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Fabulous Fiction First #597
by muffy
If you are in the mood for a "funny, tender, and enchanting story about love, attraction, and friendship", then I suggest trying The Decent Proposal * - a high-concept rom-com set in LA.
First-time novelist Kemper Donovan "takes what might have been a derivative tale (think Indecent Proposal) and colors it with poignancy and self-discovery", where two strangers would split $1 million if they agree to spend 2 hours every week in each other's company for one year.
At 29, Richard Baumbach is delirious with the prospect of financial bail-out, being a struggling Hollywood film producer; while 33 year-old attorney Elizabeth Santiago is skeptical at best. Known as “La Máquina” (The Machine) around the office for her no-nonsense attitude and work ethics, she values above all else, her quiet, orderly life. Besides, she has nothing in common with this ridiculously handsome party-boy. Nevertheless, they agree to the proposal, settling on a movie and book discussion format for their weekly meetings.
As Richard and Elizabeth begin to look forward to their conversations, those closest to them have mixed feelings about this tentative relationship. Gorgeous Mike (Michaela) Kim, Richard ex-girlfriend/best buddy has unresolved feelings for Richard, and sees "dumpy" Elizabeth as a threat. Orpheus Washington, an elderly homeless man whom Elizabeth has befriended, fears the loss of her attention. Independently, they take it upon themselves to uncover the identity and motive of the mysterious benefactor.
"Peopled by appealing characters and filled with lush descriptions of the diverse L.A. landscape, Donovan’s winning first novel offers up a page-turning tale brimming with heart." Readers who delight in Donovan's LA setting might enjoy What I Did For Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips; Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid; and This One is Mine by Maria Semple.
* = starred review
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction First #596 “The(y)... hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.” ~ Sarah Addison Allen
by muffy
In Keep Me Posted by Lisa Beazley, her debut novel, sisters Cassie and Sid Sunday living worlds apart meet over Christmas at their family home. Cassie, a young mother of twin toddlers is struggling to find meaning and fulfillment in Manhattan while Sid, lives an ex-pat’s life of leisure in far-off Singapore with a teenage son and a new infant, is dealing with marital issues. The sisters vow to better reconnect through the old-fashioned way - by letter writing, and soon they are sharing secrets and offering the emotional support they need.
That is... until Cassie's lapse in judgment (in scanning Sid's letters and uploading them to a private blog) sends all their most guarded secrets to the one place you never, ever want to see them: the Internet!
"In her satisfying debut in the field of women’s fiction, Beazley creates some real moments of concern for Cassie and her relationships with her loved ones. Offer this to fans of Anna Maxted, Sophie Kinsella, and Meg Cabot."
As Close to Us As Breathing * by Elizabeth Poliner is a multi-generational family saga about grief, guilt, and the boundaries of identity and love.
Woodmont (CT), 1948. For the three Syrkin sisters - Ada, Vivie, and Bec, and their children, freedom reigns at the family beach house until the Sabbath meal when the weekend-only husbands arrive. Ada, the family beauty, grows playful when unimpeded by her rule-driven, religious husband. Vivie, the family diplomat is becoming a skilled chef, while the unmarried Bec is forced to keep secret her long-time affair with a married man among those closest to her.
But when a terrible accident occurs on the sisters' watch, the carefree days come to an end. The family is paralyzed by blame and guilt. As the years go by, each member of the family faces his own measure of grief and regret, and none is left untouched by the far-reaching heartbreak of such a devastating loss.
"Beautifully written, stringently unsentimental, and yet tender in its empathy for the perennial human conflict between service and self." Will appeal to fans of Allegra Goodman, Jami Attenberg, and Liza Klaussmann.
* = starred review
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Fabulous Fiction First #595 “Because the greatest part of a road trip isn’t arriving at your destination. It’s all the wild stuff that happens along the way.” ~ Emma Chase
by muffy
Picked as one of the top 10 crime novels of the year by Booklist, Dodgers * * a debut by Bill Beverly (a Kalamazoo native) is "a dazzling crime novel that’s equal parts coming-of-age tale à la Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and travelogue à la Kerouac, that is sure to appeal to fans of Richard Price or The Wire."
15 year-old East(on) runs a crew of look-outs for a drug gang in LA. He is quiet, watchful and respected until an innocent by-stander is killed in a police raid. In the aftermath, he is sent, with three other young men (one of them his younger brother Ty), to kill a witness set to testify against the big boss.
