New Fiction

Take a look at some of the latest additions to our New and Featured Fiction collections! We check in new books nearly every day -- check out the First Floor's LibraryThing account where we log all of our newest arrivals!

New Fiction - Week of October 27, 2008

	Ghosh, Amitav Sea of Poppies
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, at the heart of this vibrant saga is a vast ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean; its purpose, to fight China’s vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt raja to a widowed tribeswoman, from a mulatto American freedman to a freespirited French orphan. As their old family ties are washed away, they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais, or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races, and generations. The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, the exotic backstreets of Canton. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, that makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive—a masterpiece from one of the world’s finest novelists.
	Jacoby, M. Ann Life After Genius
Theodore Mead Fegley has always been the smartest person he knows. By age 12, he was in high school, and by 15 he was attending a top-ranking university. And now, at the tender age of 18, he's on the verge of proving the Riemann Hypothesis, a mathematical equation that has mystified academics for almost 150 years. But only days before graduation, Mead suddenly packs his bags and flees home to rural Illinois. What has caused him to flee remains a mystery to all but Mead and a classmate whose quest for success has turned into a dangerous obession. At home, Mead finds little solace. His past ghosts haunt him; his parents don't understand the agony his genius has caused him, nor his desire to be a normal kid, and his dreams seem crushed forever. He embarks on a new life's journey -- learning the family business of selling furniture and embalming the dead--that disappoints and surprises all who knew him as "the young Fegley genius." Equal parts academic thriller and poignant coming-of-age story, Life After Genius follows the remarkable journey of a young man who must discover that the heart may know what the head hasn't yet learned.
	Keillor, Garrison Liberty: A Lake Wobegon Novel
A national holiday in Lake Wobegon is always gaudy and joyful. But what is going on between Clint Bunsen and Miss Liberty? Clint Bunsen is one of the old reliables in Lake Wobegon? the treasurer of the Lutheran church and the auto mechanic who starts your car on below-zero mornings. For six years he has run the Fourth of July parade, turning what was once a line of pickup trucks and girls pushing baby carriages that hold their cats into an event of dazzling spectacle. Blazing bands, marching units, cannons, horses, a fireworks show, and the famous Living Flag, one thousand men and women wearing red, white, or blue, standing in formation, have attracted the attention of CNN and prompted the governor to put in an appearance as well. The town is dizzy with anticipation. Until, that is, they hear of Clint's ambition to run for Congress. They're embarrassed for him. They know him too well; his unfortunate episodes involving vodka sours, his rocky marriage. And then there is his friendship, or whatever it is, with the twenty-four-year-old girl who dresses up as the Statue of Liberty for the parade. It's rumored that underneath those robes she is buck naked, and that her torch contains a quart of booze. It's Lake Wobegon as it's always been; good loving people who drive each other crazy.

New Science Fiction and Fantasy - Week of October 27, 2008

	Flynn, Michael The January Dancer
A triumph of the New Space Opera: fast, complicated, wonder-filled! Hugo Award finalist and Robert A. Heinlein Award–winning SF writer Michael Flynn now turns to space opera with stunningly successful results. Full of rich echoes of space opera classics from Doc Smith to Cordwainer Smith, The January Dancer tells the fateful story of an ancient pre-human artifact of great power, and the people who found it. Starting with Captain Amos January, who quickly loses it, and then the others who fought, schemed, and killed to get it, we travel around the complex, decadent, brawling, mongrelized interstellar human civilization the artifact might save or destroy. Collectors want the Dancer; pirates take it, rulers crave it, and they’ll all kill if necessary to get it. This is a thrilling yarn of love, revolution, music, and mystery, and it ends, as all great stories do, with shock and a beginning.
	Walton, Jo Half a Crown
In 1941 the European war ended in the Farthing Peace, a rapprochement between Britain and Nazi Germany. The balls and banquets of Britain’s upper class never faltered, while British ships ferried “undesirables” across the Channel to board the cattle cars headed east. Peter Carmichael is commander of the Watch, Britain’s distinctly British secret police. It’s his job to warn the Prime Minister of treason, to arrest plotters, and to discover Jews. The midnight knock of a Watchman is the most dreaded sound in the realm. Now, in 1960, a global peace conference is convening in London, where Britain, Germany, and Japan will oversee the final partition of the world. Hitler is once again on British soil. So is the long exiled Duke of Windsor—and the rising gangs of “British Power” streetfighters, who consider the Government “soft,” may be the former king’s bid to stage a coup d’état. Amidst all this, two of the most unlikely persons in the realm will join forces to oppose the fascists: a debutante whose greatest worry until now has been where to find the right string of pearls, and the Watch Commander himself.

