FICTION
Released: May 15, 2012
"Immediate, poignant and rarely predictable, this searchingly observant work captures a huge terrain of personal aspiration against a shifting historical and social background. Impressive. "
The architecture of a family, constructed over decades, through relationships, wars and secrets, is assembled with fine detail and insight in an exceptional 20th-century saga.
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FICTION
Released: May 22, 2012
"The inventiveness of Mantel's language is the chief draw here; the plot, as such, will engage only the most determined of Tudor enthusiasts."
FICTION
Released: May 22, 2012
"As in Mulligan's hard-nosed debut, the real star here is Providence, which the author knows intimately."
Fresh from the Most Corrupt State competition comes a second persuasive entry that links pretty much every citizen of Providence to a child-snuff-porn ring.
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FICTION
Released: May 22, 2012
"At the start of the novel's coda, when Dell explains that he teaches his students "books that to me seem secretly about my young life," he begins the list with The Heart of Darkness and The Great Gatsby. Such comparisons seem well-earned."
FICTION
Released: May 29, 2012
"With dialogue that can go off like gunfire and a streak of nostalgia that feels timeless, this book takes its place among espionage novels as an instant classic."
In 1945 Istanbul, Allied veteran Leon Bauer is running spy missions under the cover of a U.S. tobacco-importing business.
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FICTION
Released: June 1, 2012
"Independently intelligible but best appreciated after volume one--and with a huge surprise twist in the last sentence. "
Part two of the topnotch space opera begun with
Leviathan Wakes (2011), from Corey (aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck).
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FICTION
Released: June 5, 2012
"One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are chilling."
A perfect wife's disappearance plunges her husband into a nightmare as it rips open ugly secrets about his marriage and, just maybe, his culpability in her death.
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FICTION
Released: June 12, 2012
"A superb romp. "
Hollywood operators and creative washouts collide across five decades and two continents in a brilliant, madcap meditation on fate.
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FICTION
Released: June 12, 2012
"A dazzling novel of great intensity and power. "
The Celt in question is Sir Roger Casement, who advocated on behalf of oppressed natives of the Congo and of Amazonia, but when he turns his attention to the Irish Troubles in 1916, the British feel he's gone too far, so he's caught, tried and executed.
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FICTION
Released: June 19, 2012
"There is much to admire in this novel. The subtle insight on sibling rivalry and the examination of love make for a poignant debut."
Brunt's first novel elegantly pictures the New York art world of the 1980s, suburban Westchester and the isolation of AIDS.
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FICTION
Released: June 19, 2012
"A wonderfully executed debut novel, so rich as to inspire rereading, right down to its inevitable resolution, both ironic and existentialist."
In Kiefer's debut literary novel, astronaut Keith Corcoran returns from the International Space Station to a house populated by a bare mattress, random canned goods and a gray leather sofa.
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FICTION
Released: June 19, 2012
"Even so, Eggers' fiction has evolved in the past decade. This book is firm proof that social concerns can make for resonant storytelling."
FICTION
Released: June 26, 2012
"Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving."
In Walker's stunning debut, a young California girl coming-of-age in a dystopian near future confronts the inevitability of change on the most personal level as life on earth withers.
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FICTION
Released: July 3, 2012
"Readers familiar with Stross' dazzling science fiction should relish this change of pace and direction. "
Fourth in the series (
The Fuller Memorandum, 2010, etc.) about the Laundry: a weirdly alluring blend of superspy thriller, deadpan comic fantasy and Lovecraftian horror.
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FICTION
Released: July 10, 2012
"A technocratic Kafka nightmare--heavy on surreal diagnosis of the world's ills, light on the traditional rewards of storytelling--crossed with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and a hint of Buster Keaton."
A spare, dystopian fable that examines how closely contemporary life has caught up to Kafka since the publication of
The Castle.
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FICTION
Released: July 10, 2012
"An excellent debut."
A mother and daughter discover empathy, courage and autonomy in this powerful first novel by Czepiel.
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FICTION
Released: July 10, 2012
"Offers humor, heart and characters you'll cheer for. Romantic women's fiction at its best."
This highly anticipated book delivers Phillips' fans a charming, satisfying answer to the question "So what does Lucy do?"
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FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"Grim indeed, yet eloquent and utterly compelling."
Independently intelligible sequel to the dark fantasy
Bitter Seeds (2010), something like a cross between the devious, character-driven spy fiction of early John le Carré and the mad science fantasy of the X-Men.
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FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"A sweetheart of a novel, complete with a hazy ending. "
Sometimes things just don't work out, no matter how hard we wish they would. But there's irony, so we have that going for us. Right?
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FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"A gruesome, unforgettable exposition of the still too-little-known facts of the Armenian genocide and its multigenerational consequences."
The granddaughter of an Armenian and a Bostonian investigates the Armenian genocide, discovering that her grandmother took a guilty secret to her grave.
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