For most of the country, last Sunday was the simultaneously dreaded and applauded Daylight Savings Time. While we lost a very precious hour of sleep, we gained an hour of much-needed sunlight. After more cups of coffee than seem safe, many of us are finally emerging out of our zombie state and becoming fully-functioning humans again.
How delightful and timely because there’s a lot going on (culturally, globally and more), including the arrival of spring this coming Monday, March 20th at 6:29am ET --- not that we are counting the minutes, or anything. Word on the sunny side of the street is that an egg will stand upright at the exact moment the season changes (something with the earth’s gravity, yada yada blah blah blah). It’s tough to get up at that hour, so if you’re the kind of bird to catch the worm, let folks know if it’s real or not.
Speaking of a lot going on, last Saturday was Simon & Schuster’s first-ever Book Club Matinee. The event took place at the famous Ed Sullivan Theater (the past home of David Letterman's "Late Show" and the current of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”) with much success. Authors Lisa See (THE TEA GIRL OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE), Lisa Genova (STILL ALICE), Isabel Allende (THE JAPANESE LOVER), Ruth Ware (THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10) and Anthony Doerr (ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE) were just some in attendance at the jam-packed event. The Book Report Network’s very own Carol Fitzgerald was in conversation with Allende, and according to the reports, their chat went swimmingly and was a joy to watch. Another one of our very own, Rebecca Munro, the Teenreads.com/Kidsreads.com Editorial Coordinator, was lucky enough to attend the event, so click here for her full write-up over on Bookreporter.com, complete with some very special and surprising reveals.
Another special and surprising reveal we got this week: Jojo Moyes is putting out another Louisa Clark book, which will be the third in the series. Readers across the board rejoiced as Clark has become quite the fan favorite, both before and even more so after Emilia Clarke’s portrayal of the quirky character in the book adaptation of ME BEFORE YOU. In the new book slated to hit the shelves in 2018, Clark will be heading to New York City (hey girl, we’ve heard of it!) and will be torn between leaving her old life and embracing her new one. After her devastating heartbreak in ME BEFORE YOU in 2012, Moyes continued her story in AFTER YOU in 2015, and now, another three years later, we’re all too pumped to find out where life takes her next. If we know anything about Moyes, we know one thing's for sure: tissues will be a necessity.
While we patiently await 2018, there are so many books to check out in the interim. Here are just three, excellent ones that come highly recommended:
The much-anticipated next work from the iconic Joan Didion is finally here: SOUTH AND WEST: From a Notebook. Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles --- and here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. And from a different notebook: the "California Notes" that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial. Though Didion never wrote the piece, watching the trial and being in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the city, its social hierarchy, the Hearsts, and her own upbringing in Sacramento. Here, too, is the beginning of her thinking about the West, its landscape, the western women who were heroic for her, and her own lineage.
When a Thai girl overdoses smuggling drugs, the trail points to Danillo, the one criminal who MMA-trained public prosecutor Jana Berzelius most wants to destroy in Emelie Schepp’s MARKED FOR REVENGE. Meanwhile, the police are zeroing in on the elusive head of the long-entrenched Swedish narcotics trade. Berzelius craves to know his identity, even as she clandestinely tracks Danillo, who has threatened to out her for who she really is. She knows she must kill him first, before he can reveal her secrets. If she fails, she will lose everything. As she prepares for the fight of her life, Berzelius discovers an even more explosive and insidious betrayal --- one that entangles her inextricably in the whole sordid network of crime.
IN THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTRESS, Jason Rekulak tells the story of 14-year-old Billy Marvin of Wetbridge, New Jersey, who until May 1987, is a nerd, but a decidedly happy nerd. Afternoons are spent with his buddies, watching copious amounts of television, gorging on Pop-Tarts, debating who would win in a brawl (Rocky Balboa or Freddy Krueger? Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel? Magnum P.I. or T.J. Hooker?), and programming video games on his Commodore 64 late into the night. Then Playboy magazine publishes photos of “Wheel of Fortune” hostess Vanna White, Billy meets expert programmer Mary Zelinsky, and everything changes.
Happy reading!
