Table of Contents
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Hotlists 2008
Crime Fiction - embedded
Seeing Stars
Lists of (mostly) hardcover books which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ).
The review journal assigns the star.
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Stellar All Stars
The Fault Tree by Louise Ure
Judas Horse by April Smith
The Importance of Music to Girls by Lavinia Greenlaw
Bonk by Mary Roach
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .
Starred Reviews
Fiction Stars 2003
April 2, 2008
January -
June
Titles are listed by approximate date of publication, then alphabetically by author. Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine - unless otherwise noted.
A 
indicates an Overbooked Jump for Joy book.
June
- Every Woman
for Herself
Author: Ashley, Trisha
Publisher: St Martins $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312313721 Date: 2003
Kirkus
A funny new novelist for fans of Marian Keyes, Rebecca Wells, and Melissa Banks. Charlotte ("Charlie") Rhymer's husband wants a divorce. Charlie isn't sure what she wants, but after the incident with the frying pan, even she has to concede "irreconcilable" is the operative word.
Suggested Reading: Chicklit Stars
Updated 3.27.03 - The Winter Without
Milk: Stories
Author: Avrich, Jane
Publisher: Mariner $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 0618251421 Date: 2003Kirkus
Avrich explores the perils of desire in these 15 brilliant stories. Here are characters irresistibly attracted to excess--material, emotional, spiritual--who must in the end choose between a life of self-indulgence and a life of self-control.
Updated 3.27.03 - Slightly Scandalous
Author: Balogh, Mary
Publisher: Dell $ 5.99 (paper) ISBN: 0440241111 Date: 2003PW
In the final novel of Balogh's delectable Slightly trilogy, Freyja Bedwyn, the wild-hearted daughter of the high society family, meets her match in a man as passionate, and scandalous, as she.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 4.28.03 - Stealing
the Bride
Author: Boyle, Elizabeth
Publisher: Avon $ 5.99 (paper) ISBN: 0380820900 Date: 2003Booklist
This seventh historical romance by the USA Today bestselling author tells the sparkling story of an impetuous beauty who elopes on a whim and the dashing adventurer who must steal her back at the risk of his own heart.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 6.25.03 - The Pretender
Author: Bradley, Celeste
Publisher: St Martins $ 6.50 (paper) ISBN: 0312984855 Date: 2003Booklist
This first book in a sexy new series introduces the Liars Club, a renegade group of rogues in the service of the Crown. Agatha Cunnington needs a "husband" to find her missing brother in London--and Liar's Club member Simon Montague Rain fits the bill.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 5.14.03 - The Other Side
of Silence
Author: Brink, Andre
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151007705 Date: 2003PW
With years of abuse behind her, Hanna X, a young German woman, is transported to a colony in Africa to attend to the needs of male settlers. Combining the history of colonialism with the myths of Africa, this is an exquisitely written tale of suffering, violence, revenge, and, simply, love.
Updated 4.7.03 - Long For This World
Author: Byers, Michael
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 039589171x Date: 2003PWLJKirkus
Byers' award-winning debut collection, The Coast of Good Intentions, won universal praise for its mature wisdom and deeply affecting characters. Now his exhilarating first novel showcases his extraordinary gifts in the suspenseful story of a geneticist grappling with an astonishing discovery.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Debuts
Updated 4.8.03 - Virgin Blue
Author: Chevalier, Tracy
Publisher: Plume $ 14 (trade paper) ISBN: 0452284449 Date: 2003LJ
Never before published in the United States, this first novel is released by the critically acclaimed author of Girl with a Pearl Earring and Falling Angels. Readers meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin--two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy.
Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars
Updated 8.14.03 - P
Author: Conn, Andrew Lewis
Publisher: Soft Skull $ 15 ISBN: 1887128557 Date: 2003Kirkus
P is a raunchy and romantic debut novel about two misfits, rendered with postmodern sensibility and lyricism.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 4.7.03 - The Last
Days of Publishing
Author: Engelhardt, Tom
Publisher: University of Mass $ 24.95 ISBN: 1558494022 Date: 2003Kirkus
Rick Koppes knows a world is ending. The only question is, will he end with it? An editor at Byzantium Press for the last 25 years, he has watched his small, classy publishing house get gobbled up. By turns hilarious, sardonic, and poignant, this novel captures the ways in which publishing is being transformed.
Updated 3.27.03 - Short People
Author: Furst, Joshua
Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375414312 Date: 2003KirkusLJBooklist
An astonishing debut: ten stories that explore American childhood with great maturity, authority, and originality. With a remarkable range of imagination, understanding, and compassion, Furst calls into question preconceptions about innocence, purity, faith, and memory.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Debuts
Updated 6.27.03 - The Water Dancers
Author: Gamble, Terry
Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060542667 Date: 2003Booklist
Told in a voice as clear and cool as lake water, The Water Dancers is a luminescent tale of love, loss, and redemption, and heralds the arrival of a remarkable new talent.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens | Summertime Stars
Updated 5.14.03 - The Clearing
Author: Gatreaux, Tim
Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375414746 Date: 2003BooklistPW
From "one of the best writers to have emerged in the 1990s" (Kirkus Reviews), comes The Clearing, a story of family, of what sustains people through loss, of establishing a community in the deepest wilderness and then defending it.
Suggested Reading: Veterans
Updated 5.29.03 - The Curious Incident
of The Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Haddon, Mark
Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385509456 Date: 2003PWKirkus
Narrated by a 15-year-old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions.
Suggested Reading:Debuts | Reading Group Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 4.8.03 - The Probable Future
Author: Hoffman, Alice
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385507607 Date: 2003PW
By turns chilling and enchanting The Probable Future chronicles the Sparrows' legacy as young Stella struggles to cope with her disturbing clairvoyance. Culminating in an exquisite ending, this story showcases the lavish literary gifts that have made Hoffman one of America's most treasured writers.
