FICTION
Released: Sept. 1, 2012
"Although occasionally almost too self-consciously witty, this is a rollicking good read."
FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Smith takes big risks here, but some might need to read this twice before all the pieces fit together, and more conventionally minded readers might abandon it in frustration."
A wildly ambitious jigsaw puzzle of a novel, one that shuffles pieces of chronology, identity, ethnicity and tone, undermining cohesion and narrative momentum as it attempts to encompass a London neighborhood that is both fixed and fluid.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Grace and empathy infuse this melancholy landscape of complex loyalties enfolded by brutal history, creating a novel of peculiar, mysterious, tragic beauty."
The unexpected relationship between a war-scarred woman and an exiled gardener leads to a journey through remorse to a kind of peace.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"An exciting and quirky mystery that seamlessly shifts between past and present, offering a number of finely delineated characters and a strong sense of life on the reservation and the beauties of a hostile land."
FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"An agonizing moral nightmare interspersed with flashbacks to happier times whose import becomes clear only in the final chapter."
This first novel from storyteller Kardos (
One Last Good Time, 2010) leads three ordinary guys into a dark wood and turns the screws on them.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Darkly lush, filled with an irresistibly sad glamour, this is a memorable debut. "
FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Stern weaves an intricate and clever web of stories steeped in both sacred and mundane Jewish culture."
"Mischief" is indeed the operative term here, for Stern's characters are subtle, slyly humorous and at times poignant.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"This is a dense narrative, permeated by the sights, sounds and smells of Renaissance Italy, and one that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose, with which it is sure to be compared."
In this epic novel, Ennis gives ample evidence that political and religious corruption in early-16th-century Italy makes anything vaguely analogous look like Sunnybrook Farm.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"Not as ambitious as Díaz's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), but sharply observed and morally challenging."
From the author of
Drown (1996), more tales of Dominican life in the cold, unwelcoming United States.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"Transcendent contemporary American literary fiction, a rich and passionate story rewarding enough to be read again."
Afghanistan's brutal war and Hurricane Katrina's ominous shadow haunt Johnson's powerful literary debut.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"In this latest attempt to show Reacher enjoying every possible variety of conflict with his nation's government short of outright secession, Child (The Affair, 2011, etc.) has produced two-thirds of a masterpiece."
Will Jack Reacher ever make it to that woman in Virginia he was trying to reach in
Worth Dying For (2010)? Not if all hell continues to break loose in Nebraska.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"A great cure for the blues, especially for anyone who might feel bad about growing older."
FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"The evocation of "Useless, by James Joyce" attests to the humor and ambition of the novel, as if this were a Joyce-an remix with a hipper rhythm track."
An end-of-an-era epic celebrating the bygone glories of vinyl records, comic-book heroes and blaxploitation flicks in a world gone digital.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 12, 2012
"Straight (who is white but eschews the self-congratulating, cliché-laden condescension of books like The Help) employs glorious language and a riveting eye for detail to create a fully realized, totally believable world."
Set several years before the events of Straight's
Take One Candle Light a Room (2010), the third installment of her trilogy concerns the reactions and memories that a prostitute's death stirs up in the tightknit black community in Rio Seco, Calif.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 15, 2012
"An absorbing update of the classic film, D.O.A., that finds its author so completely in the zone that not a word is wasted, and the story seems to unfold itself without human assistance."
Nothing in Knopf's reflective, quietly loopy Hamptons mysteries starring Sam Acquillo and Jackie Swaitkowski (
Ice Cap, 2012, etc.) will have prepared his fans for this taut, streamlined tale of a man investigating his own murder.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"A hauntingly affecting historical novel with a touch of magic."
Award-winning poet Nicholas (
Iron Rose, 2010, etc.) treks into the wilds of medieval England in his first novel, a saga vibrant with artful description.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"What may seem to some like paradise offers no happy endings in this fine novel."
The prolific author's latest is historical, not only in period and subject matter, but in tone and ponderous theme.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"An entertaining historical soap opera."
Follett continues the trilogy begun with
Fall of Giants (2010) with a novel that ranges across continents and family trees.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"A respectful, exciting and disarming update of one of the last century's most oft-told tales."
The old "Me Tarzan, You Jane" dynamic established in Johnny Weismuller movies gets a radical update by shining the spotlight on adventuress Jane Porter.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"Readers of Genova's latest excellent offering might very well find the same happening to them."
A story about unconditional love, loss and renewal by bestselling author Genova (Left Neglected, 2011, etc.).
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"Prepare for a verbal feast that will thoroughly entertain and satisfy, yet leave you hungering for more."
Boyagoda's (
Governor of the Northern Province, 2006) historical tale about a man who strives to avenge his past is a savory delight.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"Beard's take on Lazarus is nothing less than astonishing--and he respects the reader by taking religion and religious questions seriously. "
In this alternative theological novel Jesus does more than weep...and Lazarus does more than die.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"The promising first installment in a new series, this book is so good it has you wondering who should play Fiona on the big screen. How about Keira Knightley?"
Introducing Fiona "Fi" Griffiths, a young Welsh police detective with a difference. She's in recovery from a rare dissociative condition that, at its worse, makes her feel as dead as the prostitutes whose murders she is investigating.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"A gripping read with moral ambiguity galore."
Violence and debauchery in the Moroccan desert lead to cultural misunderstandings...and to more violence and debauchery.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"A captivating and absorbing read."
A "non-fiction novel" that takes us far beyond Willie Sutton's clever one-liners about banks and deeply into his life.
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