Archives de catégorie : Fiction

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.

THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD de Michael Callahan

A tantalizing novel of two women bound by blood but divided by a long-buried secret, and the island that holds the key to the fateful summer that changed everything forever.

THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD
by Michael Callahan
Mariner, May 2024
(via Dystel Goderich & Bourret)

In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director. Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off.

Almost sixty years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.

Putting her investigative skills to use, Kit is determined to solve the riddle of her grandmother’s missing life, and the trail eventually leads to Martha’s Vineyard.

Mercy retreats to the island nursing a broken heart, only to be drawn to the roguish Ren Sewards, who is not just the simple oysterman he appears to be but a scion of one of the island’s wealthy founding families. With her attraction to Ren quickly growing, Mercy soon finds herself entangled in the intrigues of the tightly knit community—and the secrets of the Sewards

Alternating between Mercy and Kit’s timelines, including excerpts from letters Mercy wrote the summer she disappeared, THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD unfurls into a heart-stopping story of love, betrayal, and even murder.

A Publishers Marketplace 2024 Highly Anticipated Buzz Book

Compelling and evocative, THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD is a page turner of the highest order. Michael Callahan’s novel does what few books do; it glued me to my seat. It is a great mystery with great insight into the secrets everybody keeps. » — Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Resurrection Walk

I was completely captivated by Michael Callahan’s THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD. It’s a history mystery you won’t be able to put down, with strong female characters and plenty of secrets. Plus, it takes you behind the scenes in vintage Hollywood and Martha’s Vineyard. A perfect beach read!” — Lisa Scottoline, #1 bestselling author of Loyalty and The Truth About the Devlins

Michael Callahan’s THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD grabs from the first line and doesn’t let go until the last. This delicious mystery will be a particular treat for fans (guilty!) of vintage Hollywood and Nancy Drew.” — Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye and The Wildes

« Callahan skillfully blends notes of mystery and romance in this layered story of family secrets. Readers will have a hard time putting it down. » — Publishers Weekly

Callahan blends mid-century Hollywood glamour and family secrets in this fast-paced, dual-period novel. He captures the historical era in colorful detail, and both women are determined, appealing characters who struggle with their personal and professional lives. Readers who enjoy Beatriz Williams and Crystal Smith Paul will be enthralled.” — Booklist

« A breezy, atmospheric novel dripping with secrets… smooth and suspenseful—and hard to stop reading once you’ve begun. » — Kirkus Reviews

Michael Callahan is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Searching for Grace Kelly and The Night She Won Miss America, as well as a coffee-table history of the famed Musso & Frank Grill restaurant in Hollywood. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, his work has been published in EsquireTown & Country, and the New York Times, among others. He lives in Los Angeles.

DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS de Jen Fawkes

A spellbinding story about a renowned Nashville brothel during the Civil War, a centuries-old secret society, and the earth-shaking power of women—charged with suspense, mystery, and sapphic romance.

DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS
by Jen Fawkes
The Overlook Press, July 2024

The year is 1862, and the United States Civil War is in full force. After a harrowing tragedy at home, 19-year-old Sylvie Swift finds herself living in a brothel in Nashville, the Union headquarters, a river city overflowing with soldiers, commanders, politicians, and powerful men––and powerful women. Targeted by a Union colonel and trained to be a spy against suspected Confederate secret societies, Sylvie suddenly finds herself neck-deep in an underground world she never expected: Also at work in Nashville is a centuries-old feminist cult populated by the women Sylvie thought she knew, including Hannah, a revolutionary with whom Sylvie falls headfirst into a heart-wrenching romance. She soon becomes entwined in the lives of the Daughters of Chaos, steadfast in their centuries-long mission to confront and eradicate the injustices enacted by the men who think they’re in charge.

Inspired both by Aristophanes’
Lysistrata, about women who strategically withhold sex from their warring men, and by the true story of Nashville’s attempt to ban its “public women” during wartime, DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS journeys through Ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and American history as Sylvie navigates the complex mythology of this secret world of women against the backdrop of a transformative American conflict.

Jen Fawkes is the author of Mannequin and Wife, a 2020 Shirley Jackson Award Nominee, winner of the 2023 Phillip H. McMath Post-Publication Book Award, and Foreword INDIES gold medalist. Her collection Tales the Devil Told Me was a Foreword INDIES silver medal recipient, Largehearted Boy Favorite Collection of 2021, and finalist for the 2022 World Fantasy Award for Single-Author Story Collection. Her fiction won the 2021 Porter Fund Literary Prize and has appeared in One Story, Lit Hub, The Iowa Review, Crazyhorse, Best Small Fictions, and more. A two-time finalist for the Calvino Prize for fabulist fiction, Jen lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.