Archives de catégorie : Frankfurt 2022 Adult Fiction

GOODBYE EARL de Leesa Cross-Smith

Four women take fate into their own hands in this big-hearted story of friendship, resilience, and revenge on monstrous men, from the award-winning author of Half-Blown Rose.

GOODBYE EARL
by Leesa Cross-Smith
Grand Central, July 2023
(via Writers House)

Taking inspiration from The Chicks’ infamous, empowering song, GOODBYE EARL follows four best friends through two unforgettable summers, fifteen years apart.
In 2004, Rosemarie, Ada, Caroline, and Kasey are in their final days of high school and on the precipice of all the things teenagers look forward to when anything in life seems possible . . . from falling in love, to finding their dream jobs, to becoming who they were meant to be.
In 2019, Kasey has returned to her small Southern hometown for the first time since high school—and she still hasn’t told even her closest friends the truth of what really happened that summer after graduation, or what made her leave so abruptly without looking back. Now reunited with her friends in Goldie for a wedding, she’s determined to focus on the simple joy of being together again. But when she notices troubling signs that one of them might be in danger, she is catapulted back to that fateful summer. This time, Kasey refuses to let the worst moments of her past define her; this time, she knows how to protect those she loves at all costs.
Uplifting, sharp-edged, and unapologetic, GOODBYE EARL is a funeral for all the “Earls” out there—the abusive men who think they can get away with anything, but are wrong—and a celebration of enduring sisterhood.

Leesa Cross-Smith is a homemaker and the author of Every Kiss a War, Whiskey & Ribbons, So We Can Glow, This Close to Okay, and Half-Blown Rose.

CUTTING TEETH de Chandler Baker

For fans of Big Little Lies and Nothing to See Here, a novel that asks: do we really have to give our children everything?

CUTTING TEETH
by Chandler Baker
Flatiron, July 2023
(via Writers House)

Rhea, Darby, and Mary Beth are on personal quests to reclaim aspects of their identities subsumed by motherhood—their careers, their sex lives, their bodies. But all three women are about to lose major ground when they realize their children, who all attend the same preschool, have developed an unsettling medical condition: the kids are craving blood.
It seems a little strange but relatively benign until a young teacher is found dead. And now, the only potential witnesses (and suspects) are ten adorable four-year-olds. Part murder mystery, part motherhood manifesto, the novel explores the standards society holds mothers to—along with the ones to which we hold ourselves—and the things no one tells you about becoming a parent.

“As brutal in its honesty as it is in its deceptions, CUTTING TEETH is a viciously sinuous whodunnit . . . an incisive and fearless exploration of motherhood and the self-inflicted wounds we hide up our sleeves as we each struggle to survive it.” —Elle Cosimano, USA Today bestselling author of Finlay Donovan Is Killing It

“With devourable writing and pitch-perfect humour, CUTTING TEETH is a sharp, original, wickedly astute look at the sting of modern motherhood. In this group of toddlers and parents out for blood (literally!), Chandler Baker nails the performance pressures of parenthood, and the unachievable standards to which we hold ourselves.” —Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push

Chandler Baker is the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese Witherspoon book club pick Whisper Network as well as The Husbands, a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, and a number of YA novels. CUTTING TEETH is her third novel for adults.

PHOTOS IN THE ATTIC de Donna Fiechtner

One War. Two Worlds. Three People in Love. An compelling romance that follows the heart-wrenching story of a soldier caught between the love of two women, set amongst the backdrop of war on the western front in France. Soon to be a major motion picture.

PHOTOS IN THE ATTIC
by Donna Fiechtner
‎ Big Sky Publishing, December 2022
(via Randle Editorial and Literary)

The tale is brought to life with the discovery of the Thuillier photos that were taken in Vignacourt, France, during World War I. These images hold answers to some questions raised by a current-day character, Valerie Bernard, who is a village local.
In 1916, Rosie Marchand leaves her hometown of Albert on the Somme. A survivor of the war, she finds shelter in the home of her cousin, photographer Louis Thuillier, a shell-shocked veteran of Verdun, who with his wife Antoinette takes pictures of soldiers behind the lines.
For Australian Bill Foster, the war is a faraway adventure where he is driven to go and join his brother. Bill is in love with Isabella De Luca, a passionate Queensland woman, and promises to return to her. However, Isabella’s father vows to do all he can to ensure this doesn’t happen. Jimmy Walton, Bill’s Indigenous mate, enlists in the army also and they both go off to war together.
During a battle in the North of France, both Bill and Jimmy are injured and shipped to a Vignacourt field hospital. Bill is now on the verge of a complete breakdown, battle fatigued, injured and saddened by not hearing from his beloved Isabella since leaving. He cannot understand why she has not sent him any letters. He finds comfort and strength from Rosie a Nurse caring for him. Rosie had to leave her war-torn hometown on the Somme and found shelter with her cousin, photographer Louis, a shell-shocked veteran of Verdun. As time passes the feelings between Bill and Rosie deepen.
As the war ends, Bill makes a difficult decision to return to Australia, to Isabella. The news of Bills decision devastates Rosie. How will this love triangle end?

