Case of the Mondays? Take a double dose of good deals! Today’s your last chance to get a pair of socks free when you buy a tote and get 20% off sitewide on all other items.
Beartown, Burntown, and More New Books!
Remember what I said last week about the beautiful weather? I jinxed myself. It has been cold, cloudy, and rainy here in Maine ever since. Booo. But April is coming to an end. And I have a ton of great books to read! (And who am I kidding, I don’t go outside, LOL.) I have a few great books to tell you about today, and you can hear about more wonderful books on this week’s episode of the All the Books! Rebecca and I talked about a few awesome books we loved, including Borne, Startup, and Scienceblind.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by I Found You by Lisa Jewell.
Two decades of secrets, a missing husband, and a man with no memory are at the heart of this brilliant new novel, filled with the “beautiful writing, believable characters, pacey narrative, and dark secrets” (Daily Mail, London) that make Lisa Jewell so beloved by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Jewell is a wonderful storyteller. Her characters are believable, her writing is strong and poetic, and her narrative is infused with just enough intrigue to keep the pages turning. Readers of Liane Moriarty, Paula Hawkins, and Ruth Ware will love.” —Library Journal (starred review)
Skullsworn by Brian Staveley
Whether or not you have read Staveley’s fantastic Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne trilogy, you can still enjoy the hell out of this standalone novel set in the same universe. This one involves a priestess who has ten days to kill seven people, including one she must first love, or it’s curtains for her. Action-packed and richly detailed, this is a must-read for fantasy fans!
Backlist bump: The Emperor’s Blades by Brian Staveley
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
Confession time: I still haven’t read A Man Called Ove. Or any Backman, in fact. But I enjoyed this novel about a small town trying to win a big hockey title to help bring the town back from the brink of failure. But a violent act during the semi-finals will have far-reaching consequences. It’s a beautiful, occasionally brutal, slow burn of a novel. (Be sure you’re ready to read a LOT about hockey.)
Backlist bump: We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
The Boy in the Earth by Fuminori Nakamura, Allison Markin Powell (Translator)
Who’s in the mood for some dark, fantastically written fiction? Nakamura (Last Winter We Parted, The Gun) is back with a bleak tale of a suicidal taxi driver and his alcoholic girlfriend. Using the narrator’s search into his past, The Boy in the Earth examines – and challenges – the notion that everyone is worthy of a chance at redemption. It’s thought-provoking, to say the least.
Backlist bump: The Gun by Fuminori Nakamura
Burntown by Jennifer McMahon
I am always in the mood for McMahon’s creepy New England books. (I find them comforting – is that weird?) Her latest is a tale of secrets, murder, and stolen plans set among abandoned mills and factories of a sleepy Vermont college town. The town’s misfits play a big role in the story as a killer from the past resurfaces. Read this when you’re alone late at night for maximum effect!
Backlist bump: The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon
Oola by Brittany Newell
The jacket copy had me at “the wicked love child of American Psycho and Lolita.” Oola, a music school dropout, sets out on a road trip across Europe with Leif, stopping to housesit for his parents’ friends along the way. But soon her Oola’s time with Leif turns dark and isolated, and the fun dynamic begins to shift into something sinister. Oola is a twisty story of privilege and creativity, built around the title character’s young energy and sexuality. It’s addictive and strange.
Backlist bump: Animals by Emma Jane Unsworth
YAY, BOOKS! That’s it for me today – time to get back to reading! As always, it has been a delight to share recommendations with you. And if you want to hear more about books, old and new, you can find me on Twitter at MissLiberty, on Instagram at FranzenComesAlive, or Litsy under ‘Liberty’!
Liberty
Earth Day coloring book prize pack
We have 10 Earth Day coloring book prize packs from Chronicle Books to give away to 10 Riot readers.