Suggested Reading: Literary Gothic
Updated 5.6.03 - The Kite Runner
Author: Hosseini, Khaled
Publisher: Riverhead $ 23.95 ISBN: 1573222453 Date: 2003Library JournalKirkusPW
An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, takes readers from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | All Stars | Afghanistan Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 5.12.03 - The Facts of Life
Author: Joyce, Graham
Publisher: Atria $ 24 ISBN: 0743463420Kirkus Date: 2003
A dramatic departure for the prize-winning author of Indigo--an exquisitely written, multifaceted wartime saga of identity, connection, and emotional endurance centering on an unforgettable English family during and after the Second World War.
Updated 5.9.03 - Every Good
Boy Does Fine
Author: Laskowski, Tim
Publisher: Southern Methodist $ 23.95 ISBN: 0870744771 Date: 2003LJ
Updated 6.19.03 - The Pursuit
of Alice Thrift
Author: Lipman, Elinor
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0679463135 Date: 2003Library JournalPW
Poor Alice Thrift is book-smart but people-hopeless. When Ray Russo, social-climbing purveyor of carnival fudge, decides to pursue her romantically, Alice reluctantly follows. The Pursuit of Alice Thrift brings the socially tone-deaf Alice out from under the burden of her clueless and beautiful mind.
Suggested Reading: Chicklit Stars
Updated 3.13.03 - The Photograph
Author: Lively, Penelope
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670032050 Date: 2003Booklist
Lively is a grande dame of British letters whose novels have attracted readers of Ian McEwan and Iris Murdoch--as well as those enthralled by her insight into relationships and family. The Photograph brings her talents into a whole new page-turning realm, and is Lively at her very best, the dazzling and intriguing climax to all she has written before.
Updated 5.14.03 - Jerusalem's Rain
Author: Lliteras, D.
Publisher: Hampton Roads $ 19.95 ISBN: 1571743405 Date: 2003Booklist
Updated 3.13.03 - Liars and Saints
Author: Meloy, Maile
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743244354 Date: 2003PW
The prize-winning young author of a critically acclaimed short story collection makes her full-length fiction debut in this richly textured, emotionally charged novel about four generations of an American family.
Updated 4.28.03 - Morningside
Heights
Author: Mendelson, Cheryl
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375508368 Date: 2003Library Journal
This fiction debut by the bestselling author of Home Comforts is a Manhattan saga focusing on a vivid cast of musicians and intellectuals whose lives are suddenly hanging.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 4.7.03 - Spirited Away
Author: Miyazaki, Hayao
Publisher: Viz $ 9.95 (paper) ISBN: 1569317917 Date: 2003PW
Suggested Reading: Graphic Novel Stars
Updated 5.19.03 - The True Account
Author: Mosher, Howard Frank
Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 0618197214 Date: 2003LJ
Published on the eve of the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, The True Account is the hilarious and heartbreaking story of a man who decides to race Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean after a madcap night of drinking.
Updated 6.5.03 - Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale
Sings
Author: Moore, Christopher
Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 0380978415 Date: 2003PW
The national bestselling author of Lamb devises a dazzling whale of a tale. Everybody knows that humpback whales sing, but why? Researcher Nathan Quinn plies the waters off Hawaii in search of an answer. Lately, though, Nate's beginning to wonder if he's spent just a little too much time in the sun.
Suggested Reading: If You Like Douglas Adams
Updated 3.31.03 - Sexual Healing
Author: Nelson, Jill
Publisher: Agate $ 23.95 ISBN: 0972456201 Date: 2003PW
Nelson, bestselling author of Volunteer Slavery and Straight, No Chaser, has written a steamy and uproarious debut novel that tells the story of Lydia and Acey, two successful midcareer professionals. But their career success is matched by their romantic and sexual frustrations.
Suggested Reading: African American Fiction Stars
Updated 5.12.03 - The Only Good Thing Anyone
Has Ever Done
Author: Newman, Sandra
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060514981 Date: 2003PW
When Chrysalis Moffat and her brother, Eddie, inherit a mansion on the coast of California, Eddie hatches a plan to fleece credulous Californians of their cash by starting the fraudulent Tibetan School of Miracles.But something else is happening. Through Chrysalis's reunion with her brother, she begins to discover her adoptive father's secret past, causing her own identity to unravel. As Chrysalis lays down the facts of her life, she gambles her identity against the contradictions, half-truths, and fables of her past, leading her ultimately to question what it is we can truly know and whether it is fate or chance that dictates our lives.- Publisher Marketing
Updated 6.19.03 - The Tattooed Girl
Author: Oates, Joyce Carol
Publisher: Ecco $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060531061 Date: 2003PW
A celebrated but reclusive author, young but in failing health, Joshua Seigl realizes that he can no longer live alone. So he hires an assistant, but is unaware of her torturous past. With her masterful balance of dark suspense and surprising tenderness, Oates probes the tragedy of ethnic hatred and challenges accepted limits of desire.
Updated 4.23.03 - Dogs of Babel
Author: Pankhurst, Carolyn
Publisher: Little Brown $ 21.95 ISBN: 0316168688 Date: 2003Library JournalBooklist
A poignant and beautiful debut novel explores a man's quest to unravel the mystery of his wife's death with the help of the only witness--their Rhodesian ridgeback, Lorelei.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | New Orleans | Dog Stars
Updated 5.14.03 - To
Sir Philip, with Love
Author: Quinn, Julia
Publisher: Avon $ 6.99 ISBN: 0380820854 Date: 2003PW
In the latest title in Quinn's beloved Bridgerton series. Eloise Bridgerton's habit of writing letters attracts the interest of Sir Phillip Crane, with whom she has been corresponding. When they finally meet, Eloise is taken aback by this brute of a man--especially by his kiss.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 5.12.03 - Blade of the
Immortal: Beasts
Author: Samura, Hiroaki
Publisher: Dark Horse $ 14.95 (paper) ISBN: 1569717419 Date: 2003PW
Suggested Reading: Graphic Novel Stars
Updated 4.28.03 - Elegance
Author: Tessaro, Kathleen
Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060522259 Date: 2003LJ
One of the most exciting debuts of the year is an enchanting, bittersweet novel for every woman who has ever longed for a fairy godmother. Starting with A and finishing with Z, Elegance is a unique alphabetical journey of timeless fashion, true friendship, and the rare, unexpected gift of love.
