Stories with a strong focus on reading mouths and interpreting voices, relevant for a time when facemasks are coming off. Though this isn’t the main focus, it coats each unrelated story in a relatable primer.
Canoes by Maylis De Kerangal, (List Price: $19, Archipelago, 9781953861962, October 2024)
Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
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A high school English teacher discovers a portal to the past – specifically to September 9, 1958 – and decides that he’s going to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But here’s the thing – the past is stubborn. It’s obdurate. It doesn’t want to be changed and will fight back any effort to rewrite history. In typical King fashion, 11/22/63 is a brilliant and affecting novel full of heart and terror in near-equal parts.
11/22/63 by Stephen King, (List Price: $23.99, Scribner, 9781451627299, July 2012)
Reviewed by Colin Sneed, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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Beginning in New York City in a tangled web of post-academia adulthood, in the late-20s, early-30s haze, Masquerade follows Meadow through a life in New York City, a childhood left behind in Shanghai, a friendship with his mysterious artist friend, and an ever-increasingly odd set of coincidences of mirrors and doubles, wrapped up in an odd book of 1930s Shanghai. Past the layers of mirrors and doubles, peeling away history and memory, Masquerade is about resisting the inertia of remaining in life when and where it’s comfortable and instead (re)-writing the story as you would like to see it.
Masquerade by Mike Fu, (List Price: $17.95, Tin House Books, 9781959030843, October 2024)
Reviewed by Mikey LaFave, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee
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Gorgeous and honest and heartrending. In compassionate, clear-eyed prose, Shae falls in love, gives birth, and descends into a tunnel of opioid addiction in rural Appalachia. Maren masterfully balances hope and despair on both community and personal levels, examining how identity—especially as someone who is young and queer—is shaped by place and its people as much as by the choices we make (and the ones we don’t).
Shae by Mesha Maren, (List Price: $28, Algonquin Books, 9781643755663, May 2024)
Reviewed by MIRANDA SANCHEZ, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in , North Carolina
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“Preserving our memory….because people come back to life only in the memory of others.” The Heartbeat Library is about those we have lost but remember with grief and healing and good memories. It is a book that will never be forgotten but remembered as all readers live their lives with hopes and dreams and pain and grief and loves and sorrows. This book will touch the soul of all who turn its pages. Shuichi, a 40-year-old illustrator, returns to his hometown to ready the house of his recently deceased mother for sale. He meets Kenta, an 8-year-old boy who wanders his mother’s house like a shadow. The two help each other through difficult days of their lives. Hearing the heartbeat of his mother and deceased son, Shingo will forever impress these beats on all readers and have all thinking about happiness and memories and loss and hopes.
The Heartbeat Library by Laura Imai Messina, (List Price: $27, The Overlook Press, 9781419772498, October 2024)
Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia
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Are you on the H. G. Parry train? If not, get on! Her books are amazing! To read one of her books is a gift to yourself as you fall into her wonderfully crafted places and worlds where humans, fairies, and magical creatures and objects overlap and collide. In The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, Clover enters a school of magic, hoping to learn enough magic to heal her brother, who was cursed on a WWI battlefield when a fairie door was opened, and the fairie that came through killed and cursed hundreds of men. Afterwards, the magical community destroyed all the fairie doors. Clover feels out of place at the school until she joins a group of friends led by wealthy student Alden. Her friends change her life and she loves the school. But there’s more than one secret in this group and at the school, and one of them could destroy the world. Because it’s possible that not every fairie door was destroyed.
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H. G. Parry, (List Price: $19.99, Redhook, 9780316383905, October 2024)
Reviewed by Mary Patterson, The Little Bookshop in Midlothian, Virginia
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The first book in Solvej Balle’s brilliant (and forthcoming in English) septology On the Calculation of Volume is, in a word, stunning. Following the day-to-day minutia of a woman continually reliving the 18th of November, Balle finds the beauty and torment in repetition and recursion and revision. In all honesty, nothing actually happens in this book. But that doesn’t matter. Balle’s writing turns the reader into a balloon hitting a powerline—bright, weightless, fluorescent until the shock comes. An absolutely stunning piece of fiction.
On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) by Solvej Balle, (List Price: $15.95, New Directions, 9780811237253, November 2024)
Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia
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Well damn, I going to be thinking about it for awhile. Blood Over Bright Haven is the perfect story for the person who wants to rage at the system of oppression against women and also the way in which religion and history are often used to tell a story that continues to make a person or people group be regarded as less than. Just add a technical magic system called “siphoning” and a group of mages who use their skills to learn where to siphon magic in order to power their city. Sciona is fueled by her desire to be the first woman accepted into this society of mages. She cares about nothing and no one else other than her work and her ability to be the best and make a name for herself when the majority believe as a woman, her delicate disposition will be her downfall. Nothing could be further from the truth because truth and magic are her focus, and nothing will stop her from seeking it. But what if the truth reveals something that completely changes the lens and paradigm of how you view the world? What then? Perfect for fall, perfect for the reader who wants to RAGE at the impacts of colonialism, racism, sexism.
Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang, (List Price: $29.99, Del Rey, 9780593873359, November 2024)
Reviewed by Morgan DePerno, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
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Pony Confidential galloped straight into my heart from page one. This cozy mystery is narrated by an ornery pony trying to clear the name of his beloved former owner Penny. It features rats, cats, birds, and dogs aiding our hero in his redemptive quest, and – oh, did I mention – this is based on The Odyssey? Easter eggs galore for the clever classicist. If you enjoyed playing spot-the-character in Demon Copperhead, just wait until you meet Circe the goat. Perfect for lovers of Remarkably Bright Creatures and Lessons in Chemistry.
Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch, (List Price: $28, Berkley, 9780593640364, November 2024)
Reviewed by Maggie Robe, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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Melanie Cheng’s novel The Burrow is a compact, moving story of a family tragedy. Beautifully written words show all believable family members as they deal with the death of the infant Ruby in a tragic accident. Each member of the family becomes intimately known to the reader as each relates their private feelings about each other and the trauma and grief. Relief is brought by the rabbit, Fiver, as Grandma Pauline and ten-year-old daughter Lucie bond with the new pet. The father Jin and mother Amy show their weaknesses, guilt, and imperfections in this realistic telling of a family’s pain and love, and hope.
The Burrow by Melanie Cheng, (List Price: $16.95, Tin House Books, 9781959030867, November 2024)
Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia
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Fascinating and gripping! I didn’t think I would like it, but I absolutely LOVE it. Taylor Brown is and has been a favorite of mine, and I was excited to see a new one from him. I was amazed at all the information he provides in this novel. Well-researched and totally enveloping!
Rednecks by Taylor Brown, (List Price: $29, St. Martin’s Press, 9781250329332, May 2024)
Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina
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With each book he writes, I always think Taylor Brown just keeps getting better and better at his craft. Rednecks is no exception, beautifully written (I reread the prologue twice it was that good) and exquisitely researched. Taylor treats the plight of the miners of West Virginia with an expert hand, educating us about a little-known piece of our country’s history. Taylor is truly one of the best modern American writers, imbuing his work with humanity and heart.
Rednecks by Taylor Brown, (List Price: $29, St. Martin’s Press, 9781250329332, May 2024)
Reviewed by Melissa Taylor, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia
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Wholly original, perfect for fans of Convenience Store Woman. A lonely young woman who has isolated herself from her family, friends, and colleagues turns to the one (semi)reliable relationship left in her life: her office printer. She dusts it lovingly, protects it from leaks, troubleshoots its needs. Is she delusional? Is it a fairy tale? Does that even matter? I came for the love story and stayed to see if she gets her HEA…and I’m not saying anything else because you should obviously read it if you’ve stayed with me this far. No spoilers.
Hard Copy by Fien Veldman, (List Price: $28.99, Apollo, 9781035906444, September 2024)
Reviewed by Maggie Robe, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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The Night We Lost Him is such a good read! I didn’t want to put it down, but felt none of the anxiety or nail-biting tension that can often come with thrillers. It’s atmospheric, insightful, and reflective – all while giving us an emotional mystery. While the book does focus on a kind of maybe murder mystery, it’s also very much about who we are versus who we want to be, both publicly and privately. It’s about the choices we make again and again and how we can change those choices and our path in life. It’s a love story but also a story about grief. Laura Dave’s writing is lovely; the characters are wonderfully three-dimensional, and I loved the architectural bits as well. Highly recommend!
The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave, (List Price: $28.99, S&S / Marysue Rucci Books, 9781668002933, September 2024)
Reviewed by Emily Lessig, The Violet Fox Bookshop in Virginia Beach, Virginia
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Unsurprisingly, when I look back at my childhood the books that dominated are the Narnia books. It just was a world in which I felt completely at home. I think it wasn’t that I realized fantasy literature did something different perhaps from other literature I just felt more at home in Narnia and in other similar books perhaps historical books in some way that wasn’t the modern world. It just it made more sense to me. Then in in my teenage years I read Ursula LeGuin’s EarthSea series despite that being in in many ways a sort of archetypal fantasy with Wizards and Dragons it was it was so real and it gave me something which I was missing in my actual life…books like EarthSea sort of made a place for my emotion and made a place for my dreams and my intellect. I was at home there. I look to the to not so much to the architecture but to the landscape of some of those islands that make up EarthSea. I know that place. I feel I have walked there um I know it better than I know most places in the real world.
I feel that fantasy literature ― good fantasy literature ― gives meaning to the reader, the reader finds a world which is meaningful when so much of the world that we actually live in we feel, probably wrongly, but we feel is meaningless.
–Susanna Clarke, in conversation with Alan Moore, British Library
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About Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke is the author of Piranesi, which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Hugo Award–winning Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories. She lives in England.
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