Dressed in LA Dodgers' gear to better fit in with the surroundings, they head to Wisconsin where the witness is hiding. The journey takes East out of a city he has never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, while calling on his cool resolve to handle problems and personalities both inside and outside the van. Eventually, this bloody journey becomes one of self-discovery and, ultimately, salvation for East.
"...a searing novel about crime, race, and coming-of-age, with characters who live, breathe, and bleed" that is surprisingly, utterly engaging. Check out the New York Times book review.
Daredevils * * by Shawn Vestal, the winner of 2014’s PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize is an unforgettable story of desire and escape.
Set against the backdrop of Evel Knievel's famous Snake River Canyon Jump, 15 year-old Loretta, brought up in a strict Mormon household in Short Creek (AZ), is caught on one of her nocturnal trips slipping out of her bedroom window for boys and booze. Promptly married off as a "sister wife" to Dean Harder, a feed-store owner, she catches the eye of Jason, Dean’s 17 year-old nephew, a Knievel-worshiper, who longs to leave his close-minded community.
Together, they make a break for it, with Boyd, Jason's friend tagging along. Dizzy from a burst of teenage freedom, things take a decidedly dicey turn when they meet someone that might be the Daredevil himself. But greed - Loretta's for Dean's cache of “Mormon gold” might prove to be their ultimate undoing.
"(A) fascinating, wide-angle portrait of a time and place that’s both a classic coming of age tale and a plunge into the myths of America, sacred and profane."
"Vestal's narrative is punctuated with imagined monologs from Knievel, raucous addresses that at first seem random but come by the thrilling conclusion to enrich the scope of this heartfelt and finely observed debut." For those who enjoyed The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff and The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall.
* * = 2 starred reviews
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Fabulous Fiction First #594 “The true cost of war can't be measured in dollars, infrastructure, or body counts. It is tomorrows, wrung out of hope by yesterdays that refuse to retreat, vanish into the smoke of memory.” ~ Ellen Hopkins
by muffy
The Translation of Love * * * by Lynne Kutsukake is a story of loyalty and identity, family and friendship, love and loss set in American occupied Japan at the end of World War II.
Bitter over their internment at a Canadian internment camp, 13 year-old Aya Shimamura and her widowed father chose to allow the government to "deport" them to Japan once they learned that they would be barred from returning home to Vancouver. They were however, ill-prepared for what awaited them in war-devastated Tokyo.
While her father struggles to find work, Aya, the "repat girl" is bullied at school for being foreign and unable to speak Japanese. Her chief tormentor, a willful girl named Fumi Tanaka relents once she realizes Aya, being fluent in English, could be enlisted to help find her missing older sister Sumiko by writing to General MacArthur. It doesn’t take long before the two develop a tenuous friendship.
Aya's letter lands in the reluctant hands of Corporal Matt Matsumoto, a Japanese American whose job is to translate the thousands of letters the General receives each week. Meanwhile, the girls' English teacher Mr. Kondo moonlights in "Love Letter Alley" where he writes and translates letters between the Ginza bar girls and their GI boyfriends. After fruitlessly waiting for results for some weeks, Fumi and Aya decide to take matters into their own hands, venturing into the dark and dangerous underside of Tokyo’s Ginza district, where the interlocking storylines and the search of Sumiko converge.
"The Translation of Love mines this turbulent period to show how war irrevocably shapes the lives of people on both sides—and yet the novel also allows for a poignant spark of resilience, friendship, and love that translates across cultures and borders to stunning effect." An excellent choice for readers who loved Jamie Ford's The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, and When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka.
Meticulously researched, Lilac Girls * by Martha Hall Kelly is based on the true story of three women affected by the horrors of Ravensbruck, Hitler's all-female concentration camp.
Manhattan, 1939. Caroline Ferriday, a former debutante and a Broadway actress volunteers at the French consulate in New York, assisting refugees, raising funds while, against her better judgment, getting involved with Paul, a charming (and married) French actor. Across the Atlantic, as Hitler invades her hometown of Lublin, Kasia Kuzmerick (loosely based on Nina Iwanska), a Catholic teenager joins the resistance until she is captured and sent to Ravensbruck. There, she encounters Herta Oberheuser, a Nazi doctor assigned to help execute inmates and perform medical experiments on prisoners, including Kasia. These women, many permanently maimed become known as the “Rabbits.”
Caroline, tasked with keeping track of the concentration camp network for the consulate, learns about the "Rabbits" and travels to Europe after the war to strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.
