Fiction Stars 2009: January - June

January

  • Star Bright
    Author: Anderson, Catherine
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780451225719 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    In this new novel featuring the hard-as-nails, fiercely loyal Harrigan family. Rainie Hall fakes her own death to escape her murderous husband and takes refuge in the rural community of Crystal Falls, where she finds work on a horse ranch run by Parker Harrigan.
    Updated 12.30.08
  • Lima Nights
    Author: Arana, Marie
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780385342582 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    From a National Book Award finalist for her memoir American Chica, and the author of the acclaimed novel Cellophane, comes this spare, powerful story of sexual obsession and its consequences.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
    Author: Baker, Tiffany
    $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780446194204 Date: 2009
    starLJ star PW
    In this family saga, unearthed secrets lead to the kind of betrayal that eventually breaks the Morgan family apart forever. However, one woman's reckoning with her own demons allows for both an uprooting of Aberdeen County, and the possibility of love in unexpected places.
    Updated 11.31.08
  • Ransom My Heart
    Author: Cabot, Meg & Mia Hermopolis
    $ 14.99 ISBN: 9780061700071 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Mia Thermopolis, Princess of Genovia and star of Meg Cabot's insanely popular #1 "New York Times"-bestselling Princess Diaries books, has "penned" her first historical romance novel--with help from Cabot.
    Updated 1.30.09
  • Bedeviled
    Author: Child, Maureen
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780451225764 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    The author of A Fiend in Need delivers the first book in a light and sexy new paranormal series which introduces Maggie Donovan, an everyday woman who discovers she's a descendant of Otherworldly Faeries and is destined to defeat an evil queen.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 1.30.09
  • Best African American Fiction
    Author: Early, Gerald (edt)
    $16 ISBN: 9780553385342 Date: 2009
    starPW
    From stories that depict black life in times gone by to those that address contemporary issues, this inaugural volume gathers the very best recent African-American fiction. Contributors include Edward P. Jones, Walter Dean Myers, Stephen L. Carter, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Junot Daz.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Red Convertible
    Author: Erdrich, Louise
    $ 27.99 ISBN: 9780061536076 Date: 2009
    starBooklist starKirkus
    This unique volume brings together, for the first time, three decades of stories by one of the most innovative and exciting writers. "The Red Convertible" reveals the evolution of narrative styles, the shifts and metamorphoses, in Erdrich's fiction.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Blonde Roots
    Author: Evaristo, Bernardine
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781594488634 Date: 2009
    starPW star LJ
    A provocative novel that upends the history of the transatlantic slave trade, Blond Roots reverses and reexamines notions of savagery and civilization as it follows a young woman's journey to freedom.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Corner Shop
    Author: Farooki, Roopa
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780312375560 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    Delphine Khanum fantasizes about rekindling her relationship with her father-in-law Zaki, whom she loved long before she met and married his son. But as she discovers in this richly layered, multi-generational tale, the closer one's dreams become, the more risk there is of losing sight of what really matters.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Going to See the Elephant
    Author: Fishbourne, Rodes
    $ 22 ISBN: 9780385342391 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    On a windy September day, twenty-five-year-old Slater Brown stands in the back of a bicycle taxi hurtling the wrong way down the busiest street in San Francisco. Slater has come to "see the elephant,"to stake his claim to fame and become the greatest writer ever. But this city of gleaming water and infinite magic has other plans in this astounding first novel--at once a love story, a feast of literary imagination, and a dazzlingly original tale of passion, ambition, and genius in all their guises...
    Slater Brown lays siege to San Francisco like Achilles circling Troy--until he crashes headlong into reality. Out of money and prospects, he applies for a job at a moribund weekly newspaper called the"Morning Trumpet"--and, as if by fate, is given a very special parting gift from a moonlighting mystic.
    Suddenly Slater has an exclusive on every story in the city. With his uncanny knack for finding scoops, he's bringing the "Trumpet" back to life, infuriating a corrupt mayor and falling in love with the woman destined to become his muse. But it is the astonishing inventor Milo Magnet--a man obsessed with harnessing the weather--who will force Slater to navigate the most dangerous straits.
    For as Milo unleashes his power on San Francisco and the ravishing Callio de Quincy entrances Slater with hers, as storm clouds gather "literally "overhead, Slater will become at once a pawn, a savior, and the last best hope for a city that needs him--and his knack for the truth--more than ever before. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Imposter
    Author: Galgut, Damon
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780802170538 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Damon Galgut is one of South Africa's most exciting new literary voices. In The Impostor, his first novel since The Good Doctor, Galgut leads his readers into the developing heart of postapartheid South Africa, a landscape being reshaped by new waves of money and power. Adam Napier leaves Johannesburg looking for a fresh start. Jobless and directionless, but with a head full of literary ambitions, he moves into his brother's dilapidated house on the edge of a backwater town. One day he encounters Canning, a man who claims Adam saved his life in their school days, but whom Adam does not remember at all. But he plays along and, for a time, enjoys all that Canning has: a vast fortune and game preserve inherited from his father, and a beautiful, mysterious younger wife to whom Adam is compulsively, dangerously drawn. A spellbinding achievement from one of the defining members of a new generation of African writers, The Impostor evokes a glittering world in which the moneyed old guard, newly empowered black Africans, and shady foreign businessmen jockey for a piece of the new South African dream. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 1.27.09
  • To Seduce a Texan
    Author: Gentry, Georgina
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780821779927 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    After she is kidnapped by a handsome cowboy, an heiress sets out to seduce the Texan to gain her freedom, but the dangerous game she's playing is about to turn deliciously real.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Delicate Edible Birds
    Author: Groff, Lauren
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781401340865 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    The "New York Times"-bestselling author presents a collection of nine literary short stories. The title story is a harrowing, powerfully moving drama about a group of war correspondents who fall prey to a frightening man in the French countryside while fleeing the Nazis.
    Updated 12.30.08
  • Tinkers
    Author: Harding, Paul
    $ 14.95 ISBN: 9781934137123 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star PW
    An old man lies dying. As time collapses into memory, he travels deep into his past where he is reunited with his father and relives the wonder and pain of his impoverished New England youth. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, Tinkers is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Wicked Game
    Author: Jackson, Lisa and Nancy Bush
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9781420103380 Date: 2009
    starPW
    It's been 20 years since wild child Jessie Brentwood vanished. Her high school friends believed she ran away. Now, a body has been unearthed on school grounds, and Jessie's old friends find themselves being killed off one by one, in this riveting work of romantic suspense.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Side Effects
    Author: Jacobs, Harvey
    $ 20 ISBN: 9780963418517 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    Side Effects, a novel by Harvey Jacobs, the award-winning author of American Goliath, recounts the medical misadventures of Simon Apple, whose life has been one long battle with Miracle Cures, each of which requires yet another Miracle Cure to curb an increasingly bizarre series of unintended consequences. Now, Simon awaits the lethal stroke of midnight on Death Row when he will make the supreme sacrificegiving his life for the sake of the pharmaceutical industry. A steady parade of visitorsfamily, friends, enemies and lovers come to wish him bon voyage on the day of his final exitwhile Simons nemesis, Regis Van Clay, celebrates. Side Effects is a rollicking ride through a life that ranges from horrendous to hilarious, a resonant contemporary reading adventure where RX marks the spot. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Sing Them Home
    Author: Kallos, Stephanie
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780871139634 Date: 2009
    starLJ star PW
    With her bestselling debut novel, Broken for You, Kallos established herself as a writer of uncommon "wisdom and soulfulness" (Sue Monk Kidd). Sing Them Home is a magnificent tapestry of lives connected and undone by tragedy, lives poised--unbeknownst to the characters--for redemption.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Running Hot
    Author: Krentz, Jayne Ann
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780399155215 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    Aura-reading consultant Grace Renquist joins ex-cop Luther Malone, lifelong member of the secretive paranormal organization known as the Arcane Society, as he deals with rogue sensitives who have enhanced their talents with a potent--and unpredictable--drug.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 12.30.08
  • The Piano Teacher
    Author: Lee, Janice Y.K.
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780670020485 Date: 2009
    star PW star LJ
    In the sweeping tradition of The English Patient comes this gripping tale set in war-torn Hong Kong. Rich with intrigue, romance, and betrayal, this wonderfully written, utterly captivating novel dazzles . . .--Chang-rae Lee.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 11.3.08
  • Smart Girls Think Twice
    Author: Linz, Cathie
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780425226483 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    From the author of Bad Girls Don't. Sociologist Emma Riley's new research project depends on a sexy bartender who wants nothing to do with her project--and certainly nothing to do with Emma. Too bad she's way too smart to ever take no for an answer.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 1.27.09
  • In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
    Author: Mueenuddin, Daniyal
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780393068009 Date: 2009
    starKirkus star PW
    In the spirit of James Joyce's Dubliners, Mueenuddin's collection of linked stories illuminates a place and a people through an examination of the entwined lives of landowners and their retainers on the Gurmani family farm in Lahore, Pakistan.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Miles from Nowhere
    Author: Mun, Nami
    $ 21.95 ISBN: 9781594488542 Date: 2008
    starLJ star Booklist
    In raw and beautiful prose, debut novelist Mun delivers the story of a young woman who is at once tough and vulnerable, world-weary and naive, faced with insurmountable odds and yet fiercely determined to survive. In the process, Mun creates one of the most indelible characters in recent fiction.
