Archives de catégorie : Fiction

THE OTHER SIDE OF NOW de Paige Harbison

A hilarious and heartfelt novel about how loves and lives are never truly lost, for fans of Rebecca Serle and Taylor Jenkins Reid.

THE OTHER SIDE OF NOW
by Paige Harbison
St. Martin’s Press, June 2025

With a leading role on a hit TV show and a relationship with Hollywood’s latest heartthrob, Meg Bryan appears to have everything she ever wanted. But underneath the layers of makeup and hairspray, her happiness is as fake as her stage name, Lana Lord. Following a small breakdown at her thirtieth birthday party, she books an impromptu trip where she knows the grass is greener: Ireland. Specifically, the quaint little village where she and her best friend Aimee always dreamt of moving―a dream that fell apart when an accident claimed Aimee’s life a decade ago.

When Meg arrives, the people in town are so nice, treating her not as a stranger, but a friend. Except for the (extremely hot) bartender giving her the cold shoulder. Meg writes it all off as jetlag until she looks in the mirror. Her hair is no longer bleached within an inch of its life, her skin has a few natural fine lines, and her nose looks like… well, her old nose. Her real nose.

Her phone reveals hundreds of pictures of her life in this little town: with an adorable dog she doesn’t know; with the bartender who might be her (ex?) boyfriend; and at a retail job unrelated to acting. Eventually, she comes to accept that she somehow made a quantum slide into an alternate version of her life. But the most shocking realization of all? In this life, her best friend Aimee is alive and well…but wants nothing to do with Meg.

Despite her bewilderment, Meg is clear-eyed about one thing: this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reconnect with her friend and repair what she broke. She finagles an opportunity to act in the play Aimee is writing and directing and as the project unfolds, Meg realizes that events as she remembers them may not be the only truth, and that an impossible choice looms before her.

Paige Harbison is the author of three YA novels, the first of which was published in 2011 when she was just nineteen years old. More recently, she’s worked on several celebrity projects as a ghostwriter. The Other Side of Now is her adult debut. A woman of many talents, she’s also a beautiful artist (check out the pet portraits on her website) and has a solid social media presence, amassing millions of views on her one-minute-movies. She lives in L.A. with her boyfriend and their dog Tarot.

ALL THE SINNERS BLEED de S.A. Cosby remporte le Grand prix des lectrices de Elle 2024

 

S.A. Cosby a remporté hier soir le Grand prix des lectrices de Elle dans la catégorie policier pour ALL THE SINNERS BLEED, paru chez Sonatine en janvier 2024 sous le titre LE SANG DES INNOCENTS (traduction de Pierre Szczeciner).

Le Grand prix des lectrices de Elle a été créé en 1970 par Hélène Lazareff en opposition aux jurys littéraires traditionnellement composés de professionnels (écrivains, journalistes ou éditeurs). En effet, les vainqueurs du prix Elle sont désignés par un jury de lectrices amateurs indépendantes. La création des catégories « Prix Elle du meilleur roman » et « Prix Elle du meilleur document » remonte à 1977, et fut étendue au meilleur roman policier à partir de 2002. Chaque année, 120 lectrices sont sélectionnées parmi les candidates ayant présenté leurs lectures et une chronique de livre. Elles sont organisées autour de 8 jury tournants mensuels de quinze lectrices et seront chargées de lire l´ensemble de la sélection faite par le magazine Elle qui exclut d´office les titres déjà reconnus par les grands prix littéraires. En 2024, 56 livres étaient sélectionnés toutes catégories confondues.

 

(Source : Babelio)

PEOPLE COLLIDE de Isle McElroy bientôt adapté en série tv

Abbi Jacobson, co-créatrice et star de la série Broad City, adaptera le roman de Isle McElroy en série TV.  C’est la société Killer Films (Boys Don’t Cry, I’m Not There, Mildred Pierce, Still Alice, Carol…) qui produira la série en partenariat avec UCP (Monk, Suits, Mr. Robot, The Umbrella Academy…) Abbi Jacobson écrira également le scénario tiré du roman.

Isle McElroy a fait part de son enthousiasme pour ce projet : “I’ve been a massive fan of Abbi Jacobson’s work for years, and I’m thrilled by her vision for the project. I can’t think of a better writer to capture People Collide’s mix of intimacy, drama, and humor. Killer Films has made some of my favorite movies of all time. I deeply admire their commitment to creating unique, unforgettable work. I’m so grateful for the enthusiasm UCP has brought to People Collide. It’s an honor to be working together.”

(Lire l’article de Deadline)

Le roman PEOPLE COLLIDE, publié aux États-Unis chez HarperVia en septembre 2023, explore les notions de genre, d’identité, de couple et de sexualité, et soulève des questions profondes sur la vraie nature des relations amoureuses :

Engrossing, eye-opening, and provocative, PEOPLE COLLIDE delivers a clever twist on the “body swap” concept. Set mainly in Bulgaria and France, the novel centers on the courtship and marriage of Elijah and his wife, Elizabeth. On an otherwise regular day, Eli wakes up alone in the cramped Bulgarian apartment he shares with his more organized and successful wife, and finds himself, somehow, in her body. His male body has vanished, and the person who once resided in Elizabeth’s is gone without a trace. He comes to label this transformation as “the Incident”.  Everyone they know assumes Eli abandoned Elizabeth suddenly and without explanation. What follows is a search across Europe for a missing woman—and a roving, no-holds-barred exploration of gender, identity, and embodied experience. As Eli learns to live in Elizabeth’s body (and wonders if he has lost his mind), he also begins to wonder: will their once vibrant, recently stagnant marriage finally wither in their new bodies? Or could it actually thrive?

