uncomfortable truths about her summer entanglements and understands that the literary world she so desperately wanted to be a part of is not at all what it seems. A page-turning, coming-of-age story, written with a lyrical sense of place and a profound appreciation for the sustaining power of books, Karen Dukess's The Last Book Party shows what happens when youth and experience collide and what it takes to find your own voice"-- Provided by publisher.
A refreshingly playful novel, it explores modern Muslim life in the wake of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. Zamir Ahmad Khan suffers from a mix of alienation, guilt, and postmodern anxiety that defies diagnosis. His wife abandons him to his reflections about his childhood, writing, ill-fated affairs, and his hometown, Bhopal, as he attempts to unravel the lies that brought him to his current state (while weaving new ones).
"A story about the end of innocence, and the perilous passage from adolescence into adulthood, set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city"-- Provided by publisher.
"When Mindy announces that she is returning to Vietnam to find her birthmother, it inspires her father, mother, and sister to recall the events of her adoption at the end of the Vietnam War during Operation Baby Lift. In this beautiful time-slip story, Mindy's family reexamines what it means to grow together beyond genetic code"-- Provided by publisher.
Raised to be obedient by a stern grandmother, a 1980s art student has an affair with a worldly con man before finding herself abandoned and struggling for survival in a cabin with her young daughter.
From the award-winning author of Over the Plain Houses, comes a major novel about two young women contending with unplanned pregnancies in different eras. Edie Carrigan didn't plan to "get herself" pregnant, much less end up in a home for unwed mothers. In 1950s North Carolina, illegitimate pregnancy is kept secret, wayward women require psychiatric cures, and adoption is always the best solution. Not even Edie's closest friend, Luce Waddell, understands what Edie truly wants: to keep and raise the baby. Twenty-five years later, Luce is a successful lawyer, and her daughter Meera now faces the same decision Edie once did. Like Luce, Meera is fiercely independent and plans to handle her unexpected pregnancy herself. Along the way, Meera finds startling secrets about her mother's past, including the long-ago friendship with Edie. As the three women's lives intertwine and collide, the story circles age-old questions about female awakening, reproductive choice, motherhood, adoption, sex, and missed connections. For fans of Brit Bennett's The Mothers and Jennifer Weiner's Mrs. Everything, The Say So is a timely novel that asks: how do we contend with the rippling effects of the choices we've made? With equal parts precision and tenderness, Franks has crafted a sweeping epic about the coming of age of the women's movement that reverberates through the present day.
"New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Christopher Golden is best known for his supernatural thrillers set in deadly, distant locales...but in this suburban Halloween drama, Golden brings the horror home. It's Halloween night, 1984, in Coventry, Massachusetts, and two families are unraveling. Up and down the street, secrets are being revealed, and all the while, mixed in with the trick-or-treaters of all ages, four children who do not belong are walking door to door, merging with the kids of Parmenter Road. Children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup. They seem terrified, and beg the neighborhood kids to hide them away, to keep them safe from The Cunning Man. There's a small clearing in the woods now that was never there before, and a blackthorn tree that doesn't belong at all. These odd children claim that The Cunning Man is coming for them ... and they want the local kids to protect them. But with families falling apart and the neighborhood splintered by bitterness, who will save the children of Parmenter Road? All Hallows. The one night when everything is a mask ..."-- Provided by publisher.
"It is the mid-1980s. In Australia, stay-at-home wives jostle with want-it-all feminists, while AIDS threatens the sexual freedom of everyone. On the other side of the world the Soviet Block is in turmoil. Gorbachev has been in power for a year when twenty-four-year-old book illustrator, Galina Kogan, leaves Leningrad - forbidden ever to return. As a Jew she's inherited several generations worth of Russia's chronic anti-Semitism. As a Soviet citizen she is unprepared for Australia and its easy-going ways. Once settled in Melbourne, Galina is befriended by Sylvie and Leonard Morrow, and their adult son, Andrew. The Morrow marriage of thirty years balances on secrets. Leonard is a man with conflicted desires and passions, while Sylvie chafes against the confines of domestic life. Their son, Andrew, a successful mosaicist, is a deeply shy man. He is content with his life and work - until he finds himself increasingly drawn to Galina. While Galina grapples with the tumultuous demands that come with being an immigrant in Australia, her presence disrupts the lives of each of the Morrows. No one is left unchanged."--Publisher's description.