New Mysteries - Week of October 27, 2008

	MacBride, Stuart Flesh House
Killers have terrorized Aberdeen in the past—Detective Sergeant Logan McRae has the scars to prove it — but when body parts show up in a cargo container at the harbor they kick off Scotland’s largest manhunt in twenty years. Last time they were searching for Kenneth Wiseman, a brutal killer who terrified the country, who was eventually caught only to be acquitted eleven years later on a technicality. Now he’s gone missing, people are dying, and the police are certain he’s at work again. As the violence escalates, DS McRae is forced to work with the senior officers assigned to the original case who have returned to Aberdeen to finish what they started. With decades of secrets and lies coming to light, the only thing that’s certain is that the city will never be the same again. Once again, award–winning author Stuart MacBride fuses his signature dry wit with a dark and twisting plot to tell his most searing and accomplished story yet.
	Muller, Marcia Burn Out
Traumatized by a recent life-or-death investigation, Sharon McCone flees to her ranch in California 's high desert country to contemplate her future. Deep depression shadows her days and nights, and a chance encounter with a troubled, highly secretive Native American woman begins to haunt her dreams. Even though she is determined not to investigate anything during her stay--and perhaps not ever again--McCone is drawn into the plight of the young woman and her dysfunctional family. A murder and traces of violence at a deserted resort lead her across the desert and into Nevada , and finally to a remote and isolated ranch, where danger lies closer that she expects and where her future and life itself may hang in the balance.

New Horror - Week of October 27, 2008

edited by Kevin J. Anderson The Horror Writers Association Presents Blood Lite: An Anthology of Humorous Horror Stories

The Horror Writers Association Presents BLOOD LITE...a collection of entertaining tales that puts the fun back into dark fiction, with ironic twists and tongue-in-cheek wit to temper the jagged edge. Charlaine Harris reveals the dark side of going green, when a quartet of die-hard environmentalists hosts a fundraiser with a gory twist in "An Evening with Al Gore"...In an all-new Dresden Files story from Jim Butcher, when it comes to tracking deadly paranormal doings, there's no such thing as a "Day Off" for the Chicago P.D.'s wizard detective, Harry Dresden...Sherrilyn Kenyon turns a cubicle-dwelling MBA with no life into a demon-fighting seraph with one hell of an afterlife in "Where Angels Fear to Tread"...Celebrity necromancer Jaime Vegas is headlining a sold-out séance tour, but behind the scenes, a disgruntled ghost has a bone to pick, in Kelley Armstrong's "The Ungrateful Dead." Plus tales guaranteed to get under your skin -- in a good way -- from Janet Berliner, Don D'Ammassa, Nancy Holder, Nancy Kilpatrick, J. A. Konrath and F. Paul Wilson, Joe R. Lansdale, Will Ludwigsen,Sharyn McCrumb, Mark Onspaugh, Mike Resnick, Steven Savile, D. L. Snell, Eric James Stone, Jeff Strand, Lucien Soulban, Matt Venne anad Christopher Welch. So let the blood flow and laughter reign -- because when it comes to facing our deepest, darkest fears, a little humor goes a long way!

New World Fiction - Week of October 27, 2008

	Cappellani, Ottavio Sicilian Tragedee
Balding, forty-something Mister Alfio Turrisi, an up-and-coming mafioso in Catania, has the deep pockets that London’s financial world loves. He, in turn, loves Betty, the spoiled young daughter of Turi Pirrotta, a rival Catanian mobster. Alfio and Betty would seem to be the Romeo and Juliet of this poison-pen valentine to Ottavio Cappellani’s native Sicily. That is, until we meet another pair of star-crossed lovers: gay theater director Tino Cagnotto and his bored and sexy youngamore, Bobo. Because the way Tino sees it, the real heat in Shakespeare’s tragedy is between Romeo and Mercutio, not Romeo and Juliet. Set in a twenty-first-century Sicily rife with moody aristocrats, vain politicians, inept gangsters, shabby theater actors, and high-tech killers, Cappellani’s hilarious second novel—part Tarantino-style operetta, part soap opera—is also a surprising tribute to the Bard.
	Hakl, Emil Of Kids and Parents
In Europe, taking a walk is a cultural phenomenon having an almost mystical import. It connects physical activity with meditation, silence within amid the tumult without. Taking its cue both from Joyce's Ulysses and Hrabal's stream of anecdote, Of Kids & Parents is about a father and son taking a walk through Prague, over the course of which, and in the pubs and bars they stop into, their personal lives are revealed as entwined with the past sixty years of upheaval in their small corner of Europe. One's small history is inseparable from the larger History that is played out on the world's stage: families are uprooted, relationships fail, and still life goes on as it always does. Hakl's genius is his ability to mesh the two into a seamless flow of dialogue. As the father tells his son: "Nothing's been new in this world for more than two billion years, it's all just variations on the same theme of carbon, hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen." The point being that even though Prague over the course of a century has experienced monarchy, democracy, fascism, communism, and democratic capitalism once again, as wars, putsches, and revolutions have come and gone, what really has changed?