Celebrate Earth Day with this book bundle from Chronicle Books! Color the world with the latest book from artist Steve McDonald, Fantastic Planet; find inspiration and order in the geometric animals featured in Crystal Menagerie by Michelle Waldie; and explore the outer reaches of space with black-and-white drawings based on photographs from the archives of NASA in the Earth and Space Coloring Book! And in case you’re in need of supplies, look no further than these Space Swirl Colored Pencils, a package of ten two-tone pencils inspired by NASA’s deepspace images.
Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click on the image of the prize pack below. Good luck!
It Was a Pleasure to Burn
Dystopian novels are having a moment, and it looks like The Handmaid’s Tale is not going to be the only classic of the genre to be re-adapted for the big screen. HBO announced this week that it will produce a new feature-length version of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Michael B. Jordan will star as the fireman Guy Montag, with Michael Shannon playing his boss, Beatty. As a big fan of Bradbury, Jordan, and Shannon, I couldn’t be more excited. I only wish the subject matter didn’t feel so timely.
So Many Books, So Little Time (Literally)
A new study of 2,000 adults in the UK commissioned to mark World Book Night reveals that 67% would like to read more, but 48% “admit” (interesting word choice, there) they are too busy to read. Rather than wondering how much time these oh-so-busy folks spend on Facebook and TV, I’ll move right along to the survey’s more interesting finding: 26% of respondents say they would read more if they got recommendations from someone they know. The algorithms haven’t won it all, friends! (And perhaps we at the good ship Book Riot should step up our UK awareness efforts?)
Now for Something Completely Different
In what is hands-down the weirdest publishing-related headline in recent memory, the band Insane Clown Posse are being sued for allegedly plagiarizing a poem. And not just any poem. A poem originally published in A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul. More questions than answers to be found in this story. I don’t even know.
Bonus unexpected combo: here’s Ludacris rapping a Llama Llama book.
Until next time, happy reading.
Rebecca
Level up your reading life with Book Riot Insiders! We’ve got exclusive content and goodness for subscribers, including a new releases calendar, an Insiders-only forum, and more. Join us!
Swapna here again! This will be my last Book Radar, but fear not—I’m handing the reins over to Liberty, and I know she’ll do an excellent job keeping you all up to date on the newest releases.
All the Deal News You Can Use
Penguin Press will be publishing Hillaryland by Lissa Muscatine, who was Hillary Clinton’s chief speechwriter. She worked with the former presidential nominee, Secretary of State, Senator, and first lady for over 25 years.
Han Kang, author of The Vegetarian, will be publishing The White Book, a novel about grief and loss, with Hogarth in Fall 2017.
That forever-in-development Wheel of Time TV series, based on Robert Jordan’s hit fantasy series, finally has an update: It’s been picked up by Sony Pictures Television.
Robert Stone and Alan Andres have written a narrative history of stories about the race to the Moon, called Chasing the Moon, to be published by Ballantine. The release of the book, in 2019, will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing and a limited PBS series.
Hidden Figures author Margot Lee Shetterly will be writing two new books with Viking about extraordinary African American figures whose histories and legacies have been “hidden.”
Book Riot Recommends
We’ve got two new reviews for you today! I absolutely adored both these books—they felt fresh and new, and they’re both perfect for any reading situation from the beach to a busy commute.
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows – Balli Kaur Jaswal (June 13)
This delightful novel features Nikki, a young Londoner who pays the bills by tending bar. That might not seem out of the ordinary, but for Nikki, who is from a traditional Punjabi Sikh community, it’s seen as an act of rebellion by her mother. On an impulse, Nikki responds to an ad at the local temple for a creative writing instructor—after all, as a law school dropout, she does have some writing experience. But what she doesn’t expect is that a group of widows will become regulars in her class—and that they have other types of “creative writing” in mind. This novel is funny and warm, with a sympathetic main character in Nikki. Jaswal does an excellent job bringing Sikh values to life for the reader, showing how the traditional can exist alongside the modern, but also making sure to tell the story of a group of women mostly forgotten by society.
