Yes, its that time of the week againthe time where you give up on your misguided notions of only buying books when youve truly run out of material to read. The dratted things are so tempting, arent they, with their fancy fonts and matte covers and new-paper smell?
Below are some new books that have caught my eye. Are there any on the list that youve been waiting for or that, conversely, youd avoid at all costs?
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Blurb: Quitting her husbands house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season.'Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of Londons vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.'While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires and theyre armed with pesto.
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To the End of the Land by David Grossman
Blurb: Ora, a middle-aged Israeli mother, is on the verge of celebrating her son Ofer's release from army service when he returns to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, she sets out for a hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the 'notifiers' who might darken her door with the worst possible news. Recently estranged from her husband, Ilan, she drags along an unlikely companion: their former best friend and her former lover Avram, once a brilliant artistic spirit. Avram served in the army alongside Ilan when they were young, but their lives were forever changed one weekend when the two jokingly had Ora draw lots to see which of them would get the few days' leave being offered by their commander'a chance act that sent Avram into Egpyt and the Yom Kippur War, where he was brutally tortured as POW. In the aftermath, a virtual hermit, he refused to keep in touch with the family and has never met the boy. Now, as Ora and Avram sleep out in the hills, ford rivers, and cross valleys, avoiding all news from the front, she gives him the gift of Ofer, word by word; she supplies the whole story of her motherhood, a retelling that keeps Ofer very much alive for Ora and for the reader, and opens Avram to human bonds undreamed of in his broken world. Their walk has a 'war and peace' rhythm, as their conversation places the most hideous trials of war next to the joys and anguish of raising children. Never have we seen so clearly the reality and surreality of daily life in Israel, the currents of ambivalence about war within one household, and the burdens that fall on each generation anew.
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Blurb: For twenty-five years, a solitary American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochets secret police; one day a girl claiming to be his daughter arrives to take it away, sending her life reeling. Across the ocean in London, a man discovers a terrifying secret about his wife of almost fifty years. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer is slowly reassembling his fathers Budapest study, plundered by the Nazis in 1944.'These worlds are anchored by a desk of enormous dimension and many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away. In the minds of those it has belonged to, the desk comes to stand for all that has disappeared in the chaos of the world-children, parents, whole peoples and civilizations.
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Blurb: Reclusive collector Cutter Merlin is seldom seen in Key West'lately, not at all. Officer Liam Beckett visits Merlins curious house and discovers the gentleman in his study. In his death grip: a volume of occult lore and a reliquary. His eyes are wide with fright, his mouth a horrified rictus where spiders now dwell.'Kelsey Donovan returns to the old house to catalog her estranged grandfathers collection of artifacts and antiquities, vowing to see his treasures divested properly. But she cannot ignore the sense that shes being watched, the reports of malevolent black figures, the pervasive smell of death.'Is the Merlin house haunted, even cursed? Liam knows well that'some ghost stories are true and he swears to protect Kelsey. But there are forces at work for whom one more life is a pittance to pay for their deepest desire
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Blurb: Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. Its a place where neighbors keep an eye on one anothers kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollowss insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggies intuitive gift proves useful to the case and also dangerous. Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlenes disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father. I know how a moment can spiral out of control, Jones says to a shocked Maggie as he searches Ricks room for incriminating evidence. How the consequences of one careless action can cost you everything. As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlenes disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret one that could destroy everything she holds dear. This thrilling novel about one communitys intricate yet fragile bonds will leave readers asking, How well do I know the people I love? and How far would I go to protect them?
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The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
Blurb: Mackie Doyle seems like everyone else in the perfect little town of Gentry, but he is living with a fatal secret he is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now the creatures under the hill want him back, and Mackie must decide where he really belongs and what he really wants.
A month ago, Mackie might have told them to buzz off. But now, with a budding relationship with tough, wounded, beautiful Tate, Mackie has too much to lose. Will love finally make him worthy of the human world?