    Updated 11.31.08
  • Lark and Termite
    Author: Phillips, Jayne Anne
    $ 24 ISBN: 9780375401954 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Phillips's first novel in nine years is a rich, many-layered work. Set in the 1950s in West Virginia and Korea, it is a story of the power of loss and love, the echoing ramifications of war, family secrets, dreams and ghosts, and the unseen, almost magical bonds that unite and sustain families.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Water Dogs
    Author: Robinson, Lewis
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781400062171 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    The author of the acclaimed story collection Officer Friendly pens his first novel, a work that explores the issues of trust and loyalty between two brothers and the delicate patchwork of family.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • If You Eat, You Never Die: Chicago Tales
    Author: Romano, Tony
    $ 13.95 ISBN: 9780060857943 Date: 2009
    starPW
    In a neighborhood on Chicago's outskirts, Fabio and Lucia Comingo have built a new American life--and struggle to comprehend the influences that distract and change their restless young sons. Through this masterful evocation of a time and place, Tony Romano, the acclaimed author of "When the World Was Young," brings a first-generation Italian American family vividly and poignantly alive in closely related tales at once joyous, heartbreaking, and honest. Weaving two dozen stories into a stunning, cohesive family history, Romano gives readers hope for togetherness amid the painful generational cycle of loss and redemption--as children grow and learn, and decide which treasures of cultural inheritance they will cherish. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The First Person: And Other Stories
    Author: Smith, Ali
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780307377715 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    From the award-winning author of The Accidental comes this dazzlingly inventive new collection of stories in which Smith portrays a world of everyday dislocation, where people nevertheless find connection, mystery, and love.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Running Mother and Other Stories
    Author: Songfen, Guo
    $ 29.50 ISBN: 9780231147347 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Guo Songfen's short stories are masterful psychological portraits that play with the echoes of history and the nature of identity. One of the few modernists to truly capture the fallout from such events as the February 28th Incident and the White Terror, Guo Songfen illuminates the quiet core of his characters through a spare and immediate style that is at once a symptom and an allegory of the trauma in which they live. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Mind at Peace
     Author: Tanpinar, Ahmet Hamdi
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780979333057 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Set on the eve of World War II, A Mind at Peace captures the anxieties of a Turkish family facing the difficult reality entrenched in the early republic, founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. Poetically drawing on the effects of cultural upheaval on the individual, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar illuminates the precarious balance between tradition and modernity, East and West. - Publisher Marketing
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 11.3.08
  • Bordeaux
    Author: Torday, Paul
    $ 24 ISBN: 9780151013548 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    A haunting, dazzling novel of obsession and addiction, loyalty and betrayal--and, of course, fine wine Late one summer evening, Wilberforce--young, rich, work-obsessed, and self-contained--makes an unexpected detour on the way home from work and unwittingly takes the first step on a journey that will change his life.
    His uncharacteristically impulsive act leads him to the home of Francis Black, an eccentric and enigmatic wine merchant.
    Wine and hospitality flow freely in Francis Black's cellar, and Wilberforce finds himself drawn into a life he never could have imagined. Infatuated by his newfound taste for fine wines, his new friends, and the woman whom he will eventually marry, he believes he has finally found happiness.
    But Wilberforce will learn that the cellar holds some unpalatable secrets and that passion comes at a price. Chronicling the vintage years of Wilberforce's life, Bordeaux is a haunting story of obsession and addiction, loyalty and betrayal. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Land of Marvels
    Author: Unsworth, Barry
    $ 26 ISBN: 9780385520072 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus star Lj
    Unsworth, a writer with an "almost magical capacity for literary time travel" ("New York Times Book Review") has written a thriller set in 1914, in which he brings to life the schemes and double-dealings of Western nations grappling for a foothold in Mesopotamia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 12.30.08
  • The Republic of Vengeance
    Author: Waters, Paul
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9781590201428 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    An exceptional debut in the tradition of Mary Renault and Steven Pressfield.
    A consuming story of love, loss, and redemption set in the classical world of Rome and Greece, The Republic of Vengeance is the story of a young man's pursuit of his father's murderer and of the values and qualities he develops that will make him a man-a man capable of a deep, noble, and enduring love. - Publisher Marketing
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 1.27.09

February

  • The Accordionist's Son
    Author: Atxaga, Bernardo
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781555975173 Date: 2009
    starPW
    As David Imaz, on the threshold of adulthood, divides his time between his uncle Juan's ranch and his life in the village, he becomes increasingly aware of the long shadow cast by the Spanish Civil War. Letters found in a hotel attic lead David to unravel his family's role in the conflict.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Way Through Doors
    Author: Ball, Jesse
    $ 13.95 ISBN: 9780307387462 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Offering up moments of pure insight and unexpected humor, The Way Through Doors is a haunting novel of love and identity, from the acclaimed author of Samedi the Deafness.
    Updated 10.31.08
  • The Women
    Author: Boyle, T. Coraghessan
    $ 27.95 ISBN: 9780670020416 Date: 2009
    starPW star Booklist
    Having brought to life eccentric cereal king John Harvey Kellogg in The Road to Wellville and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in The Inner Circle, Boyle now turns his fictional sights on an even more colorful and outlandish character: Frank Lloyd Wright.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 1.27.09
  • So Enchanting
    Author: Brockway, Connie
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780451416292 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star LJ
    Witchling Amelie Chase has been banished to a Scottish hamlet and entrusted by her benefactor to Fanny Walcott. However, the village is cramping Amelie's style, anonymous notes are threatening her life, and two handsome travelers arrive with tantalizing links to the pasts of both women.
    Suggested Reading: Witches | Romance
    Updated 2.25.09
  • Hot Flash
    Author: Carmichael, Kathy
    $ 7.95 ISBN: 9781934755037 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    When financial obligations threaten her son's dream of attending art school, premenopausal single-mom Jill Morgan Storm and her friends devise a foolproof plan to audition candidates for a new husband. When she meets Davie Wesley, he gives her a hot flash every time she sees him. Could he be Mr. Right?
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Little Bee
    Author: Cleave, Chris
    $ 24 ISBN: 9781416589631 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star LJ
    From the author of the international bestseller Incendiary comes a haunting novel about the tenuous friendship that blooms between two disparate strangers--one an illegal Nigerian refugee, the other a recent widow from suburban London.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Dogs and Goddesses
    Author: Crusie, Jennifer, Anne Stuart, Lanie Diane Rich
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780312944377 Date: 2009
    starPW starBooklist
    When Abby, Daisy, and Shar attend an out-of-this-world obedience course, they discover a shared link to a dangerous ancient goddess who is determined to reclaim her powers. Unless they stop her, all of humanity will end up in the doghouse.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 2.27.09
  • The Courtesan's Wager
    Author: Dain, Claudia
    $ 15 ISBN: 9780425225806 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Award-winning author Dain brings back her deliciously improper ex-courtesan for another delightful matchmaking scheme.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
    Author: Eaglema, David
    $ 20 ISBN: 9780307377340 Date: 2009
    starPW
    A dazzling work of fiction, these brief vignettes present a stunning array ofpossible worlds awaiting each person in the afterlife.Updated 2.26.09
  • Eve: A Novel of the First Woman
    Author: Elliott, Elissa
    $ 24 ISBN: 9780385341448 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    In this luminous debut novel, Elliott puts a powerful twist on biblical narrative, boldly reimagining Eve's journey. At once intimate and universal, timely and timeless, this unique work of fiction blends biblical tradition with recorded history and dazzling storytelling.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Moon Opera
    Author: Feiyu, Bi and Howard Goldblatt (trn)
    $ 18 ISBN: 9780151012947 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    The debut novel of one of China's rising young literary talents is a gem of a book that takes a piercing look into the world of Chinese opera and its female stars.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Spare Room
    Author: Garner, Helen
    $ 22 ISBN: 9780805088885 Date: 2009
    starKirkus star LJ
    The Spare Room offers a powerful, witty, and taut story about a complex friendship between two women--one dying, the other called to care for her--from an internationally acclaimed and award-winning author.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Act of Will
    Author: Hartley, A.J.
