| The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel: Stuff We Didn't Actually Do, But Could Have, and May Yet - by Jill Conner Browne with Karin Gillespie |
| Publisher: Simon & Schuster |
| Pub Date: 01/02/2007 |
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| ISBN: 0743278275 |
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After five nonfiction bestsellers, Jill Conner Browne's Sweet Potato Queens have plunged wholeheartedly into fiction--though rest assured that nothing is lost in the translation. This semi-autobiographical first novel traces the founding members of the Sweet Potato Queens from high school on through decades of messiness--weddings, affairs, funerals, childbirth, and, first and foremost, friendship. Through it all they maintain their humor--and their trademark motto, "If it ain't fun, we ain't doing it." | |
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| The Cloud of Unknowing - by Thomas H. Cook |
| Publisher: Harcourt |
| Pub Date: 01/15/2007 |
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| ISBN: 0151012601 |
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Soon after Diana Regan's schizophrenic son Jason drowns in a pond near their home, she begins telling her brother Dave of her suspicions that her husband was involved. As Diana becomes more and more obsessed with the cause of Jason's death, Dave begins to wonder about the legacy their paranoid schizophrenic father left them--has Diana inherited his condition? Thanks to the questions surrounding Jason's death, The Cloud of Unknowing will appeal to mystery and psychological suspense fans, as well as to readers who like tales of complex, damaged families. | |
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| Inheritance - by Natalie Danford |
| Publisher: St. Martin's Press |
| Pub Date: 01/09/2007 |
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| ISBN: 0312349025 |
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When Olivia Bonocchio's Italian immigrant father dies, she finds among his personal items a beautiful brass key and a deed to a house in Urbino, Italy. Curious about her father's years in Italy before World War II, about which he never spoke, she travels to Italy to learn more about him. What she finds there necessarily complicates her understanding of just who her father was. Alternating chapters that focus on Olivia's search and flashbacks from her father's past will appeal to readers of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. | |
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| Returning to Earth - by Jim Harrison |
| Publisher: Grove Press |
| Pub Date: 01/10/2007 |
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| ISBN: 0802118380 |
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In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Donald, a Chippewa-Finnish man, is dying from Lou Gehrig's disease. His legacy will be both his dignified approach to life (which was heavily influenced by Native American culture) and the family history he dictates in his last days. Donald narrates the first section of the book; the remaining three are narrated by family members who remain affected by Donald's life as well as his death--you may recognize them from Harrison's True North. Library Journal calls Returning to Earth "one of Harrison's finest works." | |
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| You Suck: A Love Story - by Christopher Moore |
| Publisher: William Morrow |
| Pub Date: 01/01/2007 |
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| ISBN: 0060590297 |
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Tommy relies on self-tanner to keep his deathly pallor from outing him as a vampire. He also re-dyes his seemingly mandatory black clothing because repeated washing makes them look gray. But these are the least of his problems...the major one being, of course, that he's a vampire (thanks for that transformation go to his girlfriend, Jody). They're also being hunted by both an ancient vampire and some grocery clerks/frozen turkey bowlers/amateur vampire hunters. Publishers Weekly calls this sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends "cheerfully perverse [and] gut-busting." | |
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| The Bastard of Istanbul - by Elif Shafak |
| Publisher: Penguin USA |
| Pub Date: 01/18/2007 |
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| ISBN: 0670038342 |
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Nineteen-year-old Asya is the Turkish bastard of the title; Armanoush is the stepdaughter of the last remaining male member of Asya's family, and is an Armenian-American teenager who has traveled to Istanbul to learn more about her heritage. The two cousins become friends, but Armanoush's disclosure of the 1915 Armenian genocide is met with blank stares from Asya's family. It also landed author Elif Shafak with the charge of "denigrating Turkishness" in her native Turkey (the charge was later dropped). Yet it's not hard to see why this was nevertheless a bestseller in Turkey: Booklist calls The Bastard of Istanbul a "shrewd novel of ideas, a love song to Istanbul, and a sensuous and whirling satire." | |
