Discord’s Apple

Taking a break from the Kitty Norville urban fantasy series, Vaughn melds a near-future world torn by war with the legend of the fall of Troy in this brilliantly structured, beautifully written stand-alone. Evie Walker is a comic book writer who leaves behind a strife-filled Los Angeles to care for her dying father in the smalltown of Hopes Fort, Colo. Evie soon inherits the responsibility of guarding a magical storeroom and its contents as the country becomes hyperdefensive about possible terrorist threats. Intermingled with Evie’s story is the tale of Sinon the Liar, who persuaded the Trojans to bring Odysseus’s horse inside their walls and wound up cursed with immortality. Vaughn brings together mythology, fairy tales, and very human lives, immersing readers in the stories these complex characters tell themselves to make sense of their war-torn worlds. (July)