5 Things To Obsess About This Very Moment, in no particular order:
1. Irish soda bread, Guinness, Pot of Gold, Luck = Happy St. Patrick's Day!
2. David Lagercrantz’s THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB finally hitting the big screen in October 2018
3. Hulu pumping SXSW with Handmaids à la "The Handmaid’s Tale"
4. Season Two of Judd Apatow's "Love" on Netflix
5. The 20somethings-childhood Disney staple, Beauty and the Best, getting its live-action reboot releasing in theaters today
--- Nicole Sherman
Featured Review: QUICKSAND by Malin Persson Giolito
QUICKSAND written by Malin Persson Giolito, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Saskia Maarleveld
A mass shooting has taken place at a prep school in Stockholm’s wealthiest suburb. Maja Norberg is 18 years old and on trial for her involvement in the massacre where her boyfriend and best friend were killed. When the novel opens, Maja has spent nine excruciating months in jail awaiting trial. Now the time has come for her to enter the courtroom. But how did Maja, the good girl next door who was popular and excelled at school, become the most hated teenager in the country? What did Maja do? Or is it what she didn’t do that brought her here? Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
- Click here to read the review.
- Click here to read more about the book.
- Click here to read an excerpt.
- Click here to read more about author Malin Persson Giolito.
- Click here to read Bookreporter.com's interview with Malin Persson Giolito.
DOWN CITY: A Daughter's Story of Love, Memory, and Murder by Leah Carroll (Memoir)
Audiobook available, read by Leah Carroll
Leah Carroll's mother, a gifted amateur photographer, was murdered by two drug dealers with Mafia connections when Leah was four years old. Her father, a charming alcoholic who hurtled between depression and mania, was dead by the time she was 18. Why did her mother have to die? Why did the man who killed her receive such a light sentence? What darkness did Leah inherit from her parents? Leah was left to put together her own future. Now, in her memoir, she explores the mystery of her parents' lives, through interviews, photos and police records. Reviewed by Bianca Ambrosio.
THE FIFTH ELEMENT written by Jørgen Brekke, translated by Steven T. Murray (Mystery)
Police Inspector Odd Singsaker has been captured, imprisoned on an island off the Northern coast of Norway. He wakes to find himself holding a shotgun. Next to him is a corpse. But what events led him to this point? And how did he get here? A few weeks earlier, his wife, Felicia, disappeared. Though he didn’t know it, she was trying to find her way back to Odd to reconcile, but then she vanished into a snowstorm. Possibly involved is a corrupt, coldblooded cop from Oslo, a devious college student who’s stolen a great deal of cocaine from drug dealers, and a hit man hired by the drug dealers who have been robbed. All of these lives intersect with Odd’s as he searches for Felicia. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
HARMLESS LIKE YOU by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Emily Woo Zeller and P.J. Ochlan
HARMLESS LIKE YOU is set across New York, Connecticut and Berlin, following Yuki Oyama, a Japanese girl fighting to make it as an artist, and Yuki’s son Jay, who, as an adult in the present day, is forced to confront his mother’s abandonment of him when he was only two years old. The novel opens when Yuki is 16 and her father is posted back to Japan. Though she and her family have been living as outsiders in New York City, Yuki opts to stay, intoxicated by her friendship with the beautiful aspiring model Odile, the energy of the city, and her desire to become an artist. But when she becomes involved with an older man and the relationship turns destructive, Yuki’s life is unmoored. Reviewed by Megan Elliott.
IDAHO by Emily Ruskovich (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Justine Eyre
Ann and Wade have carved out a life for themselves from a rugged landscape in northern Idaho, where they are bound together by more than love. With her husband’s memory fading, Ann attempts to piece together the truth of what happened to Wade’s first wife, Jenny, and to their daughters. In a story told from multiple perspectives --- including Ann, Wade, and Jenny, who is now in prison --- we gradually learn of the mysterious and shocking act that fractured Wade and Jenny's lives, of the love and compassion that brought Ann and Wade together, and of the memories that reverberate through the lives of every character in IDAHO. Reviewed by Sarah Jackman.
