Archives de catégorie : Fiction

IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS de Cecelia Ahern

The International Bestselling author returns with a powerful story about a young woman who can see—and subsequently experience—the emotions of everyone around her, and her own struggle to discover her true colors.

IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS
by Cecelia Ahern
HarperCollins UK, April 2023
(via Park & Fine Literary and Media)

Gold is the colour of innocence, green stands for stability, and blue represents sadness. As a child, Alice discovers that she can see other people’s emotions and moods in colours emanating from their bodies. These auras reveal whether someone is telling the truth or lying; happy or secretly close to tears; or filled with rage. Alice sees the best in people but she also sees the worst. She sees a thousand different emotions and knows exactly what everyone around her is feeling. But it’s the dark thoughts. The sadness and the rage that she can’t get out of her head.
Awash in a sea of other people’s emotions, Alice struggles to surround herself with the colours of happiness. At first, nature and the outdoors are her only opportunity to experience some peace. But as she strikes out on her own, a wise neighbor who recognizes Alice’s gift teaches her how to cope with the daily flood of feelings, preparing her for an encounter with a man seemingly without colours. Alice, who once sought to mute the vivid colours around her, finally embraces all the shimmering facets of life for herself.
Emotional and wise, colourful and tender, IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS celebrates the joys of being together and the infinite colours of life and love.

Cecelia Ahern was born and grew up in Dublin. Her novels have been translated into thirty-five languages and have sold more than twenty-five million copies in over fifty countries. Two of her books (PS, I Love You and Love, Rosie) have been adapted as films and she has created several TV series. She and her books have won numerous awards, including the Irish Book Award for Popular Fiction for The Year I Met You. She lives in Dublin with her family.

MORNING PAGES de Kate Feiffer

When her professional and family life collide, a playwright starts journaling every morning to push through her writer’s block in this laugh-out-loud and fresh take on family, friendship, and the chaos of midlife.

MORNING PAGES
by Kate Feiffer
Regalo Press, May 2024
(via Kaplan/DeFiore)

Elise Hellman was once heralded by audiences and critics as a “playwright to watch.” Then they forgot all about her. When a prestigious theater company unexpectedly offers her a generous commission to write a new play, she has an opportunity to turn her career around. With sixty-five days left until her deadline, Elise starts scribbling a few pages of stream-of-consciousness first thing every morning as a way to get over her writer’s block—a technique called Morning Pages, popularized in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

What emerges is a witty confessional in which Elise chronicles her life with her teenage stoner son and her overbearing and eccentric mother, who is losing her memory but not her profanity. She writes about her lingering feelings for her ex-husband, her best friend who is acting oddly, and the confusing encounters she has with a handsome stranger in an elevator. As she writes, the marked-up scenes from her play, Deja New, are revealed, as a story within the story.

MORNING PAGES is about what life throws at you when you’re trying to write. It is both a humorous exploration of the creative process and a relatable coming-of-age tale for the generation sandwiched between caring for their parents and caring for their kids.

Kate Feiffer, a former television news producer, is an illustrator, and author of eleven highly acclaimed books for children, including Henry the Dog with No Tail and My Mom Is Trying to Ruin My Life. MORNING PAGES is her first novel for adults. Kate currently divides her time between Martha’s Vineyard, where she raised her daughter Maddy, and New York City, where she grew up.

MAX d’Avi Duckor-Jones

It was a loneliness I often felt. To be physically present and part of something, but elsewhere in my mind, silently seeking other lives I should be living instead.

MAX
by Avi Duckor-Jones
Affirm Press (Australia), June 2024
(via Kaplan/DeFiore)

Max is about to finish high school. On paper he has everything – the girlfriend, the grades, the class- clown best friend, the loving family – but under the surface he is floundering. Grappling with questions about his birth parents and his sexuality, he feels that there is a seed of badness deep within him that will inevitably be exposed. After an incident at the end-of-year party sets Max’s world to crumbling, he must finally figure out who he is and where he came from – and who he is allowed to love. Max is a beautiful coming-of-age novel from an exciting new voice in New Zealand fiction.

Although trained as a lawyer, Avi Duckor-Jones gained his MA in creative writing from Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters in 2013. His travel writing has been published with BBC Travel, The NZ Listener and Lonely Planet among others. Avi has worked as a writing instructor and trip leader for National Geographic, directed a school in Ghana, and is the winner of the reality television competition, Survivor New Zealand. His first novel « Swim » won the 2018 Viva la Novella award. He currently lives on Waiheke Island with his wife and son, where he enjoys open water distance swimming and works as an English Teacher at Waiheke High School.

A HITWOMAN’S GUIDE TO REDUCING HOUSEHOLD DEBT de Mark Mupotsa-Russell

A thriller that hits the target.

A HITWOMAN’S GUIDE TO REDUCING HOUSEHOLD DEBT
by Mark Mupotsa-Russell
Affirm Press, September 2024
(via Kaplan/DeFiore)

Olivia Hodges used to do horrible things – back when she worked for a Spanish crime syndicate – but she fled that life and moved home to Australia, building a family in the hippie, hipster community of the Dandenong Ranges.

When a small-time criminal gang brings tragedy to her family, superstitious Olivia believes it’s the universe demanding payment for her crimes. She wants revenge, but has to get it without adding to her karmic debt. So she creates situations where these bad men get themselves killed through their anger, ego and greed – all while trying to mislead the cops long enough to finish what she started.

Olivia’s voice is astounding: she’s cynical, witty and deeply human in a way that never feels forced. It’s quite a feat to write a novel that’s all-in-one package—a deliciously tangled thriller and a searing depiction of a marriage in crisis—and to make it so funny.

Mark Mupotsa-Russell lives in Australia. Before this book, he was a screenwriter, film reviewer cocktail columnist and PR consultant. He lives among the trees with his art therapist/superstar wife and hilarious son. When not writing, he obsesses about movies and martial arts.

BIRTH OF A DYNASTY de Chinaza Bado

Combining the political intrigue of She Who Became the Sun with the gorgeous world-building of Children of Blood and Bone, BIRTH OF A DYNASTY is the start of a thrilling epic fantasy trilogy centered around three families’ fight for power in Ahkebulin, a land where magic is feared, giants are real, and prophecy holds sway.

BIRTH OF A DYNASTY
by Chinaza Bado
Harper Voyager, July 2025
(via Nancy Yost Literary)

We shall not forgive. We shall not forget. We will have our vengeance.

After witnessing the massacre of everyone he’s ever known and loved, M’Kuru Mukundi, the sole surviving member of the High Noble House Mukundi of Madada, vows revenge. M’kuru flees to a small village where he hides under the guise of farm boy Khalil Rausi… unaware that the real Khalil’s father is the bloodthirsty General of Zenzele army, and under the direction of the King’s scheming son, Prince Effiom, was responsible for the murder of M’kuru’s people. When an imposter claiming to be M’kuru shows up in the village, the real M’kuru—now Khalil—must bide his time amongst his enemies, pretending to be everything that he hates in order to get vengeance.

In another part of the country where giants roam free, young Zikora Nnamani, the only daughter of Lord Nnamani, knows nothing of political intrigue—she wants little more than to be a fierce Seh Llinga warrior. But a well-known prophecy places too much potential power on her small shoulders, and—as far as Prince Effiom and the King know—she is the only living threat to their dynasty ruling forever. However, when a messenger arrives to “invite” Zikora to stay at the palace, her family is not in a position to refuse. Before she is taken away, she begins The Rite of Blessing, a magical inheritance that she will need to learn how to use, but that may also bring the world one step closer to the completion of the prophecy that Prince Effiom so fears.

Between scheming ladies at court, backstabbing princes on the prowl, and paranoid kings, M’kuru and Zikora must do what they can, no matter how terrible, to save their people and claim vengeance for their families. But they are just two young people against an entire kingdom—and a prophecy destined to thwart their dreams—and the last thing they can do is trust anyone…even each other.

Chinaza Bado was born in Canada but is a daughter of a father from Obizi Mbaise in Imo state and mother from Okija in Anambra, both of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria. The Igbo people are located in the Southeastern region of Nigeria. She grew up listening not only to stories of great Igwe’s, Eze’s, Obi’s, travelers, and native rulers, but also of myths and legends from all across the world.