Kirkus: Calling itself a “novel-in-stories,” this debut collection of 20 tales takes a close, respectful look at poor folks in contemporary rural Arkansas. Members of several families recur: Dalton, Pribble, Womack, Tatum; women named Staci, MeChell and Birdie; men named Rusty, Cleo and Skinny Dennis. Many of the stories are vignettes. Together, they paint a grim picture of a community that may or may not have been prosperous once but now is not.
Publishers Weekly: A new effort to close an unsolved murder case reopens old wounds in this enigmatic novel from the author of Hick and Anatomy of a Misfit. In Muskegon, Mich., 25 years have passed since a hapless snowplow operator discovered 22-year-old Elizabeth Krause’s body off Route 31. Continue reading »
Publishers Weekly: In this vibrant collection of speculative fiction, Okorafor (Who Fears Death) proves yet again that she is among the 21st century’s most significant and noteworthy Science Fiction authors. The American-born author features her parents’ Nigerian homeland in many of her stories, casting a sympathetic but informed eye on that nation. Continue reading »
Library Journal: Because of her efforts to prove her worth, DS Mariko Oshiro has been promoted to Tokyo’s Narcotics Unit, an elite group of detectives who tackle the most difficult cases. When a member of a powerful yakuza syndicate places a price on Mariko’s head, she finds that the only way the bounty can be lifted is if she retrieves the iron demon mask recently stolen from the crime lord. Continue reading »
Publishers Weekly: Priest’s final Clockwork Century novel (after The Inexplicables) wraps things up nicely, once again turning a mash-up of too-worn genre tropes (steampunk, alternate Civil War, zombies) into a work of entertainment laced with social criticism. In 1879, as the Civil War continues to rage, scientist and ex-slave Gideon Bardsley’s invention, a massive computer called the Fiddlehead, has predicted that the zombie outbreak from the Northwest will overwhelm both sides if they don’t end the war. Continue reading »
Jay Lake’s short story collection Last Plane to Heaven, with an introduction by Gene Wolfe, to Beth Meacham at Tor by Jennifer Jackson.
DMLA congratulates John Hornor Jacobs on winning the Moonbeam Children’s Gold Medal for Young Adult Fiction – Fantasy/Sci-Fi!
Fifteen-year-old Shreve Cannon doesn’t mind juvie. He’s got a good business dealing contraband candy, and three meals a day are more than his drunk mother managed to provide. Continue reading »
Kathryn Craft’s While the Leaves Stood Still, based on the author’s personal story, about a tense ten-hour standoff between one desperate man ready to take his life and the police, while his family and the community grapple with how best to respond, to Shana Drehs at Sourcebooks, for publication Spring 2015, by Katie Shea Boutillier.
VOYA Magazine: In the Heartland, corn is both king and conqueror. It shackles the people to the land and allows the rich to live decadent, worry-free lives atop floating islands in the sky. Seventeen-year-old Cael McAvoy is determined to break free from a dead-end future, and when he discovers rogue vegetables growing among the cornfields, he knows he has found his ticket to the good life. Continue reading »
Jo Ann Brown’s inspirational trilogy “Precious Cargo” beginning with A Make-Believe Family, set in Porthlowen, a cove along the northern shore of Cornwall, to Tina James at Harlequin Love Inspired by Jennifer Jackson.