Already optioned, funded and in development for an Australian feature Film. From a celebrated writing team including a credited Hollywood screenwriter, published historians and award-winning Australian filmmakers.

Donna Fiechtner has co-authored an inspiring book on the WW 1 Graffiti on cave walls in Naours in Northern France and has written the most recent novel and screenplay for PHOTOS IN THE ATTIC. The story is set during WWI in Vignacourt, France and Childers, Queensland where principal screenwriter Donna Fiechtner and fellow creative collaborator and husband, Michael, are based. Both historians, it is told through their unique and insightful lens.

HOW TO CARE FOR A HUMAN GIRL de Ashley Wurzbacher

From “a writer at the top of her game” (The New York Times) comes a bighearted and sharply funny debut novel about two estranged sisters and the crossroads they face after becoming unexpectedly pregnant at the same time.

HOW TO CARE FOR A HUMAN GIRL
by Ashley Wurzbacher
Atria, August 2023
(via Frances Goldin Literary Agency)

Two years after the death of their mother, Jada and Maddy Battle both face unplanned pregnancies. Jada, a thirty-one-year-old psychology PhD student living in Pittsburgh, quietly obtains an abortion without telling her husband, but the secret causes turmoil in her already shaky marriage. Back home in rural Pennsylvania, nineteen-year-old Maddy, who spends her time caring for birds at a wildlife rehabilitation center, is paid off by the man who got her pregnant to get an abortion. But an unsettling visit to a crisis pregnancy center adds to her doubts about whether to go through with it.
Although Maddy still hasn’t forgiven Jada for a terrible betrayal, she goes to her for support, only to discover the cracks in the façade of her sister’s seemingly perfect life. As their past resentments boil over, the sisters must navigate the consequences of their choices and determine how best to care for themselves and each other.
With luminous prose and laser-sharp psychological insight, HOW TO CARE FOR A HUMAN GIRL is a compassionate and unforgettable examination of the complexities of choice, the special intimacy of sisterhood, and the bizarre ways our heated political moment manifests in daily life.

Ashley Wurzbacher is the author of the story collection Happy Like This, which won the 2019 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and a NYT Editors’ Choice. Born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, she currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama and teaches at the University of Montevallo.

THESE BURNING STARS de Bethany Jacobs

A sweeping portrait of an empire on the verge of collapse, a braided narrative with secrets and revelations around every corner, and a spectacular inversion of expectations. This thrilling new space opera is perfect for fans of Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire and Yoon Ha Lee’s Ninefox Gambit.

THESE BURNING STARS
by Bethany Jacobs
Orbit, March 2023
(via JABberwocky Literary Agency)

Jun Ironway, hacker, con artist, and only occasional thief, has gotten her hands on a piece of contraband that could set her up for life: a video that implicates the powerful Nightfoot family in a planet-wide genocide seventy-five years ago. The Nightfoots control the precious sevite that fuels interplanetary travel through three star systems. And someone is sure to pay handsomely for anything that could break their hold.
Of course, anything valuable is also dangerous. The Kindom, the ruling power of the three star systems, is inextricably tied up in the Nightfoots’ monopoly-and they can’t afford to let Jun expose the truth. They task two of their most brutal clerics with hunting her down: preternaturally stoic Chono, and brilliant hothead Esek, who also happens to be the heir to the Nightfoot empire.
But Chono and Esek are haunted in turn by a figure from their shared past, known only as Six. What Six truly wants is anyone’s guess. And the closer they get to finding Jun, the surer Chono is that Six is manipulating them all-and that they are heading for a bloody confrontation that no one will survive unscathed.

Bethany Jacobs is a former college instructor of writing and science fiction, who made the leap to education technology and now teaches tech heads how to write. She lives in Buffalo, New York with her wife and her dog and her books. THESE BURNING STARS is her debut novel.