A woman falls into the national spotlight when her Navy SEAL son goes missing during a highly classified operation in Carpenter's debut novel. Sara, an art student who landed a secretarial job in D.C, and David, a mysterious government official 30 years her senior, find themselves expecting a child during a complex love affair. Sara elects to keep the baby—naming him Jason—and becomes a single mother when David dies in the Middle East of undisclosed causes. She raises Jason with help from various "godparents", David's friends and coworkers who predispose the naturally brilliant child to the military at the youngest of ages. After the September 11th attacks, Jason's decides to attend the Naval Academy , marking the beginning of a sacrificial quest that, after nine years, he plans to end after one more mission—the mission in which he disappears. The novel profiles the first eleven days of Sara's grief journey, and is filled with characters who exist on the edge of emotion. With poignant prose and an impeccably structured narrative, Carpenter's novel is the sweet pitch before the violin screeches; the concluding state of reverence for a world we can't control and a song for the war in Afghanistan that provides comfort without reason. (June)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

An English woman from a poor neighborhood learns how to manipulate rich men and the financial market, moving herself up the impossible ranks of the UK class system in Coleridge's latest novel (after Pride and Avarice). Cath Fox is a striking chameleon, seen first as a teenaged matron at a prestigious women's college who sleeps with teachers and steals from students. She begins an affair with a student's handsome father, which ends with him returning to his wife. Cath finds work in an erotic massage parlor for men where she serves octogenarian Lord Blaydon, becoming his personal nurse and eventually his fiancée. But when the Lord dies moments after his proposal, Cath finds herself on the streets again only to begin the greatest adventure of her life, involving high paying careers and multiple marriages to wealthy/powerful men that land her in royal courts. Her story is intertwined with the lives of those she's touched but barely acknowledged, including a daughter she gave birth to and abandoned before her time as a matron. Coleridge's narrative moves with ease but lacks both linguistic vitality and character depth. It's an entertaining read, and she sets the stage for an absorbing literary venture but disappointingly manages only to skim the surface. (June)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

Lebanese novelist Jaber receives his first English translation as he follows Beirut architect Saman Yarid from restaurant to restaurant and date to date in the hectic period after Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's 2005 assassination. As Yarid's unremarkable routine unfolds across tense days, we're privy not only to his architect's-eye view of Beirut's structures and neighborhoods, but to painstaking descriptions of the cosmopolitan city's gastronomy, going some way towards accomplishing for Beirut what Ulysses did for Dublin. Fascinatingly, Jaber treats the violence and tension of a city on edge as a spice that subtly flavors and affects Yarid's days. He is an uncontemplative narrator, living simply and in the moment, and relates to few friends or family members. To that end, Jaber executes a surprising twist at the halfway point by introducing chapters ethereally narrated by Yarid's late sister Josephine, a victim of the Lebanese violence of the 1980's. The shift in tone might be jarring to some, but for others, the details of what that afterlife entails are handled with wit and flair, marking Jaber as an absorbing stylist. With 15 novels under to his name, hopefully we see even more of Jaber's work in translation. (June)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

Jennifer Walters is a lawyer and the giant green Marvel superhero known as She-Hulk, now transferred from comics to prose in this super-chick-lit novel. Jen finds herself between jobs and between apartments at New Years, not to mention between relationships. She also has a PR problem due to She-Hulk's hard-partying habits. Jen signs on with the law firm QUIRC, resolving actively start looking for love and to have fun in ways that won't get her fired. Of course, because this is a She-Hulk book, this ends up involving clones, supervillains and LARPing. Acosta's research shows as she captures the personality and humor of her main character and the Marvel universe for veteran readers and the uninitiated alike. The book's only problems are romance novel and chick-lit tropes that don't fit She-Hulk nearly as well, such as her self-deprecating envy of other women's beauty. Also, despite dating many of Marvel's superheroes, Jen has been secretly pining for the book's newly introduced love interest since college, because apparently True Love doesn't happen after thirty. Still, with trademark She-Hulk moments of comedy such as a sinisterly addicting smoothie chain and a particularly random appearance of Doctor Doom, this is a fun and lighthearted read. (June)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

Conflict in Afghanistan sets the stage for this engaging narrative weave from Hamilton (31 Hours), Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the US Embassy in Kabul. Tragedy strikes when Todd, the director of a humanitarian organization in Kabul, is suddenly abducted. Clarissa, his wife in Brooklyn, struggles to deal with her now-detained husband's uncertain fate and inability "to celebrate the plain pillow that catches one's head each night." Then there is Stela, a heartbroken Cleveland mother who has lost one son in battle and her other son to a grave misunderstanding. Keeping her bookstore to "feel less alone," she writes endless letters in an effort to express herself. Mandy, a mother from Texas, travels to Kabul as a hospital aid worker to better understand her own personal tragedy, for "maybe she'd heal herself in their hospitals, by a taste of the country that had chewed up her son and then spit him back." These tales merge with the true story of Mohammad Najibullah, late president of Afghanistan, recounted through imagined letters to his daughters. Straddling two lands while depicting the strength of human relationships even in the darkest moments, this seamless blend of fact and fiction through illuminating prose makes the story a rewarding and thought-provoking read. (June)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

