BookPage July 2015

AMERICA’S BOOK REVIEW

DISCOVER YOUR NEXT GREAT BOOK

JULY 2015

HOOKED ON

MYSTERY Christopher Reich’s Invasion of Privacy Return of the Ghostman Murder in the minefields After The Girl on the Train #PrivateEyeJuly

Coming July 14: GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee

PaperbackPicks Power Play

Fast Track

The #1 New York Times bestselling author returns with the latest full-throttle adventure in the FBI series featuring Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock.

A woman’s search to uncover the truth about her mother’s life ignites danger and passion in the latest novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Garwood.

Breaking Creed

White Plague

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Maggie O’Dell novels comes a thrilling new series featuring an ex-marine turned K9 rescue dog trainer.

“Relentless action and suspense.”—Alex Berenson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Twelve Days

Dick Francis’s Damage New York Times bestselling author Felix Francis continues his father’s legacy of suspense-driven fiction with Dick Francis’s Damage.

Earth Bound The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Air Bound returns to the mysterious coastal town of Sea Haven where six sisters of the heart are bound by the elements, and one is stalked by an inescapable past.

Feature

of the

Month

In print for the first time ever, author and philosopher Ayn Rand’s “lost” novel Ideal.

In the frozen waters of the Arctic, Marine bioterror expert Joe Rush races to save a submarine crew from a lethal threat.

The House on Mermaid Point In this novel from the author of Ten Beach Road and While We Were Watching Downton Abbey, three unlikely friends who were thrown together by disaster get a do-over on life, love, and happiness.

Wicked Embers The New York Times bestselling author of Fireborn presents the thrilling new Souls of Fire novel featuring Emberly Pearson, a phoenix that can transform into a human—and is haunted by the ability to foresee death.

NEW IN HARDCOVER & TRADE PAPERBACK

Ideal is the story of beautiful but tormented actress Kay Gonda. Accused of murder, she is on the run and turns for help to six fans who have written letters to her, each telling her that she represents their ideal. Each fan reacts to her plight in his own way and their reactions offer a glimpse into their secret selves and their true values.

contents

JULY 2015

B O O K PA G E . C O M

features

on the cover

04 ERIKA SWYLER Meet the author of The Book of Speculation

Celebrate mysteries and thrillers all month long! Look for our Private Eye July magnifying glass throughout this issue and on BookPage.com.

04 HARPER LEE Her anticipated second novel

Cover illustration © Taylor Schena

14 CHRISTOPHER REICH Big Brother conspiracy

reviews

16 KEVIN KWAN The lavish lives of China’s elite

29 DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER A haunting in Brooklyn

18 FICTION

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen Let Me Explain You by Annie Liontas Armada by Ernest Cline Local Girls by Caroline Zancan Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell A Master Plan for Rescue

by Janis Cooke Newman Speak by Louisa Hall

Meet the author of Night Animals

summer SUMMER reads READS FANTASY SUMMER CHILLS FAMILY SECRETS HUMOR ADVENTURE SURVIVAL THE OCEAN

24 NONFICTION

top pick:

The Little Paris Bookshop

by Nina George The Love She Left Behind

by Amanda Coe Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich A Better Man by Leah McLaren Summerlong by Dean Bakopoulos

Blackout by Sarah Hepola

also reviewed:

The Speechwriter by Barton Swaim How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari Anchor and Flares by Kate Braestrup The Cost of Courage by Charles Kaiser

columns 05 06 07 08 08 09 10

top pick:

also reviewed:

31 GIANNA MARINO

21 22 23 25 26 27 31

Summer is heating up and so are these new romances from Avon Books!

28 TEEN

30 CHILDREN’S

top pick:

top pick:

also reviewed:

also reviewed:

Seeing Off the Johns

by Rene S. Perez II

LIBRARY READS ROMANCE BOOK CLUBS WELL READ COOKING AUDIO WHODUNIT

The Good Shufu by Tracy Slater Forensics by Val McDermid The Drummond Girls

by Mardi Jo Link

Tommy by Karen Blumenthal Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway Silver in the Blood

by Jessica Day George

Ruby on the Outside

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Escape from Baxters’ Barn

by Rebecca Bond Another Kind of Hurricane

by Tamara Ellis Smith The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate

by Jacqueline Kelly

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

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Allison Hammond

Elizabeth Grace Herbert

CONTRIBUTOR

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ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

ASSISTANT EDITOR

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EDITOR

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MANAGING EDITOR

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PRODUCTION INTERN

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MARKETING Mary Claire Zibart

CONTROLLER Sharon Kozy

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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All material © 2015 ProMotion, inc.

3

meet ERIKA SWYLER

the title of your new book?

Q: What’s

Q: Describe your book in one sentence.

did you decide to include illustrations in your novel?

Q: Why

do you find most alluring about mermaids?

Q: What

is your most precious possession?

Q: What

Q: What books and authors have inspired you most?

Q: What one thing would you like to learn to do?

Q

: Words to live by?

THE BOOK OF SPECULATION Raised on Long Island’s North Shore, where much of her magical debut novel, The Book of Speculation (St. Martin’s, $26.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9781250054807), is set, Erika Swyler is a baker, writer, bookbinder, photographer and artist. When Swyler submitted her manuscript to publishers, she created 16 aged, gilded copies to resemble the antiquarian book at the heart of her mysterious story.

Read a review of the novel on page 18.

4

feature

HARPER LEE B Y L I LY M c L E M O R E

The mockingbird sings again

I

t’s one of America’s most iconic pieces of literature, and now, 55 years after its publication, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has a companion.

In February, seemingly out of nowhere, HarperCollins Publishers announced on behalf of Harper Lee, 89, that her second book, Go Set a Watchman, would be published on July 14.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird has never been out of print since it was published in 1960, and it is one of the most enduring, beloved American novels ever written. Told from the perspective of 6-year-old Scout Finch, the novel follows the rape trial of Tom Robinson, an innocent black man; his lawyer and Scout’s father, Atticus; and the trial’s effect on Scout and the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama. Go Set a Watchman unfolds 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird and focuses on the adult Scout as she returns home to visit her father.

Upon her return, she struggles with her feelings toward her hometown’s residents and its past, as well as her changing relationship with her father and his beliefs.

Calling Go Set a Watchman a “new” book from the reclusive literary legend is a stretch, however.

It was Lee’s first attempt at a novel and was written in the mid-1950s, before To Kill a Mockingbird. Upon reading the manuscript, her editor suggested that she expand Scout’s intriguing recollections of her childhood into a novel. Eventually, this became To Kill a Mockingbird. The early novel was rediscovered by Lee’s lawyer in 2014 and is being published as it was originally written. In a statement released by her lawyer, Lee says, “I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”

Although To Kill a Mockingbird was published to immense critical praise, Lee has refused to embrace stardom, rarely making public appearances or granting interviews.

Instead, she has chosen a secluded life in her small hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. The private

author has said very little about Go Set a Watchman, but she did send a note to a particularly persistent journalist. Her handwritten message? “Go away!”

After the initial excitement about the announcement of Lee’s new book, many voiced concerns that HarperCollins was taking advantage of the 89-year-old author. It seemed to some a bit too coincidental that the novel was announced a year after the death of Lee’s sister, lawyer and trusted confidante, Alice. The state of Alabama looked into concerns of elder abuse, but concluded that the claims were unfounded. Lee herself adamantly denied these accusations in a statement: “I’m alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions to [Go Set a] Watchman.” The novel has an initial print run of 2 million, and it is the most pre-ordered book in HarperCollins’ history.

GO SET A WATCHMAN

By Harper Lee

Harper, $27.99, 288 pages ISBN 9780062409850, audio, eBook available

FICTION

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 July.

#1

KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST by J. Ryan Stradal Pamela Dorman, $27.95, ISBN 9780525429142

The rise of a gifted young chef is told from the varying perspectives of people who love her in this delicious debut—which comes complete with recipes.

CIRCLING THE SUN by Paula McLain

Ballantine, $28, ISBN 9780345534187 The author of the bestseller The Paris Wife returns with another historical novel, this one based on the remarkable life of female aviator Beryl Markham.

KISS ME by Susan Mallery

HQN, $8.99, ISBN 9780373780129 Best-selling author Mallery returns to the small town of Fool’s Gold, California, where an LA transplant falls in love with a lonely cowboy.

SECOND CHANCE SUMMER by Jill Shalvis

Grand Central, $6, ISBN 9781455586738 Sparks fly between city girl Lily and the rugged hometown boy her older sister once had a crush on in the first installment of Shalvis’ Cedar Ridge series.

SPEAKING IN BONES by Kathy Reichs

Bantam, $28, ISBN 9780345544049 In the 18th Temperance Brennan novel, our heroine finds herself investigating a cold case that just might have otherworldly origins.

BookPage calls Laura Lane McNeal

A Sassy New Southern Voice!

NOW IN PAPERBACK “McNeal’s witty prose and expertise on all things New Orleans will enrapture readers of The Help and Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood.” — BookPage “This flavorful and enthralling novel brilliantly captures New Orleans during the civil rights era. It’s a deeply personal tale about growing up and searching for family as well as a provocative exploration of race and kinship.

I found it both thrilling and poignant.”

— Walter Isaacson, New York Times best-selling author

THOSE GIRLS by Chevy Stevens

St. Martin’s, $26.99, ISBN 9781250034588 Three sisters hide a dark and deadly secret in Stevens’ latest, a pulse-pounding thriller that examines whether we can truly put the past behind us.

MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Washington Square Press, $16, ISBN 9781476776880 A 29-year-old woman who has been drifting through life suddenly finds herself leading two parallel lives—with two different soul mates.

CROOKED HEART by Lissa Evans

Harper, $24.99, ISBN 9780062364838 A female con artist and a 10-year-old boy form an unlikely friendship under the shadow of the London Blitz in this U.S. debut from an acclaimed British writer.

LOVE LIES BENEATH by Ellen Hopkins

Atria, $26, ISBN 9781476743653 A beautiful widow falls for a charming surgeon who may not be as perfect as he appears in Hopkins’ darkly poetic new novel for adults.

GOOD AND CHEAP: EAT WELL ON $4/DAY by Leanne Brown

Workman, $16.95, ISBN 9780761184997 Stretch your grocery budget without sacrificing health or flavor with this much-needed cookbook for food lovers who are watching their wallets.

LibraryReads is a recommendation program that highlights librarians’ favorite books published this month. For more information, visit libraryreads.org.

LibraryReads Pick • Indie First Pick Library Journal Starred Review New York Post Must Read Novel Goodreads Choice Awards Top Ten Best Historical Fiction Novels of 2014

Visit www.lauralanemcneal.com to join the author’s reader list

5

columns

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

Once and future love Long-denied lovers fight for a future together in Diana Palmer’s Untamed (HQN, $24.95, 304 pages, ISBN 9780373788439). South African mercenary Stanton Rourke has longed for his childhood playmate Clarisse Carrington for eight years, but he always thought she was out of reach. When circumstances change, he pursues the innocent

Clarisse with a vengeance—and soon she succumbs to his sensual persuasion. He’s everything she’s ever wanted, but a mission takes Stanton away from her, and it appears that they will lose everything they’ve worked for. But then danger appears in Clarisse’s life.

As always, Stanton’s protective instincts arise, and he returns to her side. Can they regain what they once had, or will the threat hanging over Clarisse destroy their lives? A scarred, domineering hero, a beautiful, virginal heroine and a dark villain who will stop at nothing come together in a classically styled, page-turning romance.

Now available in print and ebook.

www.HQNBooks.com

TOP PICK IN ROMANCE

A retired SEAL team once again confronts danger in Hell or High Water (Sourcebooks Casablanca, $7.99, 384 pages, ISBN 9781492608905), the start of a new series by Julie Ann Walker. The team’s hunt for a sunken Spanish galleon is interrupted by CIA agent Olivia Mortier and her urgent request: that the dive specialists recover chemical weapons lost during an attempt to flush out an intelligence mole. At first, the PASSION AND PERIL team’s former leader, Leo AnderIn Flight from Death (Berkson, refuses. When one of his men ley, $7.99, 336 pages, ISBN was mortally wounded, the rest of the team vowed to him that they’d 9780425272152) by Yasmine Galenorn, a vampire, a dragon finally get out of the death busishifter and a werewolf from the Fly ness. So Olivia’s plea to re-enter

by Night Magical Investigations the world of warfare seems easy to Agency travel to a troubled bed and refuse. But the agent’s offer comes with some much-needed cash for breakfast. In this world, humans and “supes” of many kinds coexist, their salvage business, and Leo has a history with Olivia, which makes but the creatures that seem to be haunting the B&B are something the offer that much more difficult new. As the colleagues work toto pass up. Their mission is impedgether to uncover the what and the ed by a hostage situation, desperate terrorists and the appearance why, dragon shifter Shimmer can’t suppress her attraction to her boss, of the sought-after villain, but Olivvampire Alex Radcliffe. Banished ia and Leo still find time to explore by her kind, she’s essentially intheir fiery attraction. Hot men, hot dentured to Alex for five years, and action and hot temperatures make she doesn’t want to shake up her for one hot romance!

6 15_171_BookPage_AllYouNeed.indd 1

situation by making moves on him. But Alex is attracted to Shimmer too, and as they grow closer, he also encourages her to find her place in the world as an exile. In this story brimming with possible culprits and supernatural beings, the team must reach out to others in order to solve the mysteries surrounding the B&B. In the process, orphaned Shimmer finds herself building a family of sorts with friends of all shapes and kinds. Paranormal romance fans will find much to enjoy in this imaginative series debut.

2015-05-29 12:06 PM

BOOK CLUBS

BY JULIE HALE

Alone in the wilderness Rebecca Rasmussen’s Evergreen (Vintage, $15.95, 352 pages, ISBN 9780345806710) is a haunting, beautifully executed novel set in the 1930s. Eveline and her German husband, Emil, make their home in the remote woods of Minnesota.

Their cabin is rough, and they have little contact with other people.

With the approach of war, Emil

departs for Germany to look after his father, and Eveline stays on at the cabin with their baby, Hux. In Emil’s absence, a stranger comes to the cabin and rapes Eveline, who gets pregnant as a result and gives birth to a daughter, Naamah.

Raised in a harsh Catholic orphanage, Naamah endures an unhappy childhood. As adults, she and Hux struggle to come to terms with the past and the harm inflicted on their family. Rasmussen creates memorable characters, including Eveline’s tough-as-nails friend Lulu, who knows how to take care of herself in the wilderness. The novel brings the Minnesota setting to vivid life with a stirring tale that’s as much about place as it is personal relationships and the repercussions of family history.

ONE LAST TRY Us (Harper, $15.99, 416 pages, ISBN 9780062365590), by David Nicholls, is a smart, compassionate novel about the nature of modern marriage and family. Londoners Douglas and Connie Petersen have been contentedly married for almost 20 years. Their 17-year-old son, Albie, has artistic inclinations, which Connie hopes to nurture with a trip to Europe. Before the trip, Connie drops a bomb: She tells Douglas that she may want a divorce—but she isn’t sure. Douglas is devoted to Connie and hopes

that the getaway to Europe will revive their romance and bring him closer to temperamental Albie, with whom he has a distant relationship. It’s a pivotal moment in the life of the Petersen family. On their travels, as they tick off the capitals of Europe—Venice, Paris, Amsterdam— Douglas makes some surprising discoveries about himself and what he wants out of life. He’s a likable narrator, intelligent and funny, and the reader can’t help but cheer for him. As he did in the best-selling One Day, Nicholls here offers an appealing, often funny exploration of contemporary ­coupledom.