Cocoa Beach – Beatriz Williams (June 27)
Beatriz Williams is the queen of the historical beach read, and she’s in fine form for her latest, Cocoa Beach. Virginia Fortescue met and fell in love with her husband on the battlegrounds of World War I, and now he’s dead. He survived the war, but not his own misdeeds, and he’s paid the ultimate price for them. Estranged from her husband at the time of his death, Virginia has travelled to Cocoa Beach, Florida, to settle her husband’s estate and see if she can move on with her life. But even in death, her husband isn’t finished keeping secrets. This is a breezy, escapist read, and the twists and turns will keep readers hooked as they try to puzzle out what exactly happened between Virginia and her husband.
Insiders
If you need even more Book Riot in your life than just this newsletter, we’ve launched a new subscription program called Insiders. You can have access to exclusive content such as behind-the-scenes newsletters, a dedicated Read Harder podcast, and much more, depending on your subscription level. Check out the Insiders site for more details, price points (it starts at just $3/month!) and to sign up!
This newsletter is sponsored by Not a Sound by Heather Gudenkauf.
When a tragic accident leaves nurse Amelia Winn deaf, she spirals into a depression that ultimately causes her to lose everything that matters—her job, her husband, David, and her stepdaughter, Nora. Now, two years later and with the help of her hearing dog, Stitch, she is finally getting back on her feet. But when she discovers the body of a fellow nurse in the dense bush by the river, deep in the woods near her cabin, she is plunged into a disturbing mystery that could shatter the carefully reconstructed pieces of her life all over again.
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Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
One shot ruined his life. Another one could end it.
From New York Times bestselling author Barry Lyga comes a heartbreaking novel about living with your worst mistake. For fans of This Is Where It Ends, Bang is as true and as relevant as tomorrow’s headlines, the story of one boy and one moment in time that cannot be reclaimed.
Win a Stack of Hot Young Adult Titles!
Summer is approaching and it’s time to start building out a reading list for the season.
Courtesy of Fierce Reads, we have a stack of exciting new young adult novels to give away, including:
- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
- The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom
- The Novice by Taran Matharu
- The Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller
- and one advance copy of Blind Item by Kevin Dickson and Jack Ketsoyan
Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the image below. Good luck!
Ecco poetry giveaway
We have 10 Ecco poetry prize packs to give away to 10 Riot readers. The prize pack includes:
Coming in to Land by Andrew Motion
A Little Book on Form by Robert Hass
The Last Troubadour by David St. John
Fast by Jorie Graham
Scribbled in the Dark by Charles Simic
Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click on the collage of giveaway titles below. Good luck!
Happy Friday, from the other end of a long series of tubes!
Before we dive into all the genre-specific goodness, I am delighted to announce that we’ve got a new subscription program called Book Riot Insiders! You can track new releases, listen to our dedicated Read Harder podcast, get a look at behind-the-scenes ops, and more, starting at $3/month. Check out the Insiders site for full details and to sign up!
Calling all Expanse fans: if you’re craving books with female characters like Naomi, Chrisjen, and Bobbie, we’ve got a reading list for you.
I’ve had this bookmarked forever and only finally just got to it: what is a utopia and how do we write about it? Ada Palmer, Malka Older, and Robert Charles Wilson had a very interesting conversation about this on Tor. It dovetails nicely with my musings post-Feminist Utopia Project, in case anyone is looking for another book (not strictly speculative) to add to their stack.
Soylent Green is (hopefully not) people! This piece on foods of the future is better than cannibalism, but I’m not sure how much better in certain cases. I hear you on the protein content of bugs, for example, but getting over the squick factor is gonna take some doing. (My theory is that Fear Factor ruined bugs for Americans of a certain age, even if you add ice cream.) However, sign me up for 3D printed food STAT!
More short stories for those pressed for time! This list of magical short story collections has two personal favorites on it — Kelly Link and Helen Oyeyemi, bestill my reader heart. These will certainly liven up your commute (and possibly make you miss a stop or two, fair warning).