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Twelfth Grade Kills by Heather Brewer
Blurb: As a teenage vampire, Vlad has spent the last four years trying to handle the pressures of school while sidestepping a slayer out for his blood. Now hes a senior, and in this final, action-packed book in the series, Vlad must confront the secrets of the past, unravel the mystery of who he really is, make decisions about his future, and face his greatest enemy. Its a senior year that totally bites.
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Easily Amused by Karen McQuestion
Blurb: Set in present day Wisconsin, EASILY AMUSED is a romantic comedy targeted to the readers of Claire Cook, Jennifer Weiner and Emily Giffin. Heres the premise: Twenty-nine year-old Lola Watson has two best friends, a dream job, and a charming old house inherited from a great-aunt she barely knew. Life would be perfect if only she could avoid her intrusive neighbors. And for that matter, she also wouldnt mind being happily married like her friend Piper, or even engaged like her younger sister Mindy. Lolas peaceful existence is shattered when high school buddy Hubert moves in with her after a break-up, her sister changes her wedding date to Lolas thirtieth birthday, and the nosy neighbors take Hubert under their wing. Things get more complicated when Piper sets Lola up with a good-looking stranger who turns out to be the talk of her neighborhoodthe mystery man from across the street.
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Flygirl by Sherri L Smith
Blurb: Ida Mae Jones dreams of flight. Her daddy was a pilot and being black didn't stop him from fulfilling his dreams. But her daddy's gone now, and being a woman, and being black, are two strikes against her.
When America enters the war with Germany and Japan, the Army creates the WASP, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots'and Ida suddenly sees a way to fly as well as do something significant to help her brother stationed in the Pacific. But even the WASP won't accept her as a black woman, forcing Ida Mae to make a difficult choice of 'passing,' of pretending to be white to be accepted into the program. Hiding one's racial heritage, denying one's family, denying one's self is a heavy burden. And while Ida Mae chases her dream, she must also decide who it is she really wants to be.
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Nourishment by Gerard Woodward
Blurb: With her children evacuated and her husband at the front, Tory Pace is grudgingly sharing the family home with her irascible mother; working at the local gelatine factory to help the war effort and generally doing just about as well as could be expected in difficult times. Her quiet life is thrown into turmoil, however, when her prisoner-of-war husband, Donald, makes an outrageous demand for sexual gratification. He wants a dirty letter, by return of post! Horrified, at first, that Donald is being turned into some sort of monster by the Nazis, Torys disgust gradually gives way to a sense of marital duty, and taking in the libraries, bookshops, public conveniences and barbers shops of South-East London, she begins a quest to master the language of carnal desire: a quest that takes a sudden and unexpected turn into far more dangerous territory. Beginning with an act of unintentional cannibalism, and flirting with a scheme to end world hunger by the use of protein pills, Nourishment ranges widely across the Continent and yet always returns home: to family, to people, to relationships. Woodward offers a prescient examination of the ways in which we both nurture and consume each other in the face of adversity.
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All Men are Liars by Alberto Manguel
Blurb: Where can you find truth in a world that'is so thoroughly ruled by lies? That is the question tackled by the investigation of a French journalist who endeavours to shed light on the enigma of an unexplained death: that of the brilliant South American writer Alejandro Bevilacqua, found lying on his balcony floor in Madrid in the mid-1970s. The few accounts of those who knew the deceased including those of his last lover, a former fellow prison inmate, a sworn enemy and even the author Alberto Manguel himself are contradictory and unreliable. Poor devil and with a troubled childhood, literary genius and irresistible seducer, ordinary bastard masquerading as hero, pure and simple impostor those are but a few of the roles attributed to a mysterious and captivating figure in this tribute to falsehood, between the lines of which the reader must discover the only worthwhile truth: that of the fascinating homage Alberto Manguel pays to literature and its shapeshifting inventions, in which the objects of our desires are infinitely reincarnated.