Updated 6.5.03 - 1929
Author: Turner, Frederick W.
Publisher: Counterpoint $ 25 ISBN: 1582432651 Date: 2003KirkusBooklist
In a briefly affluent and deeply disenchanted postwar America, the Jazz Age erupts in gaudy glory. It and one of its most colorful icons, Bix Beiderbecke, are celebrated in this first novel by an acclaimed nonfiction writer.
Suggested Reading: Music & Fiction | Historical Fiction Stars | Biographical Fiction
Updated 5.29.03 - Westward: A Fictional History of
the American West
Author: Walker, Dale L. (ed)
Publisher: Forge $ 25.95 ISBN: 0765304511 Date: 2003Kirkus
In Westward, the history of the Old American West unfolds in 28 original stories written especially for this unique collection commemorating the 50th anniversary of Western Writers of America, Inc.
Suggested Reading: Western Stars | Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 4.7.03 - Evidence
of Things Unseen
Author: Wiggins, Marianne
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0684869691 Date: 2003LJPW
From the award-winning author of John Dollar and Almost Heaven comes a stunning, lyrical novel about the unforeseen forces that shape people's lives.
Updated 5.19.03 - The Book Against God
Author: Wood, James
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 23 ISBN: 0374115389 Date: 2003PWBooklist
Thomas Bunting, the charming, chaotic, and deeply untruthful narrator of Wood's wonderful first novel, is in despair. His marriage is disintegrating and his academic career is in ruins: instead of completing his philosophy Ph.D., he is secretly writing what he hopes will be his masterwork, a vast atheistic project he has privately entitled The Book Against God.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 5.29.03 - Escape to Love
Author: Wootson, Alice
Publisher: BET $ 6.99 (paper) ISBN: 1583143734 Date: 2003Booklist
After witnessing the murder of her boss two years ago, Angela Baring entered the witness protection program, and Detective Trent Stewart housed Angela in his Maryland cabin. Now, Trent puts his love--and life--on the line to protect and cherish Angela for all time.
Suggested Reading: African American Fiction Stars | Romance Stars
Updated 6.25.03
May
- The Spy's Bride
Author: Abrams, Nita
Publisher: Zebra $ 5.99 (paper) ISBN: 0821775618 Date: 2003Booklist
The third installment of Abrams's sweeping series set during the Napoleonic Wars about an Anglo-Jewish family who find passion and peril serving as intelligence couriers for Wellington.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 4.28.03 - Ten Little Indians:
Stories
Author: Alexie, Sherman
Publisher: Grove $ 24 ISBN: 0802117449 Date: 2003KirkusPW
Alexie is one of the most acclaimed and popular writers today. Now, with Ten Little Indians, he offers 11 poignant and emotionally resonant new stories about Native Americans who, like all Americans, find themselves at personal and cultural crossroads.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
Updated 5.6.03 - Oryx and Crake
Author: Atwood, Margaret
Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN: 03885503857 Date: 2003KirkusBooklistPWLJ
With command of her material and with her sharp wit and dark humor, Atwood projects a conceivable future of the world, a place left devastated in the wake of ecological and scientific disaster, and populated by a cast of characters who will continue to inhabit dreams long after the book is closed.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Dystopian Stars | Apocalypse Nowish
Updated 4.29.03 - Promiscuous
Unbound
Author: Brian, Bex
Publisher: Atlantic $ 23 ISBN: 0871138735 Date: 2003Kirkus
Vivienne Yellow, the narrator of this arresting debut, is an American woman who lies in traction in a Parisian hospital, remembering the sexual misadventure that landed her there. Ribald and funny, with a rich Dorothy Parker bitterness, Promiscuous Unbound traces the relationship between memory, love, and loss.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 3.13.03 - Special
Author: Bathurst, Bella
Publisher: Mariner $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 0618263276 Date: 2003Library Journal
A group of schoolgirls goes off on a field trip to the English countryside in a story that will remind readers of Lord of the Flies. Put up at a manor house that has seen better days, they discover that the nearby town offers alcohol, drugs, and sex--grown up downfalls that are at once tempting and terrifying.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.13.03 - Best Friends
Author: Berger, Thomas
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743241835 Date: 2003KirkusLJ
In this highly anticipated new novel about friendship from the bestselling author of Little Big Man, Berger confirms his position as "one of the century's most important writers" (The London Times Book Review).
Updated 4.29.03 - Such Sweet Thunder
Author: Carter, Vincent O.
Publisher: Steerforth $ 25.95 ISBN: 1586420585 Date: 2003PWBooklist
Written in 1963 but never published, this literary portrait of black urban life in pre-World War II America, an era marred by racial segregation and relentless daily injustices, is told from the perspective of a young boy growing up during the 1920s and 1930s in Kansas City.
they can't get out of their minds.
Suggested Reading: Music & Fiction | African American Stars
Updated 4.16.03 - Rumble,
Young Man, Rumble
Author: Cavell, Benjamin
Publisher: Knopf $ 22 ISBN: 0375414649 Date: 2003KirkusPW
In nine remarkable stories, Cavell exposes the darker side of being a "real man." Along with the macho comes a heightened sense of mortality, and a deeper need for something, or someone, to rely upon.
Updated 4.28.03 - The City Triology: Five Jade
Disks, Defenders of the Dragon City, Tale of a Feather
Author: Chang, Hsi-huo
Publisher: Columbia $ 27.50 ISBN: 0231128525 Date: 2003KirkusBooklist
These three short novels, first published in Taiwan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, are now presented for the first time in English in a single volume. Chang's most sustained work in the science fiction genre to date, all three novels stage the theme of free will versus determinism.