Sizzling

Book Club Reads for Summer Orphan Number Eight

by Kim van Alkemade The fascinating story of a woman who must choose between revenge and mercy when she encounters the doctor who subjected her to dangerous medical experiments in a New York City Jewish orphanage.

Newport

by Jill Morrow “Jill Morrow’s Newport is a portrait of a long-lost era, a sophisticated drama, and a gripping mystery all in one.

Full of delicious prose and surprising twists, this book is a delight, an engrossing read that goes down like a glass of the finest champagne.”

—Simone St. James, author of The Other Side of Midnight

TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS Jane Smiley’s many fans have welcomed the appearance of Some Luck (Anchor, $15.95, 416 pages, ISBN 9780307744807), the first volume in a new family-saga trilogy set in Iowa. Spanning three decades—the 1920s through the 1950s—the book chronicles the lives of Rosanna and Walter Langdon and their five children, with each chapter covering a single year. When the novel opens, Walter has come back from World War I to tend to the family farm, and the reader is treated to an intimate, poignant portrayal of life on the homestead. Each of the Langdon kids grows up to follow a different path—the oldest son, Frank, joins the Army, while reliable Joe remains at home, and the alluring Lillian marries a man who works for the government. The twists and turns of the family’s fortunes make for great reading. Smiley’s characters, as ever, are sharply drawn and authentically alive. This is a richly imagined, compelling work of fiction that will leave readers eager for the next installment.

Season of the Dragonflies

by Sarah Creech

Sarah Creech weaves together a magical tale of sisters and mothers and the power of human love. Season of the Dragonflies is a rich, deeply satisfying debut.

—Beatriz Williams, author of The Secret Life of Violet Grant

Sometimes the Wolf

by Urban Waite

“A tremendous novel by a rising powerhouse of a writer. Waite tells tense, thrilling stories with thoughtfulness and emotional clarity. Anyone who is late to the party couldn’t ask for a better entry point than this hybrid of crime drama and father-son story.” —Michael Koryta, New York Times Bestselling Author of Those Who Wish Me Dead @Morrow_PB

@bookclubgirl

William Morrow

Book Club Girl

7

columns

WELL READ

COOKING

BY ROBERT WEIBEZAHL

BY SYBIL PRATT

Landscapes and ‘Lolita’

Charlie’s choices

For all its sexual perversity, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is at heart a master send-up of the particularities of mid-20th-century American culture. It is a measure of the genius of the non-native English-speaking Nabokov that he crafted the novel’s dazzling prose, of course, but it is just as impressive that this Russian-born writer captured the nuances of an alien culture with such precision and wit. In his new study, Nabokov in America: On the Road to Lolita (Bloomsbury, $28, 368 pages, ISBN 9780802743633), Robert Roper focuses on the émigré’s time in the United States and how it gave birth to his most famous book.

Nabokov, his Jewish wife, Véra, and their young son, Dmitri, escaped Nazi Europe and arrived in New York in 1940. Their first years in the U.S. were nomadic, as Nabokov took up short stints teaching and lecturing. A long, meandering road trip westward, final destination Stanford, would be the writer’s introduction to the American landscape of motor courts, roadside cafés, National Parks and endless highways that would figure prominently in Lolita. More trips west would follow as the novel took shape in his mind and on paper.

These trips were also opportunities for Nabokov’s greatest non-literary pursuit, butterfly collecting, which he undertook both for his own pleasure and under the aegis of Harvard’s Museum of Contemporary Zoology. He found the American landscape teeming with beautiful and rare specimens. While one cannot separate Nabokov from this passionate avocation, or ignore its role as the impetus for the journeys, the attention focused on these episodes tends to slow the narrative.

Nabokov’s literary friendship

In so many cookbooks, chefs offer to share the special recipes they cook at home. If I have to scramble to find time to cook every day, how can these restaurant-owning, cookbook-writing, TV-appearing dynamos do it? But after going through the alluring recipes in Charlie Palmer’s American Fare: Everyday Recipes from My Kitchen to Yours

8

with Edmund Wilson takes center stage in the story.

Wilson, the influential critic who was so instrumental in bolstering many writers’ careers, secured myriad assignments for the often impecunious Russian, and he opened doors for him at major magazines such as The Atlantic and The New Yorker (which ran installments of Nabokov’s now-iconic memoir, Speak, Memory).

As this chronological account of Nabokov’s American years unfolds with exacting detail, Roper traces how the idea for Lolita began to percolate in the writer’s mind.

Nabokov had written about obsessive pedophilic characters before, most notably in “The Enchanter,” an unpublished story he had written in Russian, and this issue lurks in the margins of some of his earlier novels as well. With Lolita, though, he would couple an old fascination with a newly gained, strictly American sensibility, Nabokov’s shaped by his extensive somewhat travels in the jaundiced affection for our American literature and West helped landscape. to shape his When it defied the consensational certed efforts novel. of the censors and was finally published (in 1958 in the U.S.), Lolita was viewed as scandalous by some, but it made Nabokov rich and world famous. It endures as one of the most acclaimed entries in the canon of literature from the second half of the last century, having introduced words like “nymphet” and, for sure, “Lolita” into our lexicon. Roper’s contention, well substantiated by Nabokov in America, is that this classic would never have been born had the writer not come to the United States and crisscrossed its vast, singular terrain in search of more than butterflies.

(Grand Central, $40, 272 pages, ISBN 9781455530991), I gave up my culinary quibbles. These are recipes I want to cook, whether or not Palmer actually comes home and makes them for his attractive family. Now is the time for Charlie’s Corn Chowder with Shrimp or Summer Minestrone with Mint Pesto. And, while grilling is still the go-to cooking method, try his Chermoula-Grilled Salmon, Balsamic-Soy Grilled Tri-Tip Steak and Grilled Romaine with Jack Cheese. Keep on going and you’ll find sweets, snacks, easy lunches and a mélange of mains. Palmer includes tips on ingredients, sides and wine pairings—and his love of food infuses every dish.

EAT OUTSIDE! Living in the information age, attached to our computers, tablets and iEverythings, multitasking and juggling all-too-many commitments, it’s easy to forget some of life’s simple joys. April McKinney is here to remind us that eating outside is one of those joys, and this is the time of year to do it, whether it’s a backyard BBQ, front-porch supper, a picnic at a concert under the stars or, when autumn falls, a tailgating extravaganza. With 200 recipes that travel well and can be made ahead, The Outdoor Table (Thomas Nelson, $26.99, 288 pages, ISBN 9780718022198), McKinney’s debut, is all you need to make

dining al fresco a reality and a pleasure. Sip a Blackberry Mint Julep as you pass the Peach Prosciutto Bites, serve Marinated Flank Steak with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes alongside Brown Sugar and Bacon Sweet Potato Salad and, for a divine dessert, try the Banana Cream Whoopie Pies. When the chill winds blow, just bring the outdoor table indoors and continue to cook up joy. For inspirational umph, McKinney has added a national list of seasonal outdoor events and venues.

TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS I’ve been using Sarah Leah Chase’s Nantucket Open-House Cookbook for almost three decades, so a new celebration of the New England food she knows and loves is cause for celebration. New England Open-House Cookbook (Workman, $24.95, 400 pages, ISBN 9780761155195), with more than 300 recipes and gorgeous, almost-edible photos, is Chase’s delicious gastro-tour of rural New England home cooking. Her zeal for the “finest feasting” of the region, with all its mini-regions, shines through in the in-depth header notes, packed with details about sourcing Chase’s preferred local ingredients. Starting with starters, like Swordfish Salsa, Chase dishes up chowders, stews and soups, a bounty of brilliant bivalve winners, entrées that run the gamut from fish to free-range fowl and meaty marvels. And, oh, the lovely lobsters—in a bake or bisque, in rolls, in a super-sumptuous Lobster Mac and Cheese or grilled with Champagne Butter.

Farmstand favorites, picnic pleasers, breakfast bonanzas, sweet treats and a few “attitude-adjusting” libations all get Chase’s expert attention and detailed directions.

In her delightful first memoir of living la vie Française, New York born and bred Elizabeth Bard took us to Lunch in Paris.

Now, five years later, she invites us to a Picnic in Provence (Hachette Audio, $30, 8.5 hours, ISBN 9781478977339), recipe PDF included. Life is changing for Elizabeth and Gwendal, her smart, attractive and unfailingly

kind French husband. They move to a small village in the Luberon, have a baby boy and, as this slice of the story winds down, decide to open an artisanal ice cream parlor, serving their fabulous, frozen, Provence-infused creations. Always on the charming side of irreverent and an engaging narrator, Bard does a lot more than act as a tour guide. She muses on cultural differences, French women—from her elegant mother-in-law to the woman she buys cheese from in the local market— childhood, motherhood, marriage, finding and accepting happiness and more. Each chapter concludes with a recipe. Bard’s reflections on life and love (of all kinds) are witty, wise and as thoroughly refreshing as the scent of thyme, truffles, lavender and lemon verbena that waft by on a Provençal breeze.

SOPRANO STALKER Donna Leon, matchless maestra of mystery, is passionate about opera. No surprise, then, that Commissario Guido Brunetti, the always elegant, worldly and wise star of her charming detective series set in Venice, is an aficionado as well. In Falling in Love (Recorded Books, $24.99, 8 hours, ISBN 9781490672397), famed soprano Flavia Petrelli returns to Venice to sing Tosca. Brunetti and his wife attend and watch as Flavia, whom he knows well, is showered with

hundreds of yellow roses from an admirer.

But this is an obsessive, intrusive admirer, whose attentions are beginning to alarm the singer. When two people close to Flavia are viciously attacked, Brunetti ups his investigation and, with the aid of the indomitable Signorina Elettra, sifts through stalker profiles to focus on the strange, sad villain. For serious series fans, going backstage at La Fenice, gossiping with a diva and walking the narrow streets of Venice with our beloved Brunetti, perfectly brought to life by David Colacci, are the real treats.

TOP PICK IN AUDIO On a May evening just before “full dark,” Addie Moore, long a widow, pays a call on Louis Waters, long a widower. They are only acquaintances, but she has a “kind of proposal” for him: Would he come to her house at night and sleep with her—not for sex, but for companionship.

She is lonely, the nights are the worst, they would just get under the covers and talk. And so begins Our Souls at Night (Random House Audio, $25, 3.5 hours, ISBN 9781101923450), Kent Haruf’s spare, slim September Song, read with a flawless mix of restraint and compassion by Mark Bramhall. Addie and Louis do get to know each other’s souls at night, but their private, intensely close, rewarding relationship angers Addie’s unhappy, uptight son and scandalizes their neighbors in small-town Holt, Colorado.

Elegiac, quietly eloquent, Haruf’s last novel (he died in November) looks right into the heart of love, friendship, true intimacy and new possibilities even as “the days dwindle down to a precious few.”

Road Trip?

“True tales of how we live now from a mother and daughter who are best pals—and a very funny writing team.”

—People (“Best Beach Book”) on Have a Nice Guilt Trip

APRIL NARBY

From Paris to Provence

W ha t shou l d I l is te n to o n my

READ BY THE AUTHORS

“The only disappointment in this listen is that it ends.”

—AudioFile on Runner READ BY ARI FLIAKOS IAN WARBURG

AUDIO

BY SUKEY HOWARD

“Author Green skillfully narrates with a distinct voice for each character.”

—Library Journal on Tempting Fate READ BY THE AUTHOR

“A dazzling debut.”

—Sara Gruen

READ BY ARI FLIAKOS

“King’s performance ability is the perfect medium for Jones’s witty and cunning prose.”

—Publishers Weekly on Fifth Grave Past the Light

READ BY LORELEI KING

Listen to excerpts at www.macmillanaudio.com

9

columns

WHODUNIT

BY BRUCE TIERNEY

The other side of the world for Ghostman’s return You have to love a book that tosses out an offhand line like, “I’d been in this business a long time and been in a lot of nasty situations, but nobody had ever sent me a head in a box,” and then follows with a step-by-step tutorial on how best to remove a head from a body. The bad guys don’t mess around in Roger Hobbs’ Vanishing Games (Knopf, $25.95, 304 pages, ISBN 9780385352642), the highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller, Ghostman. Said “ghostman,” Jack (not his real name), is a fixer of sorts, a master criminal who learned the ropes from a rather diabolical woman named Angela (not her real name either), whom he hasn’t seen since a botched job six years back. She

has weighed heavily on his mind, and when he receives her cryptic email summoning him, he speedily books a flight from his Oregon desert retreat to the up-all-night gambling city of Macau. And this is just the slow part of the book;

when he arrives in Macau, the action begins in earnest. This is a page-turner of the first order.

LETHAL HEROINE Conjure up a female Jack Reacher, augmented with Lisbeth Salander’s tech and weaponry

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skills, then dress her in formfitting leather and place her atop a Ducati, and you’ll have a good mental image of Vanessa Michael Munroe, the heroine of Taylor Stevens’ The Mask (Crown, $24, 352 pages, ISBN 9780385348966). This time out, Munroe is in Osaka, where she’s playing the role of dutiful housewife to her longtime lover and boss, industrial espionage expert Miles Bradford, and she is champing at the bit for something a little more worthy of her skill set.

She finds what she’s looking for when Bradford is framed for the murder of an employee at a Japanese tech company, and Munroe must work within (and outside of) the foreign justice system to secure his release. Munroe fans know she’s much more comfortable coloring outside the lines, and this outing is no exception. She plays to all her strengths: her androgynous looks that can deceive admirers of both sexes, her facility as a master strategist and her prodigious combat moves. This is an excellent addition to an already excellent series, acclaimed by critics and readers alike.

NEARLY ROCK BOTTOM There are many reasons to read Ken Bruen’s books. The usual ones include complex characters, gripping plots and quality prose.

Less common reasons, all of which appear in Green Hell (Mysterious Press, $25, 304 pages, ISBN 9780802123565), include rotating narrators; suggesting a real-life soundtrack to listen to alongside the novel (Green Hell introduced me to Irish folkie Johnny Duhan); and perhaps the most lifelike of sad effects, killing off a major character (or two or three) when the reader is simply not ready for it. World-weary Jack Taylor, a retired (via the bottle) Irish Guard, anchors the series. It is difficult to imagine a more tormented and self-destructive protagonist, yet

10 15_235_BookPage_Untamed.indd 1

2015-05-25 5:29 PM

somewhere deep inside an old soul exists, one fueled by moral outrage to right long-standing wrongs, consequences be damned. And this time out, the consequences are about as bad as they can get. This is a sobering and difficult read in some ways, but one I can guarantee you’ll strongly recommend to your reader friends.

TOP PICK IN MYSTERY It’s a rare happening when a debut novel is accorded my Top Pick, but that’s indeed the case with The Swede (Harper, $26.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9780062339584), a stunning English-language debut from Swedish author Robert Karjel.

All of the great qualities of Nordic noir can be found here, and then some: a taciturn and serious protagonist (in this case, a Swedish security policeman); a global stage, from Europe to America to Thailand to the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia; a plot with international terrorism overtones; and a cast of supporting characters as diverse as the denizens of Rick’s Café in Casablanca.

Swedish cop Ernst Grip has been summoned by the U.S. government to assist in the interrogation of a suspected terrorist, who may be Swedish. He has no name, and when pressed about this, he says, “Just call me ‘N.’ ” (Interestingly, in some English-language markets, the book is titled My Name Is N, to my mind an altogether better title.)

N’s story is riddled with holes, and as Grip comes to grips (sorry) with the reality of the situation, he starts to doubt which side of this battlefield he belongs on. And the reason for this? Grip has a closet full of secrets, the hint of which would torpedo his career (for sure), his freedom (most likely) and his private life (in ways that become clearer as the story progresses).

