Readers > New Books > Fiction, September 2007
Fiction, September 2007
General Fiction |Mysteries |Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
General Fiction
- Abani, Chris
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This harrowing novel by Nigerian poet and award-winning novelist Abani tells the story of a West African boy soldier's lyrical, terrifying, yet beautiful journey through the nightmare landscape of a brutal war in search of his lost platoon.
- Adams, Carrie
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Heartwarming, dark, funny and almost too true to bear, Adams's extraordinary novel speaks to all women who have wondered about the competing attractions of being single and getting hitched for life. Are marriage and children the happy-ever-after many claim, or is everything just fine the way it is?
- Bernard, David Valentine
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Set in a future where the threat of terrorism has seeped into everything, an American soldier finds himself at the vanguard of America's latest war. After a terrorist attack on the White House, America invades an African country in the Sahara. In the desert, the soldier begins to realize that memory itself can be used as a form of terrorism. Intimate Relations with Strangers is at once a twisted puzzle and a brutally honest exploration of the nature of reality, war and love.
- Cela, Camilo Jose
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Set against the backdrop of an Arizona influenced by the Mexican Revolution and the westward expansion of the United States, the story is a bravura performance by the 1989 Nobel Prize-winning author. A monologue by the naive, unreliable and uneducated Wendell L. Espana, the book weaves together hundreds of characters and a torrent of interconnected anecdotes, some true, some fabricated.
- Crandell, Doug L.
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Do we have to be beautiful to be loved? Hobbie — this novel's darkly romantic hero — has been banished to homely man exile in the North Georgia Mountains, where his enemies are mirrors and bears. But just as it seems Hobbie is doomed to go through life as a sweet, self-pitying "anonymous joke,"he jumps out of his skin and becomes downright heroic.
- Delson, Rudolph
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Delson's debut is an uproarious and moving portrait of our times and a wildly original New York love story. Maynard is a defeated musician, a reformed misanthrope who makes a hobby of surreptitiously filming the fashion faux pas of New York City subway commuters. On an uptown Number Six Train, in the summer of 2000, he meets Jennica, a nostalgic Californian and Princeton graduate who calculates that she's been lonesome 68.53 percent of her adult life. It is hardly love at first sight. But when they meet again at Maynard's film screening, their romance does indeed blossom — and as with most things in life, everyone has an opinion.
- Diaz, Junot
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Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuk — the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents and ill-starred love. Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss.
- Diliberto, Gioia
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From the author of I Am Madame X comes this readable novel set in Paris in 1919 about a young woman who discovers the glamor and ruthlessness of haute couture at Coco Chanel.
- Fraser, Gail
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What Garrison Keillor does for Lake Wobegon, Gail Fraser has done for Lumby, a small, eccentric town somewhere in the Northwest. In Stealing Lumby, the town is jolted from its comfortable obscurity when a famous painting disappears and the national media come a-calling.
- Guo, Xiaolu
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Drawing on her diaries written upon her arrival in London, Guo creates this story to match her own steadily improving English. Freshly humorous, sexy and poignant, this debut novel is an utterly original story about language, identity and the cultural divide.
- Johnson, Denis
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Skip Sands — spy-in-training, engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong — encounters a slew of disasters, thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel.
- Khakpour, Porochista
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Khakpour delivers a unique and powerful first novel that is at once a comedy and a tragedy, a family history and a modern coming-of-age story with a timeless resonance.
- Lam, Vincent
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Following four young medical students and physicians, this debut collection of 12 interwoven short stories from 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize-winner Lam is a riveting account of what it means to be a doctor.
- Martin, Valerie
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Rich with menace, this novel unfolds in a world where darkness intrudes into bright and pleasant places, a world with betrayal at its heart. In shimmering prose Martin raises the question: Who shall inherit America?
- McKay, Lisa
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Cori signs up to take a mission trip to Indonesia during the summer. Five weeks after the missionaries arrival, a sectarian - religious conflict flames to life with deadly results. Within days, the church the team built is in ashes, its pastor and 50 villagers are dead, and the six terrified teenagers are stranded in the mountainous jungle.
