Featured Titles 2005 New titles - selected on the basis of good reviews. Nonfiction, fiction and mystery titles are included on these lists. Books for kids and teens (fiction and nonfiction) are also listed.

April 2005

Nonfiction

• Ghosting: A Double Life
  Author: Erdal, Jennie
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 24 ISBN: 0385514263 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  In the early eighties, Erdal was hired by a flamboyant British publisher and she ended up becoming his ghostwriter. With superb intelligence and quiet comedy, Erdal relates how she became seduced into this peculiar job.
  Updated 3.10.05

 

• The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
  Author: Marshall, Megan
  Publisher: Houghton $ 28 ISBN: 0395389925 Date: 2005
  PWBooklistLJ
  Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody were in many ways the "American Brontes." The story of these remarkable sisters--and their central role in shaping the thinking of their day--is told in Marshall's monumental biography.
  Updated 4.7.05

 

Fiction

• Midnight at the Dragon Cafe
  Author: Bates, Judy Fong
  Publisher: Counterpoint $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 1582431892 Date: 2005
  BooklistKirkus
  Judy Fong Bates's fresh and engaging first novel is the story of Su-Jen Chou, a Chinese girl growing up the only daughter of an unhappy and isolated immigrant family in a small Ontario town in the 1950s.
  Suggested Reading: Asian American Stars
  Updated 2.15.05

 

• A Slight Trick of the Mind
  Author: Cullin, Mitch
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385513283 Date: 2005
  PW
  Cullin goes behind Sherlock Holmes's cool, unflappable surface to reveal for the first time the inner world of an obsessively private man. Cullin weaves together Holmes's hidden past and private struggles to transform him into an ordinary man, confronting and acquiescing to emotions he's resisted his entire life.
  Updated 2.14.05
• Never Let Me Go
  Author: Ishiguro, Kazuo
  Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 1400043395 Date: 2005
  KirkusPW
  From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 2.1.05
• The Mermaid Chair
  Author: Kidd, Sue Monk
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670033944 Date: 2005
  PW
  Kidd's stunning debut, The Secret Life of Bees, spent 77 weeks on "The New York Times" bestseller list. Now, in her much-anticipated new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans and cement her reputation as one of the most remarkable writers at work today.
  Updated 2.21.05

 

• Saturday
  Author: McEwan, Ian
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN: 0385511809 Date: 2005
  KirkusPWBooklistLJ
  From the pen of a master--the #1 bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Atonement--comes an astonishing novel that captures the fine balance of happiness and the unforeseen threats that can destroy it. A brilliant, thrilling page-turner that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 3.21.05
• The Illuminator
  Author: Vantrease, Brenda
  Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312331916 Date: 2005
  PWLJ
  Fourteenth-century England was a time of plague, political unrest, and the earliest stirrings of the Reformation. Richly detailed and irresistibly compelling, this first novel is a glorious work of love, art, religion, and treachery at this extraordinary turning point in history.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 3.10.05

 

• Lucky Strike
  Author: Zafris, Nancy
  Publisher: Unbridled $ 23.95 ISBN: 1932961046 Date: 2005
  BooklistLJ
  America has always been the place for seekers to reinvent themselves. The canyon country of Utah in the 1950s is just such a territory, where thousands of self-styled prospectors, encouraged by government pamphlets and naove promises, have caught uranium fever and descended upon the desert landscape, hoping to make their fortunes. Among them, a young widow and her two children embark on just such an adventure--for more complicated and heartrending personal reasons. Along the way they join a throng of colorful, unforgettable characters and form the most unexpected bonds. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 3.21.05

 

Mystery & Suspense

• Oblivion
  Author: Abrahams, Peter
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060726571 Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  Blending evocative imagery with psychological complexity, Oblivion is a dark, disturbing story of identity and memory from the acclaimed author of The Tutor and The Fan.
  Updated 12.16.04
• In the Company of Liars
  Author: Ellis, David
  Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399152474 Date: 2005
  PWLJ
  Told in chronological reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, this original thriller is centered on a woman on trial for murder and caught between compelling forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end.
  Updated 3.21.05

 

• The Devil of Nanking
  Author: Hayder, Mo
  Publisher: Grove $ 24 ISBN: 0802117945 Date: 2005
  PWKirkus
  Spine-chilling characters take readers on an electrifying ride deep inside the secret history of one of the 20th century's most brutal events--the Nanking Massacre in 1937--as a young Englishwoman obsessively searches Tokyo for film footage of the massacre and its survivors.
  Updated 2.8.05

 

• The Serpent on the Crown
  Author: Peters, Elizabeth
  Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060591781 Date: 2005
  PW
  Once again the incomparable "New York Times" bestselling master of suspense, Elizabeth Peters, brings an exotic world of adventure, intrigue, and danger to vivid life, in a tale as exciting, mysterious, and powerful as ancient Egypt.
  Suggested Reading: Egyptian Stars
  Updated 3.10.05

 

Books for Kids, Teens & Readers of All Ages

Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.

• Convicts
  Author: Lawrence, Iain
  Publisher: Delacorte $ 15.95 ISBN: 038573087X Date: 2005
  KirkusPW
  After seeing his father hauled off to debtor's prison in London, Tom Tin sets out to take revenge on Mr. Goodfellow, the man responsible for his family's misfortunes. Tom soon comes up against the cruel hand of the law when he's accused of murder.
  Grades: 5-9 Category: Historical Fiction | Action & Adventure
  
• Gentle's Holler
  Author: Madden, Kerry
  Publisher: Viking $ 16.99 ISBN: 0670059986 Date: 2005
  KirkusPW
  Living in a North Carolina holler with her parents and eight siblings, 12-year-old Livy Two is an aspiring songwriter and self-appointed guardian to her little sister Gentle, who is going blind. But when tragedy strikes, can Livy Two continue to stay strong for her family.
  Grades: 7-9 Category: Fiction