With so many galleys flooding the BEA show floor, it’s hard to know which ones to choose. Here are 10 of our favorites, with excerpts from PW reviews.

House of Thieves
Charles Belfoure (Sourcebooks Landmark, booth 3039)
PW review excerpt: “In this engrossing Gilded Age novel, Belfoure (The Paris Architect) fully immerses the reader in the story of an architect forced to help New York City’s most prominent gang in order to pay off his eldest son’s gambling debt. There are numerous threads and exciting set pieces, including a series of daring burglaries, but Belfoure holds it all together, resulting in a memorable, evocative read.” (Sept.)

Purity
Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, booth 3056)
PW review excerpt: “Two years out of college, self-conscious, acerbic Purity ‘Pip’ Tyler is saddled with crushing student loans and an overbearing, emotionally disturbed mother who refuses to reveal the identity of Pip’s father. Pip meets the charismatic Andreas Wolf and lands an internship at his WikiLeaks-like Sunlight Project, based in Bolivia. Franzen’s greatest strength is his extensive, intricate narrative web—which includes a murder in Berlin, stolen nukes in Amarillo, and a billion-dollar trust.” (Sept.)

George
Alex Gino (Scholastic Press, booths 1938, 1939)
PW review excerpt: “Gino debuts with the story of fourth-grader George, who knows she is a girl even though the world sees her as male. With a class production of Charlotte’s Web on the horizon, George eagerly wants to be cast as Charlotte the spider. George’s joy during stolen moments when she can be herself will resonate with anyone who has felt different, while providing a necessary window into the specific challenges of a child recognizing that they are transgender.” (Aug.)

City on Fire
Garth Risk Hallberg (Knopf, book 3119)
PW review excerpt: “Hallberg’s maniacally detailed depiction of 1970s New York overflows with urban angst, intellectual energy, and sinister pitfalls, much like the city it evokes. This epic of drugs, sex, and rock and roll centers on an attack on a girl in Central Park, but encompasses a vast cast of characters with intersecting story lines. Readers wishing to delve into cultural trivia will find much to savor in this energetic debut.”

Day Shift
Charlaine Harris (Ace, booth 3119)
PW review excerpt: “Outsiders swarm the sleepy streets of Midnight, Tex., as supernatural superstar Harris returns with another practiced out-of-the-ordinary mystery (following Midnight Crossroad). Local phone psychic Manfred Bernardo returns from Dallas, where a client died during a reading; the client’s unstable son accuses Manfred of absconding with the family jewels. Rev. Emilio Sheehan, eccentric operator of a pet cemetery, takes care of a young boy who grows supernaturally quickly. And a multinational corporation suddenly reopens the abandoned Midnight Hotel, bringing in indigent seniors from Vegas as its residents.” (May)

Freedom’s Child
Jax Miller (Crown, booth 3119)
PW review excerpt: “Boozing, brawling, and fierce but emotionally fragile, Freedom Oliver has been pissing away her life in witness protection like someone with nothing left to lose—until fate unexpectedly offers her one last long shot at redemption. Between the gutsy heroine and gale-force narrative, this debut thriller hits like a beer bottle to the head.” (June)

The Story of My Teeth
Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House, booth 642)
PW review excerpt: “One of the most unforgettable images in any book this year is that of Gustavo ‘Highway’ Sánchez—the protagonist of Luiselli’s delightfully unclassifiable novel—walking around the streets of Mexico City, smiling at people with the teeth of Marilyn Monroe installed in his mouth—teeth he won at an ‘auction of contraband memorabilia in a karaoke bar in Little Havana.’ This isn’t so much a novel as a contorted collection of narrative yarns, but Luiselli’s novel so completely buys into its conceit that it’s difficult not to follow wherever it takes you.” (Sept.)

Zeroes
Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, and Deborah
Biancotti (Simon Pulse, booth 2620, RC31)
PW review excerpt: “Fantasists Westerfeld, Lanagan, and Biancotti blend human dilemmas with superhuman abilities as they trace the intersecting lives of six teenagers with supernatural powers. Don’t look for laser eye beams or the summoning of hurricane winds in this book. These heroes (or Zeroes, as they think of themselves) have powers wrapped up in coercion and manipulation, from the ability to affect the emotionsof crowds of people to a knack for sweet-talking out of any situation. With action, romance, and thorny ethical questions, it’s a book with a little something for everyone.” (Sept.)

Goodbye Stranger
Rebecca Stead (Random/Lamb, booth 3119)
PW review excerpt: “Stead returns to the Manhattan environs of her Newbery Medal–winning When You Reach Me to explore the evolving relationships among a group of seventh-graders. They include Bridge Barsamian, whose brush with death as a child has made her uncommonly introspective in her adolescence, longtime pals Tab and Em, and Bridge’s new friend Sherm, who writes unsent letters to the grandfather who abandoned the family. This memorable story about female friendships, silly bets, different kinds of love, and bad decisions is authentic in detail and emotion.” (Aug.)

Fuzzy Mud
Louis Sachar (Delacorte, booth 3119)
PW review excerpt: “In his latest middle-grade novel, the Newbery Medal–winning author of Holes blends elements of mystery, suspense, and school-day life into a taut environmental cautionary tale about the insatiable hunger for energy sources and the cost of not doing the right thing. Sachar’s story follows a small group of students whose trip into the woods leads to an unplanned encounter with the ‘fuzzy mud’ of the title—a substance of unknown (to them) origin that poses serious health risks to the kids and their community.” (Aug.)