Updated 5.14.03 - Please
Author: Darbyshire, Peter
Publisher: Raincoast $ 15.95 (paper) ISBN: 1551925621 Date: 2003Kirkus
Updated 3.13.03 - The Quality
of Life Report
Author: Daum, Megan
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670032131 Date: 2003PW
One of today's most admired new voices blends social critique and a bittersweet love story marked by both style and substance.
Updated 4.7.03 - Hell at the Breech
Author: Franklin, Tom
Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 0688167411 Date: 2003KirkusPWBooklist
The award-winning author of Poachers weaves together historical fact, dark lyrical prose, and blistering action in this stunning first novel of hooded vigilantes in 1897 Alabama.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 5.29.03 - A Disturbance
of Fate
Author: Freedman, Mitchell J.
Publisher: Seven Locks $ 27.95 ISBN: 1931643229 Date: 2003PW
Updated 5.6.03 - Creation
Author: Govier, Katherine
Publisher: Overlook $ 24.95 ISBN: 1585674109 Date: 2003Booklist
In this atmospheric and enthralling novel, Govier tells the story of John James Audubon, a man torn between the lies he has lived by and the truth he now needs. Her novel recreates the summer in which "the world's greatest living bird artist" finally understood the paradox embedded in his art: that the act of creation is also an act of destruction.
Suggested Reading: Biographical Fiction | For the Birds
Updated 4.28.03 - Signal & Noise
Author: Griesemer, John
Publisher: Picador $ 26 ISBN: 0312300824 Date: 2003KirkusBooklist
Signal & Noise is the epic page-turning story of the laying of the trans-Atlantic cable, and the men and women who are caught in its monumental tide.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 2.28.03 - Will@Epicwest.Com: Medicated
Memoir
Author: Grimes, Tom
Publisher: Ludlow $ 12.95 (paper) ISBN: 0971341575 Date: 2003Kirkus
In vividly compressed comic form, WILL@epicqwest.com takes the reader on a contemporary quest that is as cyberspatially and pharmaceutically fantastic as anything Ulysses encountered on his trek home from Troy.
Suggested Reading: Internet Stars
Updated 3.13.03 - Love
with a Scandalous Lord
Author: Heath, Lorraine
Publisher: Avon $ 5.99 (paper) ISBN: 0380817438 Date: 2003Booklist
The USA Today bestselling author presents an unforgettable story of a young lady seeking a proper husband in London society. Instead, she finds passion with a handsome, inappropriate rogue.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 6.25.03 - Fallen Angels
Author: Hickman, Patricia
Publisher: Warner $ 12.95 ISBN: 044691011 Date: 2003Booklist
Award-winning author Hickman presents the first installment in the Millwood Hollow series about an unlikely hero and a trio of abandoned siblings struggling for survival in the South during the Great Depression.
Suggested Reading: Christian Fiction Stars
Updated 6.25.03 - Victims
Author: Jeppensen, Travis
Publisher: Little House on the Bowery $ 13.95 ISBN: 1888451424 Date: 2003Library Journal
Debut in series edited by cult novelist Dennis Cooper (Frisk).
Updated 4.7.03 - Hunting in
Harlem
Author: Johnson, Mat
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 23.95 ISBN: 1582342725 Date: 2003Booklist
Johnson has created vividly memorable characters and a story that stands out as one of the most controversial and explosive in years. As sure to ignite debate as it is to entertain, Hunting in Harlem is an old-fashioned page-turner with a fresh and brave voice.
Suggested Reading: African American Stars
Updated 5.14.03 - Sappho's Leap
Author: Jong, Erica
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393157615 Date: 2003Booklist
Always our keenest-eyed chronicler of the wonders and vagaries of sex and love, Jong has found the perfect subject for a witty and sensuous tale of a passionate woman ahead of her time.
Updated 3.13.03 - Dreams of
Bread and Fire
Author: Kricorian, Nancy
Publisher: Grove $ 24 ISBN: 0802117430 Date: 2003Library Journal
Poetic and assured, the second novel by the critically acclaimed author of Zabelle is the story of a young American woman whose half-Jewish, half-Armenian heritage seems a footnote to her own identity until the dark shadows of history propel her into a profound series of journeys.
Updated 3.13.03 - Same as It Never
Was
Author: Lazebnik, Claire Scovell
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312312490 Date: 2003Library Journal
Capturing the privileged world of the West Side of Los Angeles, this debut features an irreverent UCLA student who suddenly finds herself the guardian of her four-year-old half sister.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 4.7.03 - The
Gangster We Are All Looking For
Author: Le, Thi Diem Thuy
Publisher: Knopf $ 18 ISBN: 0375400184 Date: 2003Kirkus
A momentous literary debut: the life of a Vietnamese family in America luminously observed through the knowing eyes of a child. The Gangster We Are All Looking For is an authentically original story of finding one's place and voice in America.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Asian American Fiction Stars
Updated 2.23.03 - The Wandering Hill: A
Novel
Author: McMurtry, Larry
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 26 ISBN: 0743233034 Date: 2003Booklist
The sensational Pulitzer Prize-winning author delivers the second thrilling book in the Berrybender Narratives--The Wandering Hill is Larry McMurtry at his best. He spins an epic American adventure of the Old West that succeeds the bestselling Sin Killer and stands beside Lonesome Dove in breadth, passion, and authenticity.
Suggested Reading: Western Stars | Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 3.31.03 - The Ramayana
Author: Menon, Ramesh
Publisher: North Point $ 35 ISBN: 0865476608 Date: 2003Kirkus
India's most beloved and enduring legend, the Ramayana is widely acknowledged to be one of the world's great literary masterpieces. Novelist Menon has rendered the tale in lyrical prose that conveys all the beauty and excitement of the original, while making this classic accessible to a new generation of readers.
