Archives de catégorie : Fiction

AKIKOS STILLES GLÜCK de Jan-Philipp Sendker

Where does your own personal story begin? A young woman searching for the truth about herself – a profoundly human and heartwarming story.

AKIKOS STILLES GLÜCK
(Akiko’s Quiet Happiness)
by Jan-Philipp Sendker
Blessing/PRH Verlagsgruppe, September 2024

Ever since her mother’s death, 29-year-old Akiko has led a modest and reclusive life in Tokyo. Her monotonous job as a bookkeeper offers little excitement, and she has no real friends or family. Then, one evening, she runs into an old face from her schooldays: Kento is an outsider, just like her, and even back then she always felt drawn to him. As if that wasn’t enough, Akiko is shocked to discover that the man she thought of as her dad was in fact only a hired actor, paid by her single mother to play a part. Akiko begins to wonder: is everything a lie? And, more profoundly: who is she, really?
And so Akiko embarks on a journey into her own history – a physical and emotional journey she never thought herself capable of…

The major new novel by one the most successful German-language authors. A touching Japan-based tale in a stunning, atmospheric setting.

Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg, spent many years working as US and Asia correspondent for Stern magazine. After a further spell in the US, he returned to Germany, and has since published several books, including a collection of portraits entitled Risse in der Großen Mauer (« Cracks in the Great Wall »; Blessing, 2000). His bestselling novel Das Herzenhören (« Listening to heartbeats », 2002) was followed by Das Flüstern der Schatten (« Whispering shadows », 2007), Drachenspiele (« Dragon games », 2009), Herzenstimmen (« Speaking hearts », 2012), Am anderen Ende der Nacht (« At the far end of the night », 2016), Das Geheimnis des alten Mönches (« The old monk’s secret », 2017), Das Gedächtnis des Herzens (« Heart memories », 2019) and Die Rebellin und der Dieb (« The rebel and the thief », 2021). His books have been translated into more than 35 languages, and have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide, making him one of the most successful German-language authors today.

WESTFALLEN d’Ann Brashares et Ben Brashares

A mind-bending, time-warp, action-packed new middle-grade trilogy from #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants author Ann Brashares and her brother Ben Brashares! Six well-meaning kids change the course of history in the worst possible way, in a thrilling new story that asks what life would be like today had Germany won World War II. Welcome to WESTFALLEN!

WESTFALLEN
by Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares
Simon & Schuster, September 2024
(via Writers House)

Henry, Frances, and Lukas are neighbours, and they used to be best friends. But in middle school Frances became too cool, Lukas got into baseball, and Henry just felt left behind. When a dead gerbil brings them together again for a pet funeral, the three ex-friends make a mind-blowing discovery: a radio, buried in Henry’s backyard, that allows them to talk to another group of kids in the same town . . . in the same backyard . . . eighty years in the past.

The kids in 1944 want to know about the future: are there jetpacks? Laser guns? Is there teleportation? Most of all, they want to know about the outcome of the world war their dad and brothers are fighting in. Henry is cautious—he’s seen movies about what happens when you disrupt the fabric of time—but figures there’s no harm in telling them a little bit. And, at first, nothing changes—well, nothing big, anyway.

Until one conversation between the new friends changes history in the biggest way possible. And now it’s up to Henry, Frances, and Lukas to change it back.

Ann Brashares is the author of the global phenomenon Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, as well as several other novels. Before becoming a writer, she was a student of philosophy, a receptionist, an editor, a ghostwriter, and, briefly, the copresident of a small media company.

Ben Brashares is the author of Being Edie Is Hard Today and The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection. He holds an MFA in creative writing and has worked at and written for several magazines, including Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Entertainment Weekly.

WAR HOUR de Lauren Loscig

When powers are earned and not born, who shall wield them?