- Nemirovsky, Irene
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From the author of Suite Francaise comes a newly discovered, never-before-published novel — a story teeming with the life of a small French village in the years before World War II.
- Peace, David
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From one of British crime fiction's new voices comes an electrifying novel that revisits a series of shocking crimes committed in post-World War II, bombed-out, American-occupied Tokyo.
- Romano-Lax, Andromeda
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In a dusty, turn-of-the-century Catalan village, the bequest of a cello bow sets young Feliu Delargo on the unlikely path of becoming a musician in this debut novel by journalist and amateur cellist Romano-Lax.
- Rose, M. J.
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A bomb erupts in Rome and photojournalist Josh Ryder's world will never be the same. As he recovers, his mind is invaded by emotionally intense and vivid memories — but they aren't his memories.
- Roth, Philip
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Nathan Zuckerman, the indomitable literary adventurer of Roth's nine Zuckerman books, finds himself involved — as he never wanted or intended to be — with love, mourning, desire and animosity.
- Saterstrom, Selah
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An heir to William Faulkner and Toni Morrison, Saterstrom's story follows a strung-out American teenager influenced by heavy metal, inspired by Ginger Rogers, hell-bent on self-destruction and more intelligent than anyone around her realizes.
- Theroux, Paul Viera
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A master of the travel narrative weaves three intertwined novellas of Westerners transformed by their sojourns in India.
- Thorne-Smith, Courtney
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From high fashion to on-set antics to the real-life whispers about Hollywood's biggest stars, Thorne-Smith depicts the entertainment world as only an insider can, in this sparkling debut novel.
- Wood, Barbara
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Seventeen-year-old Hoshitiwa's life is simple — until she is captured by the powerful and violent ruler of Center Place. Bestselling author Wood writes of an extraordinary woman drawn into a world of sacrifice and passion.
Mysteries
- Bannister, Jo
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Brodie Farrell, who has taken on plenty of dangerous cases, embarks on her most demanding case yet to help a child in danger.
- Brewer, Steve
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Solomon Gage is a troubleshooter for billionare Dominick Sheffield and family. When he overhears something he shouldn't have about an Africa deal, Solomon sets out to uncover the Sheffield sons' dirty dealing in the global uranium market.
- Cain, Chelsea
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Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind — addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders.
- Carrell, Jennifer Lee
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On the eve of the Globe's production of Hamlet, Shakespearean scholar Kate Shelton is given what is claimed to be the Bard's long-lost work. When a killer decides to stage theatrical murders as flesh-and-blood realities, Shelton must decipher a string of clues before anyone else dies.
- Gaylin, Alison
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In Hollywood, a trashing in the tabloids can make or break a career, and dirty little secrets are the lifeblood of the media machine. Working for an infamous scandal sheet, Simone Glass is learning what they didn't teach her at journalism school: trust no one.
- Hamilton, Steve
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Joe Trumbull is a man with a tragic past. During his bachelor party, his fiance had been strangled in her bed. Years later, a woman he met through a blind date is found dead. Now Joe finds himself in a game of cat and mouse with the best criminal investigators, with Joe fighting for his life.
- Harrison, Cora
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Set in 16th century Ireland, Harrison's debut series combines simplicity and enchantment with historical texture and vivid landscapes, as Mara, a woman appointed judge and lawgiver of Mullaghmore Mountain, seeks to solve the mystery of a man's death.
- Jungstedt, Mari D.
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It is winter on Gotland, and fourteen-year-old Fanny is missing. Is her disappearance somehow connected to the recent brutal murder of alcoholic photographer Henry Dahlström, who had won a large sum of money at the racetrack right before his death?
- Keevers, Thomas
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Three Serbian immigrants were partners in Club Belgrade, a Chicago night spot, until two of them are killed in what appear to be ritual murders. The insurance company, having forked over a million bucks for each death and not eager to pay out again any time soon, hires PI Mike Duncavan, former homicide detective, to find out why.