""[A] beautifully multifaceted story... Highly recommended." -The New York Times Andrea Hairston's historical fantasy Will Do Magic for Small Change presents a tale of alien science and earthbound magic and the secrets families keep from each other. Cinnamon Jones dreams of stepping on stage and acting her heart out like her famous grandparents, Redwood and Wildfire. But she's always been theatrically challenged. That won't necessarily stop her! But her family life is a tangle of mysteries and secrets, and nobody is telling her the whole truth. Before her brother died, he gave Cinnamon The Chronicles of the Great Wanderer-a tale of a Dahomean warrior woman and an alien from another dimension who perform at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. They are a story of magic or alien science, but the connection to Cinnamon's past is unmistakable. When an act of violence wounds her family, Cinnamon and her theatre squad determine to solve the mysteries and bring her worlds crashing together"-- Provided by publisher.
"With wit and realism, David Haynes presents a different kind of Holden Caulfield in fifteen-year-old Marshall Field Finney, an ordinary, sullen teenager who discovers storytelling as a way to ease his adolescent anger and family tensions. Living with his parents in "Washington Park,'' a housing development outside St. Louis, Missouri in the 1980s, his high-strung mother walks out on him and his father, a flawed yet strong man who manages the local landfill. Marshall's two best friends, one Black and one white, are his only allies, as they navigate school and family life together. Through these relationships, Haynes poses Marshall's universal questions about his place in his community and what's next in his life. Ultimately, Marshall's story proves that people take care of each other, families take care of others, and a boy finds his own resilience to become a young man"-- Provided by publisher.
Collects the first five years of Locas stories, about Maggie and Hopey and the ups and downs of their lives and relationships. Includes "Mechan-X," the first Maggie and Hopey story, as well as the graphic novel "Las Mujeres Perdidas."
"By turns suspenseful and enchanting, this breathtaking first novel weaves a story of love, family, history, and myth as seen through the eyes of one immortal woman. Collette LeSange is a lonely artist who heads an elite fine arts school for children in upstate New York. Her youthful beauty masks the dark truth of her life: she has endured centuries of turmoil and heartache in the wake of her grandfather's long-ago decision to make her immortal like himself. Now in 1984, Collette finds her life upended by the arrival of a gifted child from a troubled home, the return of a stalking presence from her past, and her own mysteriously growing hunger. Combining brilliant prose with breathtaking suspense, Jacqueline Holland's The God of Endings serves as a larger exploration of the human condition in all its complexity, asking us the most fundamental question: is life in this world a gift or a curse?"-- Provided by publisher.
Suddenly sent from their home in Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados after their mother can no longer care for them, sisters Phaedra and Dionne spend the summer of 1989 living with their grandmother Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah.
"Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of Communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide—a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of André Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst. When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this hand­some, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are ful­filled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Inhabiting a beautiful, natural world removed from society and its con­straints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. But in their repressive Communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable. Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks of the party and is rewarded with a highly coveted government position. Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse. Shifting from the intoxication of first love to the quiet melancholy of growing up and growing apart, Swimming in the Dark is a potent blend of romance, postwar politics, intrigue, and history. Lyrical and sensual, immersive and intense, Tomasz Jedrowski’s indelible and thought-provoking literary debut explores freedom and love in all its incarnations." -- from amazon.com
A story about a man's deception, a family's complicity, and two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon's two families, the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. As Jones explores the backstories of her rich yet flawed characters, the father, the two mothers, the grandmother, and the uncle, she also reveals the joy, as well as the destruction, they brought to one another's lives. At the heart of it all are the two lives at stake, and like the best writers--think Toni Morrison with The Bluest Eye--Jones portrays the fragility of these young girls with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women, just not as their mothers.