There are still some loose ends at the book’s close, and I hope this means a sequel is in the works.

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11

SUSPENSE spotlight features

WHAT TO READ NEXT B Y T H E E D I T O R S O F B O O K PA G E

BY SHELIA M. TRASK

Psychological thrills

After ‘The Girl on the Train’

ow well can you really know someone?

Can you comprehend the hidden desires harbored by your neighbor, your fiancé, your best friend or your daughter? Or do you only see the fiction they present to the world?

N

H

These two probing psychological thrillers reveal what can happen when the perfect facade crumbles, leaving the innocent among the ruins.

In her skillfully plotted debut, The Bones of You (Kensington, $25, 320 pages, ISBN 9781617737664), Debbie Howells uses two narrators to get at the truth of what happened on the day 18-year-old Rosie was brutally killed in an otherwise quiet English village. Rosie haunts these pages with flashbacks to her troubled life and terrible death, and possesses an oracle-like knowledge of others’ emotional states and motives, recalling the afterlife narrator of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. Most of the story, however, comes from kindhearted Kate, a neighbor and mother to her own 18-year-old daughter, who befriends Rosie’s mother, Jo Anderson. Though she’s just lost her daughter and has another one to protect, Jo’s focus seems to be on decorating her perfect home and attending awards dinners with her internationally acclaimed journalist husband, Neal. At first Kate puts this down to the peculiarities of grief, but when Neal becomes a suspect and anonymous messages begin appearing at Kate’s door, she has to wonder what’s really happening at the Anderson house. Howells leads us down a winding path to the truth, where each character reveals just enough of his or her secrets to drive suspense skyward

12

and keep readers from guessing who was really responsible for Rosie’s death until the strangely satisfying truth is revealed.

Appearances are similarly deceiving for Morgan Prager, the Brooklyn college student at the heart of The Hand That Feeds You (Scribner, $26, 288 pages, ISBN 9781476774589), by Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment, writing together for the first time as A.J. Rich.

An altruistic woman with a weakness for rescue dogs—her small apartment holds a Great Pyrenees and two pit bulls—Morgan is engaged to the charming Bennett and almost finished with her thesis on victim psychology. All is right in her world—until she arrives home to find bloody paw prints on the floor and her fiancé’s mauled body on her bed. Morgan’s grief and guilt overwhelm her as she tries to understand how she could have been so wrong about her sweet dogs. Then she discovers she was wrong about Bennett as well, who had several other “fiancées” waiting in the wings. Some have died suspicious deaths, and others are still waiting for their beloved’s return.

The writing is fast-paced yet psychologically nuanced as Morgan chases down the truth, questions her own research and faces her traumatic past, all the while fighting to get her dogs back. The final twist is creepy and unexpected, and the action-packed last pages fly by as we fight alongside Morgan to understand who can be trusted in this world.

o question, the most popular thriller so far this year is Paula Hawkins’ slowburning psychological thriller.

So you’ve ridden the train, you’ve unearthed all those lies and secrets, but what do you read next? The editors of BookPage have a few ideas.

THE KIND WORTH KILLING by Peter Swanson Swanson (The Girl with a Clock for a Heart) takes readers to greater Hitchcockian levels with this twisty psychological thriller, which will appeal to readers who loved the way Hawkins jumped from one narrator to another, slowly peeling back everyone’s layers to reveal their true motivations.

BLACKOUT by Sarah Hepola “[B]lacking out wasn’t simply a matter of forgetting what had happened,” Hawkins writes, “but having no memories to forget in the first place.” If you found this line from The Girl on the Train as fascinating as the mystery itself, you’ll love diving into Hepola’s memoir. BookPage review on page 24.

HAUSFRAU by Jill Alexander Essbaum Essbaum’s mesmerizing novel finds a desperate housewife breaking out of her domestic passivity through a series of bad decisions and dangerous liasons. It will hit the spot for readers who couldn’t get enough of Megan, the impulsive wife whose disappearance launches Hawkins’ novel.

BIG LITTLE LIES by Liane Moriarty No one does suburban conflict quite like Moriarty, author of such page-turners as The Husband’s Secret and What Alice Forgot.

The unraveling connections between the three central women are some of the strongest elements in Hawkins’ novel, and the three moms here juggle rivalries and plenty of juicy secrets.

THE GOOD HOUSE by Ann Leary The townie protagonist of Leary’s 2013 novel loves a bottle of wine as much as Hawkins’ Rachel, and her blackouts render her just as unreliable. Her attempts to protect her reputation in a small, gossipy New England seaside town make for a fun, dark read, with a dash of wicked humor for balance.

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP by S.J. Watson Watson’s spectacular 2011 debut includes many of the finest elements of The Girl on the Train—loss of memory, an incident that cannot be recalled, paranoia that seeps from the page to infect the reader, husbands who seem to know more than they let on.

At the risk of a spoiler, we’ll say no more!

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! All month long, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers.

Visit BookPage.com for a daily dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.

features

BEHIND THE BOOK B Y K .T. M E D I N A

Truth in Cambodian minefields

D

rawing on years of experience in the British armed forces, debut author K.T. Medina delivers a striking thriller that bores into the dark heart of postwar Cambodia, fraught with poverty and superstition. Her heroine descends into the killing fields in search of her husband’s killer—but as Medina reveals in the essay below, evil goes much deeper than murder.

To my parents’ dismay, I was not a normal girl. I dressed in army fatigues, sported a crew cut and used to line my teddy bears up at either end of the lounge and send them into battle. My favorite game was to traverse blocks purely by climbing over fences, cutting through people’s gardens, sneaking through their open back doors and slipping out the front, unnoticed.

My mother and father despaired, entirely nonplussed. However, my interest in all things military probably developed from the hours I spent hiding behind the sofa, when I was supposed to be asleep, watching such World War II classics as The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen through my father’s legs.

When I went to university to study psychology, it felt like a natural progression to join the Territorial Army, where I spent time both in the Infantry and in the Royal Engineers, rising to Troop Commander. On leaving university, I joined Jane’s Information Group,

WHITE CROCODILE

By K.T. Medina

Mulholland, $26, 384 pages ISBN 9780316374002, eBook available

THRILLER

the world’s leading publisher of defense intelligence information.

It was whilst working at Jane’s, responsible for land-based weapons, that I was inspired to write my debut thriller, White Crocodile.

As part of that role, I spent a few weeks in the minefields of northern Cambodia, working alongside professional mine clearers from two clearance charities, Cambodian Mine Action Centre and Mines Advisory Group. I was privileged to get to know both Western and Khmer mine clearers and to spend time talking with Khmers who had lost limbs to land mines. I also visited many of the locations that appear in White Crocodile, including the great swathes of minefields that dominate the region and the Red Cross Hospital for the victims of land mines, where the novel’s fictional Dr Ung saves lives and rehabilitates. There are huge numbers of amputees in Cambodia, including very young children who, in many cases, thought that the anti-personnel mine they found was a toy.

Cambodia is a visually beautiful country of emerald green paddy fields and ochre earth; the people are friendly and the majority kind; but its traumatic history, including five years of mass genocide under the Khmer Rouge, depicted in the famous film The Killing Fields, casts an indelible shadow. Cambodia is still incredibly poor and the government corrupt, building presidential palaces and grand government buildings while the majority of the population live in unimaginable deprivation and hardship. There is no social security, and unless people make a living for themselves and their families, they quite literally starve. The presence of six million land mines,

buried mainly in the northwest region around Battambang where White Crocodile is set, makes the job of survival even harder.

Off the tourist trail, Cambodia is a heartbreaking place to visit that left a huge and lasting impression on me. On coming home, back to England and the privileges that I enjoy here in “I wanted the West, I felt to use the very strongly power of that I wanted fiction to take to use the powreaders on an er of fiction to take readers on unforgettable an unforgetjourney to table journey this dark and to this dark and disturbing disturbing place—a jourplace.” ney that would have them wanting to read, without pause, until the very last page.

White Crocodile is also a story about families: love and hatred; kindness and cruelty; the destructive nature of some families and the long-term damage these families can cause. As part of my degree in psychology, I studied the effect of poor family dynamics and abuse on children. The fear and helplessness a child trapped in a severely dysfunctional family feels must be all-consuming, and for me was a very powerful emotion to explore in a novel, as was its flip side, intense love and an overwhelming desire to protect.

I am drawn to people who have a different psychology from my own, whether in terms of mass cultural beliefs, such as in Cambodia where the white crocodile signifies death,

or with individuals who, perhaps because of their upbringing or life experiences, display an abnormal psychology. The heroine of White Crocodile is Tess Hardy, an ex-British Army combat engineer and mine clearer who, against her better judgment, travels to Cambodia to discover the truth behind the death of her violent husband Luke.

However, whilst Tess is strong, clever and independent, she is also a complex character who has her own very personal demons to deal with.

I have always loved to read and write, and much of my childhood was spent immersed in stories.

Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series was one of my early favorites, and in common with many other tomboys, I wanted to be George. I am still an avid crime and thriller reader, and I particularly like novels that bring more to me than just a great story. Novels that stay with me long after the last page are those such as Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, novels that explore real-life trauma through the medium of story and unforgettable characters, and that was my aim with White Crocodile.

K.T. Medina lives in London with her husband and three children.

Visit BookPage.com for a review of White Crocodile.

13

cover story

CHRISTOPHER REICH

The scary reach of Big Brother

I

nternational thriller writer Christopher Reich admits his new standalone nail-biter, Invasion of Privacy, lacks the globetrotting savoir faire of his bestsellers Numbered Account, The Patriot’s Club and The Prince of Risk. But what it so deliciously serves up instead is a visceral fear feast centered on a simple premise: What if your iPhone turned against you?

Forty miles west of Austin on the dusty doorstep of the Texas Hill Country, FBI special agent Joe Grant is gunned down along with an informant in a shootout with parties unknown. Minutes before his wife, Mary, becomes a widow, she receives a cryptic voicemail from Joe that will lead her to question the FBI’s version of his death. To vindicate her husband, she’ll ultimately be forced to confront Ian Prince, the ruthless telecom billionaire behind a terrifying top-secret surveillance system every bit as plausible in our hyper-connected age as George Orwell’s Big Brother was during his.

Reich hatched the premise for Invasion of Privacy while watching news coverage of British media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s celebrity phone-hacking scandal. The topic hit close to home for the father of two teenage girls whose hands

INVASION OF PRIVACY

By Christopher Reich

Doubleday, $27.95, 384 pages ISBN 9780385531573, audio, eBook available

SUSPENSE

14

are rarely free of a phone, tablet or laptop.

“It’s a completely different kind of book for me—more of a family-oriented, inside-the-home thriller,” Reich says. “I wanted to write this David and Goliath story to show that it’s still personal grit and family love that ends up overcoming sheer megalomania and greed.”

To dial up the domestic dynamics, Reich set his tale in Austin, where his daughters were born and where he earned his MBA at the University of Texas. However, his research into the lexicon and subtleties of computer surveillance and phone hacking, which included meeting with an electronic payments expert, friends in the FBI and a reporter for Wired, was specifically intended to spare his readers geek overload.

“Once a story starts getting all technical and cyber-geeky, I just shut the book,” Reich admits.

He didn’t have to search far for a prototype of mega-mogul Ian Prince, however.

“He’s an amalgam of the leading brains and business personalities in Silicon Valley and around the world,” he says. “Apple’s founder Steve Jobs was elevated to this position of something more than a man but less than a god, and we all worshipped this guy and absolutely forgave all of his failings because he was able to design an amazing iPod and iPhones. We worshiped him, but when you get down to nuts and bolts, he was not the nicest human being to his family.

I think on any other scorecard, he would get very low marks.”

For an additional twist, Reich

places Ian and the National Security Agency on the verge of a lucrative, game-changing partnership with chilling implications for privacy in America. The reader is left guessing as to whose side the FBI is on until the final pages.

“How much would our nation allow some of these leading tech companies to get away with in the interest of furthering our own national security?” he wonders. “We live in an era where we’re made to be so afraid of even the slightest risk that we allow the government to take extraordinary measures regarding our privacy in the name of national security.”

The more he learned about cutting-edge surveillance technology, the less convinced Reich became that lawmakers can effectively restrict its use.

“The NSA, with their computers, are just being spies, and the whole point of spying is to collect information. You don’t tell a spy, ‘Only get half of the information you can.’ You tell them, ‘Get everything you can!’ That’s the whole point of having a spy agency.”

Ultimately, Reich came to a very Orwellian conclusion about the intrusion of cyber-surveillance into the American home.

“I’m a big believer in what President Dwight Eisenhower said in his farewell speech: ‘Beware the military-industrial complex.’ This is a

© MENDOZAS PHOTOGRAPHY

I N T E R V I E W B Y J AY MacD O N A L D

whole sector of society that needs adversaries, needs conflict, and really requires even armed conflict in wars to drive their bottom line and become successful,” he says.

“I don’t really think that the issues they’re screaming about are as life-threatening or endangering to our national security as they say.

The more I research the various government military and intelligence sectors, I feel we really don’t need to be so heavily involved in a lot of these areas.”

To inject a little levity, Reich borrowed one of his daughters’ favorite pastimes: watching pet videos on YouTube.

“My daughters were always looking at a video about this sloth trying to pull itself out of a cradle, so as I was writing the book, it worked into kind of a MacGuffin [plot twist] in the book,” he recalls.

Invasion of Privacy marks the start of a busy year ahead for Reich, a one-time Swiss banker and watch company CEO who launched his writing career with the million-selling 1998 debut Numbered Account (and an assist from James Patterson, an enthusiastic early reader of the manuscript).

Reich’s Rules of Deception series featuring mountaineering surgeon Dr. Jonathan Ransom has been optioned for three 12-episode seasons by Paramount Television and Skydance Productions (Terminator, Mission: Impossible); he’s halfway through writing a fourth book in that series. And next summer, he’ll launch a new series called The Amateur’s Hour, about a cynical government contractor whose predictions about upcoming world events prove a little too close for some people’s comfort.

“I’ll be doing the David Baldacci two-books-a-year thing,” quips Reich. “I’m a little bit scared, but I’m happy to have that problem!”

Does the author fear his “We allow the own phone government may be hacked to take in the near extraordinary future?

“I don’t really measures feel so vulnerregarding able, because our privacy I don’t think I’m interesting in the name enough for of national someone to security.” want to look into what I’m doing,” he chuckles.

But he does worry about consumers who share so freely on social media.

“Most Americans put more stuff about themselves on Facebook than they would probably tell anybody. They don’t realize that that information is so readily accessible. We’re already very open with our information in this society. It’s all right out there,” he says.

As for the reception of Invasion of Privacy, the author says he’s already won over two very important new readers.

“This is the first one of my books that both of my daughters have read, and they both just loved it; they just disappeared into it with the teenage characters and the mom,” he says proudly. “Having tried to give my kids my other books, they would go, ‘This is so boring!’ When I saw my daughter disappear and read my book for four hours straight, that was like, OK, I wrote a good book.”

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“If Alfred Hitchcock were alive today and writing novels, his name would be Kevin O’Brien.”

—PRESS & GUIDE on Unspeakable

ENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.—America’s Independent Publisher

BEGIN READING: KENSINGTONBOOKS.COM

15

interviews

KEVIN KWAN

The lifestyles of Asia’s rich and famous

K

evin Kwan is not where one might expect to find a best-selling, New York City-dwelling author. “I’m taking a little break before the craziness of three solid months of touring,” Kwan says from an undisclosed southwestern location far, far away from Manhattan. “I thought I’d look at rabbits frolicking in a field for a while first.”