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780765321244 Date: 2009
    starPW
    New York Times-bestselling author Harley pens a fantasy with plenty of mystery and adventure, set in a mythical world reminiscent of Shakespearean England and told by a morally dubious apprentice actor called Will Hawthorne.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Out of My Skin
    Author: Haskell, John
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780374299095 Date: 2009
    starPW
    A would-be movie reviewer looking for romance takes an assignment to write a magazine article about celebrity look-alikes in Los Angeles. Set in the capital of illusion, this is a story of one man's journey into paradise--and his attempt to come out the other side.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Brothers
    Author: Hua, Yu
    $ 29.95 ISBN: 9780375424991 Date: 2009
    starKirkus starPW star Booklist
    From the acclaimed--and controversial--Chinese novelist comes a spirited comedy of society running amok. By turns comic and tragic, filled with sly humor and a vibrant sense of life in China today, Brothers is the most important work to date from this award-winning writer.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Addition
    Author: Jordan, Toni
    $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780061582578 Date: 2009
    starKirkus star LJ
    As charming as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, this wonderful debut novel is full of wit and intelligence. Jordan has created such a real character in Grace that [readers] are cheering her on--"Sydney Morning Herald."
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Vagrants
    Author: Li, Yiyun
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781400063130 Date: 2009
    starPW star Booklist
    The astonishing first novel from the author of the award-winning story collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers weaves together the delicate moments between mothers and sons, husbands and wives, illuminating the reality of oppression and pain.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Dream House
    Author: Laken, Valerie
    $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780060840921 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star Kirkus
    Embracing the volatile issues of race and class, Dream House charts the concentric effects of one fateful act on the lives of two families, and explores the connection between property and intimacy, illuminating the terrible price people pay to hold their dreams and homes together.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Irreplaceable
    Author: Lovely, Stephen
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781401322823 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Show of Hands
    Author: McCarten, Anthony
    $ 15 ISBN: 9781416586074 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Soon to be released as a major motion picture, Show of Hands, is an entertaining novel about a car salesman's last ditch effort to save his business through an outrageous publicity stunt and the eclectic mix of contestants battling to win first prize.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Fool
    Author: Moore, Christopher
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780060590314 Date: 2009
    starPW
    The wildly inventive "New York Times"-bestselling author of You Suck is back, in this modern take on "King Lear." It's 1288, and the king's fool, Pocket, and his dimwit apprentice, Drool, set out to clean up the mess Lear has made of his kingdom, his family, and his fortune.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Nothing Right
    Author: Nelson, Antonya
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781596915749 Date: 2009
    starLJ star PW
    Set in the American Southwest, and including one previously unpublished story, Nothing Right features poignant, hilarious, truthful explorations of domesticity and characters who try to keep themselves intact as their personal lives explode around them.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Precious
    Author: Novack, Sandra
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781400066803 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    A haunting, gorgeously written first novel about a fractured family, Precious is set in 1970s small town Pennsylvania during the tumultuous summer a young girl goes missing.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The Housekeeper and the Professor
    Author: Ogawa, Yoko
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780312427801 Date: 2009
    starPW
    He is a brilliant math professor, with a peculiar problem--since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only 80 minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young housekeeper with a 10-year-old son who is hired to care for the professor. Between them, a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • What I Did for Love
    Author: Phillips, Susan Elizabeth
    $ 25.99 ISBN: 9780061351501 Date: 2009
    star PW
    The beloved "New York Times"-bestselling author delivers another wonderfully whimsical modern fairy tale sure to touch fans' hearts and funny bones. Splendid entertainment.--"Booklist"
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 11.3.08
  • Doghead
    Author: Ramsland, Morten
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780312376543 Date: 2009
    starBookliststar PW star LJ
    This exuberant saga--winner of Book of the Year in Denmark--follows three generations of a wildly dysfunctional Norwegian family. A huge international success . . . [Doghead] combines rambunctiousness, salty humor, and poetic imagination--"Independent on Sunday" (UK).
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 2.27.09
  • Wandering Stars
    Author: Sholem, Aleichem
    $ 29.95 ISBN: 9780670020522 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Wandering Stars--Aleichem's sprawling love story set in the colorful world of the Yiddish theater--this literary classic is presented in a vibrant new translation.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Help
    Author: Stockett, Kathryn
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780399155345 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the civil rights movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women--black and white, mothers and daughters--view one another.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Returning
    Author: Tatlock, Ann
    $ 13.99 ISBN: 9780764200069 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    A new contemporary novel from an award-winning author, The Returning offers a rich, complex story of a fractured family's journey toward healing and forgiveness.
    Suggested Reading: Christian Fiction
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The Magic Knot
    Author: Taylor, Helen Scott
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780505527967 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Put together a magic set of tarot cards, a proper accountant looking for her roots in mystical Cornwall, and a bad-boy Irishman on a motorcycle, and the result is a lovers' knot that won't ever come undone.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Cutting for Stone
    Author: Verghese, Abraham
    $ 26.95 ISBN: 9780375414497 Date: 2009
    starPW
    A stunning debut novel from the author of My Own Country: an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, fathers and sons, doctors and patients, exile and home.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Future Missionaries of America
    Author: Vollmer, Matthew
    $ 24 ISBN: 9781596923126 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    A waiter at Yellowstone National Park seeks consolation in the arms of his dead friend's girlfriend. A young woman vacationing in Idaho becomes obsessed with a female poet and her adopted child. A deadbeat bus-driver with a gambling addiction watches his son attempt the impossible at the X Games. A widow, retreating to a New Hampshire lake house, finds her son living there with another man. A temp in New York City distributes his will and testament to twenty-seven strangers, hoping to convince one of them to be its executor.
    These are just some of the compellingly odd characters found in the pages of Matthew Vollmer's brilliant debut collection, Future Missionaries of America. Taking us from a Seventh Day Adventist boarding school to a traveling exhibition of plasticine bodies, from the moonlit paths of Yellowstone National Park to a quiet New Hampshire lakehouse, Vollmer's twelve stories are at once sorrowful, exuberant, and absurdly comical.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Asta in the Wings
    Author: Watson, Jan E.
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780980243611 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Asta in the Wings is the moving and often darkly funny story of Asta Hewitt, a resourceful seven-year-old and intrepid narrator growing up in an isolated house in Bond Brook, Maine. Shut off from the outside world and restricted to the company of a delusional mother and a bookish older brother, Asta is content to be part of a "society of three" constructing dramatic and fanciful worlds of their own. When circumstances push her into a strange outside world -- with all of its discontents -- Asta must find a way to assimilate while remaining true to herself and her fractured family. Jan Elizabeth Watson's debut novel puts her among the most promising new writers in the realm of imaginative literary fiction.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • A Mad Desire to Dance
    Author: Wiesel, Elie
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780307266507 Date: 2009
    starPW star Kirkus
    From the Nobel laureate author of Night comes a searing new novel about a man whose life is shaped by his changing grasp of the horrors of the 20th century.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Leisure Seeker
    Author: Zadoorian, Michael
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061671784 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Both achingly sad and intensely romantic, this unforgettable story (Marjorie Hart, author of Summer at Tiffany) follows the cross-country journey of a runaway elderly couple determined to meet the end of the road on their own terms.
    Updated 1.27.09

March

  • Nothing But a Smile
    Author: Amick, Steve
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780307377364 Date: 2009
    starPW starBooklist
    From the author of the widely praised novel The Lake, the River & the Other Lake comes this love story of a man and a woman who choose an unconventional way to redefine themselves during and after World War II.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 2.27.09
  • First Comes Marriage
    Author: Balogh, Mary
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780440244226 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    In the first of a dazzling linked Regency quartet by a "New York Times"-bestselling author, Viscount Lygate is drawn to the many attractions of the Huxtable family, but which one of the daughters will answer his prayers?
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Don't Let It Be True
    Author: Barrett, Jo
    $ 13.99 ISBN: 9780061241178 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    This fast, funny read ("Booklist") offers a witty love story set in the uppercrust world of modern Texas oil barons, from the brilliant young author of The Men's Guide to the Women's Bathroom.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Honolulu
    Author: Brennert, Alan
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780312360405 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    From the bestselling author of the dazzling historical saga ("Washington Post") Moloka'i comes the irresistible story of a young immigrant bride in a ramshackle town that becomes a great modern city.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 1.30.09
  • Wonderful World
    Author: Calvo, Javier
    $ 27.99 ISBN: 9780061557682 Date: 2009
    starPW star Booklist
    Calvo brings together a cast of intriguing characters in a haunting and masterful tale full of scandalous behavior and dangerous crimes, in his English-language debut novel.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Girl She Used to Be
    Author: Cristofano, David
    $ 22.99 ISBN: 9780446582223 Date: 2009
    star PW
    When Melody Grace McCartney was six, she and her parents witnessed an act of violence so brutal it changed their lives forever. Now, Jonathan Bovaro, the mafioso sent to hunt her down in the Witness Protection Program, is insistent that she's just a pawn in the government's war against the Bovaro family.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Amberville
    Author: Davys, Tim
    $ 19.95 ISBN: 9780061625121 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Already an international sensation, Amberville is a wildly imaginative noir tale with a twist--a thoughtful meditation on good and evil that marks the debut of a visionary new talent.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Every Man Dies Alone
    Author: Fallada, Hans
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9781933633633 Date: 2009
    starPW
    This never-before-translated masterpiece is based on a true story. It presents a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the Nazis and tells the sweeping saga of one working-class couple who decides to take a stand when their only son is killed at the front.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • All That I Have: A Novel
    Author: Freeman, Castle, Jr.