"Diabhal (Devil) is the story of cults, exorcisms and the devil in 1980's era Los Angeles. Ceit Robertson, age ten, is the next Matrarc to the Society, a cultish, matriarchal group living in an inconspicuous cul-de-sac in Venice Beach. When Ceit's mother is attacked by spirits from the old world, a failed exorcism results in Ceit's exile into the foster care system in Los Angeles. She eventually lands in the infamous MacLaren Hall, a very real and historically auspicious center for disturbed and abandoned children in El Monte, CA. Diabhal is the sympathetic story of the devil in Los Angeles. The exploration of the true nature of evil and how intention colors what our definition of wickedness truly is. Ceit grows into a force of nature, as she contains the potential and mythology of the darkest degree, but discovers that perhaps the devil is not what we should truly fear."--Provided by publisher.
"A major literary event-the eagerly anticipated publication of a long-lost novel from legendary writer and three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee John Oliver Killens, hailed as the founding father of the Black Arts Movement and mentor to celebrated writers, including Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Arthur Flowers, and Terry McMillan. Wanderlust has taken Jimmy Jay Leander Johnson on numerous adventures, from Mississippi to Washington D.C., Vietnam, London and eventually to Africa, to the fictitious Independent People's Democratic Republic of Guanaya, where the young musician hopes to "find himself." But this small sliver of a country in West Africa, recently freed from British colonial rule, is thrown into turmoil with the discovery of cobanium-a radioactive mineral 500 times more powerful than uranium, making it irresistible for greedy speculators, grifters, and charlatans. Overnight, outsiders descend upon the sleepy capital city looking for "a piece of the action." When a plot to assassinate Guanaya's leader is discovered, Jimmy Jay-a dead ringer for the Prime Minister-is enlisted in a counter scheme to foil the would-be coup. He will travel to America with half of Guanaya's cabinet ministers to meet with President Ronald Reagan and address the UN General Assembly, while the rest of the cabinet will remain in Guanaya with the real Prime Minister. What could go wrong? Everything"-- Provided by publisher.
"Set in an alternate present-day world in which the Internet does not exist, and has never existed. Rather, a wholly different species of interactive technology--a 'flesh-and-bone robot' called the Curio--has dominated both the market and the cultural imagination since the late 1980s. Belt Magnet, who as a boy in greater Chicago became one of the lucky first adopters of a Curio, is now writing his memoir, and through it we follow a singular man out of sync with the harsh realities of a world he feels alien to, but must find a way to live in."-- Provided by publisher.
One of Esquire , The Rumpus, The Millions, Literary Hub and Electric Literature 's Most Anticipated Books of 2019 A searing debut novel that explores community, identity, and the myth of the American dream through an immigrant family in Alaska In Chia-Chia Lin's debut novel, The Unpassing , we meet a Taiwanese immigrant family of six struggling to make ends meet on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The father, hardworking but beaten down, is employed as a plumber and repairman, while the mother, a loving, strong-willed, and unpredictably emotional matriarch, holds the house together. When ten-year-old Gavin contracts meningitis at school, he falls into a deep, nearly fatal coma. He wakes up a week later to learn that his little sister Ruby was infected, too. She did not survive. Routine takes over for the grieving family: the siblings care for each other as they befriend a neighboring family and explore the woods; distance grows between the parents as they deal with their loss separately. But things spiral when the father, increasingly guilt ridden after Ruby's death, is sued for not properly installing a septic tank, which results in grave harm to a little boy. In the ensuing chaos, what really happened to Ruby finally emerges. With flowing prose that evokes the terrifying beauty of the Alaskan wilderness, Lin explores the fallout after the loss of a child and the way in which a family is forced to grieve in a place that doesn't yet feel like home. Emotionally raw and subtly suspenseful, The Unpassing is a deeply felt family saga that dismisses the American dream for a harsher, but ultimately more profound, reality.