The tour is to support China Rich Girlfriend, the raucous sequel to his acclaimed debut, Crazy Rich Asians. In it, we catch up with several familiar faces, as down-toearth Rachel Chu gets married to professor Nicholas Young, who has given up his inheritance to be with her. Rachel grew up not knowing who her father was, and when she discovers his identity she eagerly hops a plane to China to meet him.

Nothing can prepare her for the unbelievable “China rich” culture that awaits her, where an exploding economy allows multibillionaires to look down on regular billionaires.

Kwan, who was raised in a wealthy family in Singapore before moving to the United States at age 11, drew upon his own experiences to color both his novels.

“I grew up with that sort of old world money,” he says. “I was not really conscious of that till I stepped out of it and thought, oh my gosh, that was kind of freaky.

You go to houses with sunken pools filled with sharks. It is a world with its own dysfunctions.”

CHINA RICH GIRLFRIEND

By Kevin Kwan

Doubleday, $26.95, 400 pages ISBN 9780385539081, audio, eBook available

POPULAR FICTION

16

Kwan insists that the over-thetop wealth he describes in China Rich Girlfriend—socialites hopping on their private 747s complete with koi ponds, spending nearly $200 million on a single piece of artwork—is based in reality.

“In many ways, it’s toned down,” he says. “My editor had to step in and say, ‘Kevin, this is bordering on fantasy. It’s like you’re writing Game of Thrones.’ But it was real. The truth is so much more fascinating than anything I could fictionalize. For example, the China rich are importing expensive racecars and killing themselves in these horrible accidents.”

That truth served as the inspiration for Carlton, son of Bao Gaoliang, a prominent politician and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune.

When Carlton crashes his car in London, his mother, Bao Shaoyen, rushes in to cover up the death of a girl in the passenger’s seat and— seemingly higher on her priority list—to set her son up with the best plastic surgeons. This is the family Rachel comes into when she discovers Bao Gaoliang is her father.

Despite their radically different upbringings, Rachel and Carlton form an unlikely friendship, but Bao Shaoyen refuses to acknowledge her husband’s illegitimate daughter, whom she fears will irreparably harm her family’s reputation.

China Rich Girlfriend is the most fun I’ve had reading a book in quite some time. The vibrantly drawn characters and equally vivid settings in and around Beijing make for a jam-packed, lively story.

And it was just as fun to write, Kwan says.

“I found myself laughing out loud at so many sections as I wrote,” he says. “You become like a demon possessed—I had so much fun traveling and doing the research to saturate this world. I

did want an element of gravitas but you have to balance that with lightness. This is not an episode of ‘Oprah.’”

Kwan traveled to China to prepare for writing the sequel, and even after several trips overseas, he was surprised by what he found.

“Every time I go there, it’s almost utterly a different place,” he says.

“It never ceases to amaze me.

Mainland Chinese are so “In many utterly differways, it’s ent from Asian Americans. toned down.

Here, cultures The truth is and traditions so much more are completely fascinating intact, things than anything like foods and festivals, I could whereas in fictionalize.”

China, the Cultural Revolution erased the Chinese culture completely in many ways. So I would meet these young Chinese, and they don’t know where the root of their belief system comes from—it’s erased from their memory, which is liberating in a way.”

The result is a cast of characters who are wholly believable and human. But even with meticulous research, Kwan said writing a sequel to a book that did as well as Crazy Rich Asians was daunting.

“I was very conscious about whether there should even be a book two,” he says. “To me, there was something kind of perfect about the way I ended the [first] book. Some agreed—and of course I also heard the screams from those who didn’t.”

Among those who claim to have no opinion about either of his

© ELENA SEIBERT

BY AMY SCRIBNER

books are several members of his family.

“There are a lot of people in my family who claim not to have read my books,” he says wryly. “They genuinely may not have read it.

They’re too busy nurturing their fortune. I have many cousins who loved it—they get it—they know this world.”

Kwan is still getting used to the idea that his books could be hotly anticipated. Entertainment Weekly recently named China Rich Girlfriend one of six books to look forward to this summer, along with offerings by the likes of Stephen King and—wait for it—Harper Lee. “I was kind of flabbergasted,” he says. “Harper Lee is really one of my favorite authors. To Kill a Mockingbird was such a seminal book for me. I read it in college—it’s a disservice to read it when you’re too young. You need to have already come of age. It was an unbelievable kind of thrill to be even mentioned in the same breath as her.”

For now, though, Kwan is focused on his own calm before the storm of what is sure to be another bestseller. The promotion plans include his hosting an interactive guide of New York City’s craziest, richest Asian hotspots. What is yet to be decided is whether this will become a trilogy.

“It really depends on how well this book does,” Kwan says cheerfully, “and whether people want a third.”

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ANCHOR

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17

reviews T PI OP CK

FICTION

THE BOOK OF SPECULATION

Unraveling a family mystery REVIEW BY HALEY HERFURTH

Simon Watson lives on a precipice: His family’s old house on the Long Island Sound is slowly dying, leaning closer to the sea with every storm, and his job as a librarian is in peril thanks to looming budget cuts. In the midst of all this uncertainty, a bookseller sends a curious book to his doorstep—a journal kept by the proprietor of a traveling carnival. Full of sketches and damaged by water, the book has been passed down and annotated for centuries, and Simon is surprised to find the names of his grandmother and other ancestors within its pages.

Intrigued, Simon digs deeper into the book’s history, teetering on the edge of obsession while piecing together the water-smudged stories in the journal. He learns his family’s ties to the book are deeper than just his grandmother’s work as the circus mermaid: Generations of women have drowned on July 24. Are the women in his family cursed? If so,

By Erika Swyler he has just six weeks to figure it out—his long-absent sister, Enola, is St. Martin’s, $26.99, 352 pages planning a trip home in July.

ISBN 9781250054807, audio, eBook available A strikingly written debut, The Book of Speculation is reminiscent of The Night Circus, but with more grit and darkness. Author Erika DEBUT FICTION Swyler’s short fiction has appeared in WomenArts Quarterly Journal, Litro and elsewhere, and her work as a playwright has received the Jane Chambers Award. Her recent move back to her hometown on Long Island’s North Shore inspired the setting of the book. She proves her storytelling skills here, as generations and lifetimes are seamlessly woven together, and a beautiful narrative of magic, love, death and loss unfolds with every page.

ENCHANTED AUGUST

By Brenda Bowen Pamela Dorman $27.95, 320 pages ISBN 9780525429050 Audio, eBook available

POPULAR FICTION

Brenda Bowen’s Enchanted August opens with two women spotting a battered index card on a bulletin board promising a summer of spring water, blueberries and sea glass on Little Lost Island, Maine. If this sounds familiar, it may be because of the similarity to the opening of Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim’s beloved 1922 novel of four women whose lives are transformed by a summer in an Italian castle. Bowen has refashioned the classic, relocating the action but keeping the character names and the spirit of lives rein-

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vented by new surroundings.

As in Enchanted April, the summer vacation house hosts a group of initially mismatched, unhappy people. Lottie Wilkes and Rose Arbuthnot are stressed by the pressures of city life and feel estranged from their distracted husbands.

Caroline Dester is a beautiful actress trying to sort out her stalled career. In Bowen’s most clever twist, the character of Beverly Fisher is an old man. Back in New York, cottage owner Robert hopes that this year the rental will bring him true love at last. After a rough start, the island begins to work its magic.

Though both novels move swiftly toward a neat resolution, Enchanted August never quite reaches the depth of the original, perhaps because women’s lives were so much more restricted in the 1920s. Nevertheless, Bowen, who has worked as a children’s publisher and author, has created a charming and witty update with a setting that could not be more appealing—from the

woodland fairy houses and twin turrets in the island cottage to the rocky beaches and all-day lobster bakes. Enchanted August reminds us that sometimes it just takes a change of scenery to reveal that love is right in front of us.

al stands alongside freshly butchered lamb; arranged marriages end in divorce; and traditions buckle against everything from homosexuality to Facebook.

Stavros Stavros Mavrakis is a selfmade man (kind of) who emigrated from Greece. Initially, he’s a pushy bully of a character. Sure, his rants and unwanted advice are funny, but he’s overbearing and incredibly selfish. It’s no wonder his ex-wives and his three grown daughters want nothing to do with him or the diners he built from nothing.

But Stavros isn’t just obsessed with his own life; his death haunts him as well. When he becomes convinced he’s going to die within a week, he puts his affairs in order—starting with an email that points out the perceived failures of everyone he cares about.

As much as his children want to ignore him, they can’t. Stavros’ email has the whole family re-examining their lives and their family relationships (or lack thereof). It also brings them back to the diner full of the food of their heritage and memories of their painful past.

Philadelphia-based writer Annie Liontas tells her story masterfully. We’re invited into the family’s inside jokes, and we laugh, hurt and cry with the characters as they peel away the family drama and generational divides and, somewhat unexpectedly, find love at the center of their story.

—C A R R I E R O L LWA G E N

—LAUREN BUFFERD

LET ME EXPLAIN YOU

By Annie Liontas

Scribner $26, 352 pages ISBN 9781476789088 Audio, eBook available COMIC FICTION

Let Me Explain You is about the American dream: the good, the bad, the ugly and the hilariously relatable. It’s one family’s story of an old world clashing with a modern one. Thick Greek coffee goes up against Starbucks; microwave cere-

ARMADA

By Ernest Cline

Crown $26, 368 pages ISBN 9780804137256 Audio, eBook available SCIENCE FICTION

It’s hard to follow a debut that immediately became an international phenomenon, was published in 40 countries and is in the works to become a movie (hopefully with the same mind-blowing visual effects Warner Bros. brought to movies like Inception, The Lego

This Summer’s

Brightest Beach Reads

The Book Everyone Is Talking About...

Love, courage and an appetite for life converge on a Louisiana alligator farm.

Follow one family over two summers, decades apart, as they come to terms with their pasts and the memories made in their summer home.

Liar’s Bench was built from the slave-era gallows as a tribute and a warning…

Will the three Higgins sisters find their way to forgiveness after tragedy turns their lives upside down?

#1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson headlines a collection of summer stories about love, friendship, and second chances.

Set in a picturesque orchard along the shores of the Great Lakes, a young woman must decide which dreams are worth fighting for…

A haunting, inspirational story about the lengths we’ll go to protect those who need us most.

“Screams with authenticity, depth and understanding.”

—The New York Journal of Books

“A thriving sense of mystery and suspense.”

ON SALE 8.25.15

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The lifelong friendship of two dramatically different women is the catalyst for incredible, positive change.

—VOYA

ENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.—America’s Independent Publisher

BEGIN READING: KENSINGTONBOOKS.COM

reviews

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Movie and The Matrix). The thing that made Ernest Cline’s first book, Ready Player One, so good was a nearly impossible balance between where-the-hell-did-that-comefrom originality and the familiarity of Gen-X pop-culture references.

There’s no such balance in his second novel, Armada. Familiarity surpasses originality—intentionally.

High school student Zack Lightman is staring out a classroom window, dreaming of adventure, when he spies the impossible: a prismatic alien spacecraft straight out of his favorite video game. His gamer father, who died in a freak accident years ago, predicted as much in his seemingly Cult favorite incoherent Ernest Cline journals about a conspiracy returns with involving the the story of a government gamer who and the entire just might be sci-fi industry. But now Earth’s last it’s clear his hope. father wasn’t crazy: The government has indeed been preparing for an impending alien war by training gamers as an army of drone-flying soldiers. Over the course of only a few days, Zack finds himself on the frontlines of intergalactic warfare as one of the best gamers around, and therefore Earth’s greatest hope.

Does all this sound a little . . . familiar? Is it ringing of Ender’s Game and The Last Starfighter? Not to give anything away, but of course it does. Science fiction is a genre constructed through reused tropes, which can be manipulated to expand the cultural conversation of genre fiction—but in Armada, even Zack feels uneasy about falling into such a classic sci-fi narrative.

Armada is almost pure action-adventure while winkingly employing a barrage of jokes and clichés from video games and sci-fi movies, television and books. It’s big fun, especially if your idea of fun is sitting around watching your friends play video games while discussing important theories like Sting vs. Mjolnir.

A world-famous actor (a former Disney Channel star who’s back for a reunion special—think Ryan Gosling meets Justin Timberlake) walks into the small-town Florida bar where three 19-year-old friends are drinking their way through another dull night.

He is, as narrator Maggie puts it, “a man who couldn’t part his hair differently without people demanding a press conference to fawn over him for it.” And now he’s at The Shamrock on what turns out to be the last night of his glamorous life. This is not a spoiler—it’s on page one.

In Local Girls, Henry Holt editor Caroline Zancan’s funny and poignant debut novel, Maggie, Nina and Lindsey are dead-end girls living in the recession-rotted Orlando suburbs. They didn’t do well in school and don’t really have any plans now that they’ve graduated. But as they get progressively drunker with Sam Decker, the story of their friendship unfolds.

None of them are flying these days—Nina is teaching Jazzercise at the local gym, Lindsay still lives at home with her dad and many brothers, and Maggie wants nothing more than to ditch her boyfriend and coffee shop job and head, well, anywhere but here. A prank gone horribly wrong alienated them from the fourth member of their group, Lila, and when she walks into the bar that night, we start to learn more about how they came to this moment in their young lives.

Local Girls is an achingly good, ennui-drenched story of friendship and shared history in the humid depths of Florida. It’s a perfect summer read about the moment when, just like that, you’re an adult.

—CAT ACREE

—AMY SCRIBNER

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LOCAL GIRLS

By Caroline Zancan

Riverhead $25.95, 288 pages ISBN 9781594633645 eBook available

PRETTY IS

By Maggie Mitchell Holt $26, 320 pages ISBN 9781627791489 Audio, eBook available DEBUT FICTION

DEBUT FICTION

Lois Lonsdale is an enigma to those around her. The British literature professor is a respected academic, but also something of a threat to others in the department.

That’s partly due to the former spelling bee champion’s striking looks, but her publishing success and standoffish nature don’t help.

Only her best friend in the department, Brad, knows Lois was kidnapped nearly two decades earlier. The kidnapper held Lois and another captive, Carly May Smith, in a cabin in upstate New York.

Although the girls weren’t allowed out in daylight, their captor was otherwise more like a benevolent camp counselor. After two months, they returned, visibly unscathed, to their adolescent lives.

Carly May, who left her Nebraska hometown and pageant titles behind to pursue acting under the name Chloe Savage, is the only one who understands their shared history. And she’s about to play the role of a lifetime—in the movie adaptation of a novel about two girls and the summer they were kidnapped. A novel by Lois Lonsdale.

As they circle back to one another decades after the events that initially bonded them, Lois and Carly May individually contemplate the repercussions of that summer. With their captor’s motives unclear and a lifetime surrounded by people who can’t possibly understand, each woman carries her own baggage and unanswered questions.

In Pretty Is, debut novelist Maggie Mitchell toggles between her main characters’ perspectives and the novel based on their real-life story. As she peels back layers of her protagonists’ lives and memories, Mitchell carries readers through a thrilling, literary psychological adventure that examines

how pivotal moments can echo throughout our lives.

—CARLA JEAN WHITLEY

A MASTER PLAN FOR RESCUE

By Janis Cooke Newman

Riverhead $27.95, 336 pages ISBN 9781594633614 Audio, eBook available HISTORICAL FICTION

Janis Cooke Newman, author of Mary: Mrs. A. Lincoln, once again brings history to life with her sophomore novel, A Master Plan for Rescue. Here, Newman explores New York City as World War II percolates across the Atlantic.