« A more agile, universal book, with its title alluding to the randomness of human connection. It’s a variety of rom-com, really, that somewhat lost art. . . . [People Collide‘s] naturalness and ease with the most fundamental questions of existence make it a big project knocking around in a small package, portending even bigger projects ahead. » — The New York Times

« People Collide takes a sudden turn in its final pages, building toward an ending that’s genuinely moving and redemptive, though not in the way the reader has been expecting. The finale is so good, in fact, that it elevates the entire book, making it one of the year’s most compelling reads. Ultimately, McElroy discovers that gender-swap narratives may really be about tracing the wavy line between envy and desire. » —  The Washington Post 

« People Collide‘s Freaky Friday concept covers a deep exploration of marriage, love, and the ways we know one another—and don’t—as well as how slippery a sense of self can be when so much of how we navigate the world depends on how it sees us. » — NPR

« A creative, well-written exploration of marriage, gender, and desire. » — Kirkus Reviews

« Engrossing . . . an impressive twist on the familiar trope of marital ennui. » — Publishers Weekly

« Compelling, hilarious, and thought-provoking, this is a fascinating Freaky Friday-like thought-experiment that questions the performance and expectations of gender roles, the body-mind puzzle, how class can define a person’s perspective, and the definition of identity. » — Booklist

« Expertly interrogates gender roles and questions the ties that bind lovers together. » — Vogue

« Fascinating … an entertaining, thoughtful depiction of how we choose to exist, and its implications for how we love. » — Elle

Isle McElroy (they/them) is a nonbinary author based in Brooklyn. Their writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Cut, Esquire, The Guardian, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. Isle has been named one of the Strand’s 30 Writers to Watch and has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and the National Parks Service. Their first novel, The Atmospherians, was named a book of the year by Debutiful, Esquire, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, and more.

Les droits de langue française sont toujours disponibles.

THE UNWEDDING d’Ally Condie sélectionné par le Reese’s Book Club

Reese Witherspoon a sélectionné ce mois-ci pour son célèbre book club le nouveau roman d’Ally Condie, THE UNWEDDING, dans lequel une femme récemment divorcée voit ses vacances dans un luxueux resort californien gâchées lorsqu’elle découvre un cadavre le jour d’un mariage.

Un premier roman pour adulte pour l’autrice, mélangeant adroitement murder mystery et women’s fiction. Précédemment, Ally Condie a publié plusieurs romans pour la jeunesse : la série « Matched » (Promise, chez Gallimard Jeunesse), Summerlost (L’été de Summerlost, Gallimard Jeunesse), ou encore la série « Darkdeep » (Michel Lafon).

“Our June Reese’s Book Club pick is the perfect summer read!!! THE UNWEDDING by Ally Condie opens with a wedding at a gorgeous resort in Big Sur… but everything begins to fall apart when the main character Ellery discovers a dead body the morning of the ceremony.” ―Reese Witherspoon

“Ally Condie’s adult debut THE UNWEDDING is a clever, witty, and fast-paced whodunit. I read it in one sitting and can’t wait for the next.”―Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Mesmerizing! Equal parts a clever whodunit and compelling character’s journey, THE UNWEDDING will speak to anyone who’s been there, done that, and had the vacation from hell thrown on top of it all. This Big Sur luxury resort closed-room mystery will stay with you well past the final page.”―Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Les droits de langue française sont toujours disponibles.

THE POET EMPRESS de Shen X. Tao

In the declining Azalea Dynasty, where poetry magic is forbidden to women, rice farmer Wei tricks her way into being selected as imperial concubine to a cruel tyrant and must harden her heart and learn to wield literomancy in secret in order to change the fate of an empire.

THE POET EMPRESS
by Shen X. Tao
on submission
(via Mushens Entertainment)

In the waning years of the Azalea Dynasty, the emperor is dying, the land is consumed by a famine, and poetry magic is lost to all except the powerful. After the fifth death of a sibling, young rice farmer Wei Yin is determined to save her family from desperate hunger, a difficult feat when women are forbidden from education, and crucially, literacy.

Wei finds her chance to improve the conditions of her family and her village when Prince Terren, the cruel, unkillable heir to the throne, begins a search for concubines to bear him a son. Wei tricks her way into the inner court, but little does she know, life in the lush and enchanted Azalea Palace is rife with danger and brutality she wasn’t ready for. For one, there is a covert succession war; Terren’s influential eldest brother, the one who should have been heir, has long been eyeing the crown. For another, Terren’s thirty concubines are fighting a war of their own, for the position of future empress. They know to whisper sweet words and deliver pretty smiles in public, but when nobody is looking, they are not afraid to sabotage each other with rumours or poison.

But most terrifying of all is the prince himself. Terren turns out to be just as sadistic as the rumours, willing to torture even the most powerful of those who cross him, let alone a peasant girl with no status. To survive in court, Wei must harden her heart, rely on her wit, and become dangerous herself, even if it means learning the forbidden art of poetry magic and wielding the most powerful spell of all—a heart spirit poem that requires the wielder to love the target in order to kill them.

Chinese-Canadian author Sophia Tao (writing as Shen X. Tao) has dreamed of publishing fantasy stories since she was seven. Though her roots lie in Nanchang and Toronto, she later moved to Seattle to be closer to the mountains and the ocean, where she currently resides with her partner, her piano, and her menagerie of stuffed critters. When not working as an engineer, she can be spotted hiking, taking long walks in the city, or feeding the local park geese. Sophia is a finalist for the Mike Resnick Memorial Award for science fiction and a two-time finalist for the PNWA unpublished novel contest, and a graduate of the 2023 Taos Toolbox and Viable Paradise speculative fiction workshops.