Suggested Reading: Stars of India
Updated 3.13.03 - The Only Good
Thing Anyone Has Ever Done
Author: Newman, Sandra
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060514981 Date: 2003LJ
When Chrysalis Moffat and her brother Eddie inherit a mansion on the coast of California, Eddie hatches a plan to fleece credulous Californians of their cash by starting the fraudulent Tibetan School of Miracles. With Ralph as the would-be guru and miracle worker, the "school" quickly becomes more successful than anybody first imagined.
Updated 6.5.03 - Star of the Sea
Author: O'Connor, Joseph
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151009082 Date: 2003KirkusLJ
In this spellbinding tale of tragedy and mercy, love and healing, the farther the Star of the Sea sails toward the Promised Land, the more her passengers seem moored to a past that will never let them go. As urgently contemporary as it is historical, this gripping and compassionate novel builds with the pace of a thriller to a stunning conclusion.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Sea Stories
Updated 4.29.03 - Getting
Mother's Body
Author: Parks, Suzan-Lori
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 1400060222 Date: 2003BooklistPW
From this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama comes an enormously accomplished and original debut novel about a down-on-their-luck black family in 1960s Texas in search of the storied jewels buried with one of their relatives.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | African American Fiction Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 5.19.03 - Beyond Sunrise
Author: Proctor, Candice
Publisher: Ivy $ 6.99 ISBN: 0345447182 Date: 2003PW
The bestselling author of Midnight Confessions presents this breathtaking tale of India McKnight, an independent 19th-century woman who sails to the unknown South Pacific and finds unexpected adventure--and love.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 3.31.03 - The Penelopeia
Author: Rawlings, Jane
Publisher: Godine $ 30 ISBN: 1567920066 Date: 2003Booklist
Updated 5.29.03 - Eat Cake
Author: Ray, Jeanne
Publisher: Crown $ 19.95 ISBN: 060961004x Date: 2003Library Journal
Ruth loves to bake cakes. As Eat Cake begins, Ruth's husband has lost his job, her elderly mother has just come to live with them, and her smart-alec daughter won't keep the misery of adolescence to herself. It's funny and witty and wise and warm, with unforgettable characters.
Updated 4.7.03 - Testament
Author: Ricci, Nino
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 25 ISBN: 0618273530 Date: 2003Booklist
Grounded in extensive research, and written with the elegant poetic eye that has earned Ricci an international reputation, Testament is a bold work of historical fiction. It vividly recreates the world of 1st century Palestine to explore the very beginnings of the myth surrounding the man known as Jesus.
Updated 2.28.03 - Villa Incognito
Author: Robbins, Tom
Publisher: Bantam $ 27.50 ISBN: 0553803328 Date: 2003PW
American MIAs choose to remain missing after the Vietnam War. Four generations of strong, alluring women share a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore. Love, lust, and provocative ideas abound. Robbins has never written a more beautifully crafted novel nor one more fun to read.
Updated 4.14.03 - Sweetwater
Author: Robinson, Roxana
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 037550916x Date: 2003PW
The commercial breakthrough for an established literary writer, this compelling novel about the complications of a young widow's second marriage is set against the vivid backdrop of the natural landscape, with its own powerful dynamic.
Updated 3.3.03 - Mortals
Author: Rush, Norman
Publisher: Knopf $ 26.95 ISBN: 0679406220 Date: 2003PWKirkus
This greatly anticipated new novel by Rush--whose first novel, Mating (1991), won the National Book Award, is his richest work yet: at once political adventure, social comedy, and a passionate love triangle. It is set in the 1990s in Botswana--the African country Rush has made his own fictional territory.
Updated 4.24.03 - Portrait of
My Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime: Stories
Author: Sandor, Marjorie
Publisher: Sarabande $ 21.95/13.95 ISBN: 1889330833/1889330825 Date: 2003Kirkus
The ten linked stories of Portrait of My Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime, display a Chekhovian restraint, an exceptional richness and depth of insight into the strangeness at the heart of every family. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 2.23.03 - Dreaming the Eagle
Author: Scott, Manda
Publisher: Delacorte $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385336705 Date: 2003Library Journal
A powerful novel about Boudica, one of the most intriguing and mysterious women in history. Scott has done her research, and the mix of real images and her imagination has created a completely believable world.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
Updated 4.29.03 - Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just
May Not
Author: Sedaris, Amy, Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert, photos by Todd Oldham
Publisher: Hyperion $ 22.95 ISBN: 0786868120 Date: 2003PW
A hilarious illustrated satire of a Lake Wobegon gone hideously wrong and the earnest reporter who hopes to save it from extinction. Wigfield is a town in danger, and its only hope lies in the self-righteous "journalist" Russell Hokes, who arrives hoping to capture the quiet dignity of the disappearing American Small Town.
Suggested Reading: Humorous Fiction | Satirical Stars
Link: Wigfield site
Updated 4.28.03 - We Need
to Talk About Kevin
Author: Shriver, Lionel
Publisher: Counterpoint $ 25 ISBN: 1582432678 Date: 2003PWBooklist
Focusing on a boy who kills seven of his fellow students, Shriver tells a resonant story while framing the horrifying tableaux of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy--the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.
Suggested Reading: Epistolary Stars
Updated 5.14.03 - All Hat
Author: Smith, Brad
Publisher: Holt $ 24 ISBN: 0805072179 Date: 2003Booklist
Surprisingly poignant yet laugh-out-loud funny, All Hat tells a classic story of little guys fighting big guys and reaffirming the meaning of honesty and friendship--and second chances--in the process.