    $ 22.95 ISBN: 9781586421519 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Sheriff Lucian Wing confronts a series of challenges to his settled way of life, his work, his society, and his marriage, in this darkly funny and wise follow-up to Freeman's celebrated novel Go With Me.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Coventry
    Author: Humphreys, Helen
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780393067200 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    On the night of the Luftwaffe's devastating bombing of Coventry, two women traverse the city and transform their hearts.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Act of Love
    Author: Jacobson, Howard
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781416594239 Date: 2009
    starPW star Kirkus
    The acclaimed author of Kalooki Nights returns with this novel of love and jealousy as Jacobson turns his mordantly funny, articulate sights on a married man who is so in love with his wife that he allows her to conduct an affair with another man.
    Updated 3.3.09
  • Crossing the Hudson
    Author: Jungk, Peter Stephan
    $ 14.95 ISBN: 9781590512753 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    Crossing the Hudson is a profound meditation on a Jewish family and its past, especially differences between the generation of European intellectual refugees who arrived in the United States during the Second World War and the children of that generation.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Age of Orphans
    Author: Khadivi, Laleh
    $ 24 ISBN: 9781596916166 Date: 2009
    starPW starLJ
    The Age of Orphans tells the heart-wrenching story of a Kurdish boy who is forced to betray his people in service of the new Iranian nation, and the tragic consequences as he grows into manhood.
    Updated 2.27.09
  • Etta
    Author: Kolpan, Gerald
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780345503688 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    Beautiful, elusive, and refined, Etta Place captivated the nation at the turn of the last century as she dodged the law with the Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Her true identity and fate have remained a mystery. Kolpan envisions this remarkable woman's life in a stunning debut novel.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts | Westerns
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Callisto
    Author: Krol, Torsten
    $ 14.99 ISBN: 9780061672941 Date: 2009
    starKirkus starBooklist
    Callisto is a hilarious romp, a full-throttle satire on the fear, rash judgments, and extreme reactions that have become the norm in a post-9/11 world; and Odell Deefus, who is the unwittingly humorous, charmingly innocent, and hopelessly hapless hero.
    Updated 2.27.09
  • The Kindly Ones
    Author: Littell, Jonathan
    $ 29.95 ISBN: 9780061353451 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    Massive in scope, horrific in subject matter, and shocking in its protagonist, Littell's prize-winning fictional memoir of a former Nazi officer who survived the war is intense and utterly original.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Honored Dead: A Novel of Lt Cmdr Peter Wake, U.S.N. in French Indochina
    Author: Macomber, Robert N.
    $ 21.95 ISBN: 9781561644384 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Seventh in the award-winning Honor Series. Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake, in French Indochina in 1883, meets up with opium warlords, Chinese-Malay pirates, and French gangsters. Perfect for the armchair historian and adventurer.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Spoiled: Stories
    Author: Macy, Caitlin
    $ 24 ISBN: 9781400061990 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    Caitlin Macy's debut novel The Fundamentals of Play was heralded as a Gatsbyesque examination of love and class in Manhattan. Now, in her sophisticated and provocative story collection "Spoiled," Macy turns her unsparing eye on affluent and educated women who nevertheless struggle to keep their footing in their relationships and life. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Natural Elements
    Author: Mason, Richard
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780307267467 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    The author of the celebrated The Drowning People returns with this dazzling new novel about mothers and daughters; aging and death; memory and longing; history and narrative; and about the high-stakes, full-tilt embrace of life.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The Book of Love
    Author: McGowan, Kathleen
    $ 25.99 ISBN: 9780743299978 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    The author of the "New York Times" bestseller The Expected One continues to illuminate the fascinating world of Christian esoterica as her heroine searches for the mysterious and explosive Book of Love, the gospel written in Jesus' own hand.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club
    Author: McNeil, Gil
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781401340803 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Updated 2.26.09
  • All the Living
    Author: Morgan, C.E.
    $ 23 ISBN: 9780374103620 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    All the Living has the timeless quality of a parable, but it is also a perfect evocation of a time and place, a portrait of both age-old conflicts and modern life. This lyrical and moving debut novel is an ode to the starve-acre southern farm, the mountain landscape, and difficult love--an unforgettable book from a major new voice.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Ruins
    Author: Obejas, Achy
    $ 14.99 ISBN: 9781933354699 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    A true believer is faced with a choice between love for his family and the Cuban Revolution.
    "Daring, tough, and deeply compassionate, Achy Obejas's Ruins is a breathtaker. Obejas writes like an angel, which is to say: gloriously . . . one of the Cuba's most important writers." --Junot Diaz, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Sonata for Miriam
    Author: Olsson, Linda
    $ 15 ISBN: 9780143114703 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Olsson's first novel, Astrid & Veronika, introduced readers to the author's extraordinary understanding of human relationships. With her second work, she once again charts that terrain in a haunting tale of loss, love, and human connection.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The Club
    Author: Page, Shannon
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780440244905 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Pulled into her late husband's dark world by the need to find her missing friend, Jane Beaumont is forced to search for answers in Regency London's most secretive gentlemen's club.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Handle With Care
    Author: Picoult, Jodi
    $ 27.95 ISBN: 9780743296410 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Handle with Care explores the knotty tangle of medical ethics and personal morality. When faced with the reality of a fetus who will be disabled, should a parent have the right to consider termination? Bestselling author Picoult explores a timely yet controversial issue in her latest novel.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • My Abandonment
    Author: Rock, Peter
    $ 22 ISBN: 9780151014149 Date: 2009
    starLJ star Kirkus
    In the tradition of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Rock's My Abandonment, inspired by a true story and told through the startlingly sincere voice of his young protagonist, offers a riveting and unsettling account of a girl and her father who live off the grid.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Unknown Knowns
    Author: Rotter, Jeffrey
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781416587026 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    The Unknown Knowns--a reference to a quote from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld--combines social satire with paranoid delusions, in this brilliant send-up of the sometimes tragically comic focus of America's Homeland Security department.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Passion of Mary-Margaret
    Author: Samson, Lisa
    $ 14.99 ISBN: 9781595542113 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Destined for a life as a religious sister, Mary-Margaret Danaher can hardly believe it when the Spirit tells her she must marry the troubled boy who befriended her as a child, forsaking the only life she ever wanted for a man she will never love.
    Suggested Reading: Christian Fiction
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Tricking of Freya
    Author: Sunley, Christina
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780312378776 Date: 2009
    starPW
    "A young woman obsessed with uncovering a family secret is drawn into the strange and magical history, language and landscape of Iceland." Freya Morris grows up in a typical American suburb - but every summer, she enters another realm entirely when she visits her relatives in Gimli, a tiny village in Canada settled by Icelandic immigrants. Here she falls under the spell of her troubled but charming aunt Birdie, who thrills her with stories of exotic Norse goddesses, moody Viking bards, and the life of her late grandfather, the most famous poet of "New Iceland." But when Birdie tricks Freya into a terrifying scandal, Freya turns her back on everything Icelandic and anything that reminds her of the past. She is living an anonymous, bleak existence in Manhattan when she finally returns to Gimli for the first time in two decades - and stumbles upon a long concealed family secret. As Freya becomes increasingly obsessed with unraveling her family's tangled story, she finds herself delving into the very memories she has worked so hard to forget. When the clues dry up in Gimli, Freya journeys to Iceland itself. On this rugged island of vast lava fields and immense glaciers, Freya's quest comes to its unsettling conclusion. A beautifully-written debut novel that deftly weaves together Iceland's distinctive history, ancient mythology, reverence for language, and passion for genealogy, The Tricking of Freya is a powerful exploration of kinship, loss and redemption. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Everything Ravaged, Everthing Burned: Stories
    Author: Tower, Wells
    $ 24 ISBN: 9780374292195 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    In Tower's debut collection of stories, families fall apart and messily try to reassemble themselves in an America that is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, and wayward sons.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Disastrous Voyage of the Santa Margarita
    Author: Woodman, Richard
    $ 28.95 ISBN: 9780727867230 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Among the coral outcrops of the island of Rota, lies the wreck of a Spanish galleon, the Santa Margarita - Spring 1601. This is a reconstruction of the Santa Margaritas disastrous last voyage, beset by an extraordinary sequence of typhoons and storms. Based on what little is known of the ships journey overloaded cargo, bad-blood amongst the crew and a curse we are told a story of greed, horror, deprivation and unimaginable hardship by the handful of survivors rescued from the wreck.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction | Sea Stories
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Lowboy
    Author: Wray, John
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780374194161Date: 2009
    starKirkus star PW
    Suspenseful and comic, devastating and hopeful by turns, Lowboy is a fearless exploration of youth, sex, and violence in contemporary America, seen through one boy's haunting and extraordinary vision.
    Updated 1.27.09

April

  • Thanks for the Memories
    Author: Ahern, Cecelia
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061706233 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    From the bestselling author of P.S. I Love You comes a mesmerizing tale of love and fate that explores what happens when what if becomes what is for two strangers whose lives are at a crossroads.