Her remarkable novel is filled with stories within stories that recall the superhero serials that its gifted 12-year-old, Jack Quinlan, wholeheartedly believes in.

Like Anthony Doerr in All the Light We Cannot See, Newman renders this time with subtle magic and cinematic grace notes, and intertwines the lives of two very different protagonists. Jack meets a young Jewish immigrant who is capable of fixing any machine, but unable to save what’s most important to him—and who has his own story to tell. The two band together with a group of eclectic sidekicks to develop a plan to save Jewish lives across the ocean.

Newman folds an array of narrative voices into one another throughout this finely polished novel. The leaps made from one protagonist’s tale to another build a grand story about deception, truth and storytelling—all while maintaining a perfect balance of plot and ideas. Newman crafts characters and period details that show an enormous amount of research without ever feeling overwhelming.

Messages are often sent in secret— whether it be from a serial inspired “code-o-graph” or from a rooftop pigeon coop—but what is clear is that as filled with heartbreak as A Master Plan for Rescue is, it is also gorgeously hopeful.

—T H E O D O R E Y U R E V I T C H

FICTION SPEAK

By Louisa Hall

Ecco $27.99, 336 pages ISBN 9780062391193 Audio, eBook available LITERARY FICTION

prison, Chinn writes that a computer programmer is the creator of a universe in which he dictates all laws. Speak asks whether a macrocosm devoid of feeling is one worth creating.

—MICHAEL MAGRAS

THE LITTLE PARIS BOOKSHOP

By Nina George

If only Alan Turing had received this much respect while he was alive. One of the pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence, Turing helped the Allies crack intercepted code messages from Nazi Germany during World War II, but he died in 1954 of an apparent suicide after his conviction for what Britain then called “homosexual offenses.” He was the subject of the 2014 film The Imitation Game and is one of five characters whose “voices” provide the narrative drive in Speak, Louisa Hall’s fascinating cautionary tale of the role artificial intelligence can and should play in our society.

In 2040, Stephen R. Chinn, onetime computer science wunderkind, is in a Texas correctional institution. The inventor of babybots—lifelike dolls—Chinn was imprisoned after the girls who “parented” his creations began to suffer debilitating illnesses. The artificial intelligence program used for the babybots is MARY3, whose memory contains only information gleaned from the book’s other narrators. These include a 17th-century Englishwoman forced into marriage before sailing with her family to America; a Jewish refugee and ponytailed Harvard professor; a paralyzed former babybot owner who confides in MARY3; and Turing, whom we see in letters he wrote to the mother of Christopher Morcom, the schoolmate he had a crush on in the late 1920s.

Speak poses a provocative question: What if artificial intelligence could be used to help people communicate across eras? The result is a book that achieves a tough combination: It’s frightening and highly scientific, yet also poignant.

In the memoir he composes from

Crown $25, 400 pages ISBN 9780553418774 Audio, eBook available WORLD FICTION

Jean Perdu is a self-described literary apothecary. From his barge-turned-bookshop on the Seine, he doesn’t just sell books; he prescribes them as a pharmacist prescribes medicines, matching books to their perfect readers to help customers overcome life’s difficulties. And he does so with near perfect success. The only exception to the rule is Perdu himself.

Haunted by the love of his life, Manon, who left him more than 20 years ago, Perdu has distanced himself from reality: He avoids romance entirely, refuses to utter Manon’s name and leaves her final letter unopened. His imagination tells him that she left him because she got tired of him.

An encounter with his grieving neighbor across the hall, Catherine, a soon-to-be divorcée, finally drives Perdu to open the letter.

What he discovers shocks him to his core and sends him cross-country to rediscover and make peace with the life he has lost. By barge, lock and dam, he travels all the way to the South of France, befriending a distinctive cast of characters— and staying in touch with Catherine via letter—along the way.

Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop, already a bestseller in Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands, is a beautiful story of grief, companionship, forgiveness and building a life worth living. A vulnerable, relatable tale of great love and loss, missed opportunities and moving on, The Little Paris

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FANTASY

BY ADAM MORGAN

Putting a magical spin on the past

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o matter how strange or outlandish, most fantasy novels take place in a world that bears at least some resemblance to our own.

But when a fantasy writer takes the opportunity to cast a spell over the past, it provides a different sort of magic. Two new novels put imaginative twists on history.

In Bell Weather (Holt, $28, 400 pages, ISBN 9781627792677), Dennis Mahoney (Fellow Mortals) reimagines the colonial era of the 1700s, when European empires fought over the Americas. Except in his story, the Old World is Heraldia and the New World is Floria.

While the geography and historical milieu are familiar, the main departure from reality is in the details of the natural world.

The rustic town of Root in the colonies of Floria is home to a variety of miraculous flora, fauna and (as the book’s title implies) meteorological phenomena. Ember gourds burst into flame after ripening, winterbears hibernate in summer and stalker weeds roam the forest looking for defenseless plants. Cathedrals and mansions are built from pale lunarite rock, seasons change in a matter of hours, and sudden “colorwashes” transform the landscape.

In the New World colonies, tavern owner Tom Orange rescues a mysterious woman from drowning. Her name is Molly Bell, daughter of one of the most powerful men in Floria. As a group of bandits known as the Maimers terrorize the countryside, stealing whatever part of their victims’ bodies they deem most valuable, Tom must help Molly escape the inevitable fallout from her past.

Mahoney’s prose is lyrical and well honed, and his characters are engaging, but it’s the magical realism of the wilderness that

makes this world so memorable and fascinating.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Bloomsbury, $26, 336 pages, ISBN 9781620408339), on the other hand, takes place in a very recognizable Victorian-era London—with a few steampunk and supernatural flourishes. In 1883, a bookish Whitehall telegraph cleric named Thaniel Steepleton comes home to find someone has broken into his flat. Instead of stealing valuables, they’ve left him a mysterious gold pocket watch that winds up saving his life after a bomb is planted by Irish terrorists at Scotland Yard. Thaniel’s search for the watch’s creator leads him to one of the most interesting fictional characters in recent memory, Keita Mori.

Mori is a Japanese watchmaker who is part inventor, part mystic—he combines the deductive brilliance of Sherlock Holmes with the clairvoyance of Dr. Manhattan. Thanks to his ability to see potential futures, Mori has altered the course of history several times. Among his many inventions is a sentient, clockwork octopus, which is quite possibly the highlight of the novel. Together with Oxford scientist Grace Carrow, Thaniel tries to solve the mystery of the terrorist bombings. Could they be one of Mori’s attempts to alter the future?

Natasha Pulley’s debut is a clever detective story, a thrilling steampunk adventure and a poignant examination of the consequences of class warfare and English, Irish and Japanese nationalism in the 19th century.

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SUMMER CHILLS

BY ARLENE McKANIC

Shivers under the sun

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he good and useful thing about scary stories is their variety. They may leave you sad, mad or contemplative—but all of the good ones make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Not even 40 pages into Sarah Lotz’s latest thriller, Day Four (Little, Brown, $26, 352 pages, ISBN 9780316242943), it becomes clear that when things start going pearshaped on a cruise, you don’t even need the supernatural to have a good horror story.

The Beautiful Dreamer is the not-quite jewel in the crown of the Foveros Line, which has a reputation for gifting its passengers with norovirus. Passage is cheaper than the going rate, and it shows.

We have neon and general garishness, annoyingly chipper cruise directors and staff who are only on the ship because no one else will hire them. The passengers are spoiled, ugly and miserable. Indeed, at least two of them took the cruise with plans to commit suicide.

Then, something happens and the boat is dead in the water.

There’s no electricity and no way to call for help. Passengers move to the decks to avoid the stench from the overflowing toilets. Then they start seeing and hearing impossible things. A woman spots a little boy running through the corridors, even though this is an adults-only cruise. A man swears he’s seen the devil. Stress is a perfectly logical explanation, but. . . .

Lotz revels in her characters’ discomfort—a beautiful reminder that you don’t have to like a character to care what happens next. But her real genius is putting the action on a crippled, noisome ship that the world seems to have forgotten. The characters, and the reader, want to get off this bucket, but how? It’s worse than being on the Nostromo. And it makes Day Four irresistible.

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After reading Paul Tremblay’s mightily disturbing novel, you may wonder why more teenage girls don’t lose their minds. In A Head Full of Ghosts (Morrow, $25.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780062363237), an exorcist is called in. But the real demons that torture Marjorie Barrett are external.

The story is narrated

by Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry, who recounts events of 15 years before.

Now 23, Merry blogs about the wildly popular reality show that featured her family. Yes, Marjorie’s suffering was on TV for the world to witness.

Why? First, there’s the patriarchy. In one queasily funny scene, the men who torment Marjorie during her exorcism refuse to believe that she can be possessed by a female demon. Demons are male, and they like to prey on adolescent girls, who in turn need learned male priests to save them.

Second, there’s Marjorie and Merry’s dad. John Barrett is a failure. And not because the family finances were wiped out when his job went away, although money is a big reason for the camera crew. John is a failure because he doesn’t respect the women who love and live with him. He crushes his wife, and he is certainly one reason why Marjorie goes crazy.

The only one he doesn’t grind down is Merry, because she’s tough and funny and smart and reminds you of Scout Finch.

But in the end, even Merry has her own demons. What happens to her 8-year-old self is so appalling and unfair that it’s almost unbelievable—a scary story, indeed.

reviews Bookshop is, like the books its main character recommends, medicine for the wounded soul.

—STEPHANIE KIRKLAND

THE LOVE SHE LEFT BEHIND

By Amanda Coe

Norton $25.95, 256 pages ISBN 9780393245493 eBook available LITERARY FICTION

FICTION involvement with a man who’s old enough to be her grandfather will develop into something more adds intrigue to the novel’s plot.

“What happens in the heart simply happens,” wrote poet Ted Hughes, whose observation provides one of the epigraphs for The Love She Left Behind. Whether or not that offhanded explanation for infidelity suffices to ease the pain of children who survive divorce, Coe coolly reminds us that it is a fact of life.

—HARVEY FREEDENBERG

British novelist Amanda Coe’s The Love She Left Behind is a tart family drama that examines how a selfish act of adultery mars the lives of adult children a generation after its occurrence. In this, her second novel, Coe demonstrates a keen eye for the intricate dynamics of family life and an even sharper ear for the language we use both to conceal and to wound.

Thirty years after what began as a “big love story” in the late 1970s, Patrick Conway’s marriage has ended with the death of his wife, Sara. The playwright, author of a controversial drama about Britain’s Falklands War but unproductive thereafter, consoles himself with alcohol and cigarettes in his crumbling Cornwall homestead. Sara’s children, Nigel, a London lawyer, and Louise, a struggling mother to a sullen teenage daughter, bear the scars of their mother’s choice to abandon them for a life with Patrick. In Nigel’s case it’s a lifelong battle with gastrointestinal problems, while Louise seeks solace in a psychic’s advice.

Coe flashes back to Nigel and Louise’s lives as teenagers, as they did their best to cope with Sara’s departure. An ill-matched pair, their differences are played out in their disagreement over what will become of Patrick’s house after his death. Whatever chance they had for a normal relationship, Coe suggests, was lost when their mother chose Patrick over them.

Family life is complicated by the presence of Mia, a graduate student who’s writing her thesis on Patrick’s work. Whether her

BULL MOUNTAIN

By Brian Panowich Putnam $26.95, 304 pages ISBN 9780399173967 eBook available DEBUT FICTION

Raymond Chandler once said about writing fiction: “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” In his first novel, Bull Mountain, firefighter Brian Panowich seems to have taken Chandler’s advice to heart: His characters brandish weaponry in a way that Charlton Heston might have found disconcerting.

The result is a fast-paced and intricate revenge story culminating in a Shakespearean bloodbath.

The novel concerns three generations of a Georgia family, the Burroughs, living on the edge of the law. They run guns, make meth, sell moonshine and are so tough they take their aspirin dry.

They drink hard, solicit prostitutes and then beat them up, but the offspring of one such encounter grows up to become a G-man bent on vengeance. The Burroughs’ hatred of the “Feds” hints that the Civil War didn’t end for them at Appomattox; they take freedom very seriously.

Like perhaps too many American male writers, Panowich writes in the shadow of Cormac McCarthy’s almost pornographically violent Blood Meridian. Panowich shows us men being burned alive, heads

FICTION exploding and more, with a kind of Caligulan relish, or perhaps that of an avid gamer.

Despite Panowich’s apparent admiration for McCarthy, he does not write in McCarthy’s often ponderous style, or emphasize style over characterization and plot. Some of his characters are monstrous, but they are drawn with conviction and sympathy, and the action proceeds briskly.

By the close of this vivid and gritty journey, does the Burroughs family—as McCarthy’s precursor Faulkner might have asked—prevail, or merely endure? The answer to that comes when someone—you guessed it—pulls out a gun.

—KENNETH CHAMPEON

A BETTER MAN

By Leah McLaren Grand Central $26, 320 pages ISBN 9781455532513 eBook available SATIRICAL FICTION

Canadian author Leah McLaren walks a fine line in A Better Man, and following along as she navigates it is part of what makes her novel worth reading. A Better Man is a deft blend of comedy, wisdom and character, and it’s one of the most entertaining books of its kind you’re likely to find.

Nick Wakefield, a successful man with a big house, a pretty wife and twins, wants out. He’s tired of the grind of married life, but his best friend—a divorce lawyer—warns him that the split could cost him.

To preserve his financial future, he needs to spend time playing the perfect husband and father first.

As Nick tries this tactic, he finds that he’s actually growing to enjoy married life again . . . at least, until his wife, Maya, learns his secret.

Though the overall premise would be right at home in a screwball comedy, A Better Man has an incisiveness that goes straight to the dark core of a troubled marriage. Key to this is McLaren’s mastery of character. We see it in

Nick’s careful yet cavalier approach to flirtations with other women and in Maya’s pragmatic evaluation of her body.

A Better Man is a gripping, intimate book that will thrill with its juicy plot and win you over with its powerful insight into relationships.

—MATTHEW JACKSON

SUMMERLONG

By Dean Bakopoulos

Ecco $26.99, 368 pages ISBN 9780062321169 Audio, eBook available POPULAR FICTION

Attention vacationers: Award-winning author Dean Bakopoulos (Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon) has served up a sultry story that fits perfectly in your carry-on.

“There was another life I might have had, but I am having this one.” The epigraph of Summerlong—a quote from Kazuo Ishiguru—is a fitting opening for this story of a disenchanted couple.

It all begins when Don Lowry, father of two, goes on an evening jog and collides with Amelia Benitez-Cooper, better known as ABC. For reasons he can’t seem to verbalize, Don spends an evening with a very sexy and emotionally unstable ABC, smoking pot and napping on a hammock. Meanwhile, his wife, Claire, meets Charlie Gulliver, a sometime actor and son of an esteemed professor at the local college. The two spend the evening in a pool, and come dangerously close to introducing infidelity into the Lowrys’ already rocky marriage.

As the steamy Iowa summer continues, the Lowrys’ relationship deteriorates. This is where Bakopoulos strays from a typical suburban love triangle (or is it a square?).

This isn’t just a story of people enjoying a free-love bacchanal; Summerlong also explores the consequences and heartbreak of testing the limits of relationships.

—ELISABETH ATWOOD

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FAMILY SECRETS

BY ELIZA BORNÉ

Trouble in paradise

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wo new novels set in privileged northeastern communities showcase the darker side of family life.

Julia Pierpont’s anticipated debut reminds readers of a universally acknowledged fact: It’s a strange feeling when you realize your parents are human. For most of us, it happens in late adolescence or even early adulthood— when Mom and Dad start speaking up about job conundrums or relationship woes, or even (God forbid) sex.

