This Canadian debut won Deni Y. Bechard the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for best first novel when it was published there in 2007. This year it finally makes its way to the United States, thanks to Milkweed Editions. An extensive author interview is available online from The Adirondack Review, and you can give the novel a try [...]
”I wanted to write a black existentialist novel, told in separate parts, that replicated some feelings I have had about being alive.” (from an interview on The Root) Zadie Smith is best known for her debut, White Teeth; NW is set in the same London neighborhood. NW refers to the area’s postal code, where its main [...]
Heather Gudenkauf‘s latest novel of suspense, about a nearly unspeakable subject, grabs the reader from page one. This is Gudenkauf’s third novel, after The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden, both very successful. She has a fun article, “The Rules for Suspense Writing,” up on Publishers Weekly. GUDENKAUF, Heather. One Breath Away. 370p. Harlequin. 2012. [...]
British author Morgan McCarthy’s debut novel centers on two children, a brother and sister living in an ancient Welsh country mansion, isolated, neglected by their mother and wondering at the mystery of what happened to their father. As they grow up, they confront generations of family secrets. Chapter one is available on Barnes & Noble. * [...]
Hanna Pylväinen’s debut novel is about a family that belongs to the (very conservative) Laestadian Lutheran church. In a Publishers Weekly interview given at BookExpo in early June, Hanna made it clear that her book is not part of “a national conversation around fundamentalism that skews to sensationalism. It’s too easy to forget these are [...]
Ivan Doig’s new novel graces AB4T as the starred review of the week. Recently, I wrote about the number of western novels with teen appeal, and mentioned Doig’s The Whistling Season, a 2007 Alex Award winner. The Bartender’s Tale returns to the rural setting of that novel — Two Medicine Country, Montana — where once [...]
The marketing tag line for Jennifer Echols’ new novel is “A sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.” There are quite a few teenage girls who will fall for that one! I am going to throw up my hands and admit that I’m not sure whether this should be [...]
This week’s starred review is a powerful debut novel about the war in Iraq. Check out Kevin Powers’ website for lists of the honors and praise The Yellow Birds has already received, even though it releases tomorrow. The author himself joined the army in 1997 at age 17, and he writes with firsthand knowledge about young [...]
This week’s starred review, Anna Keesey‘s debut, incorporates the traditional elements of the classic western or frontier novel. This is a genre that has been well-represented in adult books with teen appeal — I’m thinking of Alex Award-winning novels such as Ivan Doig’s The Whistling Season and Thomas Maltman’s The Night Birds. Last year’s The Little [...]
Vaddey Ratner’s debut novel is being widely hailed as a new classic, likened to Loung Ung’s memoir, First They Killed My Father and another excellent debut from earlier this year, Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron. It seems likely to end up on summer reading lists and classroom syllabi. Accordingly, Simon & Schuster has provided a [...]
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