    Updated 1.30.09
  • Buffalo Lockjaw
    Author: Ames, Greg
    $14.99 ISBN: 9781401309800 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Then Comes Seduction
    Author: Balogh, Mary
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780440244233 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    A "New York Times"-bestselling author sweeps fans to an age of scandal and glittering society, bringing to life the daring, passionate Huxtable family. In this second book, youngest sister Katherine is about to turn the tables on the irresistible rake sworn to seduce her.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The King's Rifle
    Author: Bandele, Biyi
    $ 13.99 ISBN: 9780061582660 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    The King's Rifle depicts the experiences of black African soldiers in the Second World War. This vividly realized account details the madness, sacrifice, and the dark humor of that war's most vicious battlegrounds.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 1.27.09
  • American Salvage
    Author: Campbell, Bonnie Jo
    $ 18.95 ISBN: 9780814334126 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Prayers for Sale
    Author: Dallas, Sandra
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780312385187 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Dallas has created an unforgettable tale of a friendship between two women, one with surprising twists and turns, and one that is ultimately a revelation of the finest parts of the human spirit.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Dakota Cipher
    Author: Dietrich, William
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780061568008 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Ethan Gage, the hero of Napoleon's Pyramids and The Rosetta Key, is back in a rollicking new tale that takes him deep into colonial America's wilderness in search of adventure and treasure.
    Updated 1.30.09
  • Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
    Author: Dyer, Geoff
    $ 24 ISBN: 9780307377371 Date: 2009
    star PW
    "A haunting, if frequently hilarious, meditation on love and art, life and music . . . all reflected in the twinned mirror pools of Venice and Varanasi. And how rare it is to find a book so smart and winning that doesn't shy away from compelling philosophical investigation"--Joshua Ferris.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Wanting
    Author: Flanagan, Richard
    $24 ISBN: 9780802119001 Date: 2009
    star LJ star Kirkus
    From one of the most inventive and important international literary voices comes this powerful and moving tale of colonialism, ambition, and the lusts and longings that mark humanity's nature.
    Updated 4.28.09
  • Dont' Cry: Stories
    Author: Gaitskill, Mary
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780375424199 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    Following the extraordinary success of her novel Veronica, Gaitskill returns with a luminous new collection of stories--her first in more than 10 years.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Hold Love Strong
    Author: Goodman, Matthew
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781416562030 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    A young black man struggles to survive the New York City projects, in this poignant tale of self discovery in the face of familial, communal, and personal devastation.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • A Reliable Wife
    Author: Goolrick, Robert
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781565125964 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus
    Set in rural Wisconsin in 1909, Ralph Truitt stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts | Historical Fiction
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Please Step Back
    Author: Greenman, Ben
    $ 16.95 ISBN: 9781933633701 Date: 2009
    starPW
    The rise and fall of a true American icon: A rock star, inspired by genre-busting musicians of the sixties like Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, and Marvin Gaye.
    A swirling sixties saga of the rise and fall of a true American icon: A rock star. But not just any rock star: Rock Foxx is an outrageous showman whose unprecedented mixed-race, mixed-gender band made a new kind of socially conscious music that was infectious and tribal and scaled the heights of sixties rock stardom, all the way to Woodstock and beyond. But Foxx seemed to disappear at the height of his fame, his contagious, upbeat music darkening, then ending ubruptly amidst rumors of drugs and violence, as the culture itself exploded into massive riots and assassinations.
    In the hands of " New Yorker" editor Ben Greenman, it's a story that is both highly literary and simply entertaining, a tale about rock and roll and about a complicated but key moment in our history. Exciting, funny, disturbing and uplifting, with some of the most deft and absorbing writing about music ever to appear in American fiction, this pseudo-bio of a fascinating character is an amazing creation in itself, and sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.- Publisher Marketing
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Life Without Summer
    Author: Griffin, Lynne
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780312383886 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Life Without Summer tells the story of Tessa, a mother who has just lost her four-year-old daughter in a hit-and-run accident and the grief counselor, Celia, who tries to help her to put her life back together. When their lives begin to intersect in powerful and unexpected ways, they discover that the answers one needs might be the other's only chance for peace. Each woman's intensely personal journey reverberates with universal themes about the connections between love, marriage, truth, and forgiveness that no reader will forget.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Spy Game
    Author: Harding, Georgina
    $24 ISBN: 9781596915893 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus
    On a freezing January morning in 1961, eight-year-old Anna's mother disappears into the fog. The same day, a spy case breaks in the news. Anna's brother begins to construct a theory that their mother was a spy, in this beautifully wrought story about history and memory.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs
    Author: Harper, Molly
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9781416589426 Date: 2009
    starPW
    The first installment of a funny, smart, and sexy new romantic series by a debut author introduces Jane Jameson, an out-of-work, small-town librarian who is turned into a vampire.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The Believers
    Author: Heller, Zoe
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780061430206 Date: 2009
    star PW
    The highly anticipated new novel from the author of the acclaimed What Was She Thinking? is a rich, comic chronicle of one family's struggles with the consolations of faith and the trials of doubt.
    Updated 1.30.09
  • All Other Nights
    Author: Horn, Dara
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780393064926 Date: 2009
    starPW star Booklist
    On Passover in 1862, Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army, is ordered to murder his own uncle, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After that night, will Jacob ever speak for himself?
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Night Navigation
    Author: Howard, Ginnah
    $ 24 ISBN: 9780151014323 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    Night Navigation takes readers into the deranged, darkly humorous world of the addict--from gun-toting dealers to boot camp rehabs--and the nightmare of a mother's anger, worry, and despair as she tries to save her son from certain death.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Ghengis: Bones of the Hills
    Author: Iggulden, Conn
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780385339537 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Iggulden's novels are grand historical tales of conquest and vengeance, cruelty and greatness. Now the acclaimed author of Genghis: Birth of an Empire delivers a masterful new novel of the mighty Mongol conqueror--as Genghis Khan sets out to unify an entire continent.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Practice Makes Perfect
    Author: James, Julie
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780425226742 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    When it comes to the laws of attraction, there are no rules--and the battle between the sexes is about to make two lawyers hot under the collar.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Leaving Tangier
    Author: Jelloun, Tahar Ben
    $ 15 ISBN: 9780143114659 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    From one of the world's great writers, a breakthrough novel about leaving home for a better life
    In his new novel, award-winning, internationally bestselling author Tahar Ben Jelloun tells the story of a Moroccan brother and sister making new lives for themselves in Spain. Azel is a young man in Tangier who dreams of crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. When he meets Miguel, a wealthy Spaniard, he leaves behind his girlfriend, his sister, Kenza, and his mother, and moves with him to Barcelona, where Kenza eventually joins them. What they find there forms the heart of this novel of seduction and betrayal, deception and disillusionment, in which Azel and Kenza are reminded powerfully not only of where theyave come from, but also of who they really are. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The Color of Lightening
    Author: Jiles, Paulette
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780061690440 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    From the author of the "New York Times" bestsellers Enemy Women and Stormy Weather comes this stirring work of fiction set on the dangerous Texas frontier in the aftermath of the Civil War.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 5.21.09
  • The Ballad of West Tenth Street
    Author: Kernan, Marjorie
    $ 13.99 ISBN: 9780061669170 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Lively, lovely, charming, and surprising, this imaginative debut is a true-life fairy tale of an utterly unusual Manhattan.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 2.26.09
  • A Flickering Light
    Author: Kirkpatrick, Jane
    $ 13.99 ISBN: 9781578569809 Date: 2009
    starPW
    This luminous coming-of-age tale deftly exposes the intricate shadows that play across every dream worth pursuing--and the irresistible light that beckons the dreamer on.
    Suggested Reading: Christian Fiction
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Admission
    Author: Korelitz, Jean Hanff
    $24.99 ISBN: 9780446540704 Date: 2009
    starLJ star Kirkus
    Admission is at once a fascinating look at the complex college admissions process and an emotional examination of what happens when the secrets of the past return and shake a woman's life to its very core.