"(Kelly) vividly evokes not only the horrors of the gruesome experiments but also the painful realities of trying to survive them and the difficult search for justice and closure afterward." Will appeal strongly to historical fiction readers who enjoyed Kristin Hannah The Nightingale and Anthony Doerr's All the Lights We Cannot See.
* * * = 3 starred reviews
* = starred review
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction First #593 “Death never comes at the right time, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.” ~ Christopher Pike
by muffy
The A to Z of You and Me by debut author James Hannah will quickly bring to mind Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. Ah, a tearjerker to be sure, but surprisingly beautiful and unflinchingly honest about the "raw unraveling of a life lived loud and hard."
Ivo, a 40 year-old diabetic with kidney failure, plans to spend his last days in hospice care quietly, and on his own terms. Having withdrawn from friends, and estranged from his sister Laura, lethargy takes over, if not for Sheila, his spunky and take-no-prisoners nurse.
At her urging, he plays the A to Z game - listing parts of his body from A to Z, and a memory associated with each: the terrible choices of his youth, friendships made and cracked, especially those of Mia, the love of his life.
For readers who enjoyed Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and its follow-up The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy.
Just-released is Charles Bock's Alice & Oliver * *, drawn from this award-winning author's (Beautiful Children, 2008) own experience. Listen to his interview with Terry Gross on NPR, where he talked about the devastating period in his life that eventually inspired this heart-breaking, page-turning, life-affirming novel about love, marriage, family, and fighting for your life.
* * = 2 starred reviews
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction First #592
by muffy
Spill Simmer Falter Wither * * by Sara Baume, the winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature; short-listed for the Costa First Novel Award; and also a March 2016 Indie Next Pick, is praised as "unbearably poignant and beautifully told... (a) captivating story follows, over the course of four seasons (echoed in the title), a misfit man who adopts a misfit dog."
57 year-old Ray lives alone at the edge of the Irish sea. Once a week on Tuesdays, he goes into the village for supplies, and it is on one of these trips in the spring that he saw a notice about a dog up for adoption. With a back story equally heartbreaking, Ray and One-Eye (injured severely while badger baiting), forge an unlikely connection.
With each other as company, they venture out and explore their surroundings, and their small, seaside town suddenly takes note of them. A mishap on the beach brings the dog warden to their door. Desperately and ill-prepared, the pair takes to the road as autumn turns into winter.
"Fans of Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain (2008) will adore this glimpse inside a very unusual relationship between two very unusual creatures."
Suggested read-alikes: Mirian Toews' All My Puny Sorrows - "rich with deep human feeling and compassion..., (where) observations are knife-sharp"; and All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld, the story of an isolated life in all its struggles and stubborn hopes, unexpected beauty, and hard-won redemption.
* * = 2 starred reviews
Blog Post
New Adult Fiction: The Ramblers
by eapearce
There are times in our lives to travel a straight line. And then there are times to ramble, to explore what might be as we accept what is.
The Ramblers, the brand new novel by Aidan Rowley, is being hailed as “exquisite.” Taking place over one fateful week during Thanksgiving, the book follows three friends whose lives change profoundly in this short period. Clio Marsh had a difficult childhood, and uses her hobby of quiet birdwatching in Central Park to escape. After years of avoiding her memories, she is only now beginning to take the first tentative steps out of her shell. Smith Anderson, the privileged daughter of a wealthy New York family, makes her living organizing the lives of others, despite the fact that her life is in shambles after a broken engagement and the anxiety caused by her sister’s society wedding. Tate Pennington has returned to New York City after working in the West Coast tech world, licking his wounds after an imploded marriage and determined to pursue his artistic dreams.
As the trio’s lives intersect and they sort through their daily trials and tribulations, they learn the valuable lesson of letting go of the past to make room for the future. Reads the book jacket: “Part love letter to New York City, part tour through the wilderness of the human heart and mind, [The Ramblers] asks, ‘Maybe that is the point after all? To be lost?’”
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #591 Spotlight on Women's Fiction
by muffy
Paris is Always a Good Idea is the first novel in our collection by Parisian Nicolas Barreau that one reviewer called "(e)ndlessly charming... (with) a delightful, sparkling yet still relatable heroine".
33 year-old artist Rosalie Laurent is the proud owner of Luna Luna, a charming little post-card shop in St. Germain where she produces one-of-a-kind "wishing cards" that delight her clientele. Then one day, an elderly gentleman trips up in her shop and knocks over a post-card stand. More embarrassed than hurt, he turns out to be the world-renown children's author Max Marchais, there to offer Rosalie the opportunity to illustrate his new book, first in decades.