"A stirring debut novel about a young woman searching for her kidnapped brother after she commits a terrible crime but longs for redemption. Thirteen-year-old Venus Black, a straitlaced, straight-A student is the last person anyone would expect to get in trouble, but when she is arrested for committing a shocking crime, it is clear that there was more going on in Venus's world than anyone knew. When she is released from a juvenile detention center five years later, she assumes a new identity in the hope of escaping the pain of her past, the mother that disappointed her, and her criminal reputation. Most importantly, she pledges to find her beloved, mentally disabled younger brother, Leo, who was kidnapped while she was gone. A newcomer to fiction, Heather Lloyd crafts a constellation of captivating, fresh voices in this redemptive novel that forces us to question our definitions of right and wrong, the difficulties in starting over, and whether or not it's possible to forgive the family we're born with--and live with the family we choose to be our own"-- Provided by publisher.
"A riveting thrill ride of a novel from a captivating new series, 1989 confirms internationally bestselling author Val McDermid as one of crime fiction's true masters. It's 1989 and journalist Allie Burns is growing up. Older and maybe wiser than the hustling young hack we met in 1979, she's running the northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, chafing at losing her role in investigative journalism and at the descent into the gutter of the UK tabloid media. But there's plenty to keep her occupied. The year begins with the memorial service for the victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, but Allie has barely filed her copy when she stumbles over a story about HIV/AIDS that will shock her into a major change of direction. The world of newspapers is undergoing a revolution, there's skullduggery in the medical research labs and seismic rumblings behind the Iron Curtain. When murder is added to this potent mix, Allie will be called upon to chase a story that will take her further afield than she'd ever planned, and force her to question all her old certainties"-- Provided by publisher.
"In the summer of 1985, Lisa Whitaker is a church kid headed to college on a scholarship while her best friend, Dana, is floundering in the wake of her mother's latest eviction. Though Lisa tries to help, their paths diverge. Fifteen years later, Lisa has a beautiful family and is stepping into her dream job as the director for a social services organization. Everything is going right--until her future is snatched away by identity theft. Her life begins to unravel, and Lisa wants nothing more than to see the woman responsible pay for her crimes. When she was a teenager, Dana Jones always felt alone in this world. Her mother was addicted to drugs, her boyfriend was entering a life of crime, and it seemed Dana, too, was heading down the wrong path. The only bright light was her friendship with Lisa. Now, in the new millennium, Dana finally gives herself permission to dream--to believe she is stepping into better days. But when the betrayal of their friendship comes to light, it will take a lifetime to forgive the destruction that youthful summer in Bed-Stuy set in motion. In this latest story from beloved author Vanessa Miller, two girls from the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, find that their paths have been woven together by the love of community and a friendship that is tested by time, betrayal and unforgiveness."-- Provided by publisher.
"The Orchard of Lost Souls takes place in Hargeisa in 1987, and charts the descent of Somalia into civil war through the entwined lives of three women"-- Provided by publisher.
"After the local French teacher scandalizes the fishing village of Little Cove, Newfoundland, by running off with a priest, the school looks to the mainland to fill the job quickly. They want someone who can uphold their Catholic values and keep a motley group of largely unwilling students in line. The position is filled by mainlander Rachel O'Brien--technically a Catholic (baptized!), technically a teacher (honors degree!)--who's desperate to leave her current mess of a life behind. She isn't surprised that her students don't see the value of learning French. But she is surprised that she can barely understand their English... Is it a compliment or insult to be called a sleeveen? (Insult.) And the anonymous notes left on her car, telling her to go home, certainly don't help to make her feel welcome. Still, she is quickly drawn into the island's traditional music and culture, and into the personal lives of her crusty but softhearted landlady, Lucille, her reluctant students and her fellow teacher Doug Bishop. But when her beliefs clash with church and community, she makes a decision that throws her career into jeopardy. In trying to help a student, has she gone too far? Full of warmth, humor, romance and the quirkiest community of characters..."--Provided by publisher.