    Updated 3.3.09
  • Secret Son
    Author: Lalami, Laila
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781565124943 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    In the spirit of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Lalami's powerful first novel explores the struggle for identity, the need for family, and the desperation that overtakes ordinary lives in a country divided by class, politics, and religion.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Castle
    Author: Lennon, J. Robert
    $ 22 ISBN: 9781555975227 Date: 2009
    star PW
    In this contemporary novel about memory, guilt, power, and violence, a returning resident in a small upstate New York town sets out to explore a forbidding and almost impenetrable forest--lifeless, it seems, but for a bewitching white deer--that is the site of an 18th-century Indian massacre.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • How It Ended: New and Collected Stories
    Author: McInerney, Jay
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780307268051 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    From the writer whose debut, Bright Lights, Big City, defined a generation and whose seventh and most recent, The Good Life, was an acclaimed national bestseller comes a collection of stories old and new that trace the arc of McInerney's career.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Some Like It Wild
    Author: Mederios, Teresa
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780061235368 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    A follow-up to the bestseller Some Like It Wicked, this lushly written historical is set in the Scottish Highlands. Determined to save her sister from selling her virtue, a resourceful English beauty needs a Highland brute to pose as a duke's long-lost heir.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 4.22.09
  • When His Kiss Is Wicked
    Author: O'Riley, Kaitlin
    $ 5.99 ISBN: 9781420104462 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    O'Riley begins a five-book series focusing on five beautiful English sisters who, through their close bonds of friendship and support, overcome hardships while each embarks on a quest for love.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 2.26.09
  • News from the Empire
    Author: Paso, Fernando Del
    $ 18.95 ISBN: 9781564785336 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The Song Is You
    Author: Phillips, Arthur
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781400066469 Date: 2009
    starPW
    The bestselling author of Prague delivers a love story and a uniquely heartbreaking dark comedy about obsession and loss. It is a closely observed tale of love in the digital age that blurs the line between the longing for intimacy and the longing for oblivion.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Fortunate Age
    Author: Rakoff, Joanna Smith
    $ 26 ISBN: 9781416590774 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    From a major new literary talent comes an instantly compelling breakout first novel that tells the universal story of the starting-out years of a group of college friends living in Brooklyn.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Serendipity
    Author: Shaffer, Louise
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780345502094 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    A child of theatrical royalty, Carrie Manning is having a hard time getting her own act together. Having just buried a famous mother she never understood, she is desperate to uncover her family's mysterious past. At the heart of Carrie's discoveries lies a dark secret that has been buried for 30 years.
    Updated 1.27.09
  • Love or Something Like It
    Author: Shaw, Deidre
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781400067701 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Shaw's emotionally honest, clear-eyed debut novel follows a thirty-something woman forced to redefine love, career, and family after her young marriage falters.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Bitter Tide
    Author: Stamos, Ann
    $25.95 ISBN: 9781594147821 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Collector of Worlds
    Author: Troyanov, Iliya
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061351938 Date: 2009
    starPW
    This fictionalized account imagines the life of Sir Richard Francis Burton--a 19th-century British colonial officer and translator with a rare ability to assimilate into indigenous cultures.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 1.27.09
  • The Weight of Heaven
    Author: Umrigar, Thrity
    $ 25.99 ISBN: 9780061472541 Date: 2009
    starPW starBooklist star LJ
    From the bestselling author of The Space Between Us comes an emotionally-charged story about unexpected death, unhealed wounds, and the price one father will pay to protect himself from pain and loss.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 2.27.09
  • All of Me
    Author: Wilde, Lori
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780446502054 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    RITA finalist Wilde delivers the conclusion to her enchanting Wedding Veil Wishes series. When a searing betrayal leaves her jobless and heartbroken, attorney Jillian Samuels sets out for a new life in Salvation, Colorado, where she discovers a new love.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Tunneling to the Edge of the Earth
    Author: Wilson, Kevin
    $ 13.99 ISBN: 9780061579028 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways in which people try to cope with both.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Carpentaria
    Author: Wright, Alexis
    $ 26 ISBN: 9781416593102 Date: 2009
    starPW star LJ
    An internationally acclaimed and award-winning literary sensation ("The New York Times Book Review"),Carpentaria portrays an indigenous people's struggle for justice, independence, equality, and identity.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Once the Shore: Stories
    Author: Yoon, Paul
    $ 15.95 ISBN: 9781932511703 Date: 2009
    star PW
    "Paul Yoon writes stories the way Faberge made eggs: with untold craftsmanship, artistry, and delicacy. Again and again another layer of intricacy is revealed, proving that something as small as a story can be as satisfying and moving as a Russian novel."--Ann Patchett - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 3.31.09

May

  • At Last Comes Love
    Author: Balogh, Mary
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780440244240 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    A "New York Times"-bestselling author continues her series about the extraordinary Huxtable family with this third book. A scandal sends Duncan Pennethorne back home where his attempt to woo Margaret Huxtable proves more difficult than he thinks.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Seducing an Angel
    Author: Balogh, Mary
    $ 22 ISBN: 9780385341059 Date: 2009
    starLJ star Booklist
    Balogh confirms her position as a veritable treasure, a matchless storyteller who makes our hearts melt with delight ("Romantic Times"), with her latest work that continues the adventures of the Huxtable siblings of Regency England.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 5.15.09
  • Miss Harper Can Do It
    Author: Berentson, Jane
    $ 26 ISBN: 9780670020775 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    Told through the draft chapters of 24-year-old school teacher Annie Harper's memoir-in-progress, this funny and poignant story chronicles what it means to be loyal versus what it means to be in love.Updated 5.21.09
  • 5 Bodies to Die For
    Author: Bond Stephanie
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780778327059 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    The Charmed Killer is on the loose in Atlanta, and Carlotta Wren is caught up in the terror--especially when her body-moving side business brings her dangerously close to the action. Carlotta can't shake the feeling that the killer's exploits are becoming personal.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 5.21.09
  • Bridge of Sand
    Author: Burroway, Janet
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780151015436 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    In this beautifully written novel, Burroway uses a woman's personal loss, coincident with 9/11, to explore race, territory, and renewal.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • April & Oliver
    Author: Callahan, Tess
    $ 23.99 ISBN: 9780446540599 Date: 2009
    starLJ
    A devastating tragedy serves to reunite two friends from childhood, in this emotionally compelling and sexually charged first novel from an exciting new voice in fiction.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Hello Goodbye
    Author: Chenoweth, Emily
    $24 ISBN: 9781400065172 Date: 2009
    star PW
    A heartbreaking, beautifully-crafted debut novel about friendship, loyalty, and growing up--Hello Goodbye follows a dying woman's final vacation with her family at a lavish New England resort.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Four Freedoms
    Author: Crowley, John
    $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780061231506 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    From the critically acclaimed author of Lord Byron's Novel and The Translator comes an imaginative account of war and peace, innocence and wisdom, set in 1940's America.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Vintage
    Author: Darling, Olivia
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780440245148 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Three women who are competing to produce the season's top champagne discover this lavish world has an undercurrent of sabotage. [A] wonderful, intelligent blockbuster.--Sophie Kinsella.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Repeat After Me
    Author: DeWoskin, Rachel
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781590202227 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Aysha is a twenty-two-year-old New Yorker putting the pieces of her life back in place after her parents' divorce and her own nervous breakdown when a young Chinese student named Da Ge flips her world upside-down. In a love story that spans decades and continents, from the Tiananmen Square incident to 9/11, New York City's Upper West Side to the terraced mountains of South China, Repeat After Me gives readers an alternately funny and painful glimpse of life and loss in between languages.- Publisher Marketing
    Updated 4.22.09
  • The Ingenious Edgar Jones
    Author: Garner, Elizabeth
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780307408990 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Darkly satisfying and compulsively readable, The Ingenious Edgar Jones is an unforgettable coming-of-age story about the complexities of family life and the journey of one young man as he finds his place in a rapidly changing world.
    Updated 4.22.09
  • True Love and Other
    Author: Gibson, Rachel
    $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780061579066 Date: 2009
    star PW
    After her very wealthy--and very old--husband dies, Faith Duffy inherits a pile of money and a pro hockey team. Sexy player Ty Savage dreams of winning the Stanley Cup. Faith loathes Ty at first, but soon she begins to see there's more to him than sex appeal.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Sunnyside
    Author: Gold, Glen David
    $ 27.50 ISBN: 9780307270689 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star PW star LJ
    From the author of the acclaimed bestseller Carter Beats the Devil comes a novel that dramatizes the moment when American capitalism, a world at war, and the emerging mecca of Hollywood intersect to spawn an enduring culture of celebrity.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Historical Fiction
    Updated 4.22.09
  • A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy
    Author: Greig, Charlotte
    $ 15 ISBN: 9781590513170 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus
    A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy is a delightfully insightful, bittersweet coming-of-age romp, in which love is far from platonic and the mind-body predicament becomes a pressing reality.
    Updated 5.21.09
  • Love and Obstacles
    Author: Hemon, Aleksandar
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781594488641 Date: 2009
    starPW star Booklist star Kirkus
    Aleksandar Hemon earned his reputation and his MacArthur genius grant for his short stories, and he returns to the form with a powerful collection of linked stories that stands with The Lazarus Project as the best work of his celebrated career. A few of the stories have never been published before; the others have appeared in "The New Yorker," and several of those have also been included in "The Best American Short Stories." - Publisher Marketing
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Appassionata
    Author: Hoffman, Eva
    $23.95 ISBN: 9781590513194 Date: 2009
    star PW star Booklist
    In this story of contemporary love and conflict, Hoffman illuminates the currents and undercurrents of modern times, as she explores the luminous and dark faces of romanticism.
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Nobody Move
    Author: Johnson, Denis
    $ 22 ISBN: 9780374222901 Date: 2009
    star PW
    From the National Book Award-winning, bestselling author of Tree of Smoke comes a provocative, thrilling work set in the American West.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Walking People
    Author: Keane, Mary Beth
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780547126524 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus
    Debut author Keane offers an extended meditation on leaving, finding, and making home in a novel focused on the new Irish immigrant experience--"Publishers Weekly."
