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The Lola Quartet, Literary Fiction with a Detective Story Element by Emily St. John Mandel

On May 24, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, by Editor

In her most ambitious novel yet, Emily Mandel combines her most fully realized characters with perhaps her most fully developed story that examines the difficulty of being the person you’d like to be, loss, the way a small and innocent action (e.g., taking a picture of a girl in a foreclosed house) can have disastrous consequences. The Lola Quartet is a work that pays homage to literary noir, is concerned with jazz, Django Reinhardt, economic collapse, love, Florida’s exotic wildlife problem, crushing tropical heat, the leavening of the contemporary world, compulsive gambling, and the unreliability of memory.

The Coldest Night – The Heaven of First Love and the Hell of a Battlefield by Robert Olmstead

On May 23, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, Historical Novel, by Editor

Robert Olmstead’s riveting new novel is not only a passionate story of love and war, it is a timeless story of soldiers coming home to a country with little regard for, and even less knowledge of, what they’ve confronted. Through his hero, Olmstead reveals an unspoken truth about combat: that for many men, the experience of war is the most enlivening, electric, and extraordinary experience of their lives.

Dorchester Terrace: The Latest Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel by Anne Perry

On May 22, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense, by Editor

Anne Perry’s acclaimed Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels have made London’s exclusive world of wealth and power an addictive literary destination for readers everywhere. This new masterpiece, a haunting story of love and treason, invites us not only into the secret places of Britain’s power but also into the innermost sanctums of the fin de siècle Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Don’t Cry, Tai Lake: A Chief Inspector Chen Novel by Qiu Xiaolong

On May 22, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense, by Editor

Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is offered a bit of luxury by friends and supporters within the Party – a week’s vacation at a luxurious resort near Lake Tai, a week where he can relax, and recover, undisturbed by outside demands or disruptions. Unfortunately, the once beautiful Lake Tai, renowned for its clear waters, is now covered by fetid algae, its waters polluted by toxic runoff from local manufacturing plants.

Wichita: A Self-Destructive Punk Roils a Kansas Household – A Novel by Thad Ziolkowski

On May 19, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, by Editor

Lewis Chopik has just graduated from Columbia University. Having been dumped by his girlfriend and in flight from the pressures exerted by his ambitious professor father, Lewis returns to Wichita in search of respite at the home of his New-Ager mother, Abby. But when Abby picks Lewis up from the airport, she reveals that she’s starting a storm-chasing business and indulging a polyamorous lifestyle. Another unexpected arrival is Seth, Lewis’s bi-polar younger brother, who shows off a new tattoo on his chest: In Loving Memory of Seth Chopik.

The Lower River: A Return to Africa Turns Into a Nightmare – A Novel by Paul Theroux

On May 19, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense, by Editor

Interweaving memory and desire, hope and despair, salvation and damnation, this is a hypnotic, compelling, and brilliant return to a terrain about which no one has ever written better than Theroux.

The Chemistry of Tears: A Puzzling Novel Full of Secrets by Peter Carey

On May 17, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense, by Editor

An automaton, a man and a woman who can never meet, two stories of love—all are brought to incandescent life in this hauntingly moving novel from one of the finest writers of our time. And it is the automaton, in its beautiful, uncanny imitation of life, that will link two strangers confronted with the mysteries of creation, the miracle and catastrophe of human invention, and the body’s astonishing chemistry of love and feeling.

I Am Forbidden: A Novel About the Love of Two Ultra-Orthodox Jews by Anouk Markovits

On May 16, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, Historical Novel, by Editor

A beautifully crafted, emotionally gripping story of what happens when unwavering love, unyielding law, and centuries of tradition collide, I Am Forbidden announces the arrival of an extraordinarily gifted new voice and opens a startling window on a world long closed to most of us, until now.

Teaser Tuesday: Dante, Shiftchanger: Teaser From “Vampire’s Trill”, a novel by Lorelei Bell

On May 15, 2012, in Guest Writers, Lorelei Bell, Vampire Corner, by Lorelei Bell

Absently, I threw some fluffy white kernels on the floor for Dante, who snapped them up with his tongue as though he were starving to death, and then looked expectantly up at me for more. He had wolfed down his share of spaghetti earlier, and didn’t complain that the sauce had come out of a jar something he would never have served were he human, as he’s part Italian.

The Stonecutter: A Swedish Crime Novel by Camilla Läckberg

On May 14, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense, by Editor

In the third novel from the bestselling female writer in Sweden—and for the first time in English—the mysterious drowning of a little girl threatens to tear apart the town of Fjallbacka.