In 1989 rural England, two very different men undertake an extraordinary project, forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns, but when their work attracts media attention and the authorities, they must race to finish the most stunning and original crop circle ever conceived. Moving and exhilarating, tender and slyly witty, The Perfect Golden Circle is a captivating novel about the futility of war, the destruction of the English countryside, class inequalityly, and the power of beauty.
"The astonishing sequel to The Sympathizer, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, The Committed follows the "man of two minds" as he comes to Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise-but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen. Both literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position inthe firmament of American letters"-- Provided by publisher.
It's the summer of 1982 in Blacksburg, Virginia--seven years after the suspicious death of a son and sibling--and the Sobel family is hungry. Francie dresses in tennis skirts and ankle socks and weighs her grams of allotted carrots and iceberg lettuce. Her semi-estranged husband Tate prefers a packed fridge and hidden doughnuts. Daughters Enid, ten, and Vivvy, almost thirteen, are subtler versions of their parents, measuring their summer vacation by meals had or meals skipped. But at summer's end, secrets both old and new emerge and Francie disappears, leaving the family teetering on the brink. Told from alternating points of view by the four living Sobels, Pretend We Are Lovely is a sharp and darkly funny story of forgiveness, family secrets, and the losses we inherit. At its core is the ever-complicated and deeply-devoted bond of sisterhood as the girls, left mostly to their own devices, must navigate their way through middle school, find comfort in each other, and learn the difference between food and nourishment.
"The USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair returns with another delicious, twisty novel--about a grand estate with many secrets, an orphan caught in a web of lies, and a young woman playing a dangerous game. 1980: Beth Soames is fourteen years old when a kind couple finds her playing the violin at her orphanage's yearly fund-raiser. The Averills take her home with them to Raven Hall, a rambling manor on the Norfolk coast. There she runs wild with their daughter, Nina, and they become fast friends. At times, Beth even dreams she's truly part of the family...until she's asked to take part in what seems like a harmless game--and nothing is ever the same. Present day: Sadie Langton is an actress struggling to make ends meet when she lands a well-payinggig attending a weekend party. Her anonymous employer sends her a suitcase of clothing, a dossier of the role she is to play, and instructions--it's strange, but she needs the money, and when she sees the stunning manor she'll be staying at she can't resist the chance. In person, Raven Hall is even grander than she'd imagined--even with the damage from a fire decades before--but the walls seem to have eyes. As day turns to night, there is something off about the glamorous guests who arrive, and as the game she is meant to be leading begins, it becomes chillingly apparent their unseen host has plans for all of them...including her"-- Provided by publisher.
Fulgencio Ramirez strives to succeed in America, break a mystical family curse, and win back Carolina Mendelssohn's love thirty years after their doomed youthful romance.
"a Gothic chiller about a young caregiver assigned to work for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre decades earlier"-- Provided by publisher.
"A uniquely experienced observer of China now gives us a novel that recounts the familiar but still mesmerizing events from the rise of Mao to the Tiananmen Square uprising, and the impact of that history on one father and son. At the center: Li Tongshu, one of the few Chinese citizens ever to graduate from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is married to Vivian Knight, a Chinese American violinist. Tongshu is drawn by Mao's promise "to build a new China," and by the enthusiasm so many other Chinese artists and scientists living abroad express at that prospect. The odds of Tongshu ever having a successful career as a performer in the US are small, and so when the new president of the recently established Central Academy of China offers him a teaching position, he decides to return home with his family. But now, Tongshu will be forced to contend with the erratic and unexpected shifts of a government determined to control the beliefs and convictions of the people; with suspicion of the Western culture that educated him; and with how the fortune and experience his son, Little Li, becomes caught up in the maelstrom of political and ideological upheaval that not only threatens to destroy his family, but that will ultimately destroy the essential fabric of Chinese society."--Provided by publisher.
"In this novel, set two years before the events of Stranger Things: Season 4, Eddie Munson - Hellfire Club leader, metalhead, and Hawkins outcast - has one shot to make it big. With an opportunity to score a record deal, he undertakes a risky moneymaking scheme with his father to get the funds to record a demo"-- Provided by publisher.
