Archives de catégorie : Fiction

RACHEL WEISS’S GROUP CHAT de Lauren Appelbaum

Lauren Appelbaum’s debut novel, RACHEL WEISS’S GROUP CHAT, a Jewish, millennial version of Pride and Prejudice with Broad City vibes.

RACHEL WEISS’S GROUP CHAT
by Lauren Appelbaum
Grand Central, September 2024
(via The Whalen Agency)

Rachel Weiss turns 30 this year, and she has it all: a fabulous social life, three best friends, and a job that pays the bills. Unfortunately, she also has a slightly unhinged Jewish mother who’s desperate for her to be married. When a millionaire tech bro named Christopher buys the house next door, Rachel’s mom fixates on him as a match for her daughter. But Rachel has worked in the tech industry for years and she knows guys like Christopher: arrogant, algorithmobsessed capitalist overlords. Besides, she hits it off with a mysterious hottie whose party boy persona appeals to her more than Christopher’s buttoned-up politeness. She doesn’t need her mom’s help. Especially because she has the world’s most amazing group chat with her best friends that gets her through everything.

But when not one, but two, of her friends start ghosting the group chat, she learns those friendships might be shakier than she thought. To make matters worse, she can’t stop bumping into Christopher, who has some history with Rachel’s new boyfriend that one of them seems to be lying about. But spending time with Christopher, who has it all figured out, makes Rachel question what she’s doing with her life. As she watches her friends move on toward the lives they’re building, and her own bad choices catch up with her, Rachel must decide how to build the life she really wants.

Lauren Appelbaum lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter and their two tuxedo cats. She loves iced oat milk lattes, drizzly autumn days, and ending each night snuggled up with a good book. If she can make just one reader laugh, she’ll consider that a win.

IN THE DARK I SEE YOU de Mallika Narayanan

IN THE DARK I SEE YOU is an exciting debut novel of psychological suspense from successful short story writer Mallika Narayanan.

IN THE DARK I SEE YOU
by Mallika Narayanan
Union Square & Co., October 2023
(via The Weis Agency)

When a young woman, Sarah Connelly, is found murdered in her home in New York’s elite Sleepy Point suburb, it triggers questions about the neighbor who discovered the body, Audrey Hughes. This kind of attention is the last thing Audrey wants. Moving to Sleepy Point was supposed to provide her with a new, quiet start after a trauma left her with incurable blindness. But the other reason she settled next door to Sarah was to spy on her. Police scrutiny moves Audrey like a pawn on a chessboard from witness to suspect, after it’s revealed that she had a volatile argument with Sarah hours before her death. The deeper the police delve into the case, the murkier the truth becomes. As the book twists and turns through alternating points of view and timelines, a compelling and complex scheme emerges that threatens all involved . . . and the ticking clock of investigation collides with the explosive secrets Audrey and Sarah have been keeping.

Mallika Narayanan is a Pittsburgh-based writer of psychological suspense, mysteries, and historical fiction. Her short stories are featured in Ellipsis Zine, Bath Flash Fiction, and elsewhere. She was a runner-up in the Retreat West 2022 Flash Fiction Prize and has been longlisted and shortlisted for various other prizes, including the Bath Flash Fiction Prize 2022 and the Fractured Lit Micro Fiction Prize 2021.

THE STARS ARE DYING de Chloe Peñaranda

Shadow and Bone meets Caraval in a dark romantic fantasy loosely inspired by the Greek myths of Astraea with a page-turning new epic world and a darkly seductive star-crossed romance.

THE STARS ARE DYING
by Chloe Peñaranda
Bramble, October 2024

In a world abandoned by the celestial guardians and left to suffer a tyrant king’s reign, all Astraea knows is safety in seclusion. With fragmented memories of only five years of her life, she’s determined to discover more about her past, even if that means fleeing the cruel arms that hold her safe from the wicked vampires rumored to roam the land. But when Astraea stumbles upon the mysterious Nyte, she soon realizes determination alone isn’t enough to guard her heart. He lingers like the darkness that expands between the stars, and soon she discovers her captor’s wicked means of control weren’t based on a lie to keep her under lock after all. In her desperation, Astraea accepts Nyte’s help before she can decide if she might have sold her allegiance to one of the bloodthirsty beings the people of her world fear. Once their bargain is struck, Astraea’s chance to escape comes in the form of accompanying her best friend Cassia to the King’s Central. There on royal territory it’s the centenary of the Libertatem, a succession of trials hosted by the king in which five human lands compete for a cycle of safety from the vampires seeking blood, claiming souls, and savaging after dark. So when tragedy strikes, Astraea must decide if taking the place of a murdered participant for the safety of her kingdom is a ruse worth dying for, or if protection—and the answers to her past—really are her strongest desires.