New GLBT Fiction - Week of October 27, 2008

Zebrun, Gary Only the Lonely

Asim, gay and 19, is ready to bust out of his rundown steel town, Lackawanna, N.Y., for the University of Michigan. Even the cherished family business - a movie house called The Bethlehem - and its nightly dose of celluloid dreams no longer captivate him. But the bright future he envisions is turned upside down when his father dies and leaves him with the keys to the theater and the job of caring for the old man's Russian lover. As if he needs another problem, he discovers that his brother Tarik is headed off to some kind of training camp in the Afghanistan desert, and when he returns, he ensnarls Asim and others in a dangerous fanaticism that peaks on September 11, 2001. Gary Zebrun's first novel, Someone You Know, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. The recipient of Yaddo, MacDowell and Bread Loaf fellowships, he is the Sunday news editor at The Providence Journal, in Rhode Island. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Iowa Review, Sewanee Review, The Believer Book of Writers Talking To Writers, and elsewhere.

New African-American Fiction - Week of October 27, 2008

	Bailey-Williams, Nicole The Love Child's Revenge
Shy and awkward, ruthlessly ridiculed by other children and carelessly treated by adults, Claudia Fryar flees her hometown of Philadelphia after her father’s death. But years of shame and silent suffering as the love child of the respected—and married—Louis Harrison finally come to a raging boil when Harrison’s jealous widow cheats Claudia out of her inheritance. Twice-scorned, Claudia transforms herself into Peach Harrison: bold, beautiful…and sinister. Now a successful newscaster, Peach makes a triumphant return to Philadelphia, to the welcoming arms of those who once cast her aside. But as Peach puts her “big payback” scheme into action, she realizes that revenge comes with some serious costs of its own.
	McGlothin, Victor Sinful Too
YOU CAN'T KEEP A "GOOD" WOMAN DOWN . . . She can get any man burning up her satin sheets, paying her bills, and keeping her in Dolce G and Prada. And sexy, sizzling Dior definitely doesn't "do" church or aspire to anything more than drama-free, cash-rich relationships. But charismatic Pastor Richard Allamay is one temptation she won't resist-and Dior will do anything to become the new "First Lady" of his wildly successful megachurch. Soon she's stripping away Richard's Godly principles, putting him at odds with his congregation, and throwing the lives of his insecure wife and bewildered children into turmoil. It will take a chain of events no one could have imagined-and only God could have planned-for hearts to be healed, transgressions forgiven, and one outrageous, conniving diva allotted the reward she deserves.

New Historical Fiction - Week of October 27, 2008

Maitland, Karen Company of Liars

In this extraordinary novel, Karen Maitland delivers a dazzling reinterpretation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—an ingenious alchemy of history, mystery, and powerful human drama. The year is 1348. The Black Plague grips the country. In a world ruled by faith and fear, nine desperate strangers, brought together by chance, attempt to outrun the certain death that is running inexorably toward them. Each member of this motley company has a story to tell. From Camelot, the relic-seller who will become the group’s leader, to Cygnus, the one-armed storyteller . . . from the strange, silent child called Narigorm to a painter and his pregnant wife, each has a secret. None is what they seem. And one among them conceals the darkest secret of all—propelling these liars to a destiny they never saw coming. Magical, heart-quickening, and raw, Company of Liars is a work of vaulting imagination from a powerful new voice in historical fiction.

New Short Stories - Week of October 27, 2008

	LaBrie, Aimee Wonderful Girl
This extraordinary first collection of short stories covers the landscape of dysfunctional childhood, urban angst, and human disconnection with a wit and insight that keep you riveted to the page. The characters here have rich and imaginative interior lives, but grave difficulty relating to the outside world. The beginning story, "Ducklings," introduces the over-weight and over-enthusiastic Marjorie, the last twelve-year-old you would want babysitting your toddler. In "Wanted" we meet Eleanor, a single girl living in Chicago who may or may not be dating a serial killer. "Another Cancer Story" is an unsentimental account of two sisters whose beloved mother just won't seem to die, and "The Last Dead Boyfriend" gives us a recovering addict who keeps encountering her recently deceased boyfriend, an unpleasant man she wished she'd broken up with before he died. Always funny, often dark, and wholly satisfying, these stories explore the longing for connection among characters who are frequently stricken with anxiety. Each story is rendered in a way that is surreal, vivid, and entirely convincing.
	Vaz, Katherine Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories
The stories in this prize-winning collection evoke a complete world, one so richly imagined and finely realized that the stories themselves are not so much read as experienced. The world of these stories is Portuguese-American, redolent of incense and spices, resonant with ritual and prayer, immersed in the California culture of freeway and commerce. Laced with lyrical prose and vivid detail, acclaimed writer Katherine Vaz conjures a captivating blend of Old World heritage and New World culture to explore the links between families, friends, strangers, and their world. nbsp; From the threat of a serial killer as the background for a young girl’s first brush with death to the fallout of a modern-day visitation from the Virgin Mary; from an AIDS-stricken squatter refusing to vacate an empty Lisbon home to a mother’s yearlong struggle with the death of her synesthetic daughter, these deft stories make their world ours.