"Small-town Appalachia doesn't have a lot going for it, but it's where Brian is from, where his family is, and where he's chosen to return to die. At eighteen, Brian, like so many other promising young gay men, arrived in New York City without much more than a love for the freedom and release from his past that it promised. But within six short years, AIDS would claim his lover, his friends, and his future. With nothing left in New York but memories of death, Brian decides to write his mother a letter asking to come back to the place, and family, he was once so desperate to escape. Set in 1986, a year after Rock Hudson's death shifted the public consciousness of the epidemic and brought the news of AIDS into living rooms and kitchens across America, The Prettiest Star is part Dog Years by Mark Doty and part Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt. But it is also an urgent story now: it a novel about the politics and fragility of the body; it is a novel about sex and shame. And it is a novel that speaks to the question of what home and family means when we try to forge a life for ourselves in a world that can be harsh and unpredictable. It is written at the far reaches of love and understanding, and zeroes in on the moments where those two forces reach for each other, and sometimes touch"-- Provided by publisher.
"Ian Smith, M.D. is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Blast the Sugar Out, SHRED, SUPER SHRED, The SHRED Power Cleanse and twelve other top-selling titles. A graduate of Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine, Smith is the author of one previous novel, The Blackbird Papers."-- Provided by publisher.
"Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's war on heavy industry has put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for his artistic brother and practical sister. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a "whoremaster" of a husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good - her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits - all the family has to live on - on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to look after her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. He is meanwhile doing all he can to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that Shuggie is "no right," and now Agnes's addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her-even and especially her beloved Shuggie." -- From publisher's description.
Decades after her grieving father, a laid-off NASA scientist, triggers chaotic changes in his pursuit of life-extending technology, an astronaut confronts dangerous family secrets to stop a world-threatening crisis.
In 1988 Detroit, Wink and his crew jump into the drug trade, determined to taste the good life, but as they pay their dues and the unforgiving streets harden their hearts, they learn that all dreams are not worth living.
"Decades ago, Japan won the Second World War. Americans worship their infallible Emperor, and nobody belives that Japan's conduct in the war was anything but exemplary. Nobody, that is, except the George Washingtons - a shadowy group of rebels fighting for freedom. Their latest subversive tactic is to distribute an illegal video game that asks players to imagine what the world might be like if the United States had won the war instead. Captain Beniko Ishimura's job is to censor video games, and he's tasked with getting to the bottom of this disturbing new development. But Ishimura's hiding something... He's slowly been discovering that the case of the George Washingtons is more complicated that it seems, and the subversive videogame's origins are even more controversial and dangerous than the censors originally suspected."--Back cover.
In a Cold War spy story set in 1989 Berlin, an American woman married to an East German must confront the truth behind his mysterious disappearance when she discovers he was a spy reporting back to an East German counterintelligence officer known as the Matchmaker. Berlin, 1989. Protests across East Germany threaten the Iron Curtain and Communism is the ill man of Europe. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. She had been targeted by the Matchmaker--a high level East German counterintelligence officer--who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his "Romeos" who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead. The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?
The story of Harlen LeBlanc, who leads a quiet life until it is overthrown by an act of violence, and of Michael Fischer, who, twenty years earlier, goes on the run from evil until he is rescued by a dying poet and his lover. They extract his promise to be a good man, no matter the cost.
Marie Mitchell, a Cold War FBI intelligence officer, joins an undercover task force to undermine Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary Communist president of Burkina Faso, who she secretly admires and comes to love, in a novel inspired by true events.
It's the late 1980s, and Gena, a young girl from the projects, meets Quadir, a millionaire drug dealer, and falls madly in love. Quadir builds a massive empire while fighting his rivals and enemies. Gena faces the challenges of holding onto her man, her house, her car, and the cash. Both of them find themselves caught up in a vicious yet seductive world, and learn that success in this game is no easy win. Gena and Quadir also learn that once you're in, there's no way out, 'cause everyone stays in forever....True.