ILL WILL by Dan Chaon (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available; narrated by Ari Fliakos, Edoardo Ballerini, Michael Crouch and a full cast
A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his 40s when he hears the news: his adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt and uncle. Despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning. Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient's suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but eventually he starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
IMPERIAL VALLEY: A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco by Johnny Shaw (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Scott Merriman
Jimmy Veeder has finally settled down, completing his dramatic transformation from hell-raiser to family man. But the night after his wedding, childhood friend Tomás Morales, the current crime lord of Mexicali, turns up on his doorstep offering information about the whereabouts of his son’s grandfather, for whom Jimmy has been searching for years. Jimmy and Angie head to Mexico accompanied by old pals Bobby Maves and Griselda. The trip immediately careens into chaos when they find themselves shadowed by thugs, shot at by cartel soldiers, and forced into a confrontation with a violent, volatile drug lord. The fight spreads from Sinaloa back to Jimmy’s doorstep, putting everything Jimmy cares about directly in the crosshairs. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTRESS by Jason Rekulak (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Griffin Newman
Until May 1987, 14-year-old Billy Marvin of Wetbridge, New Jersey, is a nerd, but a decidedly happy nerd. Afternoons are spent with his buddies, watching copious amounts of television, gorging on Pop-Tarts, debating who would win in a brawl (Rocky Balboa or Freddy Krueger? Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel? Magnum P.I. or T.J. Hooker?), and programming video games on his Commodore 64 late into the night. Then Playboy magazine publishes photos of “Wheel of Fortune” hostess Vanna White, Billy meets expert programmer Mary Zelinsky, and everything changes. Reviewed by Jana Siciliano.
MARKED FOR REVENGE written by Emelie Schepp, translated by Suzanne Martin Cheadle (Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by Kirsten Potter
When a Thai girl overdoses smuggling drugs, the trail points to Danillo, the one criminal who MMA-trained public prosecutor Jana Berzelius most wants to destroy. Meanwhile, the police are zeroing in on the elusive head of the long-entrenched Swedish narcotics trade. Berzelius craves to know his identity, even as she clandestinely tracks Danillo, who has threatened to out her for who she really is. She knows she must kill him first, before he can reveal her secrets. If she fails, she will lose everything. As she prepares for the fight of her life, Berzelius discovers an even more explosive and insidious betrayal --- one that entangles her inextricably in the whole sordid network of crime. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
RUSTY PUPPY: A Hap and Leonard Novel by Joe R. Lansdale (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Christopher Ryan Grant
While Hap, a former ’60s activist and self-proclaimed white trash rebel, is recovering from a life-threatening stab wound, Louise Elton comes into Hap and Leonard's PI office to tell him that the police have killed her son, Jamar. Months earlier, a bully cop pulled over and sexually harassed Jamar's sister, Charm. The officer followed Charm over the course of the next couple of months, leading Jamar to videotape and take notes on the cop and his partner. The next thing Louise hears, Jamar got in a fight and is killed in the projects by local hoods. It doesn't add up: he was a straight-A student, destined for better things, until he began to ask too many questions about the racist police force. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
SHADOWBAHN by Steve Erickson (Science Fiction/Alternative History)
Audiobook available, read by Malcolm Hillgartner
When the Twin Towers suddenly reappear in the Badlands of South Dakota 20 years after their fall, nobody can explain their return. To the tens of thousands drawn to the “American Stonehenge” --- including siblings Parker and Zema --- the Towers seem to sing, even as everybody hears a different song. On the 93rd floor, Jesse Presley --- the stillborn twin of the most famous singer who ever lived --- suddenly awakes, driven mad over the hours and days to come by a voice in his head that sounds like his but isn’t, and by the memory of a country where he survived in his brother’s place. Meanwhile, Parker and Zema cross a possessed landscape by a mysterious detour no one knows, charted on a map that no one has seen. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
SHINING CITY by Tom Rosenstiel (Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by David Colacci
Peter Rena is a “fixer.” He and his partner, Randi Brooks, earn their living making the problems of the powerful disappear. They get their biggest job yet when the White House hires them to vet the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Judge Roland Madison is a legal giant, but he’s a political maverick, with views that might make the already tricky confirmation process even more difficult. Rena and his team go full-bore to cover every inch of the judge’s past, while the competing factions of Washington, D.C. mobilize with frightening intensity. All of that becomes background when a string of seemingly random killings overlaps with Rena’s investigation, with Judge Madison a possible target. Reviewed by Lorraine W. Shanley.
SOUTH AND WEST: From a Notebook by Joan Didion (Memoir/Essays)
Audiobook available, read by Kimberly Farr
Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles --- and here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. And from a different notebook: the "California Notes" that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial. Though Didion never wrote the piece, watching the trial and being in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the city, its social hierarchy, the Hearsts, and her own upbringing in Sacramento. Here, too, is the beginning of her thinking about the West, its landscape, the western women who were heroic for her, and her own lineage. Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg.