Chloe Peñaranda is the USA Today bestselling author of The Nytefall Trilogy and An Heir Comes to Rise Series. A lifelong avid reader and writer, Chloe discovered her passion for storytelling in her early teens. Her stories have been spun from years of building on fictional characters and exploring Tolkien-like quests in made up worlds. During her time at the University of the West of Scotland, Chloe immersed herself in writing for short film, producing animations, and spending class time dreaming of far off lands. In her spare time from writing in her home in scenic Scotland, Chloe enjoys digital art, graphic design, and down time with her three little dogs. When the real world calls…she rarely listens.

THE SUNFLOWER HOUSE d’Adriana Allegri

Shedding light on a little-known aspect of the Nazi regime, this is a heartfelt, emotional novel of friendship, love, and secrets that is sure to resonate with historical fiction fans.

THE SUNFLOWER HOUSE
by Adriana Allegri
St. Martin’s Press, September 2024

In a sleepy German village, Allina Gottlieb’s life is idyllic: she works at the bookshop with her uncle, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends the weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it’s 1939, and on one fateful night, her life changes forever.

THE SUNFLOWER HOUSE is a meticulously-researched debut historical novel set at Hochland Home, part of the notorious Lebensborn Program in Nazi Germany—a real-life Handmaid’s Tale. Women of “pure” blood resided there for the sole purpose of perpetuating the Aryan population, giving birth to hundreds of babies who were then raised—and neglected—in this state-run baby factory.

With her life on the line, Allina is forced to work as a nurse in Hochland Home. Her Jewish identity must remain a secret in order for her to survive, but when she discovers the neglect occurring within the home, she is determined not only to save herself, but also the children in her care. When Allina meets Karl, a high-ranking SS officer with secrets of his own, the two must decide how much they are willing to share with each other—and how much they can stand to risk. The threads of this poignant and heartrending novel weave a tale of loss and love, friendship and betrayal, and the secrets we bury in order to save ourselves.

As a first-generation American with parents who lived in Europe during World War II, Adriana Allegri grew up on stories about how small acts of compassion and kindness saved lives. That theme shows up in everything she writes, regardless of genre. She has worked in education, as a high school teacher and program administrator; as a writer/project manager for a leading data analytics company, and as an author. 2015 was her Big Risk Year, as she left her corporate job to concentrate on writing. THE SUNFLOWER HOUSE is her first novel.

THORN TREE de Max Ludington

The dark side of the 1960s returns to haunt a contemporary Los Angeles family in this new novel from a critically acclaimed author. Prefect for readers of Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

THORN TREE
by Max Ludington
St. Martin’s Press, April 2024

From the acclaimed author of Tiger in a Trance (Doubleday, 2003) comes a suspenseful and beautifully wrought novel about the aftershocks of the late 1960s and the relationship between trauma and the creative impulse. Now in his seventies, Daniel lives in quiet anonymity in a converted guest cottage in the Hollywood Hills. A legendary artist, he’s known for one seminal work—Thorn Tree—a hulking, welded, scrap metal sculpture that he built in the Mojave desert in the 1970s. The work emerged from tragedy, but building it kept Daniel alive and catapulted him to brief, reluctant fame in the art world.
Daniel is landlord and neighbor to Celia, a charismatic but fragile actress living in the main house on his property. She too experienced youthful fame, hers in a popular television series, but saw her life nearly collapse after a series of bad decisions. Now, a new movie with a notorious director might re-ignite her career. A single mother, Celia leaves her young son, Dean, for weeks at a time with her father, Jack, who stays at her house while she’s on location. Jack and Daniel strike up a tentative friendship as Dean takes to visiting Daniel’s cottage—but something about Jack seems off. Discomfiting, strangely intimate, with flashes of anger balanced by an almost philosophical bent, Jack is not the harmless grandparent he pretends to be.
Weaving the idealism and the darkness of the late 1960s, the glossy surfaces of Los Angeles celebrity today, and thrumming with the sound of the Grateful Dead, the mania of Charles Manson and other cults, and the secrets that both Jack and Daniel have harbored for fifty years, THORN TREE is an utterly-compelling novel.

Max Ludington’s first novel, Tiger in a Trance was a New York Times Notable Book. He received his M.F.A. from Columbia University and now lives in New York. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Tin House, Meridian, Nerve, and On the Rocks: The KGB Bar Fiction Anthology.