Among the Ten Thousand Things (Random House, $26, 336 pages, ISBN 9780812995220) hinges on a devastating event that forces Kay Shanley, 11, and her 15-year-old brother, Simon, to prematurely confront a painful secret. In an explosive opening scene, Kay intercepts a package from her father’s lover—a printed chronicle of his affair, complete with explicit emails and a cruel letter addressed to Kay’s mom, Deb, who was meant to receive the R-rated evidence. Once Kay and Simon learn of their father’s infidelity, nothing is ever the same— though the events after the crisis are neither neat nor predictable.

The Shanley family is outwardly accomplished though inwardly troubled. Jack, the father, is an acclaimed, though controversial, artist (one memorable scene involves an installation art piece gone horribly, horribly wrong).

Kay has trouble fitting in at school and understanding her father’s affair, and she expresses herself by writing smutty “Seinfeld” fan fiction. Simon is a computer game-playing, pot-smoking, sullen teenager—impatient with his sister and ticked off at both parents. Deb, a former professional ballerina and a doting mom, tries to keep life as normal as possible

for her children while processing her anger at Jack.

Pierpont is a strong, confident writer, and her well-observed characters feel deeply human.

She is also a deft storyteller; many readers will be floored by an unexpected narrative twist in the middle of the novel that upends the conventions of plot structure and adds depth to the second half of the book—a welcome, if initially unsettling, surprise. Among the Ten Thousand Things is an impressive debut—a family drama alternately bright and bleak from a gifted young author.

Even bleaker is The Invaders (Regan Arts, $25.95, 240 pages, ISBN 9781941393291) by Karolina Waclawiak, set in a “Connecticut postcard-perfect” town. In alternating chapters, the story is told by Cheryl, the second wife of a successful businessman, and her stepson, Teddy, who has recently been kicked out of Dartmouth.

Both Cheryl and Teddy feel a deep dissatisfaction with daily life in Little Neck Cove, and throughout an eventful, often violent summer they turn to each other—not to mention painkillers and booze— to cope with neighborhood busybodies and gossips.

The Invaders is a stiff cocktail without a chaser: It will wake you up, though it’s hard to get down. It lacks subtlety and feels as though it were written to shock—though some scenes are also wickedly funny. Little Neck Cove seems like a terrible place to live, though readers won’t mind gawking at its melodramatic residents for a while before returning to their own, more peaceful lives.

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ness to its knees has never been told more succinctly and readably than it is here. Beginning his narrative in 1995, when the compact disc format reigned, Stephen Witt focuses on the transformative importance of four primary figures.

They are Karlheinz Brandenburg, BLACKOUT developer of the MP3 compression REVIEW BY CATHERINE HOLLIS technology that enables the vast Ah, alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems (to amount of digital sound data on misquote “The Simpsons”). In Blackout: Remembering the Things I a CD to be “squeezed” down to a Drank to Forget, Sarah Hepola reveals the ugly side of addiction with more manageable size for easier humor and honesty. She writes gracefully of blackouts, junk food bingplayback and transfer; Doug Mores and unnerving sexual encounters. Along the way, she touches on ris, the aggressive and musically loneliness and cats and hangovers and alternative weeklies. Although adventurous head of Universal she claims that alcohol made her fearless, her true bravery emerges in Music Group who presided over this memoir’s witty candor. the volcanic rise of rap music; A petite woman who can hold her liquor, Hepola’s drinking life is Bennie Lydell “Dell” Glover, an punctuated by gaps. How did she get home from the bar? Who is this hourly worker at a CD manufacman in bed with her? What did she say to make her friends so angry turing plant in North Carolina who with her? A blackout is simply the hippocampus shutting down the sneaked thousands of copies of long-term memory function in a drinker’s brain—which is why your superstar albums out of the plant

By Sarah Hepola drunk friend repeats the same story six times at the end of a long night. to post on the Internet before they Grand Central, $26, 240 pages ISBN 9781455554591, audio, eBook available They may still be standing upright, but they won’t remember any of it were released for public sale; and tomorrow. Hepola proposes a “CSI Blackout” show for piecing together “Kali,” a shadowy presence who, MEMOIR the night before; a junk food wrapper or a missing purse is a clue to the through a network of leakers like drunkard’s progress through the lost portions of the night.

Glover, masterminded the Internet While Hepola claims not to enjoy the part in sobriety memoirs where the narrator stops drinking, her distribution of this enormous trove own sobriety is as funny and fearless as her drinking days. She’s particularly good on the weirdness of datof pirated music. ing while stone-cold sober, and the subtle process of recalibrating her friendships. Hepola is an admirable The tragic flaw of the record addition to the distinguished line of “drinkers with writing problems,” and Blackout is a rollicking and raw companies—Morris’ chief among account of binge-drinking, blacking out and getting sober. them—was believing they could ignore culture-shattering technology.

After all, CD duplication had adTrail fiasco. By the end, Swaim has ing and almost impossible to put vanced to the point that they could THE SPEECHWRITER had enough—but fortunately, he down. manufacture albums for a few penends with a rumination on politics: nies each and sell them for $16.98 For reasons of his own, Swaim

By Barton Swaim “Why do we trust men who have does not name the man behind and up. Who’d want to disrupt such Simon & Schuster $25, 224 pages the curtain. He’s “the governor,” or sought and attained high office a cozy setup? So instead of coming ISBN 9781476769929 “the boss.” But as sure as Myrtle by innumerable acts of vanity and to terms with this new world, the Audio, eBook available Beach has miniature golf courses, self-will?” record labels fought back—quite That’s a good question, and it’s Mark Sanford, the maverick ineffectually—with public relations MEMOIR perhaps one to ask “the governor” governor of South Carolina from campaigns and lawsuits against 2003 to 2011 who made “hiking the (now a U.S. congressman) at his individuals, seeming like bullies Appalachian Trail” a euphemism next news conference. every time they won. The upshot for pursuing an extramarital affair — K E I T H H E R R E L L is that record stores have all but in Argentina.

When Barton Swaim read a vanished and the CD is a withering column by his state’s governor, he Swaim’s lofty approach to the format.

HOW MUSIC GOT FREE promptly sat down and wrote him, job is undercut early on, when While Witt streamlines his “I know how to write, and you need he is told “Welcome to hell” by a account, he doesn’t oversimplify

By Stephen Witt a writer.” He got the job, but his co-worker. Not surprisingly, the it. He covers the creation of iTunes Viking governor is a difficult man to work writing skills went to waste as the and the iPod, the expansion of $27.95, 304 pages governor insisted on a “voice” that for, and readers who have had to broadband, the brief but flamboyISBN 9780525426615 Audio, eBook available bore only a slight resemblance to answer to unreasonable, demandant life of Napster, Steve Jobs’ futile ing and slightly unhinged bosses proper English. attempts to hire Morris and the MUSIC Fortunately, Swaim puts those can relate. It’s hard to defend such a wily Morris’ ability to prosper even skills to good use in The Speechman, and Swaim wisely doesn’t try. as the empire he built crumbles.

Things come to a head with a writer, a highly readable account How Music Got Free cries out for of his three years in the governor’s crisis over the governor’s refusal to a movie treatment like The Social employ. Part All the King’s Men and accept the federal stimulus packThe story of how the Internet Network. age, followed by the Appalachian part Horrible Bosses, it’s fascinatbrought the imperious music busi—EDWARD MORRIS

Turning on the lights

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NONFICTION MODERN ROMANCE

By Aziz Ansari

Penguin Press $28.95, 288 pages ISBN 9781594206276 Audio, eBook available RELATIONSHIPS

It’s a match made in heaven: Aziz Ansari, one of America’s top comics, and the subject of love. In Modern Romance, Ansari delivers dispatches from the front lines of dating in the digital age and proves to be as befuddled by love as the rest of us.

The “Parks and Recreation” star is up front about the fact that his own lack of success with the ladies provided the motivation for writing the book, but it’s much more than a comic romp. For research assistance, Ansari enlisted NYU sociology professor Eric Klinenberg, and Modern Romance is filled with their findings—case studies, factoids and hard data that demonstrate how dating has evolved in our device-driven era, a time when the quest for amour is both aided and complicated by the omnipresent Internet.

A smartphone is like “a 24-7 singles bar,” Ansari says. “Press a few buttons at any time of the day, and you’re instantly immersed in an ocean of romantic possibilities.”

Of course, navigating that ocean can be a challenge. While technology expedites connection, it comes with its own set of singular difficulties, and Ansari explores many of these, providing survey-supported info on the best way to initiate a date (phone call versus text message), how to take a winning photo for a dating site (girls, avoid using pix in which you’re posing with an animal or guzzling a Bud) and more.

Ansari broadens his scope by reaching into the past—he talks to seniors at a retirement home about what their love lives were like—and pondering timeless questions: How prevalent is cheating? Do you need to get married? His report on the contemporary pursuit of a perfect

partner mixes solid research with hilarious riffs—all delivered Ansari-style. It’s an irresistible pairing.

—J U L I E H A L E

ANCHOR AND FLARES

By Kate Braestrup Little, Brown $26, 336 pages ISBN 9780316373784 Audio, eBook available MEMOIR

Taking your boat out on open water any time soon? Already there? You’ll want to weather life’s inevitable storms by keeping your anchor and flares aboard at all times. If an emergency strikes, you will need something to hold you steady, and lights can summon help. In this tender follow-up to her 2007 bestseller, Here If You Need Me, Kate Braestrup weathers her own storms—the sudden death of a spouse and the inevitable departure of a child growing up—and calls upon her work as chaplain for the Maine Game Warden Service to help in her most personal ministry, her family.

What is hope? she asks, and finds it in one bereaved mother’s ability to carry on after her son drowns, frozen in a pond until spring. What is love, if not the embrace a law officer gives to the dead man’s grieving, deadbeat dad? Does prayer work? she asks in despair, and finds the harder answer lies not in its outcome but in its usefulness, in the love it evokes.

Suddenly widowed with four young children, Braestrup has had occasion to question everything.

Her late husband, a state trooper, was leaning toward the ministry when killed, and she follows his path. As chaplain to the game wardens, she helps both rescuers and victims, providing “spiritual triage” for those in need.

Now her firstborn has decided, at 17, to enlist in the Marine Corps while war erupts in Iraq and Afghanistan. With earthy humor and humbling honesty, Braestrup strikes a balance between the nec-

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BY HEATHER SEGGEL

The best medicine

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aughter can tighten your abs, soothe your mind and increase your empathy. Lighten up your summer reading with two funny new books that have both heart and brains.

When Patricia Marx, a New Yorker staffer, former “SNL” writer and Harvard Lampoon alum, commits to four months of brain fitness, watch out. “I could use some buckling down,” she writes.

“My mental skyscape has too many aircraft aloft.” Let’s Be Less Stupid: An Attempt to Maintain My Mental Faculties (Twelve, $22, 208 pages, ISBN 9781455554959) details her often hilarious forays into IQ testing, online brain games, electrical brain stimulation and mindfulness meditation to combat the regrettable effects of aging. The book is peppered with wacky diagrams drawn by Marx; most are intentionally primitive, but her Millard Fillmore, on a list of “Presidents to Forget,” is surprisingly on the money. There are also a variety of puzzles and quizzes; only some are real, but all are funny.

Marx’s efforts don’t always go as planned—she elects to learn Cherokee for the benefits of being bilingual, but confuses it with Navajo, the language she intended to learn. She still makes impressive gains for the time invested, and offers tips for those who want to give it a try. Crossword mavens may want to pick up a sudoku, or a Cherokee phrasebook, as it’s the process of learning something new that builds brain strength.

Since one of the meditation techniques mentioned here is laughter, merely reading this book could help your hippocampus feel the burn. Start with Marx’s suggestions, then plot your personal brain boot camp since sadly, liposuction is not an

option for shaping up an aging brain.

Like diners at a popular Italian restaurant chain, readers of popular suspense writer Lisa Scottoline and her daughter Francesca Serritella enjoy the sense that “when you’re here, you’re family.”

Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat? (St. Martin’s, $21.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9781250059949), the duo’s latest collection, is true to form, featuring riffs and one-liners about relationships, fitness, work and family traditions.

(Christmas ornaments that have seen better days or that memorialize beloved pets? “If you’re maimed or dead, you’re on our tree.”)

This book—the sixth from the mother-daughter team—brings the sad news that Mary, the family matriarch who figures in many of Scottoline’s funniest true and fictional stories, has died.

The loss leaves Serritella more reflective about life and love just as she re-enters the dating pool, but she recalls venting about her love life to her grandmother one day and receiving this reply, written on a dry erase board: “Motto: Who needs it?” (When Mary realized that people were taking photos of her dry-erase messages to preserve them for posterity, she began writing things like, “Eat sh*t.”) Scottoline notes that the richness of her mother’s love unexpectedly made the grieving process more bearable.

Take this collection to the beach (Spoiler: It doesn’t make you look fat after all!) and consider it a drama-free family reunion.

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ADVENTURE

BY ALICE CARY

Stirring modern-day quests

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on’t miss these superbly written books that combine intriguing history with memorable real-life escapades.

Discovering a Golden Age pirate ship is “the hardest and rarest and most exciting thing an explorer could find underwater, or maybe in all the world.” That’s exactly the mesmerizing story that unfolds in Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship (Random House, $28, 304 pages, ISBN 9781400063369).

Robert Kurson, author of the best-selling Shadow Divers, makes readers feel as though they’re aboard these search vessels.

John Chatterton of Shadow Divers is now part of a trio trying to find a 17th-century pirate shipwreck in the Dominican Republic. Joseph Bannister was a respected English sea captain who went rogue, stealing his ship, the Golden Fleece, which the British Navy nearly sank in a fierce battle in 1686.

Chatterton, partner John Mattera and financier Tracy Bowden are determined to locate the wreck, but they clash over where to look. Meanwhile, other treasure hunters are breathing down their necks, and changing government policies threaten to shut down their mission.

Their elaborate hunt involves historical detective work on multiple continents and a powerful magnetometer that detects the presence of metals used in cannonballs. Kurson’s page-turning account reads like a novel as the search threatens to implode, with exhaustion creeping in, tempers flaring and even a few guns firing.

The hunters finally succeed when they begin to think like pirates, treating readers to ringside seats on a modern Treasure Island.

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For another contemporary adventurer, wanderlust was bred into his bones. When Rinker Buck was young, his father took the whole family on a covered-wagon trip from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. At age 17, Buck and his 15-year-old brother rebuilt a Piper Cub and became the youngest aviators to fly coast to coast.

In 2011, Buck decided to travel the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon in a restored covered wagon pulled by three mules.

He chronicles his “completely lunatic notion” in the wonderfully engaging The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey (Simon & Schuster, $28, 464 pages, ISBN 9781451659160).

He’s accompanied by his brother, Nick, an expert horseman and mechanic. Nick is seemingly the ideal partner, except that he and Buck are the quintessential Odd Couple, with Buck being fastidious Felix and Nick sloppy Oscar .

Throughout, Buck skillfully weaves historical anecdotes into their misadventures, such as the story of Narcissa Whitman, the first white woman to cross the Rockies, whom Buck regards as his “guardian angel of the trail.”

Buck definitely needs an angel, sheepishly admitting after the first night that the wagon is overloaded, forcing him to leave behind cherished items like his Brooks Brothers bathrobe, bocce balls and shoeshine kit.

Buck set out “to learn to live with uncertainty,” and in the end he and his brother fully embrace the experience, beautifully navigating a pioneer expedition on 21st-century terms.

reviews essary letting go and the enduring parental instinct to protect.