THE TROPHY CHILD by Paula Daly (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Emma Fenney
Karen Bloom believes that tough discipline is the true art of parenting and that achievement leads to ultimate happiness. But in an unending quest for excellence, her seemingly flawless family starts to rebel against her. Her husband, Noel, is a handsome doctor with a proclivity for alcohol and women. Their prodigy daughter, Bronte, is excelling at school, music lessons and dance classes, yet she longs to run away. Verity, Noel’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, is starting to display aggressive behavior. And Karen’s son from a previous relationship falls deeper into drug use. When tragedy strikes the Blooms, Karen’s carefully constructed facade begins to fall apart --- and once the deadly cracks appear, they are impossible to stop. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE UNDESIRED written by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, translated by Victoria Cribb (Mystery/Thriller)
Aldis hates her job working in a juvenile detention center in rural Iceland. The boys are difficult, the owners are unpleasant, and there are mysterious noises at night. And then two of the boys go astray. Decades later, single father Odinn is looking into alleged abuse at the center. The more he finds out, though, the more it seems the odd events of the 1970s are linked to the accident that killed his ex-wife. Was her death something more sinister? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE VIOLATED by Bill Pronzini (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by various narrators
In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita, California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes, and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a case that has no easy solution. Bill Pronzini unfolds the case through alternating perspectives until a surprising break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
WAKING LIONS written by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, translated by Sondra Silverstein (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Paul Boehmer
Married to a beautiful police officer and father of two young boys, neurosurgeon Eitan Green has the perfect life. Then, speeding along a deserted moonlit road after an exhausting hospital shift, he hits someone. Seeing that the man, an African migrant, is beyond help, he flees the scene. When the victim's widow knocks at Eitan's door the next day, holding his wallet and divulging that she knows what happened, Eitan discovers that her price for silence is not money. It is something else entirely, something that will shatter Eitan's safe existence and take him into a world of secrets and lies he never could have anticipated. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE WEIGHT OF THIS WORLD by David Joy (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by MacLeod Andrews
A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can’t leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to hold them together. Connected by bonds of circumstance and duty, friendship and love, these three lives are blown apart when Aiden and Thad witness the accidental death of their drug dealer and a riot of dope and cash drops in their laps. On a meth-fueled journey to nowhere, they will either find the grit to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
AMERICAN STREET by Ibi Zoboi (Fiction)
Audiobook available narrated by Robin Miles
On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie --- a good life. But after they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabiola’s mother is detained by U.S. immigration, leaving Fabiola to navigate her loud American cousins, Chantal, Donna and Princess; the grittiness of Detroit’s west side; a new school; and a surprising romance, all on her own. Just as she finds her footing in this strange new world, a dangerous proposition presents itself and Fabiola soon realizes that freedom comes at a cost. Reviewed by Zoe I., Teen Board Member.
KING'S CAGE by Victoria Aveyard (Fantasy)
Audiobook available narrated by Amanda Dolan, Adenrele Ojo and Erin Spencer
Mare Barrow is a prisoner, powerless without her lightning, tormented by her lethal mistakes. She lives at the mercy of a boy she once loved, a boy made of lies and betrayal. Now a king, Maven Calore continues weaving his dead mother's web in an attempt to maintain control over his country --- and his prisoner. As Mare bears the weight of Silent Stone in the palace, her once-ragtag band of newbloods and Reds continue organizing, training, and expanding. They prepare for war, no longer able to linger in the shadows. Reviewed by Caitlyn K., Teen Board Member.
THE VALIANT by Lesley Livingston (Fantasy)
Audiobook available narrated by Fiona Hardingham
Fallon is the daughter of a proud Celtic king and the younger sister of the legendary fighter Sorcha. When Fallon was just a child, Sorcha was killed by the armies of Julius Caesar. On the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Fallon is excited to follow in her sister's footsteps and earn her place in her father's war band. She never gets the chance. Fallon is captured and sold to an elite training school for female gladiators --- owned by none other than Julius Caesar himself. In a cruel twist of fate, the man who destroyed Fallon’s family might be her only hope of survival. Reviewed by Kate F., Teen Board Member.
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