Just when all of Rosalie's wishes seem to be coming true at last, a clumsy American professor Robert Sherman stumbles into her store with accusations of Max's plagiarism. A search for the truth leads Robert and Rosalie down a path that will bind them together, affirming that Paris is always a good idea when one is looking for the truth and finding love.
An Indie Next Read, The Charm Bracelet is the debut novel by Wade Rouse who adopted his grandmother's name Viola Shipman as a pen name to honor the woman whose charm bracelet and family stories inspired the novel.
On her birthday each year, Lolly’s mother gave her a charm, along with the advice that there is nothing more important than keeping family memories alive. Now seventy and experiencing memory issues, Lolly knows there is little time left to reconnect with daughter Arden, and granddaughter Lauren distanced by the demands of busy lives.
For Memorial Day weekend, Arden and Lauren travel from Chicago to make a long-overdue visit home to Scoops, MI, a small resort town where growing up, Arden has always been embarrassed by her mother's eccentric behavior and unconventional dress. Over the course of the summer (they have decided to stay and help Lolly sort out her situation), Lolly shares the stories which the charms on her heirloom bracelet represent, and the women begin to reconnect and discover more about themselves and one another.
"Shipman's charming story of finding peace in oneself, listening to your heart, and remembering all those who came before you will be welcomed by fans of Cecelia Ahern and Debbie Macomber. "
Dear Emma is Katie Heaney's debut novel where Harriet, as "Dear Emma", is great at dispensing wisdom for the lovelorn and lonely on her college newspaper's student advice column while she can't seem to take her own advice. She is obsessed with Keith who blows her off after one date but when she discovers that he has started seeing her beautiful and intimidating coworker Remy, she is devastated. Then Remy writes to "Dear Emma" asking for romantic advice. Harriet rejoices in the perfect opportunity to take revenge on the person who broke her heart.
But as Harriet begrudgingly begins to befriend Remy, she is forced to re-evaluate the way she views guys, friendship, and the integrity of her column.
Blog Post
For Gillian Flynn fans: Just Fall
by eapearce
A brand new psychological thriller has hit the shelves here at AADL: Just Fall, by Nina Sadowsky. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn and Patricia Highsmith, Just Fall explores the question: when you find out that the love of your life is a killer, can you continue to love them anyway?
Ellie and Rob are a golden couple: they both have fantastic jobs, live in a gorgeous apartment, and are madly in love. As their wedding approaches, Ellie is sure that it will be the happiest day of her life. And why shouldn’t it be? But just moments after saying “I do,” Ellie learns that Rob has as terrible secret and has been hiding a dark past. The more Ellie finds out, the deeper she is swept into a vortex of betrayal and danger.
On their honeymoon, Ellie isn’t basking in the Caribbean sunlight, as she’s become the only thing standing in between Rob and his potentially lethal destiny. How far is she willing to go to save the man she loves? As the book jacket puts it, “This sexy, seductive debut novel—balanced on the razor’s edge of moral ambiguity—breathlessly confronts the devastating consequences unleashed when love and murder collide, and devotion lies down with darkness.”
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #590
by muffy
Marriage Material * *, is a richly layered debut novel about an immigrant family, by award-winning writer for The Times (London)
Sathnam Sanghera whose memoir, The Boy with the Topknot, was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Biography Award and the 2009 PEN/Ackerley Prize.
When his father suffers a fatal heart attack, 27 year-old London graphic designer Arjan Banga returns home to Wolverhampton, and reluctantly becomes the new proprietor of the family convenience store. Instantly, he is sucked back into the world he thinks he had escaped, working 15-hour days.
The past and present intersect when Arjan meets his aunt Surinder, the black-sheep of the family who, despite the family's sacrifice to allow her an education, ran away with the candy salesman. Grimly reevaluating his life, Arjan gains a grudging appreciation for his parents' generation who struggled with assimilation and racism, and labored under familial and cultural expectations while yearning for personal freedom. For the first time, Arjan considers realistically what his life would be like with Freya, his English fiancée.
"Smart, feeling, and funny Arjan observes his mother, aunt, and friends with gracious care, while sharing the sometimes subtle, oftentimes not, profundities of his life as a young British man so obviously shaped by, and indebted to, his Sikh immigrant parents. Sanghera reaches hearts and minds with an unforgettably companionable narrator."
Readers who enjoy Zadie Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri and Arudhati Roy will have a new talent to watch.
* * = 2 starred reviews