Updated 3.31.03 - Farewell, My Queen
Author: Thomas, Chantal
Publisher: Braziller $ 22.50 ISBN: 0807615145 Date: 2003KirkusBooklistPW
A woman whose function it once was to read books aloud to Marie-Antoinette is haunted by the memory of her last days at the French court of Versailles, when Louis XVI's magnificent palace succumbed to the irrepressible forces of revolution.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Historical Fiction Stars | Marie Antoinette
Updated 6.19.03 - My
Father Had a Daughter: Judith Shakespeare's Tale
Author: Tiffany, Grace
Publisher: Berkley $ 21.95 ISBN: 042519003x Date: 2003LJ
After a family tragedy, Judith Shakespeare discovers a copy of her father's new play, which seems to make light of her grief. Furious, she follows him to London, intent on sabotaging the performance--but instead, she discovers that she and her father have more in common than she imagined.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens | Shakespearean Stars
Updated 5.19.03 - Colour
Author: Tremain, Rose
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 25 ISBN: 0374126054 Date: 2003PWKirkusBooklist
Tremain's new novel is a saga of love and greed set during the mid-19th century gold rush in New Zealand. Newlyweds Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from England in search of new beginnings and prosperity. But the harsh land where they settle threatens to destroy them almost before they begin.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Historical Fiction Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 5.29.03 - The Song Reader
Author: Tucker, Lisa
Publisher: Pocket/Downtown $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 0743464451 Date: 2003PW
When two sisters are left alone after the death of their mother and the disappearance of their father, Mary Beth becomes the hero of both her younger sister and their entire town. She is a "song reader." She doesn't read palms or tarot cards; she reads people's secrets and desires from the songs they can't get out of their minds.
Suggested Reading: Music & Fiction | Debuts | Reading Group Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.17.03 - The Dirty
Girls Social Club
Author: Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312313810 Date: 2003Library Journal
In this heartfelt and absorbing novel, the author opens up the lives of six upwardly mobile Latina friends in their late 20s. Filled with humor, drama and the redemptive power of friendship, this book promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.
Suggested Reading: Latino/Latina Stars
Updated 3.31.03 - Easter Island
Author: Vanderbes, Jennifer
Publisher: Dial $ 22.95 ISBN: 038533673x Date: 2003KirkusPW
It is 1913. Elsa Pendleton travels from England to Easter Island with her husband and her sister. What begins as familial duty becomes a grand adventure as she discovers her true calling. Easter Island is a tour-de-force of storytelling that will establish Vanderbes as a most gifted writer.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 5.19.03 - A Palestine
Affair
Author: Wilson, Jonathan
Publisher: Pantheon $ 23 ISBN: 0375422099 Date: 2003PW
When Mark Bloomberg, a disillusioned London painter, arrives in Palestine to take up a propaganda commission, he and his wife accidentally witness the murder of a prominent Orthodox Jew. This provocative murder--swiftly pinned on an Arab boy--becomes a test of their marriage and their ideals.
Updated 5.12.03
April
- Crescent
Author: Abu-Jaber, Diana
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 039305747x Date: 2003Booklist
Praised by critics for her first novel, Arabian Jazz, Diana Abu-Jaber now weaves with spellbinding magic a multidimensional love story set in the Arab-American community of Los Angeles.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.31.03 - The Marriage of
the Sea
Author: Alison, Jane
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 24 ISBN: 0374199418 Date: 2003Kirkus
As alluring as The Love-Artist, this is a contemporary tale of love and ambition, betrayal and revenge, set in two gloriously watery cities.
Suggested Reading: Venice | New Orleans
Updated 1.10.03 - Seduced
Author: Britton, Pamela
Publisher: Warner $ 6.99 (paper) ISBN: 0446611298 Date: 2003Booklist
Although they loathe one another, roguish Lucien St. Aubyn and headstrong Elizabeth Montclair are thrown together in matrimony after they are caught in a compromising position. Although she was the only woman to resist his charms, how long can Elizabeth last before she gives in?
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 2.20.03 - Christopher
Author: Burnett, Allison
Publisher: Broadway $ 13.95 (paper) ISBN: 0767913337 Date: 2003Booklist
Updated 4.16.03 - The Devil You Know
Author: Carlyle, Liz
Publisher: Pocket $ 6.99 ISBN: 074343787x Date: 2003Booklist
Cast aside by her beau, Frederica d'Avillez is comforted by Bentley Rutledge, a scoundrel whose wild ways embroil the couple in a passionate romance. Soon, Frederica finds herself in need of a husband. And who better than the devil that got her into her situation?
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 4.16.03 - Catwoman: Selena's Big Score
Author: Cooke, Darwyne, illustrated by Matt Hollingsworth
Publisher: DC Comics $ 24.95 ISBN: 1563898977 Date: 2003PW
Suggested Reading: Graphic Novel Stars
Updated 3.13.03 - Cosmopolis
Author: Delillo, Don
Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0743244249 Date: 2003Booklist
Eric Packer, age 28, is a billionaire asset manager, and on this day he is a man with two missions: to pursue a destructive bet against the yen and to get a haircut across town. Cosmopolis is a vivid novel with extraordinary pace. DeLillo's insight into the impact of money on every aspect of culture--from art to real estate to politics to time itself--is stunning.
Updated 12.16.02 - San Remo Drive: A Novel
from Memory
Author: Epstein, Leslie
Publisher: Handsel $ 24 ISBN: 1590510666 Date: 2003Booklist
San Remo Drive is a novel of many dimensions. It explores the glamorous life of Hollywood and evokes the landscape of Southern California both as it is no and as it appears before the migration to it of millions. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Hollywood & Film Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 5.29.03 - Beg the Question
Author: Fingerman, Bob
Publisher: Fantagraphics $ 24.95 ISBN: 1560975024 Date: 2003PW
Suggested Reading: Graphic Novel Stars
Updated 3.3.03 - Summer Secrets
Author: Freethy, Barbara
Publisher: Signet $ 6.99 (paper) ISBN: 0451410823 Date: 2003Booklist
Bestselling author Freethy presents her most powerful contemporary novel: the story of three unique sisters, the secrets that bind them for life, and the summer that will set them free.