An artful blend of colorful characters, seething resentment, calculated revenge, and a shocking, tragic cliffhanger distinguishes Archer's third volume of The Clifton Chronicles. Picking up where The Sins of the Father left off, readers discover whether Giles Barrington or Harry Clifton will inherit the late Hugo Barrington's fortune. Harry becomes a successful novelist and marries his true love Emma Barrington; they adopt a daughter with a secret past to join their son Sebastian. Poor smitten, likeable Giles, fighting for his political life as a member of Parliament, is lovesick for the scheming, vindictive Lady Virginia, whom he marries. Sensing disaster, on her death bed Lady Elizabeth Barrington writes Lady Virginia out of the will, prompting the unpopular Lady Virginia to enlist Giles' nemesis, Major Alex Fisher, as she plots her way to the Barrington fortune. Sebastian becomes a young man, sowing his wild oats and naively getting mixed up with a school chum's nefarious father and his sketchy business. Business-savvy Emma earns a college degree, intending to join the family shipping empire. Archer provides a pitch-perfect continuation of the Clifton family saga; his shrewd twists and turns are addictive from the get-go, and he stuns with his signature series sign-off, a cliffhanger leaving readers longing for its resolution. (May)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

Controversial German author Roche (Wetlands) delivers a complicated take on literary erotica where sex is more than titilation. Over three days the neurotic Elizabeth Kiehl mentally and physically prepares to visit a brothel with her husband Georg. Her crippling obsessions—going to therapy, pleasing her husband sexually, being the perfect mother to her daughter Liza, and saving the environment—all stem from a car accident that killed her three brothers, who were en route to her wedding, and her hatred of the paparazzi who terrorized her family afterwards. It is hard to differentiate between Roche's potentially groundbreaking expansion of female subjectivity in fiction and what is merely included to see how much she can get away with, but it is precisely the blurring of this line which makes her work so fascinating. Although trying shock, bemuse, and perhaps even enrage, Roche also attempts to explore the multitude of contradictory pressures middle class women face in the early 21st century, seen through the sharply focused, yet irredeemably skewed, lens of a mentally ill, and therefore unreliable, narrator. Although the content may trouble many readers, Roche's particularly explicit brand of Molly Bloom-esque, serpentine inner monologue is worth a read for those who can stomach it. (May)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

Rough South writer Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter) and the poet and nonfiction writer Fennelly (Great with Child), distill in this prohibition-era tale of bootleggers and revenuers an atmospheric draught of prose that is at once poetic and gritty. It’s 1927 Mississippi, and Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover has sent two unbribable federal revenue agents, Ted Ingersoll and Ham Johnson, into the maw of the Great Flood to investigate the disappearance of two other “prohis” from Hobnob Landing. On the way, Ingersoll and Ham find a baby, the lone survivor of a country-store looting gone bad. Ingersoll, an orphan himself, gives the boy to bootlegger Dixie Clay, a 22-year-old bereft of her own child. Along with her violent husband Jesse Holliver, Dixie might have been the last person to see the missing revenuers alive. Love for Dixie rises in Ingersoll’s heart like the waters on the levee, and he knows that “to fix things... would require broken vows and broken laws, blood, desertion, and money.” There’s a bit of corn in this mash, but fans of Fennelly will savor her depictions of a mother’s ferocious love, and Franklin’s following will shine to the violent rendering of a nearly forgotten time and ethos. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

The former literary editor of Playboy makes her fiction debut with an intimate portrayal of the walls erected by a woman after her husband’s death, and how impulsive encounters with others break them down. Widowed five years earlier, Celia Cassill now clings to her isolation, allowing herself happiness only in memories of her marriage—books read, movies watched, bodies shared. She chose the tenants in her Brooklyn brownstone for their discretion and respect for “separateness.” When one of them moves to France, she reluctantly allows him to sublet his apartment to Hope, a beautiful, newly divorced, middle-aged woman recovering from her husband’s infidelity. Not long after Hope moves in, another of Celia’s tenants—a retired ferryboat captain—disappears, and his daughter holds Celia responsible. That messiness, as well as Hope’s spinning-out-of-control life, prove intolerable to Celia, who wanders the city in search of her missing tenant, listening in on the tawdry goings-on in Hope’s apartment, and recounting some of her actions during and after the death of her husband. Celia witnesses and participates in small acts of violence and sexual exploration, and her past and Hope’s present force down Celia’s walls. Lloyd’s character study is narrow in scope but long on intensity and emotion. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins and Associates. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

Kent’s debut delves deep into Scandinavian history, not to mention matters of storytelling, guilt, and silence. Based on the true story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the novel is set in rural Iceland in 1829. Agnes is awaiting execution for the murder of her former employer and his friend, not in a prison—there are none in the area—but at a local family’s farm. Jón Jónsson, the father, grudgingly accepts this thankless task as part of his responsibility as a regional official, but his wife and daughters’ reactions range from silent resentment to outright fear. After settling in to the household, Agnes requests the company of a young priest, to whom she confesses parts of her story, while narrating the full tale only to the reader, who, like the priest, “provide[s] her with a final audience to her life’s lonely narrative.” The multilayered story paints sympathetic and complex portraits of Agnes, the Jónssons, and the young priest, whose motives for helping the convict are complicated. Kent smoothly incorporates her impressive research— for example, she opens many of the chapters with documents that come directly from archival sources—while giving life to these historical figures and suspense to their tales. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink