BookPage February 2015 by BookPage

AMERICA’S BOOK REVIEW

DISCOVER YOUR NEXT GREAT BOOK

NOTEWORTHY

NEW BOOKS featuring

ANNE TYLER DANIEL HANDLER ALEXANDRA FULLER NICK HORNBY JULIA QUINN

AMANDA

EYRE WARD

FEB 2015

TOP

PICKS FICTION BOOK CLUBS NONFICTION MYSTERY AUDIO COOKING ROMANCE LIFESTYLES CHILDREN’S TEEN

Tracing an immigrant’s search for home in The Same Sky

paperback picks PENGUIN.COM

Missing You

Bone Deep

Closer Than You Think

Identity

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben comes a heart-pounding thriller about the ties we have to our past—and the lies that bind us together—as the ultimate Internet scam unfolds.

The stunning new thriller in the Doc Ford series from New York Times bestselling author Randy Wayne White.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Watch Your Back and Did You Miss Me? comes the newest novel by “the queen of romantic suspense” (Crime and Punishment).

Firecracker P.I. Fina Ludlow returns in the next hard-driving entry in the acclaimed series by Ingrid Throft.

Shadow Maker

Influx

James R. Hannibal—a veteran combat pilot—continues the thrilling international action and intrigue, following covert operative Nick Baron. How far will collateral damage from a CIA drone strike reach?

From the New York Times bestselling author of Kill Decision and Daemon comes the breathtaking new novel by “the true successor to the late Michael Crichton” (SF Site).

Abandoned in Hell • NEW IN HARDCOVER! A riveting journey into Vietnam’s heart of darkness, and a compelling reminder of the transformational power of individual heroism, Abandoned in Hell is the most gripping and authentic account of battlefield courage since Lone Survivor.

“A fabulous Gothic treat of a book filled with ancient vampires, dark vendettas, and star-crossed love.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author Deborah Harkness “It can’t be overemphasized how well this novel captures the details, locations, and long history of one of the most beautiful cities in the world.”—Publishers Weekly

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Gabriel series comes a dark, sensual tale of romance in a city shrouded in mystery and ruled by creatures of the night.

Forbidden to Love the Duke Hailed for her “wicked wit and exquisite sensuality” (Booklist), New York Times bestselling author, Jillian Hunter, returns with the Fenwick Sisters Affairs, her ravishing new series of four sisters bound by fortune, romance, and scandal.

contents

FEBRUARY FEBRUARY2015 2015 B OB O O KOPKAPGA EG. EC.OC M OM

features

13 JULIA QUINN

cover story

Amanda Eyre Ward takes a hard look at the American dream from both sides of the border.

Meet the author of The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy

16 DANIEL HANDLER A teen takes to a swashbuckling life at sea

17 LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS Four books focus on the many different sides of love

18 LASHONDA KATRICE BARNETT Two pioneering black journalists inspire a historical novel

19 BLACK HISTORY Different views of the black experience in America

29 SALLY M. WALKER The real-life bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh

31 RUTH SANDERSON Meet the author-illustrator of A Castle Full of Cats

columns 04 04 05 07 09 10 11 13

Cover image © Cory Ryan

reviews 20 FICTION

top pick:

Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

also reviewed:

Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League by Jonathan Odell A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh Prudence by David Treuer Funny Girl by Nick Hornby Lost & Found by Brooke Davis A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison

26 NONFICTION

top pick:

also reviewed:

Whipping Boy by Allen Kurzweil A Fifty-Year Silence by Miranda Richmond Mouillot The Man Who Touched His Own Heart by Rob Dunn

top pick:

The Hunger of the Wolf by Stephen Marche If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny The Marauders by Tom Cooper I Regret Everything by Seth Greenland

Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller

28 TEEN

WELL READ LIFESTYLES LIBRARY READS WHODUNIT BOOK CLUBS ROMANCE COOKING AUDIO

Warm up this month with these hot new romances from Avon Books!

Wide-Open World by John Marshall Screening Room by Alan Lightman Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

30 CHILDREN’S Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen

also reviewed:

This Side of Home by Renée Watson Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard I Was Here by Gayle Forman

top pick:

The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart

also reviewed:

A Fine Dessert by Emily Jenkins The New Small Person by Lauren Child Finding the Worm by Mark Goldblatt The Cottage in the Woods by Katherine Coville The Question of Miracles by Elana K. Arnold

A M E R I C A’ S B O O K R E V I E W PUBLISHER Michael A. Zibart

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Cat Acree

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

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EDITORIAL POLICY BookPage is a selection guide for new books. Our editors evaluate and select for review the best books published in a variety of categories. Only books we highly recommend are featured. BookPage is editorially independent and never accepts payment for editorial coverage.

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columns

WELL READ

LIFESTYLES

BY ROBERT WEIBEZAHL

BY JOANNA BRICHETTO

The dream keeper

Wedding bells

The Weary Blues. His use of blues and jazz rhythms in his poetry, as well as African-American vernacular, was innovative and electrifying. He would go on to write fiction, as well as a number of plays and opera libretti, and, as the letters reveal, his stage collaborations were fraught with a drama all their own. To read Hughes’ letters is to be immersed in mid-century culture and politics—over the years, Hughes corresponded with Paul Robeson, Countee Cullen, Vachel Lindsay, Claude McKay, Ezra Pound, Nancy Cunard, Mary but the publication of the SelectMcLeod Bethune, Richard Wright and Martin Luther King Jr. He ed Letters of Langston Hughes (Knopf, $35, 480 pages, ISBN feuded with Zora Neale Hurston, 9780375413797), as well as a new Amiri Baraka and James Baldwin. edition of his first volume of poetry, Hughes was famously circumspect The Weary Blues (Knopf, $26, about his private life, and there are 128 pages, ISBN 9780385352970), no love letters could help spur renewed interest in To read the here, although Hughes and his work. there is apparletters of The letters, edited by Arnold ent abiding Rampersad and David Roessel with Langston affection for Hughes is to be many of his Christa Fratantoro, chronicle an extraordinary life that defied the enduring corimmersed in odds against being a black writer at respondents. mid-century a particular time in America. The Taken as culture and correspondence also underscores a whole, the politics. that Hughes was savvy enough letters give the not only to recognize his own sweep of the talents but also to engage in what black intellectual experience in today we would call networking to America between the 1920s and the achieve his goals. Arriving in New 1960s, a dramatic period of strugYork after a childhood spent in the gle and change. Hughes was often Midwest and, briefly, in Mexico, at the forefront of that change as young Hughes was unhappy at one of black America’s most visible Columbia University and left after spokesmen. As the movement for only one year. He sustained himself the rights of African Americans with a series of odd jobs. became more politicized and Hughes was still a teenager polarized, Hughes was sometimes when national publications began criticized by younger black writers accepting his poetry, and the and activists for not being “radical” appearance of “The Negro Speaks enough. But these letters and this of Rivers” in the prestigious NAACP groundbreaking book of poems magazine, The Crisis, in 1921, remind us that Hughes’ voice was brought him widespread attention among the first voices that dared to as a poet to watch. His work was articulate the essence of the black championed by white writer Carl man’s soul to a wider white audiVan Vechten, and in 1926, when ence. “They’ll see how beautiful I Hughes was just 24, Knopf pubam/And be ashamed—,” he writes. lished his first poetry collection, “I, too, am America.”

Style Your Perfect Wedding: Create and Style Your Own Unforgettable Celebration (DK, $40, 256 pages, ISBN 9781465429827) is a perfect start-to-finish manual for DIY wedding decor and planning. Who knew there were so many species of wedding to choose from? From Nautical to Bohemian, Garden Party to Metropolitan,

Many readers first encounter the work of Langston Hughes in school but may not revisit it much beyond that early exposure. A seminal voice in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes lives on in a handful of widely anthologized poems, but the vast majority of his prolific output goes unread. His literary light has waxed and waned since his death in 1967,

the savvy team of editors provide expert, yet grounded guidelines for realizing the theme of your dream occasion. The book is split into two sections: The first provides inspirational photos and color palettes along with how-tos for coordinating table settings, floral arrangements, stationery, cakes, chair backs and guest favors. The second section provides helpful timelines and checklists (make sure you get the marriage license on time!), beauty tips, pointers for choosing caterers and photographers and even advice for keeping peace at the head table. When so much stress is involved, why leave anything to chance? With this extraordinary handbook, you can determine every detail of your great event. If only I’d had this book for my inadvertently Bohemian wedding back in the day!

EFFICIENT OFFICIATING Some years ago, my husband (a college professor) was asked by one of his former students to marry him—that is, to officiate at his wedding. It’s one thing to give a classroom lecture, but it’s something completely different to be in charge of the most important ceremony of someone’s life. In a similar pinch and not sure where to start? Never fear! With Lisa Francesca’s little book of wisdom, The Wedding Officiant’s Guide:

How to Write and Conduct a Perfect Ceremony (Chronicle, $16.95, 136 pages, ISBN 9781452119014), you’ll have everything the unclergied, uninitiated officiant needs to know about overseeing ceremonies of any flavor, including religious, interfaith and same-sex. The author goes step-by-step through the logistics of the job (interviewing the couple, the wedding rehearsal, the big day, post-ceremony duties) to ensure the event runs smoothly. As a poet, the author has insights into potential readings and strategies for setting the best tone in whatever original writing is required.

TOP PICK IN LIFESTYLES Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World (Storey, $16.95, 224 pages, ISBN 9781612122311), by Julia Rothman, is easily the funnest nature book I’ve come across in a long while, and like the word “funnest,” it doesn’t follow the rules. Rothman lowers the bar on nature study by enticing anyone intrigued by charming illustrations to simply wander on over. That’s what this book is like: a wander through fascinating bits of our natural world. There is, however, a method, beginning with landforms and habitats, weather patterns, snowflake shapes and a drawing of the Earth and sun that illuminates the reasons for the seasons. Then, detailed drawings of flower anatomy, a bee, a butterfly and an ant give us vocabulary to describe what we see in our backyard or along a sidewalk. Finally, taken on a brilliantly imagined hike, we meet a slew of common plants and animals via uncommonly interesting snippets of description and behavior.

Selected from nominations made by library staff across the country, here are the 10 books that librarians can’t wait to share with readers in February.

A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD by Anne Tyler

MAKE IT A

WONDERFUL

Knopf, $25.95, ISBN 9781101874271

The master of family drama returns with the tender story of the joys, hopes and disappointments of three generations of a Baltimore family. BookPage review on page 20.

A TOUCH OF STARDUST by Kate Alcott

Doubleday, $25, ISBN 9780385539043 A young female screenwriter gives us a backstage look at the filming of Gone with the Wind in this vivid historical novel that brings classic Hollywood to life.

MY SUNSHINE AWAY by M.O. Walsh

Putnam, $26.95, ISBN 9780399169526 When a teenage girl is raped in her seemingly idyllic small town, the community is shaken, and a neighbor boy looks for answers. BookPage review on page 20.

THE SECRETS OF SIR RICHARD KENWORTHY by Julia Quinn

Avon, $7.99, ISBN 9780062072948 The final book in Quinn’s Smythe-Smith quartet finds wallflower Iris being wooed by the wealthy Sir Richard—but can she trust his motives? Meet Julia Quinn on page 13.

om with New Books fr p n’s Publishing Grou Macmillan Childre

Two  STARRED 

reviews!

HALF THE WORLD by Joe Abercrombie

Del Rey, $26, ISBN 9780804178426 The second book in the Shattered Sea fantasy series finds young Thorn Bathu being trained as a warrior by the treacherous Father Yarvi in order to seek revenge for her father.

Swim along with the Pout-Pout Fish . . .

FINDING JAKE by Bryan Reardon

Morrow, $26.99, ISBN 9780062339485 A stay-at-home dad faces some tough facts about his teenage son in this suspenseful debut.

A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC by V.E. Schwab

Tor, $25.99, ISBN 9780765376459 This fantasy follows a magician who can travel between two parallel universes—and just may have to save the world.

A MURDER OF MAGPIES by Judith Flanders

Minotaur, $24.99, ISBN 9781250056450 A social historian turns to fiction in this romp of a novel that takes readers between London and Paris in pursuit of a potentially libelous manuscript.

Take a snooze with

And save the day

Theo and Beau . . .

with Supertruck!

THE SIEGE WINTER by Ariana Franklin & Samantha Norman

Morrow, $25.99, ISBN 9780062282569 Two young women get caught up in England’s 12th-century civil war when they shelter King Stephen’s rival for the throne.

DREAMING SPIES by Laurie R. King

Bantam, $26, ISBN 9780345531797 Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, go from California to Tokyo to Oxford in a race to solve a potentially empire-toppling mystery. LibraryReads is a recommendation program that highlights librarians’ favorite books published this month. For more information, visit libraryreads.org.

 Five STARRED reviews!  Imprints of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group mackids.com

columns

WHODUNIT BY BRUCE TIERNEY

Not your little girl anymore Joakim Zander’s terrific debut, The Swimmer (Harper, $27.99, 432 pages, ISBN 9780062337245), breaks the mold for Swedish suspense novels, which are so often police procedurals. This trans global tale hews more closely to John le Carré or Olen Steinhauer

under suspicious circumstances: First there was the shouting match; then the broken glass from a beer bottle found in the Beckham home that bears traces of his wife’s blood type; then her smashed cell phone, found on a deserted section of Tamiami Trail. And if all that isn’t

than to Henning Mankell or Jo Nesbø. With settings as diverse as Syria, Afghanistan and Langley, Virginia (to name but a few), The Swimmer traces the occasionally intersecting arcs of a spy forced to abandon his infant daughter in the aftermath of an assassination attempt, and a young woman in possession of a lethal secret she has no desire to know. It’s not giving too much away to say that the infant daughter and the young woman are the same person, separated by 33 years. Told largely in the third person, The Swimmer has first-person chapters strewn throughout, authored by the titular “Swimmer,” who also happens to be the aforementioned spy. As spies go, he’s a particularly literate one, and his descriptions are atmospheric and exotic. As is the case with most modern spy novels, there is a focus on terrorism and the ruthlessness of operatives on both sides. This is a first-class debut.

enough, add to the mix Beckham’s failed lie detector test. Overzealous cops, shady lawyers and a shadowy figure from Florida’s Big Sugar industry round out the cast, and the tangled web they weave seems strategically poised to ensnare Beckham. The surprises never quit coming.

EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY James Grippando’s latest thriller, Cane and Abe (Harper, $24.99, 368 pages, ISBN 9780062295392), finds narrator Abe Beckham caught up in what the Brits would call “a spot of bother.” First off, his one-time squeeze turns up murdered, her body dumped in Florida’s alligator-infested Everglades. Beckham immediately becomes a person of interest. He’s elevated to full-on suspect when his wife disappears

his or her agenda. There are Hitchcockian overtones, as well as the sort of last-page narrative tweak that would undoubtedly bring a Mona Lisa smile to Sir Alfred’s usually taciturn countenance.

TOP PICK IN MYSTERY Scandinavia spawns first-rate mystery novelists the way Japan churns out championship figure skaters. I’ve been a huge fan (of both) for quite some time, but my first exposure to best-selling Danish author Sara Blaedel comes with her latest work, The Forgotten Girls (Grand Central, $26, 320 pages, ISBN 9781455581528). The title refers to developmentally challenged children whose parents found them to be too much trouble and dropped them off at a government facility, essentially writing them out of their family’s narrative. Two of these forgotten girls were identical twins named Lise and Mette. According to their doctor’s

records, they died in childhood, only one minute apart. Problem is, 30 years later, one of their bodies turns up, fully grown, on the rocky shore of a forest lake. If one twin was still alive, is the other one as well? If so, where is she now? And how, if at all, does this death connect with the series of brutal murders that have taken place sporadically in the forest over the years? This is the puzzle that police investigator Louise Rick and journalist Camilla Lind must piece together, hopefully before the killer strikes again. Tautly suspenseful and sociologically fascinating, The Forgotten Girls demonstrates yet again that the finest contemporary suspense fiction emanates from Europe’s snowbound North.

STRANGERS AT A BAR Heathrow, the business-class lounge. A chance encounter between a wealthy businessman and an attractive woman. A pair of matching martinis. Some small talk: “Married?” he asks. “I’m not,” she replies. “You?” “Yes, unfortunately.” Out of that short interchange, and with the unguarded intimacy of fellow travelers who know that their time together is brief, the pair concoct a what‑if scenario around the notion of the hastened demise of the businessman’s wife. (We’ve all done this, right?) So begins Peter Swanson’s The Kind Worth Killing (Morrow, $25.99, 320 pages, ISBN 9780062267528), an intricate tale of murder planned and plans gone hopelessly awry. The narration is always in the first person, but the narrator changes again and again: businessman Ted; his comely martini companion, Lily; Ted’s avaricious wife, Miranda; and, last but not least, a dogged cop named Kimball. All four have dirty secrets, and each is willing to betray at least one of the others to further

“ V E RY F R E S H A N D C A P T I VAT I N G . . . A S H E E R D E L I G H T TO R E A D.” —KATE ATKINSON, New York Times bestselling author of Life After Life

A spectacular suspense debut about a daring art heist, a cat-and-mouse waiting game, and a small-town girl’s mesmerizing transformation

“Tense, suspenseful . . . Unbecoming is a novel of voice, invention, and momentum, as tautly plotted as any Hitchcock movie.” —KAREN JOY FOWLER, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

www.rebeccascherm.com

@chezscherm

VIKING

columns

BOOK CLUBS BY JULIE HALE

Turning toward home Set in Little Wing, Wisconsin, Nickolas Butler’s Shotgun Lovesongs (St. Martin’s Griffin, $15.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9781250039828) is a poignant portrayal of life in the Midwest. The novel centers on a group of friends who grew up in Little Wing and still call the town home. Each of these 30-somethings takes a turn at narrating the story. Ronny, a for-

mer rodeo star, is struggling to find his footing in the world. Henry has a farm, a wife and kids. Kip, who made big bucks in stocks in Chicago, is using his fortune to revive Little Wing’s long-shuttered feed mill. And then there’s Lee, a promising musician (loosely based on real-life Wisconsinite Justin Vernon of Bon Iver) whose career has taken off thanks to an album recorded in a local chicken coop. Butler’s group of lifelong buddies feels genuine, and he infuses their conflicts, regrets and triumphs with wonderful detail. He also captures the special sense of melancholy that comes with the approach of middle age. Shotgun Lovesongs is a debut novel, but it reads like the work of a seasoned author.

many of whom have come to the retreat seeking some form of resolution. They pray and meditate in the crematoria and on the platform where victims were chosen for the camps. Olin’s own story—including his unsuccessful marriage, various love affairs and the discoveries he makes about his family’s past—unfolds against this powerful backdrop. A remarkable endnote from a revered author, this is a brave, unflinching narrative about humanity’s deep-seated need for understanding. It’s a triumphant addition to Matthiessen’s epic body of work—one that reinforces his reputation as a fearless writer.

TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS

Akhil Sharma’s Family Life (Norton, $14.95, 240 pages, ISBN 9780393350609) is a masterfully crafted novel that examines the immigrant experience and the ties that bind parents and siblings. Narrator Ajay Mishra tells the story of his family’s arrival in New York from New Delhi—a trip they make in 1979. Ajay’s brother, Birju, lands a spot at a notable prep school, and his father has a job with the government. The family seems set RETREAT TO AUSCHWITZ for a fresh start. But when Birju In Paradise (Riverhead, $16, 256 suffers an accident that leads to pages, ISBN 9781594633522), the brain damage, the Mishras have final novel from Peter Matthiessen, to change course yet again. Caring who died last year at the age of 86, for Birju becomes a top priority is a haunting exploration of the Ho- that introduces new tensions into locaust and the ways in which its their daily lives. In the midst of this reach has extended into the modturmoil, Ajay manages to excel in ern age. In 1996, Clements Olin, an school and chart a course for a successful future. His matter-of-fact English professor from America, attends a weeklong spiritual retreat narration brings balance to a story at Auschwitz. He plans to spend his filled with incident and drama. It’s time there doing literary research, an unforgettable depiction of a but he becomes involved with a family battered by fortune and of the ways in which the human spirit diverse group of participants— Jews, Zen Buddhists and Germans, endures.

Your February Fiction FORECAST A A Memory Memory of Violets of By Violets Hazel Gaynor

By Gaynor FromHazel the New York Times HEART-WARMING bestselling authorthe From of New The Girl YorkWho Times Came bestselling Home author an comes of The unforgettable Girl Who Came historical Home comesfollowing novel an unforgettable the lives of historical two novel following sisters who are separated the lives ofwhile two sisters who areflowers selling separated in thewhile streets selling of flowers in the streets Victorian London. of Victorian London.

The Long and The Long and Faraway Gone Faraway Gone By Lou Berney By Lou Berney

SUMMER STORM

“Multi-faceted, layered, intense, alive Edgar Award-nominee Lounovel Berney’s if you read only one crime this smart and fiercely compassionate year, this should be the one.” novel unsolved crimes that — SARAofJ. two HENRY, ANTHONY AWARDdisrupt Oklahoma during WINNING AUTHOR OFCity A COLD AND the otherwise LONELY PLACE quiet summer of 1986.

The The Forgetting Place Forgetting By Lou BerneyPlace By Lou Berney

SHADOWY

“John Burley’s deftly written and A female psychiatrist at a state. . the briskly plotted story unsettles. mental hospital finds herself ground rumbles beneath our at feet and the center of a shadowy conspiracy surprises wait at every turn.” in this UNGER, dark and twisting tale of — LISA NEW YORK TIMES psychological BESTSELLING AUTHOR suspense. OF CRAZY LOVE YOU

Baltimore Blues Baltimore Blues By Laura Lippman

CHILLING By Laura Discover theLippman first novel in New York

Times bestselling Discover the first novel author in Laura New York Times Lippman’s outstanding bestselling Tessauthor Monahan Laura in series Lippman’s preparation outstanding for the newest Tess Monaghan installment, Hush series! Hush, this fall!

@bookclubgirl

William Morrow Paperbacks

Book Club Girl

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ROMANCE B Y C H R I S T I E R I D G WAY

Fire up Valentine’s Day with a romantic read No Valentine? No worries. Whether you’re looking for a cowboy or an aristocrat, these great novels feature swoon-worthy heroes who won’t let you down! Pure Western pleasure can be found in The Marriage Charm (HQN, $7.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780373778928), a continuation of Linda Lael Miller’s Brides of Bliss County series. Jewelry designer Melody Nolan has carried a torch for lawman Spence Hogan since she was 6—and even had a brief summer fling with him when she

was 20. But he refused her impulsive marriage proposal then, so it’s hard to think he might change his mind about forever with her now that they’re older. However, Spence still makes her blood run hot, and since the wedding of their best friends, he seems to be abandoning his playboy ways. Spence has a few reasons to distrust women and matrimony. Sure, he enjoys the fairer sex, but the idea of settling down has never

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appealed to him. But it’s beginning to sound kind of perfect—if only he could find the right woman. He was right to say no to Melody’s youthful proposal before, but can he make her believe he sees a future for them? The path to happiness for these two wary lovers is made more difficult by a string of robberies, but there’s no doubt

tender story spiced with thrilling suspense.

ROAD-TRIP ROMANCE

Readers will smile their way through the cute and quirky Love Me Sweet (Montlake, $12.95, 304 pages, ISBN 9781477819630) by Tracy Brogan. In the third installment of Brogan’s Bell Harbor series, celebrity stylist and reality-TV star Delaney Masterson is on the lam, hiding out from the press after the release of an embarrassing sex tape. She touches down in Bell Harbor, Michigan, unprepared for the snow— or for Grant Connelly, this enjoyable, easygoing story will the sexy man with whom she is suddenly sharing an apartment. have a satisfying ending. When her new roommate’s SUDDEN WEDDING flighty mother takes off with Delaney’s belongings, Delaney Thwarting scandal has wide and Grant set off on a road trip to implications in the latest in Lily recover her lost things. During the Dalton’s One Scandalous Seajourney, they meet a charming cast son series, Never Surrender to a of characters and fall in love. But Scoundrel (Forever, $8, 432 pages, Delaney has yet to tell Grant that ISBN 9781455523993). Clarissa she is part of a Kardashian-style Bevington believes that she has family entertainment business found love just before her debut ball. However, she soon learns that and wonders if these feelings will her intended has married someone survive the shock. When Grant learns the truth, he feels betrayed else. Heartbreak is complicated by the fact that she’s pregnant, and makes assumptions about and her grandfather immediately Delaney that lead to a painful sepenlists the help of Lord Donovan aration. However, this parting gives Blackmer, who has been on an Delaney time to learn to stand up undercover assignment to protect for herself and her dreams, and the old man. Pressured by his supe- Grant must do some soul-searchriors in the spy business, Donovan ing as well to give their romance its is forced into an “I do.” As sorry as happy ending. Clarissa is for her foolishness and the terrible position she has placed PASSION REKINDLED her new husband in, she can’t If you are looking for a romantic help but be attracted to the man. adventure, you will find it in the At his family home, she helps him latest in Sabrina Jeffries’ The Duke’s navigate a difficult reunion with his Men series, If the Viscount Falls parents and brother, and Dono(Pocket, $7.99, 400 pages, ISBN van comes to appreciate Clarissa’s 9781476786049). Dominick Manspirit—both in and out of the bed- ton forced his fiancée, Jane Vernon, room. But just as love takes root, to break their engagement 12 years ghosts from his dangerous past prior, when his evil older brother arrive and put both of their lives destroyed his bright prospects. But now that sibling is dead, and in danger. Dalton has delivered a

Dominick is the presumptive heir to a viscountcy. As he’s trying to sort out this new state of affairs, Jane sweeps into his life and demands he help her find her missing cousin, who is also his brother’s widow. Though older and wiser, Jane and Dom still have feelings for each other—passionate feelings that arise as they seek the missing woman using Dom’s experience as an investigator. Besides solving the mystery at hand, the pair must struggle with reconciling their past choices. Only as they share more about what passed between them do they begin to see how they can make a happy future together. Action, passion and two very likable people whose love has survived years make this a memorable love story.

TOP PICK IN ROMANCE A misguided miss makes a wrong turn to the altar in Julia London’s The Devil Takes a Bride (HQN, $7.99, 386 pages, ISBN 9780373778904), the second book in The Cabot Stepsisters series. When her stepfather’s death and her mother’s illness threaten the future marital prospects of her three sisters, Grace Cabot plots to save them by instigating her own quick wedding. To do so, she plans to compromise herself with an affable aristocrat, but instead she gets caught in a passionate embrace with his taciturn brother, Jeffrey, the Earl of Merryton. So while a marriage does occur, Grace doesn’t know what to make of her controlled and moody groom. Jeffrey has always tried to inhibit his passions, but his spirited wife goads him at every turn. She ignites him in all ways, and soon, order is upended in his household. With Grace’s help, however, Jeffrey learns to accept and embrace the glorious mess that is a sensual life. London’s elegant writing perfectly conveys this passionate and poignant story of two strangers finding understanding and love.

COOKING BY SYBIL PRATT

The one-pan panacea Super, savory suppers (lunches and brunches, too) that can be cooked in one pan are always more than welcome. They save precious time, both in the prep and in the unavoidable end-of-meal clean-up. Molly Gilbert, a big fan of one-pot cooking, got fed up with the soupy-chili-stewy variety and turned to the multitalented sheet pan, whereon you can place a few compatible ingredients, paired with the versatility of the oven, wherein you can roast, bake or broil those compatible ingre-

dients into delectable dinners for any occasion. Sheet Pan Suppers (Workman, $15.95, 304 pages, ISBN 9780761178422) serves up 120 recipes for this easy procedure, with foolproof appetizers (Kettle Kale and Crispy Za’atar Chickpeas), some simple, worthwhile “servewiths” (potatoes, polenta and pilaf) and crowd-pleasing desserts (a Stone Fruit Slab Pie for 24, crackly crusted Thinnest Brownies for 36). But the main events, starring poultry, fish, meat or no-meat wonders, take center stage and let you get a seriously satisfying meal on the table with less mess, no stress and more flavor.

CULINARY ADVENTURES When Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns took the reins of San Francisco restaurant Bar Tartine, their intense cooking curiosity and their special techniques for transforming a wild variety of ingredients into the building blocks that fill their larder created a new culinary universe, one that’s in constant expansion. Their lavishly, lusciously illustrated Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes (Chronicle, $40, 368 pages, ISBN 9781452126463) explores this universe and offers adventurous home chefs the chance to learn to make

everything from scratch— vegetable powders, spice mixtures, cheeses, sprouted seeds, grains and nuts, infused oils, vinegars, preserves, pickles, syrups, stocks and more. Make a few, make them all or buy high-quality ingredients instead. No matter which way you go, the 120 recipes take you into an exciting multilayered, multicultural gastrosphere, where new combos such as Black Garlic and Lentil Soup, Smoked Potatoes with Ramp Mayonnaise, Beef Tartare Toast with Bottarga or Sunchoke Custard with Sunflower Greens work their flavor-filled wiles.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS Stanley Tucci, the multi-awardwinning actor who’s appeared in more than 50 films, is also a fabulous cook. Now, with his wife, Felicity Blunt, he’s written his second cookbook, The Tucci Table (Gallery, $30, 256 pages, ISBN 9781476738567). It’s a comfortable, easy-to-approach book, filled with pleasing recipes that reflect both Tucci’s Italian-American heritage and Blunt’s British background. They both want to share the food they love and to do so without attitude or hauteur. So you’ll find classic English Sausage Rolls from Blunt’s childhood and slow-simmered Tuscan Tomato Soup, Shepherd’s Pie and a hearty Bolognese, light, fluffy Yorkshire Pudding and soul-satisfying Polenta (use any leftovers for Polenta Frites). Also featured are favorite dishes their friends have cooked, like Tony Shalloub’s Stuffed Grape Leaves and Natasha Richardson’s Pissaladière, as well as dishes Stanley’s talented, food-loving children have created, including Camilla’s Raspberry Ripple Lemon Cake and Nico’s Pasta with Prosciutto, Onions, Peas and Pancetta.

A plan born of desperation… and altered by passion

“Julia London strikes gold again.” —Stephanie Laurens, New York Times bestselling author

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11 2014-12-24 1:11 PM

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read by jeff gurner read by the author A rollicking, globe-trotting adventure with a twist: a four-legged heroine you won’t soon forget.

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AUDIO BY SUKEY HOWARD

the title of your new book? Q: What’s

Women and war “In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are.” The Nightingale (Macmillan Audio, $44.99, 17.5 hours, ISBN 9781427212672), Kristin Hannah’s latest novel and a departure from her previous bestsellers, explores that powerful statement. Set in France during WWII, it’s told as an epic flashback by an elderly wom-

an, one of two sisters, now urged into assisted care by her son. What unfolds is the story of these sisters. Vianne is a mild, loving wife and mother living in a Loire village as her husband goes off to fight, while Isabelle, 10 years younger, is bold, impetuous, rebellious, and has just been expelled from yet another school. In their very different ways, they must confront the horrors of the Nazi occupation. Isabelle joins the resistance, becoming a famous passeur, leading downed allied airmen to freedom. Vianne quietly begins to save Jewish children in her village from deportation and death. Hannah makes the war’s degradation and deprivation palpable and the valor of the sisters vivid, as does Polly Stone’s Gallic-glazed narration.

meet JULIA QUINN

carping mother and a somewhat disengaged father, held hard to their old-world values, and didn’t understand a girl who wanted to go to high school and college. But Addie persevered and, step by unsteady step, built a life with meaning, found a man with whom she could share her liberal values and had both a career and a family. Diamant offers a heartwarming, but unsentimental, serenade to the immigrant experience.

would you describe the book Q: in How one sentence?

Q: What three qualities do you admire most in Iris Smythe-Smith?

got the obnoxious little sister character on lockdown Q: You’ve in this novel—any real-life inspirations there?

TOP PICK IN AUDIO

John Grisham’s latest, Gray Mountain (Random House Audio, $45, 15 hours, ISBN 9780385366533) isn’t a whodunit or a traditional legal thriller. You know from the get-go that Big Coal, in collusion with politicians, judges, doctors and even some federal agencies, did it, does it and is determined to keep at it. “It” is the incredible devastation of Appalachia and of the miners and their families. Grisham has wrapped his impassioned advocacy for stopping Big Coal’s rape of the land and the rampant pollution and ruined lives that come as collateral damA GIRL WITH GUMPTION age in a fast-paced page-turner. It Addie Baum, the irrepressibly stars an attractive, smart, well-educated young lawyer who was on feisty, endearing heroine of Anita Diamant’s novel, The Boston Girl the fast track to making partner in (Simon & Schuster Audio, $29.99, a prestigious New York law firm— 8 hours, ISBN 9781442380363), until the 2008 crash. Suddenly, without a salary or a shiny future, comes to vibrant life in Linda Samantha Kofer finds herself at the Lavin’s reading, with her pitch- Mountain Legal Aid Clinic in Brady, perfect Boston-Jewish accent. Addie, now 85 and a doting grandVirginia, a very small town in the mother, is more than willing to heart of Appalachia. And suddenly, share her story, warts and all, with she’s dealing with the victims of her youngest granddaughter. The Big Coal’s greed and the crusading first U.S.-born child of East Eurolocal lawyers dedicated to helping pean immigrants in 1900, Addie’s them, no matter what the risk. life is a mirror of the transformaCatherine Taber’s performance tions that made the 20th century so makes Samantha, the good guys exciting. Her parents, a constantly and the bad real and relevant.

your favorite aspect of the Regency era: the dresses, Q: What’s the manners or the manors?

Q: What’s your guilty pleasure? Q: What’s #1 on your Valentine’s Day wishlist?

THE SECRETS OF SIR RICHARD KENWORTHY A Harvard grad who (briefly) attended medical school before deciding to become a full-time writer, Julia Quinn is a member of the Romance Writers of America’s Hall of Fame and author of a string of bestsellers. Her latest novel, The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy (Avon, $7.99, 384 pages, ISBN 9780062072948), finds Sir Richard back in London and in a hurry to make a marital match with one of the Smythe-Smith daughters. Quinn and her family live in Seattle.

The women of Bliss County have a pact— to find husbands. The right husbands.

#1 New York Times bestselling author and Harlequin’s First Lady of the West

welcomes you back to Bliss County.

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“[Miller] is one of the finest American writers in the genre.” —RT Book Reviews

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cover story

AMANDA EYRE WARD

Both sides of the American dream

manda Eyre Ward had already finished writing The Same Sky, her moving novel about an 11-year-old Honduran girl attempting to reunite with her mother in the U.S., when the controversy about undocumented minors blew up along the border last summer.

“When I wrote the book, no one was paying any attention to these unaccompanied minors,” Ward says during a call to her home in Austin. “I am so thrilled that these young children at the border are finally being paid attention to.” The author of four previous novels, including 2005’s How to Be Lost, Ward has a particular talent for revealing the ways in which characters’ lives are touched by larger world events. She traces her interest in immigrant children to a moment when, after three difficult years, she gave up “hammering and hammering away” at a novel that just wasn’t working. “I put it aside, cried a little, and drank too much chardonnay for a month or so,” she says with a rueful laugh. And then she began reading widely. A native of New York, Ward has lived in Austin for the better part of 15 years with her husband, a geophysicist at the University of Texas and a fifth-generation Texan. The couple has two sons and a daughter, ages 11, 7 and 2. Ward’s reading on immigration

THE SAME SKY

By Amanda Eyre Ward

Ballantine, $25, 288 pages, ISBN 9780553390506 Audio, eBook available

FICTION

led her to a meeting with Alexia Rodriquez, who runs shelters along the border. “I went down to Brownsville with her and stayed at her parents’ house. Because she knew I wanted to write a novel about this, she embraced me. She’s very religious, and she kept saying God has brought you to us so that these children’s stories can be told. She’d go into the shelter cafeteria and ask, who wants to tell this woman your stories? And kids from 5 to 15 years old would raise their hands. They would sit across the table from me and tell their stories about their journeys and their hopes, and Alexia would translate. “One of the girls was pregnant, and I have friends dealing with various fertility issues, and that night I went to sleep thinking about how these kids were so alone and so courageous, and I woke up in the morning with the whole novel in my head. That’s never happened to me before.” The Same Sky is not a political novel. Instead, it’s a textured, emotional story that unfolds in alternating chapters told by a Texas woman and an immigrant girl. Alice and her husband Jake own a popular barbecue restaurant in Austin, Texas, but Alice is haunted by her inability to have a child. Carla is a young girl in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, who decides to seek out her mother in the U.S. after her grandmother dies and her life collapses because of poverty and gang violence. “I wanted Alice and Jake to be the embodiment of the American dream,” Ward says. “They created something for themselves. With that restaurant, they made their own way.” But Alice puts her comfortable life at risk in misguided attempts to control circumstances and avoid dealing with the trauma and disappointment in her life.

“Alice is seeking some sort of solace, some sort of direction to her life, in all the wrong places,” Ward says. “My personal journey and also belief is that you have to just give up control of things like that and remain open to what fulfillment awaits you.” Surprisingly, Ward says she worked harder on getting Alice’s voice right than Carla’s. The life of the Honduran girl is the polar opposite of the American dream, but, Ward says, “From the very beginning I heard her in first person. I knew that “I woke up English was one morning not her first with the language, and I didn’t know whole novel how on earth in my head. I would justify That’s never her speaking happened to English until quite late in me before.” the process. But I trusted her story, probably because I had heard so many kids tell me about their journeys. A lot of their stories are about the food they ate or didn’t eat, because their needs are so basic. By the time a lot of them leave their homes, they are starving. They live in fear of being murdered by gang members. So Carla’s voice just came through. That is so rare and amazing that I just went with it.” For a reader, the suspense in the narrative—the hope versus the dread—lies in our concern about whether or how these two contrasting lives will converge. To bring these characters fully to life, Ward reports that she did a vast amount of research: about South and Central American gang life,

BY ALDEN MUDGE

about the incredibly dangerous journeys undocumented children make from their homes to the U.S. border, about the East Side of Austin, a rough neighborhood now being gentrified where much of the novel’s action takes place, and even about Texas barbecue. “Being from New York, I thought barbecue was cubes of meat in barbecue sauce,” she says, laughing. “Here in Texas that’s not what it’s about at all!” As a sort of consolation for an often wrenching storyline, Ward offers readers lip-smacking descriptions of barbecue, as well as vivid descriptions of Austin haunts. But in the end, Ward returns to her concern for the plight of the children at the border. “These kids are so hopeful that someone will adopt them. They are so open and ready to be loved. They are so faithful, almost in a sense that seems insane. They believe deeply that a great life awaits them. That’s a kind of spiritual capital that a lot of us here in the U.S. are missing.” As to how The Same Sky will be read in this particular political moment, Ward says she is unsure. “When you watch the news, when you hear the soundbites, I think a lot of people turn away from this very complex issue. I hope this book will help people hear one child’s story.”

interview

DANIEL HANDLER

It’s a pirate’s life for this young heroine

t’s striking, once you notice it, how important books and reading are in the work of Daniel Handler. Handler is probably best known as the inventor/alter-ego of Lemony Snicket, author of the sensational children’s book series A Series of Unfortunate Events.

In those stories, the three Baudelaire children are frequently able to outsmart their enemies because of something they read in a book. Similarly, in Handler’s new novel, We Are Pirates, the action hinges on how the story’s teenage protagonist, Gwen, reacts to what she’s been reading: namely, a bunch of old-fashioned pirate novels with titles like Captain Blood. “I find reading exciting,” Handler explains in a phone interview from his home in San Francisco, “and in the moment we’re in, in which there are so many different types of entertainment, the thing I like the most about books is their bookishness. I don’t like books that feel like a season of TV.” Handler was a devoted bookworm from a young age. “I was a voracious reader and a big rereader. I believed that the more you reread a book, the more secrets you could draw out of it.” Some of the authors he liked best as a youngster are very much in line with the tone and aesthetics of the Lemony Snicket series: Edward Gorey, Roald Dahl. But he fondly

WE ARE PIRATES

By Daniel Handler

Bloomsbury, $26, 288 pages ISBN 9781608196883, eBook available

FICTION

rattles off the names of a wide range of other writers as well. “And I fell into a pit of Nabokov when I was in college that I don’t think I’ve quite come out of yet,” he adds. Handler tends to like stories that are straightforward about exactly who is doing the telling: Stories that, like the Lemony Snicket books, go through a clear narrative framework. In his rollick“I see such a ing new book, restlessness the storyteller’s and fury in identity is less many young clearly defined, but it’s still women crucial. In the around me.” first few pages, a mysterious “I” leads us room by room around a party at the home of the Needle family. Very quickly this narrator vanishes, or rather, seamlessly blends into the story, and the two main characters, Phil Needle and his daughter, Gwen, take over. The story is powered by Gwen, a frustrated teenage girl who has just been caught, uncharacteristically, shoplifting at a drugstore. (Importantly, it is Gwen’s alter ego who did the deed.) As punishment, her parents send her to volunteer as a companion to Errol, a gruff old man in a nursing home who, as he keeps repeating, has a problem with his memory. Errol supplies her with armloads of books about pirates, and Gwen is entranced. The books are exactly the kind of old-fashioned, swashbuckling pirate lore that Handler had in mind while writing—the kind of stories where a crusty fisherman with a pegleg sits down at the bar and announces he’s going to tell you a tale. In this case, the story is set in the present, but the storyteller’s filter still does the same trick: It’s a reassurance for the reader. “You know [the story] ends at a party where

everyone’s okay,” Handler explains. That reassurance is especially useful here, because there’s a moment when We Are Pirates takes a bloody turn, and if you didn’t know everyone was going to be okay you might worry. To simplify the action-packed plot a bit: As Gwen spends more time with Errol, she takes his stories of life on the open sea evermore seriously. She meets a gung-ho girl at her dentist’s office and they become inseparable, calling each other “wench” and quoting key passages from the pirate books to each other. The three solidify into a crew, and they devise a brilliant plan for escape. Suffice it to say, all does not go as expected. “The idea was to think about what happens when you step outside the law, outside the boundary,” Handler says. “You think, ‘Oh, it’s going to be so much more fun,’ but there’s a reason we have laws.” Gwen is a great character, immediately real and as tormented as any teenage girl struggling to figure out who she is. Even when her decisions are profoundly wrong, you understand exactly why she made them. Her observations are blistering. (“Who does not see rich people on a boat and want to destroy them?” Handler writes, as Gwen gazes at a yacht and eloquently seethes.) “I knew some Gwens when I was that age, and my sister was kind of a Gwen,” says Handler, now 44. “I see such a restlessness and a fury in many young women around me. There’s a lot of narrative crackle there.” The storyline shifts between Gwen and her father, Phil, an

MEREDITH HEUER

BY BECKY OHLSEN

equally fascinating character. Phil is a radio producer who seems to be tragically deluded about nearly every aspect of his domestic and professional life. He wants to be good, but it means he’s constantly censoring his thoughts and impulses. He’s a classic lost soul, and his internal musings are as heartbreaking as they are bitingly funny. Handler has lots of practice at figuring out new ways to tell troubling stories. His first novel, The Basic Eight, was based on an actual high-school murder from his childhood; he says he approached the arrangement of the narrative structure for maximum impact “almost like a mathematical equation.” The impressive tonal balance between sadness and comedy in his latest novel comes in part from what was going on in Handler’s life. He’d started writing this novel years ago, but found that it was too light and “goofy” for what he wanted to do. So he set it aside. Time passed, until Handler found that his situation had changed: not only was he a father, but his own father was suffering from dementia. “I was in effect handed front-row seats to an experience that I had previously had no access to,” he recalls. “It’s a long disease—there’s time for all of the emotions.” If his father could see himself in Errol, Handler says, “He would be absolutely tickled.”

features

LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS BY LINDA M. CASTELLITTO

wife and children that they could do a whole lot worse.”

LONG-LIVED LOVE

Reckoning with the power of love

h, love—everyone wants it, but many feel unsure how to get it or keep it. These titles offer valuable, often entertaining insight on many facets of love. Personal stories, wit and wisdom abound. Go forth and be romantic!

The New York Times “Modern Love” column has launched many memoirs, and Eve Pell’s popular 2013 essay has grown into Love, Again: The Wisdom of Unexpected Romance (Ballantine, $25, 224 pages, ISBN 9780804176460). “How do old people meet new loves?” Pell writes. “Here’s how it happened for me: I schemed.” She, 67 and twice-divorced, asked a mutual friend to invite Sam, a 77-yearold widower, to a party. Next came a movie date . . . and three years later, they married. Pell shares their stories, plus those of 14 more couples who found later-life love. Times are changing, Pell notes: “Old people who follow their own hearts are not considered exceptional or outlandish—less Auntie Mame and more Judi Dench.” She adds that, since there will likely be a caretaker (and grieving spouse) in every older couple, “old love” can feel risky, but some find the best way to face the truth of mortality is to seek happiness and enjoy each moment. Pell’s greatest lesson learned: “Trust yourself. Whatever your age, you have the right to live as fully as you can, as fully as you want to.” This lovely, poignant read will bring out the romantic in readers of any age.

DEVOTION’S DARK SIDE Lisa A. Phillips tackles a timely, deeply personal topic in Unrequited: Women and Romantic Obsession (Harper, $25.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780062114013). Phillips admits that, 20 years ago at age 29, she became obsessed with “B.” The two dated despite his long-distance girlfriend, but

as Phillips (fresh off a breakup) fell in love, he pulled away. “For years after I stopped pursuing B.,” she writes, “I could not acknowledge that I’d gone too far.” Friends comforted her, but if she’d been a man, “They would have accused me of stalking.” Phillips acknowledges that, and uses it as a powerful jumping-off point for her far-ranging exploration of women’s obsessive love and its consequences. Unrequited features women’s personal stories and examines obsessive behavior through the lenses of psychology, literature and popular culture. Phillips herself eventually decided that unrequited love was not to be her fate. Meeting her now-husband and years of self-assessment got her there; for others, cognitive behavioral therapy helped with “disrupting the unsatisfying cycle.” Phillips also explores obsession’s impact on its objects, and cautions readers against the “gender pass” (downplaying women’s stalking behavior as somehow less dangerous than men’s). This is a compellingly written, eye-opening guide.

FUN AND MARRIAGE Tim Dowling professes to be surprised at his evolution from Manhattan bachelor to London husband of 20 years and father of three boys. Of course, as the humor columnist for The Guardian reveals in How to Be a Husband (Blue Rider, $26.95, 288 pages, ISBN 9780399172939), he’s not really surprised—but he does find it amazing he had the

gumption. His relationship started with a meet-cheat: He decided he must be with his now-wife, Stacie, so he cheated on and dumped his long-term girlfriend to do so. It wasn’t characteristic of him, but with new love came more changes, like visits to Stacie’s London home, immigration-related stress and finally, “We simply agreed —we’ll get married—with the resigned determination of two people plotting to bury a body in the woods.” Dowling admits this is far from a self-help book, as his “successful marriage is built of mistakes.” But he shares lessons despite himself, like the Twelve Labors of Marriage (“Housework,” “Finding Things,” “Nameless Dread”) along with the 40 Precepts of Gross Marital Happiness: “It’s okay to steal small amounts of money from each other” and “Go to bed angry if you want to.” With these clever lists and remembrances of joy, grief and hilarity, Dowling has crafted a heartfelt tale of his married life so far. He pokes fun at stereotypes and advises the hapless: “I’ve always felt that being a good husband and father is a simple matter of occasionally reminding one’s

When you want to learn something, you look to the experts. It worked for Karl Pillemer’s 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans, and he knew it would work for 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage (Hudson Street Press, $25.95, 304 pages, ISBN 9781594631542). The seeds of Pillemer’s second book originated from the Marriage Advice Project: He and his team interviewed 700 older Americans in committed relationships lasting from 30 to 70 years, including cohabitants and widows/widowers. Pillemer writes, “For them, it’s no longer a mystery as to how everything will turn out —it’s already happened.” According to stories the elders share, what we all hear about long-term love (don’t hold grudges; share the chores!) aren’t just empty phrases, but rather words to live by. Readers can start with one of the book’s five sections (“Lessons for Finding a Mate”; “Communication and Conflict”) or delve into 30 lessons on topics like manners, in-laws, work and children. Pillemer, married 36 years, shares his own perspective-shift: “I came to a revelation. They are talking about marriage as a discipline . . . a developmental path where you get better at something by mindfully attending to it and continual practice.” Also, seeing is believing: “Nothing convinces you of the value of making a lifelong commitment like being in the presence of couples who have done just that.” Long live love!

features

BEHIND THE BOOK BY LASHONDA KATRICE BARNETT

Two black trailblazers inspire my debut

or me, the first act of writing historical fiction is resistance. There are tropes within the American imagination that pop up readily; it takes a slapping of your own hand to not reach for these tropes and recycle them.

When I began working on Jam on the Vine, I did not want to write about a dysfunctional black family. Nor would I put a black woman protagonist into a role I have seen too often—maid, prostitute, junkie . . . unloved, uneducated, uninspired. Luckily, mining black history, which I have done scholastically and creatively for 20 years, brings you face-to-face with so many wonderful characters that it is easy to resist the tropes. I wanted to attempt what I believe the best historical writing— both scholarly and fictive—can do: shed light on the seed of a social problem that cripples its current

society. I had no idea what the “problem” might be when I set out to write; however, I knew that any articulation of said problem would be found in the newspaper. More than any institution in black America, including the black church, African-American newspapers have held the government accountable: demanding rights for its black citizenry and disseminating life-sustaining information. I knew my protagonist was an editor and journalist who, realistically, would not find employment at a white newspaper and therefore would have to launch her own. Two trailblazing black women

HAUNTED BY HER PAST HUNTED BY A KILLER

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“IF YOU LIKE REAL NAIL-BITERS, THIS IS THE BEST ONE SO FAR THIS YEAR. . . . COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN.”

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journalists inspired Ivoe Williams, the heroine of Jam on the Vine: Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) and Charlotta Bass (18741969). Driven by the murder by lynching of black male friends, Wells, who wrote for the New York Age newspaper, began to document lynchings and their causes, most notably in her monographs Southern Horrors (1892) and The Red Record (1895). Bass was a suffragist and the first black woman to own and operate a newspaper, the California Eagle. Like both women, Ivoe is a bookish girl who goes to college. (Ninety-four black colleges and universities thrived in the first decade of the 20th century, yet we don’t encounter their stories in Progressive-era narratives. Ever.) Like Bass, I wanted Ivoe to launch her own newspaper. Like Wells, I wanted Ivoe’s journalism to have purpose, but felt I could not write about lynching for my own mental health. Drawing on the early 20th-century history of Texas, one cannot help but notice the birth and proliferation of prison farms—the roots of the incarceration crisis we now face. The moment I stumbled across this fact, I knew that Ivoe’s newspaper would call attention to shady police procedures involving the racist arrest and (often erroneous) imprisonment of black men. This crisis continues to plague America. The last value I brought to Jam on the Vine hinged on sexual orientation. Much damage has been done to disconnect the social and political—not just artistic—contributions of homosexuals from the American narrative. Placing a black lesbian activist at the center of an early 20th-century story was a nat-

ural choice and also a political one. In writing Jam on the Vine, my valentine to the black press, I’ve exercised my strong belief that historical fiction can go a long way in restoring marginalized groups to their rightful places within a society’s past, present and future. Today, black newspapers continue to trumpet the age-old call for justice.

Missouri-born author LaShonda Katrice Barnett is also a playwright and editor. She now lives in Manhattan.

JAM ON THE VINE

By LaShonda Katrice Barnett

Grove, $24, 336 pages ISBN 9780802123343, eBook available

HISTORICAL FICTION

BLACK HISTORY B Y J O H N T. S L A N I A

Obstacles on the path to equality

he African-American struggle continues in every corner of the nation, from small towns like Ferguson, Missouri, to the boroughs of New York. Thus, Black History Month arrives at a critical time in America. The question is: Can we learn from history? These selections shed new light on the black experience and offer perspectives on the often painful evolution of race relations in America. Journalist Jill Leovy’s Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America (Spiegel & Grau, $28, 384 pages, ISBN 9780385529983) chillingly reflects the violence and racial tension that exists in many urban

areas. It’s principally the story of Bryant Tennelle, a Los Angeles teenager who was shot and killed in 2007. At first blush, this might simply be viewed as another blackon-black murder, and something the Los Angeles Police Department would typically ignore. But Tennelle’s father was a police officer. An unlikely hero, police detective John Skaggs, emerges to doggedly work the case and solve the crime. But Ghettoside is more than just the story of one murdered teen. Leovy broadens her focus to examine the cycle of violence among black men in America—a country in which nearly 40 percent of all murder victims are black. She also offers insight into how the killings can be stopped. “[W]here the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death,” she writes, “homicide becomes endemic.” Leovy bolsters her argument with extensive research, which included embedding herself within an LAPD detective squad.

SPYING EYES Sometimes the conflict between law enforcement and African Americans doesn’t play out through violence. F.B. Eyes:

How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature (Princeton University Press, $29.95, 384 pages, ISBN 9780691130200) reveals the covert side of oppression. Scholar William J. Maxwell conducted an exhaustive records search to uncover files showing that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover spied on African-American writers and silenced some of their work. Maxwell gained access to 51 files demonstrating that over five decades, Hoover was obsessed with black authors, fearing their work might inspire political unrest and violence. He assigned a team of FBI agents to carry out a series of assignments, some as benign as reading advance copies of books, others as serious as persuading publishers to halt the release of books. Targets included Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, as well as the work of Richard Wright, whose poem “The FB Eye Blues” inspired the book’s title. Among the most stunning examples of the Bureau’s activity was a hate letter written to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964. In it, a white FBI agent posing as a black man tells King he is a “complete fraud and a great liability to all us Negroes.” F.B. Eyes is a startling look at how racism has influenced the highest levels of authority.

THE FUGITIVE TRAIL In Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad (Norton, $26.95, 320 pages, ISBN 9780393244076), noted historian Eric Foner gives a detailed and often stirring account

of the antebellum network that transported escaped slaves from the South to Northern free states and Canada. Foner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written many fine books on the Civil War, slavery and Reconstruction, uncovers new evidence of just how extensive the secret path to freedom was for fugitive slaves. His account centers on the Underground Railroad’s network in New York City, which had the North’s largest community of free blacks, as well as many ardent white abolitionists. Pre-eminent among them was newspaperman

Sydney Howard Gay, who documented the activities of the Underground Railroad in a meticulous “Record of Fugitives,” which logged the arrival of fugitives in the city in 1855 and 1856 and related some of their horrifying personal stories. (In the book’s acknowledgements, Foner credits a former Columbia University student who found the document in the university archives.) Gay’s record details the step-by-step movements of escaped slaves through the city and the deeds of abolitionists who aided their flight. Among those recorded by Gay was Harriet Tubman, who reached New York in November 1856 with a group of runaway slaves from Maryland. Gateway to Freedom is an important addition to the historical view of the Underground Railroad and a salute to the slaves who “faced daunting odds and demonstrated remarkable courage” in their journeys to freedom.

“Jonathan Odell can take his place in the distinguished pantheon of Southern writers.” Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides and The Death of Santini

“A big brilliant novel whose time has come.” Lee Smith, author of The Lost Girls and Guests on Earth

“Book groups, this one’s for you!” Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Wednesday Sisters

Set in 1950s Mississippi, two mothers, one black, one white, learn that great change can begin with small things, like unexpected friendship An OKRA pick Visit Jonathan Odell at www.jonathanodell.com and become an honorary member of The Rosa Parks League!

reviews GET IN TROUBLE

FICTION

Stories from behind the veil REVIEW BY BECKY OHLSEN

Kelly Link tends to inspire a range of comparisons to other authors— usually, some blend of Angela Carter and Haruki Murakami—but, in fact, nobody writes stories like hers. Link’s fantastical worlds feel utterly real, partly because they’re intensely matter-of-fact. Her characters are sassy, moody and cool, and they never, ever make any big deal out of the fact that there are monsters, aliens, vampires or ghosts hanging around, or that they might stumble into a pocket universe or some alternate dimension. Mostly they’re concerned with cute guys and flirting and drinks, plus occasionally needing to save the world. If that sounds light, it’s not meant to. Link, who has written three previous short-story collections and co-edited several anthologies with her husband, Gavin J. Grant, is often hilarious, but her stories still break your heart. The best thing to compare her writing to might be “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” with its perfect combo of dark wit, sex and By Kelly Link tragedy. Get in Trouble contains nine stories, which include maybe Random House, $25, 352 pages two happy endings, maybe zero, depending on how you look at them. ISBN 9780804179683, audio, eBook available She’s never been one to wrap things up in tidy fashion. SHORT STORIES The tales here range from fairy tales to space opera. Sometimes you’re halfway through before you even know what kind of world you’re in, but that’s OK, because Link guides you so carefully that you’d follow her anywhere. There’s an amateur cyberstalker at a superhero convention who, naturally, gets more than she bargained for (“Secret Identity”). There’s a girl whose job as a caretaker of summer houses is not what it seems (“The Summer People”), a rich far-future playboy who falls for the wrong person (“Valley of the Girls”), a woman driven to distraction by her shadow (“Light”). As different as these stories are, they all in some way play with expectations. There are surprises on every page. Nothing is what it seems; everything is much more. In short, Kelly Link is magic.

MISS HAZEL AND THE ROSA PARKS LEAGUE By Jonathan Odell Maiden Lane Press $27.95, 432 pages ISBN 9781940210025

HISTORICAL FICTION

Pre-Civil Rights Mississippi was a place where issues of race and class weighted down air already heavy with humidity. Jonathan Odell takes this complicated setting and throws two young mothers from widely different worlds together. Hazel, a wealthy white woman, and Vida, a poor black woman, are at first only joined by the devastating loss of their children—and

their enmity for one another. Vida is frequently harassed by the racist local sheriff, which, combined with the loss of her son, has made her bitter and mistrustful. When Hazel’s husband hires Vida to take care of Hazel after a drunken car crash, close proximity and lack of other companionship force Vida and Hazel to learn to get along. The two team up to turn their town of Delphi, Mississippi, on its head, and watch as change takes place— in their city, their state, their nation and their culture. This is the third novel from Mississippi native Odell (The Healing), and it draws from his own experience. Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League is quintessentially Southern in its frank discussions of friendship, marriage, family, feminism, grief and redemption. —HALEY HERFURTH

A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD By Anne Tyler

Knopf $25.95, 368 pages ISBN 9781101874271 Audio, eBook available

LITERARY FICTION

social worker, and the clan has long occupied a rambling house that Red’s father once built for another man. Like all families, they have had their ups and downs, their squabbles, resentments and misunderstandings, but nothing has irreparably damaged the household fabric. That equilibrium gives way as Abby and Red age and their health begins to decline—Red suffering a small heart attack, Abby showing the first signs of dementia. The solution the grown children settle on is for youngest son, Stem, and his serene, unflappable wife, Nora, to move in with their three little boys, an arrangement that goes forward despite protests from the elder Whitshanks. But the cart is upset when prodigal son Denny shows up, miffed that he has not been the one asked to move in and care for his parents. Now, an emotional reckoning is at hand. Swinging back to earlier times in Whitshank history, we see the full arc of the family’s story, each episode fleshing out the story until A Spool of Blue Thread becomes a deeper narrative about how families survive and endure. The work of some writers—Philip Roth and Henry James come to mind—becomes knottier and more ruminative as they age, but the prose of the now 73-year-old Tyler has become looser and less formal. Still, she has not lost her singular capacity for delineating the small, true details that make us who we are and govern how we bumble our way through the world. —ROBERT WEIBEZAHL

MY SUNSHINE AWAY By M.O. Walsh

In 20 novels published over a remarkable 50-year period, Anne Tyler has staked her claim as our premier chronicler of the ordinary, imperfect American family. Set in Baltimore, like most of her work, A Spool of Blue Thread concerns just such a family. Abby and Red Whitshank and their four children are, from the outside, just like anyone else. Red is a second-generation building contractor, Abby a

Putnam $26.95, 320 pages ISBN 9780399169526 Audio, eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

Louisiana’s capital city, Baton Rouge, has its fair share of glamorous and not-so-glamorous stories. M.O. Walsh, author of My Sunshine

FICTION Away, grew up there, so he captures these contradictions effortlessly in his stunning debut. Set in 1989, the novel tells the heartbreaking story of Lindy Simpson, the once carefree and spirited track star whose life goes awry after she is attacked on her own street. The mystery unravels from the perspective of Lindy’s childhood neighbor and playmate, now 14, who has been in love with Lindy for as long as he can remember. While showing the chilling effect the crime has on all of Piney Creek Road, Walsh also raises the question of how a horrific crime can happen in a seemingly idyllic neighborhood. And the answer is, like so many things in Louisiana, that nothing is as ideal as it seems. Kids playing in the street are in constant battle against being smothered by mosquitoes and humidity. Neighborhood cookouts buzz with energy but also the gossip of divorce and family tragedies. Walsh juxtaposes the beauty and terror of the place in a way that leaves you utterly captivated. It’s a world that seems foreign to outsiders but also resonates with the most universal of sentiments, including the desire to belong, the way memory can both create and fill voids, and how peace often follows the realization that the potential for good is in all of us. From beginning to end, My Sunshine Away is full of wisdom, wit and wonder. —STEPHANIE KIRKLAND

PRUDENCE By David Treuer

Riverhead $27.95, 272 pages ISBN 9781594633089 Audio, eBook available

LITERARY FICTION

the resort owned by his parents, for a brief visit before joining the war as a bombardier. The reunion is fraught with negative memories from the past, especially the distance between Frankie and his father, Jonathan. Frankie’s sexual orientation, although never mentioned, is planted like a wall between them. Frankie’s mother is oblivious, her main concern in life being the upkeep of the Pines itself. She is aided in this endeavor not by Jonathan, but by Felix, an older Indian who also served over the years as Frankie’s surrogate father, teaching him and Billy, a young Indian neighbor, all he knew about hunting, fishing, boating and crafting things out of wood. Across the river from the Pines is a German POW camp, and on the day Frankie returns, a search is in progress for an escaped prisoner. Felix, Frankie, two of his friends from Princeton and Billy join in. The day ends in a tragedy that reverberates throughout the remainder of this acutely emotional novel, touching each character and dictating the course of each of their lives—most of all Prudence, a young Indian girl. Prudence’s backstory is meted out gradually, and the way her life intersects with Frankie’s becomes the crux of this powerful story. In one of many flashbacks, Frankie muses on “the heavy fog of sadness” that hung over his childhood—a fog that engulfs Treuer’s mesmerizing, beautifully told novel like a cocoon. —DEBORAH DONOVAN

FUNNY GIRL By Nick Hornby

Riverhead $27.95, 464 pages ISBN 9781594205415 Audio, eBook available

POPULAR FICTION

David Treuer’s fourth novel, rudence, is set in northern P Minnesota, near the Leech Lake Reservation where he grew up. It opens in August 1942, as Frankie Washburn is returning to the Pines,

Nick Hornby is an expert story teller who reveals the nuances of his characters’ lives, and in the process, allows readers to understand a world unlike their own. His

expert lens is most often trained on male characters, although 2001’s How to Be Good is an exception, and the male protagonists in 2009’s Juliet, Naked, share pages with a strong woman who goes beyond love interest. Hornby’s latest novel, Funny Girl, treads in less familiar territory. Not only is it centered on a woman, it’s also set in the past. He has entrenched his female protagonist in a man’s world: that of comedic actors in the 1960s. Today, Mindy Kaling, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler stand out among their peers; in the world of Funny Girl’s Barbara Parker, Lucille Ball is the aspiring actress’ only role model. But Barbara is determined to move ahead, no matter the cost. After earning the title of Miss Blackpool 1964, she realizes the crown is only a guarantee that she’ll be stuck in Blackpool indefinitely. So Barbara packs her bags, moves to London and ultimately transforms herself into Sophie Straw, a darling of the silver screen. The novel feels bloated at times, as it traverses decades of Sophie’s eventful life. But as Hornby chronicles Sophie’s development as an actress and the ways class and age influence life and love, he reveals a portrait of an era—and of a woman crafting a lasting legacy.

Dark Truths from Across the World

An award-winning & haunting Australian crime novel perfect for fans of Dexter and Breaking Bad.

“Compelling, impressive. A chilling read.” —Sydney Morning Herald

—CARLA JEAN WHITLEY

LOST & FOUND By Brooke Davis

Dutton $26.95, 320 pages ISBN 9780525954682 Audio, eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

Brooke Davis’ story of a little girl named Millie Bird turns child abandonment into an adventure. After her father dies and her mother leaves her in the ladies’ underwear department, Millie finds two improbable helpers: Karl, who types out everything he says or feels with his fingers, and Agatha, who writes complaint letters and catalogs her aging body’s daily

Follow the struggle of the immigrant experience through one family’s hidden history & unspoken hurts.

“A beautiful story about the invisible ties that bind families.” —Joshilyn Jackson

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reviews changes. Karl and Agatha, both in their 80s and widowed, have lived long lives but don’t quite know how to live now. Millie’s predicament gives them a reason to try. In Lost & Found, Australian author Davis renders Millie, especially, in careful detail—she’s fragile, yet not completely unhinged by all the upheaval in her life. Millie comes across as a 7-year-old should: curious, experimental, hopeful, afraid but covering with bravado and optimism. From vantage points further on, Karl and Agatha are doing much the same. Davis’ vivid imagining of the grieving process as a roller coaster of questions with no easy answers reflects some of her personal struggle, as her mother’s sudden death occurred not long before she began this project. Readers will find themselves pondering difficult questions along with Millie, Karl and Agatha. A literal cross-country journey aids in their individual quests to find out and embrace what it means to still be here after loss. —MELISSA BROWN

A SMALL INDISCRETION By Jan Ellison

Random House $27, 336 pages ISBN 9780812995442 Audio, eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

FICTION job in London. There, she quickly develops a drinking problem and, when her married boss, Malcolm, takes a shine to her, she gets entangled in a mess of midlife crises and misplaced desires. Malcolm’s wife— with his encouragement—is sleeping with charismatic photographer Patrick. Malcolm hopes Annie will become his own romantic companion. Annie, however, falls hopelessly for the selfish but charming Patrick. Things come to a peak over a fateful Christmas in Paris. When an old photograph arrives in Annie’s mailbox in 2011, she learns that ripples from this event have fanned out for two decades, and now they threaten her marriage and her son’s life. Annie’s ruminations on past sins and the nature of memory are thoughtful, even when the reliability of her narration is suspect. She is often extremely unlikable. But for much of the book, she is also very young. She reminds us of the times we’ve been selfish, the times we’ve been foolish, the selves we think we’ve escaped. Skillfully weaving two plots, Ellison unveils the details of each, piece by tantalizing piece. Hard to put down despite its heavy tone, A Small Indiscretion asks a big question: Should Annie be forgiven? Should we be forgiven? Fans of family-themed literary fiction will find it compelling. —SHERI BODOH

THE HUNGER OF THE WOLF By Stephen Marche

O. Henry Prize winner Jan Ellison’s debut novel is a puzzle with the outside pieces finished. Reading it is like compulsively fitting all those revealing middle pieces together. Annie Black, a happily married 40-something San Francisco businesswoman, delves into her careless youth after her 21-year-old son is injured in a car accident. Spinning a tale of the three drunken months she spent in Europe in 1989, she demonstrates how the past can shape the future. Disillusioned after her alcoholic father abandons the family for another woman, 19-year-old Annie leaves her meager hometown prospects for Europe, securing an office

Simon & Schuster $25, 272 pages ISBN 9781476730813 Audio, eBook available

LITERARY FICTION

For those who argue that global capitalism is in the midst of a second Gilded Age, Canadian novelist Stephen Marche’s second novel (after Raymond and Hannah) offers an intriguing genre-crossing allegory for the rapacity and relentlessness of that economic philosophy. Marche’s narrator, Jamie Cabot, a struggling New York freelance

journalist, channels Nick Carraway in this story of the Wylies, the eighth-richest family in the world, whose male members just happen to be werewolves. From his humble beginnings as the son of an immigrant barber in a small mill town near Pittsburgh, Dale Wylie launches a radio station in the Depression-era Midwest that eventually becomes a globe-spanning media conglomerate. The novel follows the family through the next two generations, climaxing in the death of Dale’s grandson Ben, the discovery of whose frozen body in northern Alberta opens the story. In his portrayal of the Wylie men (and Ben’s adopted Chinese sister, Poppy), Marche conveys the ambivalence that surrounds the accumulation of a fortune so vast it “enables the fulfillment that eludes ordinary life.” Whether it’s Dale acquiring a British media empire or his son George entering the Chinese market on the eve

of its emergence as an economic superpower, the preternatural skill of the Wylie men in creating a life of “fluid, effortless expansion” is matched only by their determination to live in near obscurity. Though he no doubt will be delighted if this novel is a popular success, Marche isn’t simply another literary novelist who’s decided to season his work with some commercial flourishes. His brief digressions into a psychiatric case study of “lycanthropy as a narcissistic delusion” or of the history of accounts of werewolves, dating back to The Epic of Gilgamesh nearly 4,000 years ago, show a serious engagement with that theme and lend texture to the story. “The rich should be different from you and me but they’re not,” Jamie Cabot observes, turning F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous formulation on its head. This convincing portrait of how money can satisfy material wants without slaking

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reviews emotional hunger tells a tale that cautions while it entertains. —HARVEY FREEDENBERG

IF I FALL, IF I DIE By Michael Christie

Hogarth $25, 336 pages ISBN 9780804140805 eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

FICTION don’t turn out the way we plan. It’s about the ways we escape who our parents raised us to be—and the ways we’re inevitably drawn back into our histories anyway. —C A R R I E R O L LWA G E N

SINGLE, CAREFREE, MELLOW By Katherine Heiny Knopf $23.95, 240 pages ISBN 9780385353632 eBook available

SHORT STORIES

Will’s entire world exists inside the walls of his house. Raised by an agoraphobic mother, he’s taught to fear the world outside—and the world inside, too, wearing a helmet constantly and donning body armor just to change a light bulb. He feels safe. Then he goes outside, and everything feels strange. It doesn’t help that what he encounters really is bizarre: Neighborhood kids steal water hoses and make explosives, and he’s lied to by a boy he doesn’t know better than to trust. Despite its dangers, the outside attracts Will. Determined to solve a particular mystery in town, he forces himself and his mother to accept his going to school, walking and playing on the outside—even skateboarding. Michael Christie, who was a professional skateboarder before turning to fiction, does an outstanding job exploring agoraphobia and panic disorders. He describes the “Black Lagoon” of depression that envelopes Will’s mother with remarkable insight and accuracy without either glorifying or trivializing her condition. The rest of the novel is fully drawn, too, including the psyches of Will, his friend Jonah and even the bullies. If I Fall, If I Die begins within the walls of a single home, but it eventually stretches to encompass an entire town, including its history and its mysteries. Besides the obvious themes of leaving the nest and coming of age, this novel is about pushing boundaries and striving for change while understanding that the people we love may not be able to follow us. It’s about recognizing the beauty in new relationships even when they

named for a story in which Maya ponders leaving her boyfriend of five years, then decides there is “such a thing as too much loss.” It’s a poignant moment that sums up this smart exploration of love and betrayal, and that fine line between happiness and pain. —AMY SCRIBNER

THE MARAUDERS By Tom Cooper

—STEPHENIE HARRISON

I REGRET EVERYTHING By Seth Greenland Europa $16, 256 pages ISBN 9781609452476

POPULAR FICTION

Crown $26, 320 pages ISBN 9780804140560 eBook available

If you’ve been watching Showtime’s “The Affair,” you may see some similarities in I Regret Everything. Writer and producer (“Big Love”) Seth Greenland’s new novel New Orleans-based writer Tom tells the story of a relationship that Cooper’s The Marauders is a debut some might find inappropriate, novel that does nothing in half from the first-person point of view measures. It isn’t afraid to take of both parties. There’s melodrama, risks, dabble in darkness and skirt and a subplot that involves a crime. the edge of ruin, and this is what But there is also real warmth, wit makes it such an exciting read. and irreverence woven throughout this thoroughly readable tale. Set in a bayou shrimping community still dealing with the fallout The book kicks off with our from Hurricane Katrina, The Mafirst narrator, Jeremy Best, a Brooklyn-dwelling trusts and rauders takes readers on a rollickestates lawyer who expresses his ing adventure deep into the heart of Louisiana’s marshes as well as lyrical side through poetry written under the (somewhat laughable) some of the darkest corners of the human psyche. Featuring a colorful pen name of Jinx Bell. Aside from cast of characters—from identical this literary diversion, his life seems rather dull and empty. twin marijuana moguls to a onearmed treasure hunter to a slick oil Enter Spaulding Simonson, company rep trying to swindle his the boss’ pretty and precocious own mother—it tells the stories of 19-year-old daughter, a budding poet herself who has somehow folk on the fringes, many of whom can only find common ground in uncovered Jeremy’s secret identity. their shared desire to carve out a She has her own very real troubles: living (some noble, some less so) a bitterly broken family, a history of in their tiny corner of the world. depression and deep loneliness. Alas, as competing interests cause As soon as they meet, it’s obvious their lives to collide, only a few will there’s chemistry between the two. succeed and not all will survive. It’s also apparent that Jeremy’s Brash and unapologetic, The Ma- monotonous existence is about to rauders is a thrill ride. The plot is undergo a radical change, despite brisk, the characters are captivating the real risks involved. and the writing is lush and striking. A smart reader may worry about Cooper’s writing is the kind a reader the clichéd premise. But Greenland can happily get lost in, and his is smart, and so are his characters. depictions of the Deep South are so Their inherent likability, along evocative that if he ever gets tired of with the humor that’s a welcome fiction, he might give travel writing contrast to the more maudlin a try. But The Marauders is such an aspects of the story, easily save this impressive offering from an audasparkling read. —REBECCA STROPOLI cious new voice in fiction that one DEBUT FICTION

This radiant collection of short stories features a set of flawed yet sympathetic women in a whole mess of compromising positions. Nina starts an affair with a man she meets while out running. Josie struggles to extract herself from a sizzling online relationship that fizzles when she meets Billy in real life. Gwen doesn’t lie, exactly, but if her folks want to believe Boris is her boyfriend and not just a roommate, who is she to burst their bubble? And Maya—who appears in several quietly delicious installments—slouches her way toward a mature relationship with some serious detours along the way. Many of the women in these beautifully wrought stories are single, but they are anything but carefree or mellow. Just as we do in real life, they self-sabotage in ways huge and small, making choices based solely on their heart with no input from their head. First-time author Katherine Heiny takes great care to make her characters relatable even in their imperfections. She paints sweetly resonant moments that also can be very funny: “For months and months Josie thought about Billy when she should have been wondering what to make for supper—or what to say at Kit’s parent-teacher conference or where Mickey’s lunch card was or if she left the oven on—and now here she is with Billy, and all she can think about is whether she used the last of the onions the night before. (She’s pretty sure she did.)” Single, Carefree, Mellow is

can only hope it is but the first of many. As far as bibliophilic treasure hunts go, this one is literary gold.

reviews

NONFICTION A FIFTY-YEAR SILENCE By Miranda Richmond Mouillot

LEAVING BEFORE THE RAINS COME

Crown $26, 288 pages ISBN 9780804140645 eBook available

Too far from home

MEMOIR

REVIEW BY CATHERINE HOLLIS

Alexandra Fuller’s hardscrabble African lyricism returns in her third memoir, which focuses on the push-pull of her marriage to American adventurer Charlie Ross. Although much of Leaving Before the Rains Come is set in Wyoming, where Fuller settles uncomfortably into American domesticity, her war-torn childhood in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the drunken pragmatism of her parents continue to shape her worldview. When Fuller meets her future husband at a polo club in Zambia, he seems the perfect blend of adventure and restraint. He runs a river guiding service on the Zambezi, and takes clients up Kilimanjaro— safely, with Range Rovers to collect them at the end of the adventure. It’s unlike Fuller’s own African childhood, which was filled with random acts of catastrophe and violence. Charlie’s appeal is undeniable, but so is the simmering tension between his perspective and hers. By Alexandra Fuller The “sacred terror and beauty” of Africa is lost to Fuller in the mounPenguin Press, $26.95, 272 pages tain subdivisions of Jackson Hole, where Charlie becomes a real estate ISBN 9781594205866, audio, eBook available agent and frets over columns of numbers. They have three children, MEMOIR and the weight of American materialism displaces adventure in their relationship. The financial crisis of 2008 hits their marriage hard, as does Fuller’s heartbroken realization that she is not African anymore. Turning to the example of her father and her English and Scottish ancestors, Fuller’s work in this memoir is to patch together her own identity and—in a profound sense—to retrieve her soul. Her father’s life lessons are what save her: among them, fearlessness, endurance and dressing for dinner. Also: humor, gin and tonics and Epsom salts. “Loss is a part of the game,” he tells Fuller, and “regret’s a waste of bloody time.” Fuller’s blend of wry honesty and heartfelt environmental consciousness will resonate with both new readers and longtime admirers of her distinctive style.

WHIPPING BOY By Allen Kurzweil Harper $27.99, 304 pages ISBN 9780062269485 Audio, eBook available

MEMOIR

In 1971, 10-year-old Allen Kurzweil arrived at a Swiss boarding school called Aiglon. He was a Jewish boy from New York; his father had died, and his mother was “test-driving her third husband.” Kurzweil was happy to be back in the Alps—his Viennese father had brought him there for winter holidays and imbued him with a love of alpine hiking and skiing. Soon, however, Kurzweil (the

youngest student at Aiglon) was being tormented by one of his roommates, 12-year-old Cesar Augustus, a native of Manila. Cesar’s abuse came in many forms, both physical and psychological, and Kurzweil begins Whipping Boy by taking readers back to that monumental time in his life. Kurzweil leaves the school after a year, but the memories of being bullied continue to haunt him, even as an adult. As a novelist, he writes a children’s book featuring a bully modeled after his nemesis. When Kurzweil decides to look into what became of the real Cesar, he discovers that he’s in federal prison for his part in a bizarre international swindling scheme. Kurzweil’s long-term pursuit of this strange story and his eventual confrontation of Cesar reads like a thriller, full of intrigue as

Grandparents who love their only grandchild fiercely, but haven’t spoken since their divorce 50 years ago, incite her urgent question: What happened? As she writes in A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War, and a Ruined House in France, Miranda Richmond Mouillot hopes to recreate a fairy tale of love found, and somehow lost, amid the turmoil of World War II. But her grandparents, Armand and Anna, are growing frail and their memories of fleeing Nazi-occupied France are painful. Anna, who lives in New York, deftly dodges specifics, all the while encouraging her granddaughter to move on and seek a life for herself in the French village where the couple’s abandoned house is sinking into ruin. In Geneva, Armand rages at any mention of his ex-wife, while his granddaughter’s probing questions try to stop his memory from slipping into the shadows of dementia. well as humor and self-reflection. Mouillot is haunted by her own “Why am I still pursuing Cesar?” nightmares that often pitch her the author asks himself. “Is it to into unexplainable despair, fears uncover his story? To avoid my that, she learns, are the burden own? The bottom line is this: I’m that descendants of the Holonot sure what I’m after. Nor can I caust must carry. Along with her explain what compels me to travel grandparents’ gradually revealed cross-country to spy on the actions history come details of horror and of a convicted felon I have promheartbreak—allowing her to finally ised my wife I will not confront.” understand her dreams. Kurzweil puts both his journalisMouillot takes the reader along tic and literary skills to wonderful on her quest to learn what went use in his “investigative memoir,” wrong with her grandparents’ marmaking numerous trips to revisit riage, skillfully interweaving past his school and to interview old and present as she tries to restore classmates, staff, swindling victims, their ruined home and falls in love prosecutors and federal agents. herself. Written with an almost poKurzweil’s final meeting with etic transcendence of time, place Cesar is a worthy finale, bound and memory, this moving memoir to prompt plenty of meaningful chronicles an amazing circle of discussions among readers about life. No fairy tale, it is as epic as the the nature of childhood, bullying times in which Anna and Armand and memories. lived and the love they inspired. —ALICE CARY

—PRISCILLA KIPP

NONFICTION THE MAN WHO TOUCHED HIS OWN HEART By Rob Dunn

Little, Brown $27, 384 pages ISBN 9780316225793 Audio, eBook available

MEDICINE

rant about the workings of the heart than we think, and there is much more to learn. That is undoubtedly true, but for a general reader, Dunn’s book is a great contribution to our understanding of the lifelong work of our beating hearts. —ALDEN MUDGE

By Alan Lightman Pantheon $25.95, 272 pages ISBN 9780307379399 eBook available

MEMOIR

WIDE-OPEN WORLD By John Marshall

What makes Rob Dunn’s narrative history of advances in heart research so fascinating is on vivid display in the opening chapter of The Man Who Touched His Own Heart. Here Dunn tells the story of a Chicago surgeon who performed the first-known repair to the pericardium, the protective sac around the heart. The year was 1893, and Chicago was abuzz over the World’s Fair. The patient, a railroad worker, had been stabbed in a knife fight at a local bar. The surgeon, a talented, ambitious African-American man, had been forced by racial prejudice to found his own poorly funded hospital, serving Chicago’s lower class. At a time when a knife to the heart was almost always fatal, the revolutionary procedure was delicate and complex because there was no technology to sustain the heart while a surgeon worked on it. To everyone’s amazement, the procedure succeeded. There, in a nutshell, is the enticing weave of biography, social history and heart-related scientific drama that will entice and satisfy readers throughout the book. From this opening, Dunn relates many fascinating stories, ranging from Leonardo DaVinci’s contributions to our understanding of the heart to the complexities of developing the heart-lung machine. The book takes its title from an experiment by Werner Forssmann, an ambitious surgeon wonderfully described as “more forearm than frontal lobe,” who, in a dangerous stunt, inserted a catheter in his arm, running it all the way to his heart, an exploit that eventually earned him a Nobel Prize. Dunn, a biology professor and widely published popular writer on science, says we are far more igno-

SCREENING ROOM

Ballantine $26, 352 pages ISBN 9780345549648 Audio, eBook available

TRAVEL

There was no major emergency that motivated John Marshall to uproot his family for six months of global volunteer work. It was lots of little things: declining intimacy with his wife of 20 years; the desire for quality time with their teenagers; and a general sense of boredom at work. Their travels do change their lives, in ways both expected and highly surprising. In Wide-Open World, Marshall describes their quest with self-effacing humor. He’s the first to admit the family did poorly at their first stop, a wildlife sanctuary in Costa Rica, and he has the multiple monkey bites to prove it. Time spent in New Zealand seems dreamlike in its beauty, and the family’s work in a small orphanage in India creates bonds that prove unbreakable even after the story ends. It’s inspiring to see how Marshall’s kids gain confidence and a new perspective on the world, as well as appreciation for a day’s honest labor. He breaks down the journey’s specific expenses and confesses to starting his research by googling “volunteer” plus the name of a country, to make it clear that if this idea appeals to you, it’s well within reach. Wide-Open World is an adventure made up of countless small moments of human connection. It’s an armchair travelogue that may well inspire you to do good off the beaten path. —HEATHER SEGGEL

captures the South’s troubled racial history and offers poignant recollections of his family’s African-American housekeeper, Blanche. He brings down the curtain with a wistful flourish: “I have found, and I have lost. . . . I have smelled the sweet honeysuckle of memory. It is all fabulous and heart-wrenching and vanished in an instant.” —HENRY L. CARRIGAN JR.

“It began with a death in the family. My Uncle Ed, the most debonair of the clan, a popular guest of the Gentile social clubs despite being Jewish, had succumbed at age ninety-five with a half glass of Johnnie Walker on his bedside table.” With that opening sentence, Alan Lightman (Einstein’s Dreams) invites us into his own remembrance of things past in his elegant memoir, Screening Room: Family Pictures. In episodic prose that shimmers with cinematic quality, Lightman recalls a time when aunts and uncles, cousins and siblings, parents and friends gathered in the Memphis moonlight to drink, talk in hushed tones about neighbors, sort out perplexing and slowly evolving attitudes about race and ponder the ragged ways people fall in love and out of it. At the center of Lightman’s journey stands his grandfather, M.A. Lightman, who built a movie theater empire across the South, and whose presence and power haunted his family for generations. Not only does Alan Lightman’s father inherit the job of running a movie theater, he makes his son the assistant manager of the theater one summer; the young Lightman develops “a high-level expertise in making popcorn.” He sees two to three movies a week—“sometimes three movies in a single day”—and it’s then that he starts “seeing life as a series of scenes.” The memorable scenes he brings us in Screening Room range from a wedding reception at the Peabody Hotel (where the famous ducks wouldn’t cooperate) to a 1960 meeting with Elvis (who attended private showings at M.A.’s personal theater). Lightman, who went on to become a theoretical physicist as well as a celebrated novelist,

SAPIENS By Yuval Noah Harari

Harper $29.99, 464 pages ISBN 9780062316097 eBook available

SCIENCE

Originally published in Israel, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari’s brilliant history of humankind has already become an international bestseller. A specialist in world history, Harari undertakes a daunting task in Sapiens: to examine the rise of our species and discern the reasons behind our remarkable success. “How did we manage to settle so rapidly in so many distant and ecologically different habitats?” Harari asks. “How did we push all other human species into oblivion?” Harari is clear about the most likely answer: our unique language. And the author’s own command of words and ideas is part of what makes this account so engaging. Harari traces the rise of human language, focusing on a period about 70,000 years ago he calls the Cognitive Revolution, which led to the extinction of the Neanderthals. Harari’s scope is both deep and broad, yet while immersing the reader in the sweep of history, he also presents fascinating information about the roles money, science and religion have played. Finally, Harari speculates about the future, wondering whether we will continue to improve the human condition while wreaking havoc on our planet and the plants and animals that share it with us. —DEBORAH HOPKINSON

reviews BEASTKEEPER

TEEN

Beauty and the beast REVIEW BY JENNIFER BRUER KITCHEL

If you discover a magical world through some kind of portal, that’s one thing. Wardrobes and rabbit holes make it easy to believe you’ve left the real world behind. But what if you live in a normal house with normal-enough parents and attend school with other normal kids, and something starts to change, to twist even as you go about your daily life? That would be a bit harder to accept. Sarah’s life had only a tinge of the weird: Her parents fought a lot; her mother wasn’t very affectionate; and they moved more often than the average family, or at least for no good reason that Sarah could see. The night her mother leaves for good, however, is the final push that changes everything. Sarah’s father seems to fall apart and ends up taking her to live with grandparents she didn’t even know she had. It’s just a long drive in a car—no special doors or portals needed—but the world is definitely different. By Cat Hellisen As Sarah comes to acknowledge that things are not what they Holt, $16.99, 208 pages, ISBN 9780805099805 eBook available, ages 12 and up seem—that her father is not falling apart so much as changing into a beast, that her grandfather already is one and that her grandmother’s FAIRY TALE anger is a powerful thing—she decides to find out the truth about this magic, this curse, this story of love and revenge. Her determination to remain human through it all is the heart of this wonderful, compelling story. Beastkeeper is highly recommended for lovers of fairy tales with a twist.

THIS SIDE OF HOME By Renée Watson

Bloomsbury $17.99, 336 pages ISBN 9781599906683 eBook available Ages 12 and up FICTION

African-American twins Maya and Nikki and their neighbor Essence have always had their lives completely planned. They’ll date the right boys, attend historically black all-female Spelman College and be best friends forever. But as their senior year starts, their surety gets shaky. Nikki appreciates the freshness and variety that gentrification has brought to their neighborhood, but Maya resents the lack of local blackowned businesses. Essence and her perpetually drunk mother move across town, and a wealthy white family—including a cute boy and

his racially ignorant sister—move in. As student council president, Maya finds herself constantly at odds with the new Richmond High principal, an outsider whose vision for the school doesn’t match that of many students. As the year progresses, the three friends find that relationships can evolve, goals can shift and the past can help inform the present as well as the future. There’s never been a better time for author Renée Watson’s YA debut. Narrator Maya is perceptive, whether participating in an ongoing hallway-postering campaign or explaining why a celebration of “tolerance” shouldn’t replace Black History Month. A single racial slur appears in a particularly tense moment, but otherwise this is a gentle yet powerful reflection on choices, changes and contemporary African-American teenage identity. —J I L L R A T Z A N

Visit BookPage.com for a Q&A with Renée Watson.

and must become someone she never thought she could be just to stay alive. Author Victoria Aveyard’s debut novel builds a world that’s rife with classism, political jostling and unfathomable power. Red Queen is the first in a trilogy, and with Aveyard’s steady, masterful reveal of this world’s dark inner workings, readers will have much to devour. —J U S T I N B A R I S I C H

I WAS HERE By Gayle Forman

Viking $18.99, 288 pages ISBN 9780451471475 Audio, eBook available Ages 14 and up FICTION

Gayle Forman, whose previous books include If I Stay and Just One Day, specializes not only in three-word titles but also in novels that combine emotional intensity with moral complexity. I Was Here opens with a gut-wrenching wallop as Cody relates the suicide email she received from her best RED QUEEN friend, Meg. Meg always admired Cody’s By Victoria Aveyard strength, and Cody admired Meg’s HarperTeen fearlessness and originality. But $17.99, 400 pages the girls have grown apart since ISBN 9780062310637 high school graduation. Meg esAudio, eBook available caped to college in the big city, and Ages 13 and up Cody’s still living with her mom, FANTASY cleaning houses for a living and quietly flunking out of community college. Their emails grow increasingly sporadic until they stop In the magical, feuding lands of Norta, a poor young woman is altogether—that is, until that final email marking the end of Meg’s thrust into the center of an elite world where she must hide her true life and the beginning of agonizing self and discover her inner strength questions about why this vivacious young woman would choose to and power to survive. die. Tasked by Meg’s parents with Seventeen-year-old street thief the unenviable job of cleaning Mare Barrow has always understood the blood-based hierarchy out their daughter’s apartment, of her nation: Unremarkable Reds Cody encounters computer files serve the Silvers, who possess that hint at a bigger, darker story supernatural abilities to control surrounding Meg’s suicide. metal, fire, minds and more. But Thrilling and introspective, when Mare, a Red, discovers that I Was Here will prompt readers to she possesses one of these sureflect profoundly on their own perhuman abilities, she turns the friendships. entire social system on its head —NORAH PIEHL

children’s

SALLY M. WALKER INTERVIEW BY JULIE DANIELSON

Willy, nilly, silly old bear

ally M. Walker likes to connect young readers with history. In her new picture book, Winnie, she does just that, telling the little-known story of the real bear who inspired A.A. Milne’s legendary children’s book character, Winnie-the-Pooh.

When World War I soldier and “And I totally blacked out the rest veterinarian Harry Colebourn of what she was talking about,” first saw the bear for sale at a train Walker says, “because I was busy station in Canada, he knew he writing down: Colebourn. Harry. was the one to take care of her. Canada. She just casually menHe named her Winnipeg (later tioned it, but that was all I heard. A shortened to “Winnie”) after the real bear!” capital city of Manitoba. When he It was then that the author eawas transferred to a training camp gerly embarked upon her research, in England, he brought Winnie which she describes as a grand with him. She adventure. became a beloved “I realized member of Colethat the bourn’s regiment, story was though in 1919 he legitimate. donated her with But still, as a heavy heart to a nonfiction the London Zoo. writer, I It was there that a always want young boy named to track Christopher Robin down the first visited her. roots and And the rest is confirm literary history. things.” Walker has Walker a passion for contacted research and the archivist “finding the story” for the Ft. in her subject Garry Horse matter. “There are Regiment Winnie and Harry Colebourn at Salisbury Plain in in Maniso many stories 1914. Source: Provincial Archives of Manitoba, out there,” she toba. She Colebourn, D. Harry Collection, No. N10467. tells BookPage discovered from her home that the in Illinois, “especially if you’re a story was well documented and history geek.” Turning this slice of that all the materials were in their history into a book for children was archives. Colebourn, she learned, particularly exciting for her, given not only kept diaries during World that it’s a story most people haven’t War I but also mentioned the bear heard. in them. Walker was thrilled. “SiftHer own moment of revelation ing through old documents is what was one she won’t soon forget. “I excites me,” she says with a laugh. was flabbergasted when I found “I contacted the provincial archives out about it,” Walker says. Mystery of Manitoba, and sure enough, writer Jacqueline Winspear was Harry Colebourn’s son, Fred, had discussing her new book at a local copied the diary onto microfilm. I bookstore and explained that the spent several days doing nothing Veterinary Corps was very active but reading through all of Harry’s during World War I due to the diaries that he had during the war.” number of horses in use. Winspear Though mentions of Winnie in briefly noted that Winnie-the-Pooh Colebourn’s diaries aren’t especialwas a real bear, bought by Canadi- ly detailed, there are also photos in an veterinarian Harry Colebourn. the archives—many of Winnie with

other soldiers. “It’s clear that she was very much a mascot of the unit,” Walker says. “You also get a sense from Harry’s diary that he was a social and caring man. He mentions at one point in his diary having to take a bullet out of his horse and caring for horses that had various kinds of illnesses. You have the sense that Harry was a man who loved animals. I think he enjoyed people. He liked to help out. He liked to be good. And I think this sense is what came out in Winnie—his genuine caring.” Walker also traveled to the London Zoo and speaks with enthusiasm about her research there. “The archivist there let me look through the ‘daily occurrences book,’ ” she says, “which lists what’s going on at the zoo. It’s intriguing, the kinds of information they liked to record for the zoo materials. The day Winnie arrived at the zoo, it was foggy. There were 243 visitors in the zoo. When she was accessioned into the zoo, they also brought in two African civets and a kestrel. You really have a sense that you’re touching history and touching the story. You can even read about the day that Winnie died, May 12, 1934. It was a fine, warm day at the zoo, and they note that one American black bear, a female, was put down on that day.” Colebourn died in 1947, but not before witnessing the success of Milne’s Pooh stories, the first of which was published in 1926. And while the fictional Pooh became a beloved character around the world, the real Winnie was remembered in stories passed down through Colebourn’s family. Fred ensured that his father’s story was not forgotten, and Walker speaks with great respect for his efforts.

She also describes what the zoo calls their “Winnie Files.” These include zookeepers’ testimonies and letters from soldiers who wrote about what Winnie meant to them. “And what you see in there repeatedly,” she says, “is that the zookeeper would say, ‘Yes, we had some other bears, but no one could trust those bears. The only bear we could trust was Winnie. Winnie was special.’ ”

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

WINNIE

By Sally M. Walker

Illustrated by Jonathan D. Voss Holt, $17.99, 40 pages ISBN 9780805097153, ages 4 to 8

PICTURE BOOK

reviews THE HONEST TRUTH

CHILDREN’S

To the mountains we go REVIEW BY SHARON VERBETEN

You could say Mark is running from death. But, in a way, he’s also running toward it. When the 12-year-old from Washington state runs away—with his camera, notebook and beloved dog, Beau—he’s got a plan and a reason. “The mountain was calling me,” he says in The Honest Truth. Mark plans to reach the top of Mount Rainier. Mark has been battling cancer for years. It has once again returned, so Mark decides this is his last chance to make the climb. He leaves his parents and best friend, Jessie, for the adventure of a lifetime. And adventure, indeed, is what he finds. A series of chilling setbacks threaten Mark’s journey but only add to the suspense. The theme of friendship—between Jessie and Mark and between Mark and Beau—is a steady undercurrent that guides the journey as well. By Dan Gemeinhart The book is told in alternating chapters, with Mark’s first-person Scholastic, $16.99, 240 pages narration juxtaposed against a third-person account of the people ISBN 9780545665735, audio, eBook available searching for him. It’s an effective device, revealing to readers both Ages 8 to 12 sides of Mark’s journey. MIDDLE GRADE Inspired by the loss of a friend who loved mountain climbing and dogs, writer/librarian Dan Gemeinhart has taken great care to craft a believable and poignant tale of steely resolve and undying friendship. Reluctant readers will especially enjoy the forward-moving adventure, and dog lovers will be thrilled with this truly magnificent tale of “boy loves dog” (and vice versa). This is an outstanding debut novel.

well known for her memorable characters, including Clarice Bean and siblings Charlie and Lola. Child’s bright, fetching art brings us right into these siblings’ world, where lines of small toys are monumentally important and where the adults’ heads are never visible, only their bodies. Child’s use of typography is equally creative, with changing font sizes and words that curve across a spread or climb down the rungs of a treehouse ladder. Things go from bad to worse for poor Elmore. The new small person constantly follows him around and, on “one awful day,” actually moves into Elmore’s room. But one night, Elmore has a nightmare in which “a scary thing was chasing him, waving its grabbers and gnashing its teeth.” His younger sibling comes to the rescue, and soon after, “it” becomes known as Elmore’s brother, Albert. The New Small Person is a delightful tale of new sibling arrival and acceptance, another wonderful offering from the masterful Child. —ALICE CARY

FINDING THE WORM A FINE DESSERT By Emily Jenkins

Illustrated by Sophie Blackall Schwartz & Wade $17.99, 44 pages ISBN 9780375868320 eBook available Ages 4 to 8

PICTURE BOOK

Emily Jenkins will bring out the foodie in any reader as she traces the preparation of blackberry fool through four centuries in A Fine Dessert. Starting in 1710 in Lyme, England, a mother and daughter pick wild blackberries from the field surrounding their cottage. Then begins the labor-intensive process that includes milking the cow, skimming the cream, beating the cream with twigs, straining the berries through muslin to get rid of seeds and chilling the delightful

blend of berries and cream in an ice pit in the hillside. The recipe travels to mother and daughter slaves who serve up the dessert to their owner’s family on a Charleston plantation in 1810; to a metropolitan housewife and daughter in Boston in 1910; and finally, to a father and son from San Diego in 2010. Along the way, readers see the evolution of cooking, from picking berries to buying them at an open-air market. They also see the increasing role of technology as horse-drawn wagons deliver cream from a local dairy and cartons of organic cream are purchased at the supermarket. Sophie Blackall’s folksy watercolor and blackberry juice illustrations depict further differences in clothing and traditions over time. But one thing never changes: wanting to lick the spoon! This is a picture book treat that will charm readers across generations. —ANGELA LEEPER

THE NEW SMALL PERSON By Lauren Child

Candlewick $17.99, 32 pages ISBN 9780763678104 Ages 4 to 8

By Mark Goldblatt Random House $16.99, 352 pages ISBN 9780385391085 Audio, eBook available Ages 9 to 12

MIDDLE GRADE

PICTURE BOOK

Young Elmore Green’s life seems perfect and orderly until one day when “somebody else came along,” and that someone happens to be The New Small Person. This new creature, whom Elmore refers to as “it,” squawks during Elmore’s favorite cartoons and once “actually licked Elmore’s jelly-bean collection, including the orange ones.” Elmore, not surprisingly, isn’t happy about his baby brother. There’s nothing new about this scenario, but in Lauren Child’s gifted hands, both text and illustrations are exceedingly fresh and funny. This best-selling author is

Finding the Worm is Mark Goldblatt’s second book about Julian Twerski and his 34th Avenue gang, based on the author’s childhood experiences in Queens, New York. The sequel to Twerp continues with language that is simple and accessible but packs a punch, especially when dealing with the sensitive topic of cancer. When the guidance counselor pulls seventh-grader Julian and his friends out of class, they share the same unspoken fear: that their friend Quentin has died. Quentin has a brain tumor, but fortunately his prognosis is good, and he will soon be returning to school.

CHILDREN’S Julian, Shlomo, Lonnie, Beverly, Howard and Eric provide a safety net for Quentin that is poignant and believable. They wrestle his wheelchair onto the bus every day, chat at his bedside and cushion him from the ignorant bullies who tease him at school. Julian’s principal, rabbi, older sister and friends help as he struggles to accept why bad things happen to good people. Finding the Worm offers no glib answer but satisfies with a powerful portrayal of friendship at its most meaningful. —BILLIE B. LITTLE

THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS By Katherine Coville

Knopf $16.99, 400 pages ISBN 9780385755733 Audio, eBook available Ages 10 and up

MIDDLE GRADE

When young Ursula Brown reaches the estate of the Vaughns (who are also recognizable as the Three Bears) to be a governess for their son, Teddy, her story becomes less a simple fairy-tale retelling and more of a mash-up of classic literary tropes. Set in the Enchanted Forest just outside of Bremen Town, this Regency romance recalls the manners and traditions of a Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë novel. And like the heroines from these popular writers, plain but passionate Ursula finds herself in an impossible love triangle. There’s more at work than romance, however. Not all of the town’s humans think the talking bears are charming, and many start to consider their species to be superior and voice their discrimination openly. The unexpected arrival of a blonde, petty-thief girl at the Vaughns’ manor only complicates the heated debate. Peppered with Mother Hubbard, Mrs. Van Winkle (whose husband disappeared and hasn’t been seen in years) and other nursery-rhyme and fairy-tale characters, the story turns suspenseful with the intro-

meet RUTH SANDERSON

duction of a villainous individual straight out of traditional literature. Regional dialects and humorous takes on the human-animal relationship add even more amusement. This deceptively simple story will give readers paws—or rather, pause—to appreciate the clever construct and wordplay. —ANGELA LEEPER

THE QUESTION OF MIRACLES By Elana K. Arnold HMH $16.99, 240 pages ISBN 9780544334649 eBook available Ages 9 to 12

MIDDLE GRADE

Three months after her friend Sarah dies, Iris Abernathy and her parents move from sunny California to an old farmhouse in rainy Oregon, where the miserable weather suits Iris’ mood. While Iris’ mother is adjusting well to her new job at a university and her father has taken to gardening and raising chickens, Iris can’t move past her grief. She believes Sarah is a ghost living in her new house. When Iris begins sixth grade, she meets Boris, a socially awkward kid who’s into magic. Iris learns that Boris was a miracle baby and wasn’t supposed to live past his birth. Boris’ cousin, a devout Catholic, prayed for his survival and now, 12 years later, the Vatican is coming to Boris’ house to interview him. Iris wonders, if Boris’ miraculous existence is the evidence of divine intervention, then why couldn’t that same intervention turn Sarah into a ghost? And if Sarah is a ghost, maybe Iris doesn’t have to say goodbye to her best friend. The Question of Miracles isn’t a story about the supernatural or religion, but rather about a young girl’s grief. Iris’ loss is heartbreaking, and readers will be touched by her strength as she searches for answers, struggles to accept Sarah’s death and embraces the small miracles as well as the big ones. — K I M B E R LY G I A R R A T A N O

A CASTLE FULL OF CATS Ruth Sanderson has illustrated more than 80 children’s books. In A Castle Full of Cats (Random House, $16.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780449813072, ages 3 to 7), a queen’s cats have taken over the palace, but the king isn’t exactly charmed. Sanderson teaches in the MFA program at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

WORDNOOK

BY THE EDITORS OF MERRIAM-WEBSTER

LOADING UP

Dear Editor: Why is magazine used for both a type of publication and the part of a gun that holds a cartridge? G. T., Greeley, Colorado In Arabic, makhzan denotes a storehouse. From the plural form makhazin, medieval French borrowed magasin in the 14th century. English in turn borrowed the word from French in the 16th century. The term then underwent various specializations of meaning, depending on what was being stored. An early development was the application of the word to storage places for weapons or gunpowder. A further extension applied magazine not to a building but, as you say, to a chamber or clip to hold cartridges in a firearm. Magazine was also used in the titles of books with the implication “storehouse of knowledge.” The word was used in this way

in 1731 for the first issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine; or, Monthly Intelligencer, the suggestion being that the publication would present the general reader with a storehouse of stories and articles. Other periodical publications began using magazine in their titles, and the word was soon used generically for a certain kind of periodical.

40 DAYS

Dear Editor: The recent tragic news stories about the Ebola outbreak have us wondering: Where does the word quarantine come from? R. S. Glenview, Illinois Quarantine derives from the name of the 40-day isolation period instituted in an attempt to prevent the spread of plague in the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, infectious diseases were not well understood. People knew from bitter experience,

however, that the plague sometimes followed the arrival of passengers traveling by sea. As a kind of medieval public health policy, Venetians developed the practice of isolating a ship in the harbor for 40 days to establish whether the passengers carried disease. The Italian word for this isolation period was quarantina, a derivative of quaranta, meaning 40. Other European cities followed Venice’s example and the practice was maintained for several centuries.

TAIL OF WOE

Dear Editor: Does the word coward have anything to do with cows? E. M. Slidell, Louisiana Though it certainly seems plausible that cow and coward would have a common ancestor, in fact they come from different sources. Cow dates all the way back to before the 12th century and has its

origins in an Old English word for the bovine. Coward, on the other hand, traces back to the French word for one part of an animal: its tail. A frightened animal may draw its tail between its legs, or it may turn tail and run. If the fleeing animal has a white tail, the flash of white can leave a keen impression. But fear can be found in humans as well as animals, and armies have their tail ends also. A traditional belief holds that cowards are most likely found lurking in the tail end of an advancing army. Although it is not known whether the reference was to the tail of an army or an animal, it is certain that the Old French word cuart or coart, the source of our word coward, comes from coe or coue, meaning “tail.”

Send correspondence regarding Word Nook to: Language Research Service P.O. Box 281 Springfield, MA 01102

Test Your Mental Mettle with Puzzles from The Little Book of Big Mind Benders GO FIGURE

PUZZLE TYPE: NUMBER COMPLETION:

DIFFICULTY: TIME: ___________

BOB’S KIDS are all at least 10 years old and no more than 20. There is no

PERFECT MATCH

PUZZLE TYPE: VISUAL COMPLETION:

DIFFICULTY: TIME: ___________

WHICH TWO figures match perfectly? Figures may be rotated.

number bigger than 1 that divides evenly into two of the kids’ ages. What is the most number of kids Bob could have? HINT: Neither figure 4 nor figure 5 is part of the perfect match.

include both 12 and 18 because 6 divides both.. HINT: The ages cannot

13, 15, 17, 19, and one more who is either 14 or 16.

ANSWER: Bob could have at most six kids, ages 11,

PUZZLE TYPE: WORD COMPLETION:

DIFFICULTY: TIME: _____

DEDUCE the secret five-letter word from the clues. For instance, the word WRITE shares three letter tiles with the word RIGHT.

HINT: The secret word starts with the letter A.

ANSWER: ACHED

workman.com 1. Bookpage Ad_2.indd 1

ANSWER: Figures 1 and 7 match perfectly.

SECRET WORD

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12/1/14 5:13 PM