Suggested Reading: Summertime Stars
Updated 5.14.03 - Monkey Hunting
Author: Garcia, Cristina
Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375410562 Date: 2003Library JournalPW
From a National Book Award finalist comes an emotionally rich and powerful saga of one Chinese-Cuban family. Rendered in the lyrical prose that is Garca's hallmark, Monkey Hunting brilliantly illuminates a generations-long struggle toward a sense of true belonging.
Suggested Reading: Latino/Latina Stars
Updated 4.7.03 - Bad News of the
Heart
Author: Glover, Douglas H.
Publisher: Dalkey $ 13.95 (paper) ISBN: 1564782867 Date: 2003Kirkus
Updated 3.13.03 - Loot: And Other Stories
Author: Gordimer, Nadine
Publisher: Farrar $ 24 ISBN: 0374190909 Date: 2003Kirkus
Startling new stories are offered in this collection of masterly new fiction from the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Updated 12.27.02 - Crabwalk
Author: Grass, Gunter
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 015107640 Date: 2003KirkusPW
No book since The Tin Drum has generated as much excitement as this engrossing account of the sinking of the German cruise ship turned refugee carrier Wilhelm Gustloff. This is at once a captivating tale of a tragedy at sea and a fearless examination of the ways different generations of Germans now view their past. Grass is a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Updated 3.3.03 - I Am Not
Jackson Pollock
Author: Haskell, John
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux $ 20.00 ISBN: 0374173990 Date: 2003KirkusPW
In this debut series of myths for modern times, haunting meditations are given on art, movies, literature, and life.
Updated 3.27.03 - The Happiness Code
Author: Herrick, Amy
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670031976 Date: 2003Booklist
From the author of the acclaimed story collection At the Sign of the Naked Waiter comes a magical love story--set in a futuristic Brooklyn--that explores family, marriage, and destiny in a world where happiness can be guaranteed for everyone.
Updated 3.31.03 - The
Final Confession of Mabel Stark
Author: Hough, Robert
Publisher: Atlantic $ 24 ISBN: 0871138700 Date: 2003Kirkus
This finalist for the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in Canada tells the fascinating story of the greatest female tiger trainer in history--and her one true love--spanning from golden age of the circus in the early 20th century to the 1960s.
Suggested Reading: Circus Fiction | Historical Fiction Stars | Biographical Fiction
Updated 1.10.03 - On the Nature of Human Romantic
Interaction
Author: Iagnemma, Karl
Publisher: Dial $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385335938 Date: 2003KirkusBooklist
Iagnemma, MIT robotics researcher and winner of the Paris Review Discovery Prize, blends science and romance in this dazzling debut collection. Restless, lonely, romantic, the disparate protagonists in these stories safeguard their emotions behind a wall of logic and knowledge.
Updated 4.28.03 - Getting
Over Jack Wagner
Author: Juska, Elise
Publisher: Pocket $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 0743464672 Date: 2003Kirkus
Eliza has spent her entire life trying to find a passionate relationship and has been consistently disappointed. A child of the eighties, she assumes early in life that "rock stars" are the only answer to a "deep" boyfriend. With the help of her mother and friends, Eliza must reevaluate her aspirations for love and the very way she defines herself.
Suggested Reading: Chicklit Stars
Updated 2.10.03 - Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde
Author: adapted by Kramsky, Jerry; illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti
Publisher: NMB $ 15.95 ISBN: 1561633305 Date: 2003PW
Suggested Reading: Graphic Novel Stars
Updated 3.13.03 - The Midwife's Tale
Author: Laskas, Gretchen Moran
Publisher: Dial $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385335512 Date: 2003Library Journal
Incorporating the whimsical mountain lore of Appalachia's past, Laskas has crafted a story true to its time, and a cast of characters as poignant as they are original. Elizabeth and her Mama know intimately the histories of every family that comes knocking on their door, each love, loss, and shadowy secret. Few, however, know their own.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.13.03 - Gilgamesh
Author: London, Joan
Publisher: Grove $ 23 ISBN: 0802117414 Date: 2003Library Journal
London's stunning debut novel is set in 1937 Australia. Seventeen-year-old Edith is enthralled by the stories of her English cousin and his American friend about their archaeological dig in Iraq--especially tales of the ancient Mesopotamian king Gilgamesh.
Suggested Reading: First Fiction Mystery & Debuts
Updated 1.29.03 - A
Garden of Earthly Delights
Author: Oates, Joyce Carol
Publisher: Modern Library $ 13.95 (paper) ISBN: 0812968344 Date: 2003Kirkus
Updated 2.23.03 - Shadow With
out a Name
Author: Padilla, Ignacio
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux $ 22.00 ISBN: 0374261903 Date: 2003Kirkus
In this debut by one of Mexico's most dazzling younger writers, Nazi doubles obscure true identities over the decades--and clues which tie these men together are concealed in a manuscript that an old Polish count has left to his heirs.
Updated 1.26.03 - Conclave
Author: Pazzi, Roberto
Publisher: Steerforth $ 14.95 (paper) ISBN: 1586420666 Date: 2003PW
Updated 5.12.03 - Second Glance
Author: Picoult, Jodi
Publisher: Atria $ 25 ISBN: 0743254502 Date: 2003PW
In a small Vermont town, and old man puts a piece of land up for sale, igniting a firestorm of protest from the local Abenaki Indians, who insist it is an ancient burial ground. Thus begins Picoult's enthralling and ultimately astonishing story of love, fate, and a crime of passion.
Updated 3.31.03 - The Blue Moon Circus
Author: Raleigh, Michael
Publisher: Sourcebooks $ 22 ISBN: 1402200153 Date: 2003KirkusLJ
The coming-of-age story of an aging renegade and the boy who finds a home under the big top. Evoking the historical intrigue of Carter Beats the Devil and the ragtag characters of O Brother Where Art Thou?, author Michael Raleigh leads an oddball circus ensemble across the recently tamed, dust-blown American West. - Publisher marketing
Suggested Reading: Circus Fiction | Historical Fiction Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.31.03 - Southland
Author: Revoyr, Nina
Publisher: Akashic $ 15.95 (paper)ISBN: 1888451416 Date: 2003Booklist
In Southland, her second novel, Nina Revoyr brings us a compelling story of race, love, murder, and history against the backdrop of Los Angeles. - Publisher Marketing.
