An eccentric Victorian naturalist obsessed with beetles turns out to have an unlikely role in formulating the theory of evolution in Nicholas Drayson's richly imagined debut novel, Confessing a Murder. Drayson's narrator is a fictional former schoolmate of Charles Darwin, who shares the latter's pursuit of natural history and is marooned on an island in the Java Sea, where he and a young assistant are investigating the atoll's unique plants and animals. In the manuscript that makes up the body of the novel, he describes his once-intimate relationship with Darwin, his own role in coming up with the theory and the disastrous romance with Darwin's cousin that led to his exile from England. All the while, he documents his search for the elusive golden scarab, and his violent contretemps with his fellow castaway. (Norton, $23.95 296p ISBN 0-393-05129-3; May 6)
There's something for everyone in Shameless: Women's Intimate Erotica, a collection of 18 fictional first-person pieces in which women recount sexual escapades. Edited by journalist and fiction writer Hanne Blank (Big Big Love), the anthology features a variety of voices and proclivities; S&M, pregnancy and physical disabilities figure into these tales, as well as a panoply of sexual orientations and configurations. Settings range from Port-au-Prince to the Midwest. One piece is the internal monologue of a gyrating stripper. Another character reminisces about an eye-opening study trip in Europe. The narrators tend to dwell on power dynamics between genders, but that doesn't stop them from fornicating like mad. (Seal, $14.95 paper 192p ISBN 1-58005-0603; June)
Correction: PW's review of The Hardscrabble Chronicles, by Laurie Bogart Morrow, was inadvertently placed in Fiction Forecasts in our April 26 issue. The book is nonfiction. Also, it is a hardcover, not a trade paperback.