Your Friday whimsy: I laughed so hard at Bad Lip Reading: Star Wars that I cried.
Readers, I fell hard for the below books, and I think you will too.
Spare & Found Parts, Sarah Maria Griffin
I didn’t know I wanted a YA revamp of Frankenstein until I read this book, which is fantastic. Nell Crane is young, awkward, and bad at people — not excluding her more bouyant best friend, Ruby, or the boy she cannot shake, Oliver. What she’s good at? Machines. She’s learned at the side of her father, an acclaimed inventor, and she’s plotting a project that will take her out of his shadow and earn her a reputation in her own right: a robot companion.
The problem with this plan is that Nell lives in a future in which machines are suspect, and computer technology has been outlawed. A plague in the past has decimated the population, society is still rebuilding, and coding is strictly taboo. In her search to realize her vision and build herself a friend who might just understand her, Nell finds herself in places in her community she had no idea existed.
Nell’s loneliness and personal struggles are heartbreaking, and there’s a reveal about her family history that actually made me gasp out loud. Griffin feeds in just enough whimsy, humor, and world-building to keep the story moving while still allowing for the story’s solid emotional weight. I devoured this book in a day, and cannot recommend enough that you take it to the park with you on the next sunny day.
Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
I have been meaning to pick up Mama Day since Nisi Shawl recommended it in her Book Riot Live interview. The day I got it from the library was a good day; the day I finished it was even better. If you like magical realism; if you like generational stories; if you like Southern fiction; if you like stories in which the setting is a major character; if you like amazing writing — then grab a copy and buckle up.
Narrated in three distinct voices — two second-person, one third person, and somehow this works beautifully?! — the novel follows Ophelia “Cocoa” Day, who has moved away from her hometown of Willow Springs to make it in New York City. She’s on the look-out for a job and a date, and meets engineer George Andrews during an interview. She doesn’t ultimately end up working for him; instead, she marries him and brings him home to Willow Springs to meet her great-aunt Miranda (the titular Mama Day) and grandmother Abigail. And then, everything goes off the rails. And no, I won’t be more specific, because spoilers.
It’s a simple plot on the surface, but to this girl-meets-boy set-up Gloria Naylor adds the history of the South and Emancipation, folk remedies and old powers, family secrets, touches of The Tempest, and a deep understanding of the twisted places love can take us. The second to last chapter of this book wrecked me — it’s a five-Kleenex read for sure. On top of all that Naylor has a gorgeously vivid writing style and is a master of structure. This book has earned a spot on my favorites shelf.
This newsletter is sponsored by Elves, written by Jean-Luc Istin and illustrated by Kyko Duarte.
Volume One of the critically-acclaimed and original dark fantasy saga Elves comes to US audiences for the first time this May.
The Blue Elves in a small port town have all been massacred. Lanawyn, a Blue Elf, and Turin, her human ally, set out to discover who is responsible. The trail they uncover together leads back to a warlike clan of humans who hate Elves.
Meanwhile, the Sylvan Elves have hidden themselves away from the world, jealously preserving their independence. Eysine, the City-State of the East, has always observed respect for the ancient pact between Elf and Man. But when a powerful army of Orks besiege the kingdom, Eysine must remind the Elves of the treaty that linked their two peoples.
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Today’s The Stack is sponsored by Dark Horse Comics.
From the writer of Shade the Changing Girl!
Pearl Plankette ran away from her home to escape an abusive father and an unhappy future. Disguised and reborn as a boy named Soupy, she hitches her star to an unlikely hobo, and they begin their journey from the cold heartbreak of their eastern homes toward the sunny promise of California in this train-hopping, Depression-era coming-of-age tale.
* From Shuster Award-winning and Eisner-nominated writer Cecil Castellucci!
* An original graphic novel!
* Perfect for younger readers!