—PRISCILLA KIPP

THE COST OF COURAGE

By Charles Kaiser Other Press $26.95, 288 pages ISBN 9781590516140 eBook available HISTORY

NONFICTION poignant reminder that there are many untold stories of World War II, but that those who lived them will soon be gone.

—DEBORAH HOPKINSON

THE GOOD SHUFU

By Tracy Slater

Putnam $26.95, 336 pages ISBN 9780399166204 eBook available MEMOIR

Paris in World War II—a time when young people in the French resistance risked their lives every day. Often the difference between life and death, between escape and capture, was a matter of luck, of coincidence, of fate.

Charles Kaiser’s remarkable portrait of one Parisian family examines the high cost and often tragic consequences that accompanied the decision to resist. The Cost of Courage is also a story of recovery and resilience, brought to life thanks to the author’s commitment to honoring Christiane Boulloche-Audibert and her family.

Kaiser, the son of a diplomat, first met the Frenchwoman in 1962, when he was 11 years old. An enduring bond developed between the two families, but one topic always seemed off-limits: World War II. As Kaiser would eventually come to learn, Christiane—along with her sister Jacqueline and brother André—was an active member of the French resistance, while their parents and older brother, Robert, were not. Christiane helped transmit radio messages, and coded and decoded telegrams to and from London. Christiane and Jacqueline managed to evade the Gestapo, but André was wounded and sent to a concentration camp. Still, after the invasion of Normandy, it seemed that the family would persevere.

Those hopes would be tragically dashed just three weeks before the liberation of Paris.

A former New York Times reporter, Kaiser brings a journalist’s eye to uncovering one family’s painful history. The Cost of Courage is a

Tracy Slater thought she’d stay in Boston forever. A writing teacher with a Ph.D. in literature, Slater worked with diverse students, practiced yoga, published essays and enjoyed her close-knit community of friends. Yet one fateful summer, she agreed to teach English in Japan. “Don’t fall in love,” said her mother. Naturally, she did.

Enter Toru, a soft-spoken and quietly joyful Japanese man. Toru and Slater develop a deep emotional bond that baffles Slater’s friends and family. Against all odds, the pair indulges in a transcontinental romance that lingers long after Slater’s teaching stint in Asia ends. The Good Shufu chronicles their romance in all its charming— and occasionally painful—detail.

Slater is candid about the intellectual, emotional and cultural tensions in her new life. Why, she wonders, would a devoted feminist be happy to play shufu, or housewife, in a traditional Japanese context? How has life led to her cooking dinner three nights a week for her boyfriend and his dad? Why would someone who loves Boston so much take up a life in a land where she will always be a cultural outsider?

These questions are very much Slater’s own, yet anyone whose life didn’t quite turn out as they imagined can relate. The pleasure of this book is Slater’s ability to wrestle with very real contradictions in her life even as she masterfully unfolds a story of falling in love and finding home in unexpected places.

— K E L LY B L E W E T T

NONFICTION FORENSICS

By Val McDermid

Grove $26, 320 pages ISBN 9780802123916 Audio, eBook available CRIME

This is a sobering end to a riveting book that armchair sleuths and anyone interested in the inner workings of crime detection will want to read.

—ALDEN MUDGE

THE DRUMMOND GIRLS

By Mardi Jo Link

In this fascinating explanation of the techniques of forensic science, Val McDermid takes readers on an “evidential journey” that begins at the crime scene and ends in the courtroom. McDermid, a Scottish crime fiction writer and former newspaper crime reporter, turns out to be a remarkably intelligent and witty guide for a tour of such gruesome subjects as blood spatter, DNA analysis, toxicology exams and forensic entomology, a discipline that McDermid writes, mordantly, is “based on one grisly fact: a corpse makes a good lunch.”

In each chapter of Forensics, McDermid’s approach is to narrate a short history of the discipline in question, weave in the views of contemporary investigators, then offer a procedural step-by-step on how a fire scene investigator, for example, would gather evidence to determine the cause of a fire. None of this is ever formulaic, because, as McDermid writes, “it takes a sensational case to establish a new forensic technique in the public consciousness.” And McDermid is particularly good at illustrating Forensics with quirky, sometimes spine-chilling cases that were solved because of a particular technique of forensic investigation.

Did I say solved? Another enticing aspect of Forensics is the skepticism McDermid brings to these investigative sciences. It’s a skepticism shared by the best current practitioners, who now couch their interpretations of data in language not meant to dazzle juries so much as contribute to the search for the truth. But, as McDermid’s final chapter about expert forensic testimony in the courtroom points out, our adversarial justice system is sometimes more about winning than arriving at the truth.

Grand Central $26, 288 pages ISBN 9781455554744 eBook available MEMOIR

In 1993, Mardi Jo Link was a 31-year-old wife and mother of two and a bar waitress with a college degree. Just before sunrise on an October Michigan morning, Link and three friends set off on what would become an annual get-thehell-out-of-Dodge adventure to the isolated refuge of Drummond Island on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In 1993, Link was the newest member of the sorority, but she eventually became the chronicler of the highs and lows of the annual island weekend.

In The Drummond Girls, Link proceeds roughly year-by-year as the conclave grows from four to eight, and as each of the friends passes through the peaks and valleys of life, from marriage and divorce to birth and death, including the sudden death of one of their own, Mary Lynn.

Link regales readers with tales of nights and days spent exploring the North woods, running into some of the island’s more colorful inhabitants—both animal and human—and bonding deeply with a group of women who, as Link says, would “do ninety days at a minimum-security prison camp or plan a hostile takeover of a Caribbean beach resort” for each other.

So pick up this book: You’ll laugh; you’ll cry; you’ll find yourself pondering the meaning of life’s small disappointments and its greatest joys, especially the “fierce friendships” at the heart of this remarkable story.

—HENRY L. CARRIGAN JR.

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SURVIVAL

BY DEBORAH HOPKINSON

The cold hard truth

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t’s no surprise that Alfred Lansing’s 1959 book, Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, is still in print. The harsh reality of survival near the Poles continues to make gripping reading, especially from the safety of our own homes.

In 81 Days Below Zero (Da Capo, $24.99, 264 pages, ISBN 9780306823282), journalist Brian Murphy pieces together the improbable story of a young World War II pilot named Leon Crane.

On December 21, 1943, Crane set out from Alaska’s Ladd Field on a test flight in a B-24D Liberator bomber. On a whim, co-pilot Crane grabbed two packs of matches, knowing that the pilot had a fondness for smoking a pipe. That quick action might just have saved his life.

Somewhere near the Yukon River, a failed engine and elevator controls sent the plane spiraling toward the ground. Crane managed to bail out, becoming the only member of the five-man crew to survive the fiery crash.

Crane’s situation was dire. His flight suit was intact and he had his old Boy Scout knife, but he’d forgotten his mittens on the plane.

Crane’s first act was to grab piles of driftwood near a frozen river to spell out a huge SOS in the snow. But he soon realized that without a last-minute radio call, rescuers would have little idea of their location or where to search. A week after the crash, hunger drove Crane to a decision: His only chance of survival would be to walk out of the wilderness.

Using military records and interviews, Murphy has meticulously pieced together details of Crane’s trek, as well as later efforts to identify the remains of his fellow crew members. The result is a riveting tale of survival.

It seems that Crane, who died in

2002, seldom spoke about what happened in 1943 and was always reluctant to be seen as a hero.

Murphy’s account brings his inspiring story to light.

Our second survival story is a first-person account by one of the lucky few to survive a sinking ship.

Matt Lewis, author of Last Man Off (Plume, $17, 256 pages, ISBN 9780147515346), was just 23 in 1998 when he joined the crew of the Sudur Havid, a South African fishing boat. Lewis signed on as a scientific observer to ensure compliance with fishing regulations and watch for endangered albatrosses. A trained marine biologist, he was pleased to have a job in his field, even if his first sight of the rusty 30-year old boat gave him pause: “That’s the boat I’m living on for the next three months. Is it too late to change my mind?”

The boat left Cape Town on April 6, 1998.

Two months later, on June 6, a couple of hundred miles from South Georgia Island in the southern Atlantic, the Sudur Havid began taking on water in a violent storm. The crew had no choice but to abandon ship.

Without leadership from those in charge, Lewis stepped up to organize the escape onto three life rafts and was the last man to leave the ship.

What followed was a grueling ordeal: Of the 38 men on board, 17 perished. Based on Lewis’ own recollections and testimony at the South African inquiry, Last Man Off is a sobering reminder of the power of the sea.

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TEEN

SEEING OFF THE JOHNS

Grief under Friday night lights REVIEW BY CAT ACREE

Early in Seeing Off the Johns, author Rene S. Perez II gives us the key word in the story: onus—a burden or responsibility, often an unpleasant one.

Greenton is a small, dead-end town in 1998 Texas where no one expects greatness but some dream of it nonetheless. As the novel opens, the entire town has showed up to bestow well wishes upon their two hometown heroes, John Robison and John Mejia, athletic superstars who are headed to UT Austin. But the Johns never make it to the university—their car flips en route, and the two are killed.

Perhaps the only person in Greenton who didn’t see off the Johns was Concepcion “Chon” Gonzales, who has been waiting nearly his entire life for John Mejia to get out of dodge so he can take a shot at Mejia’s girlfriend, Araceli. As cold and insensitive as it sounds, death has made Chon’s dreams come true, and he finds relief from resentment as he

By Rene S. Perez II finally pursues his dream girl. But like a child who learns the world Cinco Puntos, $16.95, 256 pages doesn’t pause while he sleeps, Chon begins to recognize the crushing ISBN 9781941026113, ages 14 and up unfairness and ugliness of death’s gift. Mejia’s parents’ grief becomes FICTION Araceli’s unwanted burden, and the citizens of Greenton turn to her, watching her reaction as if it were a barometer for their own. Chon, whose full name essentially translates to sex, evolves beyond both his shallow, lustful desire for Araceli and his pursuit of some kind of machismo protector status, and he eventually finds the capacity to connect— with Araceli and his community—and acknowledge the tragedy in the Johns’ passing.

Loss, and our response to it, is no simple thing. This is a searing, mature novel, not just because sexual scenes (which are among the most complex and thoughtful moments in the book) are included, but in the way it handles the innumerable challenges associated with grief and love. With strains of Mexican-American heritage, this is also a fine diverse read.

TOMMY

By Karen Blumenthal

Roaring Brook $19.99, 240 pages ISBN 9781626720848 eBook available Ages 12 and up HISTORY

Following the slow rise and eventual demise of the world’s first submachine gun, Tommy is the story of one man’s dream to help his country on the battlefield and the unfortunate ways his dream became a national nightmare.

Retired Colonel John Thompson dedicated his life to developing a lightweight, handheld, automatic rifle that soldiers could use in advanced warfare. After failing to

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convince the Army to develop one in-house, Thompson created the private company Auto-Ordnance.

On November 11, 1918—World War I’s Armistice Day—the company realized their goal, but with the Great War now over, the new challenge was to find a market for “the most dangerous small arm in the world.” As the company struggled to secure sales, the fearsome “Tommy gun” fell into the wrong hands and appeared at the center of many Prohibition-era America’s crime scenes and gang-related activities.

Karen Blumenthal puts her prodigious journalistic skills to great use, revealing how the gun played a significant role in a pivotal moment in America’s history—as well as the invention’s unintended political and social ripple effects.

—J U S T I N B A R I S I C H

EMMY & OLIVER

By Robin Benway

HarperTeen $17.99, 352 pages ISBN 9780062330598 Audio, eBook available Ages 13 and up FICTION

Throughout their childhood, next-door neighbors Emmy and Oliver were inseparable—until Oliver disappeared in second grade, kidnapped by his noncustodial father. Ten years later, Oliver has been found and is returning home to California. The intervening years have changed a few things: Oliver’s mom remarried and has twin daughters, and Emmy’s parents have reacted to Oliver’s disappear-

ance by becoming hyper-protective of their only daughter. It’s the end of senior year, and everyone— not just Oliver—is trying to figure out how to reconcile their future plans with their past.

Although the novel explores Oliver’s complicated feelings in the wake of his kidnapping and homecoming, the primary focus is on Emmy’s divided loyalties—to her parents, to her friends, to her hopes and dreams. Robin Benway effectively uses Oliver’s extreme situation to dramatize the inner struggles that preoccupy many young people on the border between childhood and adulthood.

—NORAH PIEHL

SILVER IN THE BLOOD

By Jessica Day George

Bloomsbury $17.99, 368 pages ISBN 9781619634312 eBook available Ages 13 and up FANTASY

Decked out in the latest Parisian fashions for 1897, New York City debutantes and cousins Dacia and Lou are traveling on the Orient Express to their mothers’ native country, Romania. They should be thrilled, as everyone knows Bucharest is the vacation spot for wealthy Europeans. But why are there so many behind-closed-door arguments after the teens arrive?

Dacia and Lou capture the attention of many eligible bachelors— particularly that of Prince Mihai of the Dracula family—but instead of a season of high-society socializing, the cousins discover their family’s supernatural abilities and a prophecy their relatives hope they will fulfill. Their new shapeshifting talents give them independence and courage, and they are expected to use these powers to help the Dracula family depose the current king and put Prince Mihai on the throne. Articles, diary entries and telegrams add to the surprises.

Silver in the Blood is far from your typical Dracula story.

—ANGELA LEEPER

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DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER

Brooklyn unleashes spirits and shadows

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or 10 years, Daniel José Older worked as an EMT in Brooklyn, and he blogged each day about what he’d witnessed the night before: tragedy and joy, blood and bandages, dead people and living people—and people who hovered somewhere in between, their fates as yet undecided.

“It’s part of how I became a writer,” he says during a call to his home. “It’s the roots of my fiction.

It helped me just tell the f__king story. That became my motto as I went on to become a writer and realized it’s so easy to get caught up in head games.”

His motto worked, and write he did. He left his ambulance-based career in 2013 and has published three books in the last three years: 2012’s Salsa Nocturna, a collection of noir ghost stories; Half-­ Resurrection Blues, the first book in the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, which debuted in January; and now his new YA urban fantasy, Shadowshaper.

It makes sense that this Boston-to-Brooklyn transplant who’s undergone a medic-to-author metamorphosis could so capably and creatively write a story about the transformation of teenager Sierra Santiago, who herself undergoes some major life changes and astonishing shifts in perspective right after school lets out for the summer.

SHADOWSHAPER

By Daniel José Older

Arthur A. Levine, $17.99, 304 pages ISBN 9780545591614, eBook available Ages 14 and up

URBAN FANTASY

In fact, Sierra goes from newbie muralist to spirit wrangler in a matter of days—and she’s surprisingly adept at working with both paint and dearly departed ancestors. But why isn’t her brother surprised by this? Just what has her family been keeping from her?

And what does her abuelo, speech strained by his recent stroke, mean when he warns her about “shadowshapers”?

The notion of spirits among us, of people who may not be alive but aren’t quite dead, is something Older has considered a lot in his own life, not least because, like Sierra, he’s Latino and accustomed to “the idea of history being present with us.”

One day, when Sierra is up on scaffolding, painting a mural on an abandoned building, she sees that a face in another nearby mural has shed a single real tear. She’s weirded out, but she doesn’t panic and fall off the scaffolding, which might be the reaction of someone less spirit-friendly. And when a creepy zombie-esque guy crashes the first party of summer and seems to know her by name, she’s scared— but also determined to find out what’s going on, and fast.

“Sierra walks in both worlds, and she has to get used to that,” Older says. “[For anyone who] grew up Latino, they probably had some ghosts around. So it’s not that big a shock to her. . . . She gets through that pretty quickly because she’s already been preparing for that moment, in a way.”