    Suggested Reading: Debut
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Drawings in the Dust
    Author: Klein, Zoe
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781416599128 ate: 2009
    starBooklist
    By turns philosophical, suspenseful, and passionate, this brilliant debut novel--in the bestselling tradition of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent--transports readers into a mystical world and takes them on a journey they won't soon forget.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 5.21.09
  • The Scenic Route
    Author: Kirshenbaum, Binnie
    $ 13.99 ISBN: 9780060784744 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Divorced, alone, and unexpectedly unemployed, Sylvia Landsman flees to Italy, where she meets Henry, a wistful, married, middle-aged expatriate. Taking off on a grand tour of Europe bankrolled with his wife's money, Henry and Sylvia follow a circuitous route around the continent--as Sylvia entertains Henry with stories of her peculiar family and her damaged friends, of dead ducks and Alma Mahler. Her narrative is a tapestry of remembrances and regrets...and her secret shame: a small, cowardly sin of omission. Yet when the opportunity arises for Sylvia and Henry to do something small but brave, the refrain "if only" returns to haunt her, leaving Sylvia with one more story of love lived and lost.- Publisher Marketing
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet
    Author: Larsen, Reif
    $ 27.95 ISBN: 9781594202179 Date: 2009
    star LJ star Booklist
    This brilliant, boundary-leaping debut novel traces 12-year-old genius map-maker T.S. Spivet's attempts to understand the ways of the world.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 5.15.09
  • The Family Man
    Author: Lipman, Elinor
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780618644667 Date: 2009
    starPW star LJ
    A hysterical phone call from his ex-wife and a familiar face in a photograph upend Henry Archer's well-ordered life to bring him back into contact with the child he adored, a stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long ago.
    Updated 5.15.09
  • The Four Corners of the Sky
    Author: Malone, Michael
    $ 24.99 ISBN: 9781570717444 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star Kirkus
    From the masterful author of Handling Sin comes this riveting novel of love, secrets, and the mysterious bonds of family.
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Censoring: An Iranian Love Story
    Author: Mandanipour, Shahriar
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780307269782 Date: 2009
    starLJstar Booklist
    From one of Iran's most acclaimed and controversial contemporary writers comes his first novel to appear in English--a dazzlingly inventive work of fiction that opens a revelatory window onto what it's like to live, love, and be an artist in today's Iran.
    Updated 4.22.09
  • How to Sell
    Author: Martin, Clancy
    $24 ISBN: 9780374173357 Date: 2009
    starPW star Booklist
    Bobby Clark is just 16 when he drops out of school to follow his big brother Jim into the jewelry business. What follows is the story of a young man's education in two of the oldest human passions, love and money.
    Updated 4.22.09
  • The Great Perhaps
    Author: Meno, Joe
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780393067965 Date: 2009
    starLJ star Booklist
    With wit and humor, this new work from acclaimed author and playwright Meno (Hairstyles of the Damned) presents a revealing look at anxiety, ambiguity, and the need for complicated answers to complex questions.
    Updated 3.30.09
  • The Wicked Way of a True Hero
    Author: Metzger, Barbara
    $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780451226341 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Daniel Stamfield is invaluable to the British Army for his ability to detect the truth from the enemy's lies. After years of service, Daniel finally takes a respite, but doesn't count on Corisande Abbott and her unsavory reputation to reenter his life.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Pygmy
    Author: Palahniuk, Chuck
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780385526340 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Palahniuk depicts Midwestern life through the eyes of Pygmy, a thoroughly indoctrinated little killer who hates America with a passion, in this cunning double-edged satire
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Woodsburner
    Author: Pipkin, John
    $ 24 ISBN: 9780385528658 Date: 2009
    starKirkus star LJ
    On April 30, 1844, Henry David Thoreau accidentally started a forest fire that destroyed 300 acres of the Concord woods. Against the background of Thoreau's fire, Pipkin's ambitious debut penetrates the mind of the young philosopher.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts | Historical Fiction
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles
    Author: Rodriguez, Milanes
    $ 15.95 ISBN: 9780981504025 Date: 2009
    star PW
    A panoramic portrait of the Cuban American community, Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles shares the joys, tragedies, and amazing resiliency of the Cuban immigrants who arrived in this country via the Mariel boat lift of 1980 (marielitos) and the "rafters" (balseros) who came in the years afterward. The stories in this debut collection reveal the full social, economic and emotional scope of the immigrant experience, from the repression that many of the "boat people" experienced in Castro's Cuba, the discrimination they encounter upon their arrival in America, and their struggles to build a new life in the United States. Written in an arresting style that marries English with the native Spanish of the characters, Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles is an important achievement by a new voice in Latino Literature.- Publisher Marketing
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Halfway House
    Author: Rosales, Guillermo
    $ 14.95 ISBN: 9780811218023 Date: 2009
    star PW
    A halfway house is ostensibly a refuge for the mentally ill and those abandoned to poverty by their respective families. However, Rosales writes about a particular house - ruled by an abusive supervisor who sees the house as his personal kingdom and occasionally uses its residents for his sexual pleasures. The central characters are a Cuban American man in his thirties and his equally mentally unstable love, a young woman in her twenties, who try to flee the halfway house. Saddled down by his books and her numerous belongings, they only manage to get far enough away for a taste of real freedom. Sad, tender, and dark, The Halfway House introduces an important Cuban writer to American readers.- Publisher Marketing
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Home Repair
    Author: Rosenberg, Liz
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780061734564 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Prize-winning poet Rosenberg's debut novel is a bittersweet and moving story of a woman whose husband takes off while she is in the middle of a garage sale, leaving her to deal with loss--and maybe a chance at a whole new life.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 5.21.09
  • Pythagoras' Revenge
    Author: Sangalli, Arturo
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780691049557 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    "A fascinating thriller that weaves together historical fiction, mathematical intrigue, and mighty philosophical clashes, all with Pythagoras' teachings as a backdrop. It will keep you riveted from the first page to the last."--Eli Maor, author of The Pythagorean Theorem
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 6.17.09
  • Shanghai Girls
    Author: See, Lisa
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781400067114 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    From the author of the bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love comes a stunning new novel about two sisters who leave Shanghai to find new lives in 1930's Los Angeles.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 5.21.09
  • Burnt Shadows
    Author: Shamsie, Kamila
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780312551872 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Sweeping in scope and mesmerizing in its evocation of time and place, Burnt Shadows is an epic narrative of disasters eluded and confronted, loyalties offered and repaid, and loves rewarded and betrayed.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • The Visables
    Author: Shepard, Sara
    $ 24 ISBN: 9781416597360 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    From bestselling author Shepard, The Visibles is a geneticist's diary of family, fate, DNA, and destiny that explores whether real happiness is a gift or a choice.
    Updated 5.21.09
  • Brooklyn
    Author: Toibin, Colm
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781439138311 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus star LJ
    From the award-winning author of The Master comes a moving historical novel set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, concerning a young woman torn between her family and her past in Ireland and the American who wins her heart.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Into the Beautiful North
    Author: Urrea, Luis Alberto
    $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780316025270 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Nineteen-year-old Nayeli works at a taco shop in her Mexican village and dreams about her father, who journeyed to the U.S. to find work. Into the Beautiful North is the story of a young woman's quest to find herself on both sides of the fence.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • A Short History of Women
    Author: Walbert, Kate
    $ 24 ISBN: 9781416594987 Date: 2009
    starPW star Booklist
    From a lecture delivered to suffragettes in Victorian England to a playdate on Manhattan's Upper West Side, this provocative work chronicles four generations of women, their aspirations, the limits imposed on them, and the sometimes startling choices they make in the world.
