Picnic at Random

If you’ve never been to a preview before: it’s a chance for the editors to tell people about upcoming, exciting titles. Editors give quick descriptions and show cover art — not quite a booktalk, but almost. Publishers are also often generous enough to pass on ARCs of some of the titles they talk about.

Karyn and I were lucky enough to see the Random House preview. They’ve got a lot of great stuff coming out this spring. When any of us are able to make it to a preview, we promise to summarize what we hear about with an eye to the Printz.

Titles we think are worth tracking down:

Scarlett Dedd (Cathy Brett): This sounds potentially hilarious (“she kills not just herself but also her family. What? These things happen!”), and I’m interested to see how it treats such a dark subject with humor. I have to confess, I’m a sucker for a good cover, and this is a great one.

Sisters of Glass (Stephanie Hemphill): We noted this in the last post; it’s coming out next month. Set in Venice, told in poetry, it sounds like it will be a beautiful and delicate reading experience — much like blown glass.

Dust Girl (Sarah Zettel): We’ve got a mix of history and fantasy/SF, all linked together by folk songs. That, obviously, is how we roll in the Dust Bowl.

Seraphina (Rachel Hartman): This got a blurb comparing Hartman to Robin McKinley. What more do you want to know? Courtly politics, intrigue, dragon-human relations. Plus, Karyn’s already tracked it down!

The Unbearable Bookclub for Unsinkable Girls (Julie Schumacher): Membership in a book club leads to…murder? We have been assured that there’s snark and drama galore in this story of a disastrous mother-daughter book discussion group.

Happy Families (Tanita S Davis):  This is the story of Ysabel and Justin, twins who learn that their father is transgendered. Between you and me? This is the book that I walked out of there the most excited to read.

Intentions (Deborah Heiligman):  First fiction from Heiligman. Described as a “juicy page turner”.

Other titles that may or may not be Printz-ly: Wonder (R.J. Palacio) sounds fantastic, but quite young. It’s definitely one of their big titles of the year and I’ve also heard a lot of great things about it. Candace Fleming’s On the Day I Died is a book of interconnecting short stories told by the inhabitants of a Chicago graveyard but also seems to skew younger. OK, I”ll admit it; I really like that cover, too!. And I’m totally looking forward to Jersey Angel (Beth Ann Bauman), which I’ve heard is red-hot.

So which of these tickles your fancy? Have you already gotten your hands on any of them? Tell tell!

Filed under: Books to look for, Fiction