Archives de catégorie : Fiction

THE SWEET TASTE OF MUSCADINES de Pamela Terry

A moving debut novel about the intricacies of family and spirituality, for readers of Pat conroy, Kate Atkinson, Elizabeth Strout or Marilynne Robinson.

THE SWEET TASTE OF MUSCADINES
by Pamela Terry
Ballantine, September 2020

…“The first time Mama died I ran off to hide in the muscadine arbor.”

So begins the story of Lila Bruce-Breedlove. After her mother dies for the second, and very last, time, Lila and her brother, Henry, travel back to their small Southern hometown to find nothing is quite what they expected. Hometowns always hold secrets and when those of Lila’s family are unearthed they prompt a reevaluation of everything she thought to be true, leading Lila and Henry on a journey to places neither ever expected where they learn things are frequently not all they seem. THE SWEET TASTE OF MUSCADINES is set against the backdrops of coastal Maine, the deep South and the Scottish Hebrides. With wit and compassion it faces down the more painful parts of a South that continues to value appearances over truth, and where too often its citizens still struggle to live an honest life with joy. It is a surprising tale of redemption and forgiveness. The Bruce family history is unique, yet universal, and it is not one you will soon forget.

For the past decade Pamela Terry has been the author of the internationally popular blog, FROM THE HOUSE OF EDWARD, which was named one of the top ten home blogs by London’s Daily Telegraph in 2012. A lifelong Southerner, she learned the power of storytelling at a very early age. Pamela lives in Smyrna, Georgia with her songwriter husband, Pat, and their two dogs.

EVERY LAST FEAR de Alex Finlay

Told through multiple points-of-view and alternating between past and present, EVERY LAST FEAR is not only a page-turning intrigue, but also a poignant story about a family managing heartbreak and tragedy, and living through a kind of fame they never wanted to have.

EVERY LAST FEAR
by Alex Finlay
Minotaur, early 2021

When FBI agents arrive at his dorm room, New York University student Matt Pine learns the terrible news: his parents and younger siblings, on vacation in Mexico, have been found dead in their rental home. It’s a horrible blow to Matt, who is already trying to cope with life in the shadow of his older brother’s infamy: seven years ago, Danny Pine was convicted of the murder of a teenage girl in their small Nebraska town, and he’s been in prison ever since. Recently, his case was profiled in a blockbuster documentary that swayed public opinion toward his innocence, but Matt has never believed in Danny’s innocence himself. Now, as the deaths in Mexico appear increasingly suspicious and connected to Danny’s prosecution, Matt must finally unearth the truth behind the crime that sent his brother to prison, and doing so leads him to a shocking conspiracy.

Alex Finlay is the pseudonym of an author who lives in Washington, D.C. Born in Opelika, Alabama, Alex spent his formative years traversing the globe, from a tropical island in the Pacific to a small village in the UK to a remote region in the Far East. But it was on a vacation in Tulum, Mexico that Alex was inspired to write Every Last Fear.

THE ACTUAL STAR de Monica Byrne

An original and ambitious novel about three characters reincarnated over two thousand years, from the collapse of the ancient Maya to a post-apocalyptic utopia, centered on the disappearance of one teenage tourist in a cave deep in the Belizean jungle in the year 2012.

THE ACTUAL STAR
by Monica Byrne
Harper Voyager, Fall 2021

Credit: Donald E. Byrne

A large, multi-layered speculative work, with three interwoven parts, one set in the world of the ancient Maya a thousand years ago (in which teen-age twins prepare to ascend the throne of their city-state, only to be toppled in a coup), one set in the present day (in which a young woman named Leah becomes fascinated by a cave complex in Belize), and one set a thousand years in the future (in which a new world religion has grown up, worshiping the memory of Leah’s disappearance in the cave). Each of the three stories is powerful in its own way. The world view of the pre-conquest Maya is persuasively evoked in vibrant, sensuous colors, in chapters that are based on extensive research. In the present-day story, Leah is a compelling mystic figure, a surprising yet satisfying first saint for a new world religion. And the future story is a magnificent feat of world-building, with a genuinely original vision of a post-climate-apocalypse, post-capitalist society of wanderers. Braided together, the three stories create profound resonances, with a cast of complex characters who we come to realize are reincarnations of earlier selves; with echoes of Christian theology and history; and with themes of human sacrifice, bloodletting, utopias, and parallel worlds. THE ACTUAL STAR is a rich, complex, challenging and satisfying work.

Monica Byrne graduated from the Clarion Workshop in 2008, where she studied with Neil Gaiman, Nalo Hopkinson, and Kelly Link. Her debut novel, The Girl in the Road, was published in 2014. It won the Tiptree Award and was listed for the Kitschie, Locus, and DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. She has performed original monologues twice at TED, hosted a technology series for ViceUK, and spoken across the US on futurism and science fiction. Her short stories and essays have been published in The Baffler, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Wired, Tor.com, Electric Velocipede, Fantasy Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Electric Literature, and Glimmer Train. She has written five plays produced in Durham, NC, one of which, What Every Girl Should Know, has been performed from Berkeley to Dublin.

BEE MUSIC de Eileen Garvin

A novel about the families we choose for ourselves, by masterful storyteller Eileen Garvin

BEE MUSIC
by Eileen Garvin
Dutton, pub. date TBD

Alice Holtzman is demographically unfashionable: middle-aged, childless, introverted, and more concerned with a job well done than how she looks doing it. After the sudden death of her husband, she starts having panic attacks. It’s in the grips of one of these attacks that she hits Jake—a troubled, paraplegic teenager with the tallest mohawk in the Pacific Northwest—with her pickup truck. Oh, and did we mention that truck was full of 120,000 restless honeybees? Everyone is surprised when Alice lets Jake move onto her farm, and even more surprised when she hires Harry, a bumbling twenty-something with a sketchy past, to help her with her apiary. When a nefarious pesticide company threatens the local honeybee population, this unlikely trio unites to defend the bees, and, in the process, forge a path out of their respective griefs.

Eileen Garvin was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. She completed her B.A. in English at Seattle University, and her M.A. in English at the University of New Mexico. She writes for newspapers, magazines, and websites from Hood River, Oregon, where she lives with her husband.

PARAS IN PARIS de Jane Smiley

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres and the New York Times best-selling Last Hundred Years Trilogy, a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals—and a little boy—whose lives intersect in Paris

PARAS IN PARIS
by Jane Smiley
Scribner, TBD

Paras is a spirited young racehorse living at a stable in the French countryside. One afternoon she pushes open the gate of her stall—she’s a curious filly—and, after traveling through the night, arrives by chance in Paris. She’s dazzled, and often mystified, by the sights, sounds and smells around her, but she isn’t afraid. Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthair pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by in the city without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians. Paras and Frida coexist for a time in the city’s lush green spaces, nourished by Frida’s strategic trips to the butchery and the bakery. They keep company with two irrepressible ducks, and by an opinionated crow. But then Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, and discovers a new, otherworldly part of Paris: the secluded, ivy-walled house where the boy and his nearly-one-hundred-year-old great grandmother live, quietly and unto themselves. As the cold weather and Christmas near, the unlikeliest of friendships bloom among humans and animals alike. But how long can a runaway horse live undiscovered in Paris? And how long can a boy keep her hidden, and all his own? Jane Smiley’s beguiling new novel is itself an adventure that celebrates curiosity and ingenuity, and expresses the desire of all creatures for true friendship, love, and freedom.

Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, The Last Hundred Years Trilogy: Some Luck, Early Warning, and Golden Age. She is also the author of several works of nonfiction and books for young adults. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has also received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She lives in Northern California.