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The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai by Ruiyan Xu
Blurb: An explosion reverberates through the Swan Hotel in Shanghai, and it is not just shards of glass that come crashing down. Li Jing and Zhou Meiling find their marriage rocked to its foundations by the loss of the language that brought them together. For Li Jing, who is injured in the explosion, awakens from brain surgery only able to utter the unsteady phrases of English he learnt as a child a language that Meiling and their young son Pang Pang cannot speak. When an American neurologist arrives, tasked with coaxing language back on to Li Jings tongue, she is as disorientated as her patient in this bewitching, bewildering city. As doctor and patient sit together, feelings neither of them anticipated begin to take hold. Feelings that Meiling, who must fight to keep both her husbands business and her family afloat, does not need a translator to understand. A sensitive exploration of the power of words and of silence, The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai is a wonderfully evocative debut about love and language, duty and passion, in a vibrant modern city.
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Edge by Thomas Blackthorne
Blurb: You thought Big Brother and Survivor were tough?'WELCOME, SENSATION SEEKERS, TO KNIFE EDGE -'the reality TV show where wannabe knife fighters are the celebrities in a nation going to hell. In a Britain on the edge of collapse, The ultimate response to knife crime has been instituted by a bankrupt government: duelling with knives has now been legalized.
On Saturday nights, the nation sits down to watch the countrys best amateur fighters slash it out on prime time. The streets are red with blood. The skies are black with polluted horror. High walls have been built around Britain and endless winter is coming.'When a young boy with hoplophobia (the fear of weaponry) runs away from home, his father hires'ex-Special Forces agent Josh Cumberland to find him. With the help of the boys psychiatrist,'Cumberland delves into the dark underbelly of the knife culture that has infected his country, but what he finds will shock him to his soul.
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Faithful Place by Tana French
Blurb: The course of Frank Mackeys life was set by one defining moment when he was nineteen. The moment his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, failed to turn up for their rendezvous in Faithful Place, failed to run away with him to London as they had planned. Frank never heard from her again. Twenty years on, Frank is still in Dublin, working as an undercover cop. Hes cut all ties with his dysfunctional family. Until his sister calls to say that Rosies suitcase has been found. Frank embarks on a journey into his past that demands he reevaluate everything he believes to be true.
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One Moment, One Morning by Sarah Rayner
Blurb: The Brighton to London line. The 07:44 train. Carriages packed with commuters. A woman applies her make-up. Another occupies her time observing the people around her. A husband and wife share an affectionate gesture. Further along, a woman flicks through a glossy magazine. Then, abruptly, everything changes: a man has a heart attack, and cant be resuscitated; the train is stopped, an ambulance called. For at least three passengers on the 07:44 on that particular morning, life will never be the same again. Lou witnesses the mans final moments. Anna and Lou share a cab when they realise the train is going nowhere fast. Anna is Karens best friend. And Karen? Karens husband is the man who dies. Telling the story of the week following that fateful train journey, One Moment, One Morning is a stunning novel about love and loss, about family and above all friendship. A stark reminder that, sometimes, one moment is all it takes, it also reminds us that somehow, and despite everything, life can and does go on.
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The Privileges by Jonathan Dee
Blurb: Smart, socially gifted, and chronically impatient, Adam and Cynthia Morey are so perfect for each other that united they become a kind of fortress against the world. In their hurry to start a new life, they marry young and have two children before Cynthia reaches the age of twenty-five. Adam is a rising star in the world of private equity and becomes his boss protege. With a beautiful home in the upper-class precincts of Manhattan, gorgeous children, and plenty of money, they are, by any reasonable standard, successful. But the Moreys standard is not the same as other peoples. The future in which they have always believed for themselves and their children a life of almost boundless privilege, in which any desire can be acted upon and any ambition made real is still out there, but it is not arriving fast enough to suit them. As Cynthia, at home with the kids day after identical day, begins to drift, Adam is confronted with a decision that tests how much he is willing to risk to ensure his familys happiness and to recapture the sense that, for him and his wife, the only acceptable life is one of infinite possibility. The Privileges is an odyssey of a couple touched by fortune, changed by time, and guided above all else by their epic love for each other. Lyrical, provocative, and brilliantly imagined, it is a timely meditation on wealth, family, and what it means to leave the world richer than you found it.
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