Five years ago, Older was initiated into the Lucumí (also known as Santería) priesthood. “It was an intense process,” he says. ­“Shadowshaper, which I wrote in 2009, became a totally different book when I rewrote it that initiation year. . . . [My religion plays a] huge part in my understanding of spirituality . . . [and] of spirits and

ancestors being part of daily life.”

Harking back to his time as an EMT, he adds, “As a paramedic, you’re walking on the line between life and death constantly.

It takes some of the freakiness out of it because it’s a regular occurrence, and there’s also more respect because if death wants to win, it will win. And that’s also not necessarily the worst-case scenario.”

These concepts come forward, then drop back, then surge forward again in the pages of Shadow­ shaper, as Sierra’s “If death wants to win, understanding and fear grow it will win. apace. She And that’s also roams from the not necessarily subway to the the worst-case Columbia University library, scenario.”

Bed-Stuy to Coney Island, dank basements to dark beaches, in her attempts to unravel the history and mystery of the shadowshapers. In addition to everything else, her neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying and everyone’s feeling unsettled; her awful aunt won’t stop spouting racist nonsense; and her handsome new artist friend doesn’t seem unfamiliar with the shadowshaper concept.

Older’s Brooklyn is beautiful and dangerous and busy and ever-changing; his love for his adopted hometown is evident. His characters are friends with people their age, older and younger; they speak different languages and have different backgrounds; their families are sometimes loving, sometimes not. It’s a refreshing (and, to anyone who’s lived in Brooklyn or a place like it, realistic) mix of viewpoints and ways of moving through life, for better or worse.

That ability to share his Brooklyn—to tell it like he sees it—has

© KEVIN KANE

INTERVIEW BY LINDA M. CASTELLITTO

been cathartic for Older, though he’s far from finished. “So many black women on Twitter [saw the cover of Shadowshaper and said], ‘That’s me!’ It’s so powerful, because urban fantasy has failed people of color in general as far as representation goes, so for that to happen, it really moves me,” he says.

“We [authors of color] all want to be picked up by a big publisher but fear the corruption of our voices, the clipping of our wings. It’s a story heard over and over—not an idle fantasy or fear, but what has historically happened in publishing. I went in prepared and was pleasantly surprised. Both houses I work with, the editors are open, accountable, honest, admit things they don’t know. All I—all we—ask is that we work with people who will hear us out, trust our voice. . . .

I’ve been really blessed to find the people I have found. That’s the miracle.”

For readers who’ve long been hoping to see themselves represented on a book cover or in its pages, Shadowshaper may well feel a bit miraculous. Older makes the historical elements seem as cool as the artistic ones, but there are plenty of scary and exciting action sequences as well—not to mention hilarity (see: a dog named Cojones).

And ultimately, the most powerful presence in Shadowshaper is the Puerto Rican teenager Sierra. There are no wizened, white-bearded wizards here. Older says, “I think most people will be excited to have a Latina heroine running around doing magic stuff.”

29

reviews

CHILDREN’S

T PI OP CK

depicting two boys in pain who begin healing and, in the process, learn about themselves.

—LORI K. JOYCE

RUBY ON THE OUTSIDE

Sharing secrets with a new friend REVIEW BY ANNIE METCALF

The summer before starting middle school, Ruby Danes meets a new girl in her neighborhood. Margalit doesn’t make Ruby feel foolish for being herself, but Ruby has never been able to reveal her deepest secret to a friend: Her mother has been in prison for six years and is sentenced for at least 10 more. Ruby keeps her life strictly compartmentalized: on the “outside,” in the real world with her peers and aunt, and on the “inside,” in prison, the only place where she can see her mother. As the girls spend more time together, Ruby struggles to find the courage to tell the truth about her life while preserving her new friendship.

In Ruby on the Outside, Nora Raleigh Baskin gives readers a serious, relatable look into the criminal justice system and its ripple effects.

The story of Ruby, her aunt and her mother contributes to the growBy Nora Raleigh Baskin ing body of children’s literature highlighting nontraditional family Simon & Schuster, $16.99, 176 Pages structures. While Ruby’s vocabulary—far beyond an average 11-yearISBN 9781442485037, eBook available old’s—may strike adult readers as unrealistic, the ample context clues Ages 8 to 12 and mature narrative voice make this title an ideal option for advanced young readers.

MIDDLE GRADE Ruby’s situation is unconventional, but her anxieties about growing up different and forging lasting friendships are universal. With its careful attention to the complex emotions of a mother-child relationship, Ruby on the Outside will leave an enduring impression on young readers.

ESCAPE FROM BAXTERS’ BARN

By Rebecca Bond HMH $16.99, 256 pages ISBN 9780544332171 eBook available Ages 6 to 9 MIDDLE GRADE

When Burdock—a one-eyed cat named for the prickly burr seeds that inspired Velcro—discovers that Dewey Baxter is planning to burn down his barn, it becomes his mission to save the barn’s inhabitants. It isn’t long before the whole farm—workhorses Tug and Pull, Fluff the sheep, Figgy the pig, Mrs. Brown the cow, Nanny the goat and her kid, Tick—work with Burdock to concoct an escape plan.

The unsuspecting farmer takes a back seat in this story, relayed in short chapters. The gentle dialogue can be silly and a bit old fashioned,

30

and the characters are stereotypical in both personality and name.

Nevertheless, it’s a sweet tale reminiscent of the animal compassion and teamwork in Charlotte’s Web, and Rebecca Bond’s black-andwhite sketches carry that theme effortlessly.

If ever there were an E.B. White heir apparent, it would be Bond.

This is a tame but endearing beginning chapter book sure to please all, especially animal lovers.

—SHARON VERBETEN

ANOTHER KIND OF HURRICANE

By Tamara Ellis Smith

Schwartz & Wade $16.99, 336 pages ISBN 9780553511932 eBook available Ages 9 to 12 MIDDLE GRADE

Tamara Ellis Smith’s first novel

sweeps readers up in a tale imbued with magical realism, a definitive mix of gritty realism and magic that allows the possibility for life-affirming choices.

The adventure begins in the middle of Hurricane Katrina as Zavion and his father fight to stay alive amid rising floodwaters.

Zavion manages to survive the harrowing ordeal, but he has difficulty dealing with the emotional trauma caused by the storm and the recent death of his mother.

Another boy, Henry, is on a quest after his best friend’s death on a mountain in Vermont, a death for which he feels responsible. Henry believes he must find the magic marble that he and his friend shared, and the trail leads him to New Orleans immediately following Katrina. These two protagonists’ storylines weave together like a knitted scarf, ultimately becoming one unified story.

Another Kind of Hurricane recognizes diversity in many forms,

THE CURIOUS WORLD OF CALPURNIA TATE

By Jacqueline Kelly Holt $16.99, 320 pages ISBN 9780805097443 Audio, eBook available Ages 9 to 12 MIDDLE GRADE

Calpurnia fans, rejoice! Callie Vee, heroine of Jacqueline Kelly’s Newbery Honor winner, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, is back. The sequel picks up in the year 1900, just after a rare snowfall in central Texas fulfills one of the budding young scientist’s dreams.

The only daughter in the midst of six brothers, Callie continues to find herself at odds with her parents’ notions of what is proper for a young girl. But in her 13th year, Callie finds ways to forge her own path, whether it’s learning to type to gain knowledge from the town vet (and earn money for college) or helping her younger brother Travis hide his latest wild creature from the rest of the family.

As it happens, 1900 brings disasters big and small, from the heartbreaking drowning of a litter of mixed coyote-canine pups to the mysterious disappearance of Callie’s five-dollar gold piece. More tragic, however, is the news from Galveston. Despite Granddaddy’s attempt to warn the mayor of the city that the ominous plunge in the barometer means the approach of a dangerous storm, a tragic flood strikes. And while the Tates’ relatives are safe, Callie faces a new challenge—learning to forge a relationship with her 17-year-old cousin, Aggie, who comes to stay.

Peppered with quotations from Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle, The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate is historical fiction at its very best, transporting us into the world of characters we can’t help but love.

—DEBORAH HOPKINSON

SU

MMER

READS

THE OCEAN

BY JULIE HALE

Salty, sandy fun for little readers

N

othing says summer like a trip to the beach.

Getting there is a breeze thanks to the trio of picture books featured below. Each of these seaside stories offers easy escape—just crack the covers and dive right in. No travel necessary!

Duck’s Vacation (Feiwel & Friends, $17.99, 48 pages, ISBN 9781250056474, ages 2 to 5) by Gilad Soffer features a curmudgeonly main character in need of some R&R. Duck hits the sand, ready to relax (beach chair: check; tropical bev: check), but soon discovers he’s in the presence of an unwanted guest—the reader! Feathers ruffled, Duck grumpily instructs his audience to quit flipping pages and leave him in peace.

But Duck’s out of luck. The reader can’t resist the impulse to continue the tale, and as the story progresses, so do the disruptions to Duck’s day. There are boys playing ball, a gamboling dog and—uh-oh—accumulating clouds. “It can’t possibly get worse,” says Duck. But more surprises are in store, making this a holiday he won’t forget. Soffer’s pencil drawings are at turns vivid and bright, soft and impressionistic. This bird may have a prickly personality, but readers will love him anyway.

DIP WITH DINOS Cordelia, her little brother and their prehistoric pals return in Molly Idle’s delightful Sea Rex (Viking, $16.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780670785742, ages 3 to 5). This time around, the hijinks are set beachside, where Cordelia sports a classy hat and chic shades and her brother is in full-on pirate gear.

Their dino buddies serve as more than sufficient lifeguards—hover-

ing, attentive and HUGE. As usual, T. Rex manages to steal every scene. After a nap beneath an inadequate umbrella (with little brother snoozing on his belly), he creates supersize waves in the ocean. Idle’s dinosaurs—lumbering, bumbling and full of good intentions—are indisputably adorable.

Her colored-pencil drawings feature clean, pure colors and display an ingenious use of proportion and scale.

T. Rex roars on!

VERY BLUE WHALE Cale Atkinson’s To the Sea (Disney-Hyperion, $16.99, 48 pages, ISBN 9781484708132, ages 3 to 5) is an appealing tale of friendship between two unlikely chums. Tim feels invisible—he’s a solitary lad in a dreary, rain-filled world. One day, he comes across Sam, an enormous whale who’s trapped on land, out of his element and all alone. Tim befriends the blue behemoth and vows (pinkie-swears!) to get him back to the ocean. Tim hatches various plans to help Sam until finally finding an idea that works. With persistence and courage, boy and whale make it to the beach, where life is decidedly brighter.

Atkinson’s inventive illustrations include cool typefaces and collage-like spreads that feature Tim in a citrus-orange rain slicker.

This ultimately sunny story about loyalty and the importance of keeping promises is (almost) as good as a day at the beach.

meet GIANNA MARINO

the title of your Q: What’s new book?

would you describe Q: How the book?

Q: Who has been the biggest influence on your work?

Q: What was your favorite subject in school? Why?

Q: Who was your childhood hero?

Q: What books did you enjoy as a child?

Q: What one thing would you like to learn to do?

Q: What message would you like to send to young readers?

NIGHT ANIMALS The dark can be scary—even for nocturnal creatures.

In Night Animals (Viking, $16.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780451469540, ages 3 to 5), first an opossum is spooked, and then a skunk, a wolf and even a bear!

But there’s nothing to fear in the hilarious new bedtime book from Gianna Marino, author of Meet Me at the Moon. Marino lives in Northern California.

31

WORDNOOK

BY THE EDITORS OF MERRIAM-WEBSTER

SEA CHANGE

Dear Editor: I learned recently that the word ­nausea is related to nautical, both coming from the same Greek word.

Can you explain the connection?

D. L. Englewood, Colorado To someone who has suffered motion sickness while aboard ship, the connection might be all too clear. The ancient Greek word for seasickness, nausia or nautia, came from their word for ship, naus. But nautia or nausia also meant the worst symptom of seasickness, the upset stomach and the concomitant urge to vomit. Of course, nausea, as we call this feeling in English, can be caused by something other than the motion of a ship, but the ancient Greeks and Romans needed only one word for seasickness and upset stomach. The Romans borrowed the Greek word, spelling it nausea

in Latin. English took the word directly from Latin. Ever since, many a landlubber has been in the throes of nausea without going near the ocean.

SLIPS OF THE TONGUE

Dear Editor: Why are mispronounced words called spoonerisms?

G. C. Prattville, Alabama A spoonerism is a t­ ransposition— typically of the initial sounds of two or more words—and it is named after a man who became well known for making such verbal slips. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) was an English clergyman and scholar who served as warden of New College at Oxford.

Admired for his wit, humor and devotion to Oxford University, Spooner had a tendency while delivering his sermons to transpose the first letters or syllables of adjoining

words. He once announced that “Kinquering Kongs their titles take” would be the theme for that day’s sermon. On another occasion, he assured his flock that “Yes, indeed; the Lord is a shoving leopard.”

Spooner’s unintentional lapses so amused his listeners that they were inspired to devise their own transpositions and to attribute them to the minister. Toward the end of the 19th century, spoonerism became a general term for such misspoken words.

word. The origin of museum goes back to nine sister goddesses worshipped by the ancient Greeks, each of whom was called a Mousa.

In English we now refer to them as the Muses. The Greeks believed that each Muse was the goddess of a particular art or science. A place that was dedicated to these goddesses—and to the arts and sciences for which they stood— was called a Mouseion. The Greeks’ Mouseion became Museum in Latin, from which it was borrowed into English about 300 years ago.

The verb muse has nothing to do with the Muses. It comes from an early French word meaning “the mouth of an animal,” possibly referring to a sniffing dog considering a scent.

GIFT FROM THE GODS

Dear Editor: Why are museums called by that name? Is it because we muse about the things we see there?

R. V. Union City, New Jersey

Send correspondence regarding Word Nook to: While the verb muse might appear to have a connection to museum, it is the noun muse that plays a role in the history of the

Language Research Service P.O. Box 281 Springfield, MA 01102

Test Your Mental Mettle with Puzzles from The Little Book of Big Mind Benders puzzle Type: logIc compleTIoN:

11

85432

12

WHicH tWo figures match perfectly? Figures may not be rotated.

AlPHAmeticS

DIffIculTy: TIme: ___________

10

2077136

+1 9 9 1 7 0 4

DIffIculTy: TIme: ___________

34032 +9 1 4 4 6 125478

puzzle Type: VIsuAl compleTIoN:

95823 +9 1 8 2 3 187646

Perfect mAtcH

eAcH letter in the sum stands for a different digit. For instance, E equals 7. Can you find the values of the other letters? If a letter appears more than once, it always 59778 + 634 60412

587914 +5 2 7 1 3 640627

520068 +9 6 8 2 8 6 1488354

stands for the same digit. The first digit of a number is never 0. Use logic to deduce digits: Why must H equal 9?

9370680

+8 4 2 9 6 3 5 6

5

8528 +9 5 8 2 8 104356

89562 + 752 90314

9708 + 537 10245

1

ANswer: 2

941045

3

HINT: H must equal 9 because H plus the carryover from the hundreds place equals 10. T equals 5.

Workman is a registered trademark of Workman Publishing Co., Inc.

4

9856

ANswer: Figures 4 and 6 match perfectly.

workman.com

98775

8.

1406729

7.

+1 3 9 6 8 7 3

6.

204478

5.

+1 0 5 7 0 3

4.

9

3.

8

2.

7

1.

Available wherever books are sold.

HINT: The two matching figures do not include figure 1 or figure 2.