WAR HOUR
(The Broken Trials, Book 1)
by Lauren Loscig
Self-published, November 2023
(via The Whalen Agency)

Lysta lives in constant fear of Trialing, a deadly test that bestows an ability upon its victors, but only after pushing their mental and physical limits. Forced to Trial against her will, Lysta becomes a weapon others plan to use against the Untrialed, until an unexpected intruder from another Court presents her with an opportunity to stop it. But can she trust the plans of a man who seems to play the lines between enemy and ally?

Only through treason can Lysta save the people she once struggled beside. With the fate of her Court and the lives of the Untrialed at stake, the burden will fall on Lysta to convince the other Courts to intervene. Not to mention, the Crowns seem to fear the frustrating albeit handsome man who rescued her more than the one she testifies against. Lysta must find her own strength in a world of powers, battles, and court politics while navigating tumultuous relationships and hidden enemies.

Will Lysta save her Court or be ended by it?

Lauren Loscig is the debut author of YA Fantasy, WAR HOUR, first in The Broken Trials series. A lifelong reader and writer, she prefers being enraptured in stories rather than reality, whether that be in books, fanfiction, or her imagination.

THE WEDDING PEOPLE d’Alison Espach bientôt adapté au cinéma

La société de production TriStar Pictures a remporté aux enchères les droits d’adaptation du prochain roman d’Alison Espach, THE WEDDING PEOPLE.

A la réalisation, le duo formé par Will Speck et Josh Gordon (Hit Monkey, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Blades of Glory, The Switch, Office Christmas Party) adaptera le scénario écrit par Nicole Holofcener (nominée aux Oscars pour le scénario du film Les Faussaires de Manhattan). Les sociétés Speck + Gordon Inc. et Concordia Studio produiront le film en partenariat avec TriStar. (Lire l’article de Deadline)

Dans le roman, Phoebe, à la suite d’une rencontre fortuite dans un ascenseur, se lie d’amitié avec une future mariée et se retrouve invitée à son mariage, ce qui change à jamais le cours de la vie des deux femmes. Le roman sera publié en juillet 2024 par Henry Holt & Co. aux États-Unis.

Les droits de langue française sont toujours disponibles.

THE MIDNIGHT CLUB de Margot Harrison

Four friends solve the decades-old murder of their best friend with the help of a drug that can not only bring them back to the past, but change it.

THE MIDNIGHT CLUB
by Margot Harrison
Graydon House/HarperCollins, September 2024
(via Context Literary Agency)

“How could you leave the past undisturbed when it was hiding parts of you from yourself?”

It’s been twenty-five years since The Midnight Club last convened. A tight-knit group of college friends bonded by late nights at the campus literary magazine, they’re also bonded by something darker: the death of their brilliant friend Jennet junior year. But now, decades later, a mysterious invitation has pulled them back to the pine-shrouded Vermont town where it all began.

As the estranged friends gather for a weeklong campus reunion, they soon learn that their host has an ulterior motive: she wants them to uncover the truth about the night Jennet died, and she’s provided them with an extraordinary method—a secret substance that helps them not only remember but relive the past.

But each one of the friends has something to hide. And the more they question each other, the deeper they dive into their own memories, the more they understand that nothing they thought they knew about their college years, and that fateful night, is true.

The Midnight Club explores that innate desire to revisit our first loves, our biggest mistakes, and the gulf between who we are and who we hoped we’d be.

“A strange, riveting, brilliant fable. Like a fever-dream of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.” —Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians

“I devoured THE MIDNIGHT CLUB. It’s a smart, surprising, and gripping mystery about the reality that we can’t change who we were back in college, but we’d all be a lot better off if we could. And, for the characters in this fine novel, one of them might even still be alive.” —Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant

Margot Harrison is the author of four young adult novels, including an Indies Introduce Pick, Junior Library Guild Selections, and Vermont Book Award Finalists. She grew up in New York and now lives in Vermont. THE MIDNIGHT CLUB is her debut adult novel.