    Updated 3.30.09
  • Love Stories in this Town
    Author: Ward, Amanda Eyre
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780812980110 Date: 2009
    starKirkus
    From San Francisco to Savannah, Montana to Texas, Amanda Eyre Ward's characters are united in their fervent search to find a place where they truly belong. Annie, a librarian in a small mining town, must choose between the only home she's ever known and the possibility of a new future. Casey, a suburban New Yorker with a wry sense of humor, braves the dating scene after losing her husband. And in six linked stories spanning a decade of her life, Lola Wilkerson navigates elopement, motherhood, and lingering questions about who she wants to be when she grows up. Whether exploring the fierceness of a mother's love or the consolations of marriage, Amanda Eyre Ward's stories are imbued with humor, clear-eyed insight, and emotional richness.- Publisher Marketing
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Sag Harbor
    Author: Whitehead, Colson
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780385527651 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star PW
    In this deeply affectionate and fiercely funny coming-of-age novel, Whitehead--using the perpetual mortification of teenage existence and the desperate quest for reinvention--beautifully explores racial and class identity, illustrating the complex rhythms of the adult world.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Mrs. Somebody Somebody: Stories
    Author: Winn, Tracy
    $ 22.50 ISBN: 9780870745546 Date: 2009
    starPW
    Updated 2.26.09

June

  • Between Assassinations: Stories
    Author: Adiga, Aravind
    $ 24 ISBN: 9781439152928 Date: 2009
    starPW star Kirkus star LJ
    The dazzling new book from the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Between the Assassinations brings to life a chorus of distinctive Indian voices, all inhabitants in the fictional town of Kittur.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 6.10.09
  • In the Kitchen
    Author: Ali, Monica
    $ 26 ISBN: 9781416571681 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star Kirkus
    From the bestselling author of Brick Lane comes her long-awaited second novel that takes readers into a rich and fascinating London subculture--the intoxicating world of chefs and kitchen denizens from every culture and class in London.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • You or Someone Like You
    Author: Burr, Chandler
    $ 26 ISBN: 9780061715655 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus
    This remarkable debut novel by an acclaimed "New York Times" writer is at once an odyssey through classic literature and a heartbreakingly real portrait of a marriage as it unravels.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 5.21.09
  • The Signal
    Author: Carllson, Ron
    $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780670021000 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Carlson's love for the mountains and his mastery of fiction radiate in the pages of this thrilling, fast-paced love story.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Brodeck
    Author: Claudel, Philippe
    $ 26 ISBN: 9780385527248 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Reminiscent of the works of Franz Kafka and J.M. Coetzee, this mesmerizing novel offers a powerful and moving exploration of a stranger who incites frenzy in a complacent town by exposing the dark secrets the villagers desire to keep hidden.Updated 5.20.09
  • I Am Not Sidney Poitier
    Author: Everett, Percival
    $ 16 ISBN: 9781555975272 Date: 2009
    star PW
    An irresistible comic novel from master storyteller Everett, who pens an irreverent take on race, class, and identity in America.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars
    Updated 5.20.09
  • Gifts of War
    Author: Ford, Mackenzie
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780385528955 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    A vivid tale of romance, adventure, and intrigue, Gifts of War is a remarkable narrative that explores what had made War World I so tragic, so revolutionary, and so exciting.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 3.31.09
  • An Elegy for Easterly
    Author: Gappah, Petina
    $ 22 ISBN: 9780865479067 Date: 2009
    star PW star Kirkus
    In her spirited debut collection, author Gappah portrays the resilience and inventiveness of the Zimbabwean people who struggle with issues common to people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams, and the yearning for something to anchor them to life.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 5.20.09
  • The Enthusiast
    Author: Haas, Charlie
    $ 13.99 ISBN: 9780061711824 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Henry Bay is a modern nomad, associate-editing his way from state to state, exploring the small worlds that make up modern America in a string of comic literary adventures.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Story Sisters
    Author: Hoffman, Alice
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780307393869 Date: 2009
    starBooklist star PW
    A family is shattered when one of three sisters dies tragically in an automobile accident. How the family survives--separates, reconfigures, and reconciles--is at the heart of this exquisite exploration of the ties that bind.
    Updated 4.20.09
  • The Unit
    Author: Holmquist
    $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781590513132 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    The Unit is a gripping exploration of a society in the throes of an experiment, in which the "dispensable" people--those in their 60s, childless, or unemployed--are convinced of the importance of sacrificing for the "necessary" ones.
    Updated 6.17.09
  • The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
    Author: Howe, Katherine
    $ 26 ISBN: 9781401340902 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    Written by an author completing a Ph.D. in New England Studies, and whose ancestors had been accused witches in Salem, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane travels seamlessly between the trials in the 1690s and a modern woman's story of mystery and discovery.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 5.21.09
  • Lucky Everyday
    Author: Jain, Bapsy
    $ 14 ISBN: 9780143115359 Date: 2009
    star LJ
    A stunning novel about one woman's struggle toward enlightenment, Lucky Everyday blends the principles of yoga with a thoroughly modern take on the quest for a fulfilled life.
    Updated 6.10.09
  • The Year That Follows
    Author: Lasser, Scott
    $ 23 ISBN: 9780307271198 Date: 2009
    starKirkus star Booklist
    From the highly praised author of All I Could Get comes a powerful, absorbing new novel about a family after 9/11 and the complexities of bloodlines, home, and heritage.
    Updated 4.15.09
  • Black Water Rising
    Author: Locke, Attica
    $I25.99 ISBN: 9780061735868 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    In the tradition of Greg Iles and Dennis Lehane comes a powerful new new voice in American fiction. Locke's debut thriller involves murder, greed, and redemption, set in the oil boomtown of 1980s Houston.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars
    Updated 3.31.09
  • The Winter Vault
    Author: Michaels, Anne
    $25 ISBN: 9780307270825 Date: 2009
    star PW
    From the author of the acclaimed Fugitive Pieces comes a mesmerizing love story that juxtaposes historical events with the most intimate moments of individual lives.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Dismantled
    Author: McMahon, Jennifer
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780061689338 Date: 2009
    star PW
    The "New York Times"-bestselling author of Island of Lost Girls presents a chilling work in which the secrets of the past come back to haunt a group of friends in terrifying ways.
    Updated 5.20.09
  • Somethings That Mean the World To Me
    Author: Mohr
    $ 15.50 ISBN: 9780982015117 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Following a 30-year-old man named Rhonda suffering from depersonalization, Some Things That Meant the World to Me is a gritty and beautiful work that is creative and hypnotic, and should stand as an introduction of an original new voice to American literature.- Publisher Marketing
    Updated 3.31.09
  • Come Sunday
    Author: Morley, Isla
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780374126872 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    A wonderful new storyteller unleashes a soaring debut that sweeps from the hills of Hawaii to the veldt of South Africa. Come Sunday is a novel about searching for a true homeland, family bonds torn asunder, and the unearthing of decades-old secrets.
    Updated 4.22.09
  • Far Bright Star
    Author: Olmstead, Robert
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781565125926 Date: 2009
    star PW star Kirkus
    Set in 1916, Far Bright Star follows Napoleon Childs, an aging cavalryman, as he leads an expedition of inexperienced soldiers into the mountains of Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa and bring him to justice.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 3.31.09
  • White Is for Witching
    Author: Oyeyemi, Helen
    $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780385526050 Date: 2009
    starPW
    With distinct originality and grace, and an extraordinary gift for making the fantastic believable, Oyeyemi spins the politics of family and nation into a riveting and unforgettable tale.
    Updated 2.26.09
  • Drift
    Author: Patterson, Victoria
    $ 13 ISBN: 9780547054940 Date: 2009
    star PW
    From a fresh new voice comes this wise and intimate debut collection that offers a fascinating glimpse of exclusive Newport Beach through the lives of ordinary people who, in some way, find themselves on the outside looking in.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
    Updated 5.20.09
  • Red April
    Author: Roncalglio, Santiago
    $ 24 ISBN: 9780375425448 Date: 2009
    star PW
    Reminiscent of Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives comes this chilling, internationally acclaimed political thriller by one of Latin America's most important young writers.
    Updated 3.31.09
  • A Monster's Notes
    Author: Sheck, Laurie
    $ 30 ISBN: 9780307271051 Date: 2009
    star Kirkus star Booklist
    This bold, genre-defying book offers Mary Shelley's monster's story in his own words. Sheck's thrilling work is a luminous meditation on creativity and technology, alienation and otherness, and on the need to be understood.
    Updated 5.21.09
  • Far North
    Author: Theroux, Marcel
    $25 ISBN: 9780374153533 Date: 2009
    star PW starBooklist
    Far North takes the reader on a quest through an unforgettable arctic landscape, from humanity's origins to its possible end.
    Updated 5.15.09
  • Do Not Deny Me: Stories
    Author: Thompson, Jean
    $ 14 ISBN: 9781416595632 Date: 2009
    starPW star Booklist
    "If there are Jean Thompson characters, ' they're us, and never have we been so articulate and worthy of compassion. These stories confirm that no one is beneath her interest, or beyond her sure and seemingly limitless reach."--David Sedaris.
    Updated 5.15.09
  • My Father's Tears and Other Stories
    Author: Updike, John
    $ 25 ISBN: 9780307271563 Date: 2009
    starBooklist starKirkus star LJ star PW
    Updike's first collection of new short fiction since the year 2000, My Father's Tears finds the author in a valedictory mood as he mingles narratives of his native Pennsylvania with stories of New England suburbia and of foreign travel.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 4.22.09
  • The Favorites
    Author: Waters, Mary Yukari
    $ 25 ISBN: 9781416561071 Date: 2009
    starBooklist
    From an award-winning author comes an elegant work about mothers and daughters, secrets and silences, and familial bonds in a culture where custom dictates behavior.
    Updated 5.21.09
  • The New Valley
    Author: Weil, Josh
    $ 22 ISBN: 9780802118912 Date: 2009
    starPW
    The linked novellas that comprise Weil's masterful debut bring readers into America's remote, unforgiving backcountry, and delicately unveil the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss, and their own personal demons.
    Suggested Reading: Debut
    Updated 2.26.09