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| Night of the Radishes - by Sandra Benítez |
| Publisher: Theia |
| Pub Date: 01/01/2004 |
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| ISBN: 0786864001 |
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When Annie was a child, her twin sister died accidentally, her father committed suicide, and her older brother ran away. Now 34, Annie is prompted by her mother's death to find her long-lost brother, Hub. Leaving behind her husband and their two children, she tracks Hub to Oaxaca, Mexico, where the trail runs cold. There she meets an anthropology professor who not only helps her in her search, but allows her, finally, to come to terms with the tragedies in her past. Colorful descriptions of Latin American culture add spice to this tale of loss, grief, and hope. | |
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| Firefly Cloak: A Novel - by Sheri Reynolds |
| Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books |
| Pub Date: 04/18/2006 |
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| ISBN: 0609610082 |
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When Tessa Lee was eight and her brother Travis still in diapers, their mother abandoned them, leaving behind only a firefly-patterned cloak and their grandmother's telephone number scrawled on Travis' back. Now Tessa Lee is 15, and in a decision that will reverberate throughout the three generations of women in her family, she tries to reestablish her relationship with her mother. The results beautifully portray both family and forgiveness through the alternating perspectives of all three women, who brim with "slow-simmered richness" (Booklist). | |
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| Pobby and Dingan - by Ben Rice |
| Publisher: Knopf |
| Pub Date: 09/01/2000 |
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| ISBN: 0375411275 |
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Kellyanne Williamson, age eight, has two best friends named Pobby and Dingan. Her entire opal-mining town of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, knows them--and while the townspeople know that Pobby and Dingan are imaginary, they treat them as if they were real. One day, however, her father loses them, and Kellyanne sickens. Increasingly worried, Kellyanne's formerly disapproving brother Ashmol (he thinks she's a "fruit loop") rides his bike around town asking everyone to look for the two lost friends, knowing that finding them is the only cure for Kellyanne's broken heart. The New York Times Book Review calls Pobby and Dingan "enormously touching, imaginative, and unexpected." | |
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| The Myth of You and Me: A Novel - by Leah Stewart |
| Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books |
| Pub Date: 09/20/2005 |
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| ISBN: 1400098068 |
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Cameron and Sonia were inseparable throughout high school and college, until a falling-out tore them apart. They haven't spoken in ten years, but the reclusive Cameron has just received a letter from Sonia that announces her engagement--and suggests reconciliation. Cameron's employer, Oliver Douchet, encourages a reunion, but she refuses until Oliver's death forces her to track Sonia down and hand deliver his wedding gift. As she travels across the country, Cameron slowly comes out of hiding as she reconnects with people from her past. Booklist calls The Myth of You and Me "affecting and genuine." | |
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| Once Upon a Day: A Novel - by Lisa Tucker |
| Publisher: Atria Books |
| Pub Date: 04/11/2006 |
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| ISBN: 0743492773 |
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You might think that a 23-year-old in saddle shoes these days must be dressed for a 50s costume party, but in Dorothea's case, it's because her father has raised her in near-total isolation, far away from the cultural influences of TV and movies. That isolation ends when her father falls ill and Dorothea leaves their sanctuary to find her brother, who had in turn left home to find their mother. Her search leads her to a heartbroken cabbie whose compassion helps her deal with the terrifying truths about her family's past. | |
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| How to Be Lost: A Novel - by Amanda Eyre Ward |
| Publisher: MacAdam/Cage |
| Pub Date: 10/30/2004 |
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| ISBN: 1931561729 |
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The Winters live a seemingly charmed life--beautiful, rich, with three perfect daughters--until five-year-old Ellie mysteriously vanishes, and the troubles that plague the parents (alcoholism, self-obsession) are suddenly magnified. The family eventually falls apart, and even the two remaining sisters, once close, have grown apart. So when Ellie's older sister Caroline discovers a photo in People magazine that she is convinced is of a 20-year-old Ellie, she is determined to salvage what's left of her family. Read this to see if hope can triumph over loss. | |
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