- McDonald, Craig
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Hector Lassiter has Pancho Villa's long-lost skull. He's also got people on his trail. Competing fraternities, Mexican bandits and US Secret Service are after him. But Lassiter is larger than life. He bedded Dietrich and boxed Hemingway; this can't be too bad. Can it?
- Riordan, Rick
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Tres Navarre had given up private investigation — and with it a violent past that had buried too many friends. Newly married, with a baby on the way, it was time to find a safer line of work. He and Maia had come to Rebel Island to celebrate their honeymoon and a new future. But no sooner had they arrived than a reminder of the past showed up in the form of a corpse shot dead in room 12.
- Shaw, Catherine
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On a balmy summer in 1898 Vanessa Wetherburn is contentedly feeding a clotted cream scone to her young son in her Cambridge garden when she is startled by the arrival of her long-time friend, the journalist Patrick O'Sullivan. Eager to discover the identity of a beautiful young woman found floating in the River Cam, Pat has called on the one woman he knows is sure to be able to solve the mystery. As Vanessa considers what to do, her first important clue arrives in the form of Ernest Dixon, who is worried by the disappearance of his favorite actress; a young woman named Ivy Elliot, who was playing the part of Ophelia. Could the missing girl and unidentified body be one and the same woman?
- White, David
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While investigating a friend's mysterious death, private investigator Jackson Donne discovers that another seemingly unrelated case may hold the key to catching a killer and unlocking the truth within his own past.
- Woods, Stuart
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In the newest addition to the series, Stone Barrington and Holly Barker pursue a master spy and murderer in a tropical paradise where very little is as it seems.
Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
- Card, Orson Scott
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Frank Hartman is a brilliant virologist whose discoveries make him the one man who stands in the way of science's plan to "improve" the entire human race. Card's futuristic thriller shows the promise and danger of new genetic medical techniques.
- Datlow, Ellen
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Award-winning editor Datlow presents 20 original tales of terror from some of the most powerful voices in the horror genre.
- De Lint, Charles
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In 1972 Jilly finds herself in a world similar to this one where things work out. It's a paradise where dreams come true, until Jilly realizes that the inhabitants are actually dead souls whose lives were unfulfilled.
- Green, Simon R.
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He's Hawk. She's Fisher. They're cops, patrolling the mean streets of the ancient city misnamed Haven, a sinister place where demons, thieves, sorcerers and murderers own the night and anything can be bought — except justice.
- Grimwood, Jon Courtenay
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From the author of the Arabesk series comes a novel of futuristic noir set in a world of shifting realities. A man is drawn into a gritty postmodern subculture and a secret kingdom of otherworldly beings to find what he had lost long ago: a reason to live.
- Harrison, M. John
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This long- awaited sequel to Harrison's Light is part broken love story, part noir, part far-reaching science fiction.
- Ruckley, Brian
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An uneasy truce exists between the thanes of the True Bloods. As another winter approaches, the armies of the Black Road march south. For some, war brings a swift and violent death. But one man is following a path that will awaken a terrible power in him — and his legacy will be written in blood.
- Salvatore, R. A.
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Drizzt is back in this new trilogy from Salvatore. An uneasy peace between the dwarves of Mithral Hall and the orcs of the newly established Kingdom of Many-Arrows can't last long.
- Somers, Jeff
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The Electric Church, a new religion founded by a man named Dennis Squalor, is the only thing growing faster than the criminal population; and the authorities want him dead. For killer-for-hire Avery Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken — and it may be his last.
- Smith, Cordwainer
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A sweeping saga of the centuries to come, from the new dark age that followed a global war, to the new civilization that arose from the ashes to colonize the stars.
- Wilson, Robert Charles
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Wilson's sequel to the Hugo Award-winning Spin takes readers to the world next door — the planet engineered by the mysterious Hypotheticals to support human life. But as humans colonize this new world they, predictably, exploit its resources.