Updated 4.16.03 - The Magic Flute
Author: Russell, P. Craig
Publisher: NMB $ 24.95 ISBN: 156163350x Date: 2003PW
Suggested Reading: Graphic Novel Stars
Updated 9.08.03 - Family History
Author: Shapiro, Dani
Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375415475 Date: 2003PW
From the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling memoir, Slow Motion, comes a gripping new novel about a family unraveling, and a mother's helpless attempt to protect her children and her marriage.
Updated 2.4.03 - Gentlemen of Space
Author: Sher, Ira
Publisher: Free Pr $ 23 ISBN: 0743242181 Date: 2003Booklist
Magnolia Court is not the most magical place in Florida, but to young Georgie Finch, this outsized housing project is the center of the universe. In this superbly crafted and imaginative novel, Georgie tells the story of when his father, Jerry, won a competition in 1976 to become the first civilian man on the moon.
Suggested Reading: Space Age Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.31.03 - Good Faith
Author: Smiley, Jane
Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 0375412174 Date: 2003KirkusBooklistPW
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres comes a masterly novel about some very American seductions: money, sex, and real estate. Good Faith is an extraordinary story about ordinary people caught up in the exotic 1980s version of the American Dream, as greed and financial game-playing explode on Main Street.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.20.03 - A Choice of
Angels
Author: Sobczak, Charles
Publisher: Indigo $ 24.95 ISBN: 0967619971 Date: 2003Booklist
Updated 6.25.03 - All Honest Men: The Story
of J. Willis Newton and America's Most Successful Outlaw Gang
Author: Stanush, Claude & Michele
Publisher: Permanent $ 28 ISBN: 1579620841 Date: 2003Kirkus
A lyrical debut novel by a father/daughter writing team based on the true-life story of J. Willis Newton, the cagey, charismatic son of a Texas sharecropper who fled the cotton fields to America's most successful bandit leader. Bridging the Old West outlaw era and the gangster world of Al Capone, the book explores the widespread twisting of the American Dream. - Publisher marketing.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | First Fiction Mystery & Debuts | Biographical Fiction
Updated 6.2.03 - Bay of Souls
Author: Stone, Robert
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 25 ISBN: 0395963494 Date: 2003KirkusPWLJ
Stone's fever dream of possession is a remarkable new psychological thriller of razor-sharp intensity: mysterious, erotic, and deeply readable. When a college professor pursues Lara Purcell to her native island of St. Trinity, he is caught unawares in a high-stakes smuggling scheme as his world becomes an ever-shifting phantasmagoria.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 3.13.02 - The Deep and Other Stories
Author: Swan, Mary
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375508511 Date: 2003Kirkus
With The Deep and Other Stories, Mary Swan offers brilliant stories that illuminate the remarkable moments in life and cover a wide range of human thoughts and emotions, in a unique, imaginative, and profoundly moving way.
Updated 2.23.03 - The Light of Day
Author: Swift, Graham
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375415491 Date: 2003Kirkus
George Webb is a divorced ex-policeman turned private investigator, a man whose prospects seemed ruined not so long ago. Following the course of a single, dazzling day in his life, this novel illuminates not only his past but also his now all-consuming relationship with a former client.
Updated 2.23.03 - What Night Brings
Author: Trujillo, Carla Mari
Publisher: Curbstone $ 15.95 ISBN: 1880684942 Date: 2003Booklist
The gripping story of a young girl discovering her lesbian identity. Miguel Marmol Prize Winner. What Night Brings focuses on a Chicano working-class family living in California during the 1960s Marci--smart, feisty and funny--tells the story with the wisdom of somecone twice her age as the determines to defy her family and God in order to find her identity, sexuality and freedom. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Latino/Latina Stars
Updated 3.31.03 - The Book of Salt
Author: Truong, Monique
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 0618304002 Date: 2003PWKirkus
In this literary feast, the Vietnamese cook for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas reveals his fascinating story.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Biographical Fiction
Updated 1.26.03 - The Force of the Past
Author: Veronesi, Sandro
Publisher: Ecco $ 23.95 ISBN: 0066212456 Date: 2003KirkusLJBooklist
A bizarre stranger enters the life of one Gianni Orzan, then promptly rewrites his entire past in this award-winning Italian novel.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.28.03 - The Bullet Collection
Author: Ward, Patricia Sarrafian
Publisher: Graywolf $ 25 ISBN: 15559973760 Date: 2003Booklist
Updated 3.13.03 - The Wife
Author: Wolitzer, Meg
Publisher: Scribner $ 23 ISBN: 0684869403 Date: 2003Booklist
When Wolitzer published her first novel, Sleepwalking, she received extraordinary critical acclaim for her humor, grace, and intelligence. Now, in her sixth novel, she has maintained the qualities that thrill readers, and introduces a character and subject matter that are her most ambitious, provocative, and powerful to date.
Updated 3.13.03
March
- Shroud
Author: Banville, John
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0375411305 Date: 2003KirkusPW
Axel Vander is an old man in ill health, recently widowed, a scholar renowned both for his unquestionable authority and the violence that often marks his conduct. In Shroud--as in all of his acclaimed previous novels--Banville gives readers an emotionally resonant tale, exceptionally rich in language and image, dazzling in its narrative invention.
Updated 1.28.03 - Alison's Automotive
Repair Manual
Author: Barkley, Brad
Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312291388 Date: 2003Library Journal
Automotive repair doubles as grief therapy in Barkley's quirky, emotionally resonant third novel (after Money, Love) set in a small town in West Virginia, where a newly widowed young woman tries to delay putting her life back together.
Updated 12.23.02 - Finding Caruso
Author: Barnes, Kim
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399149678 Date: 2003Booklist
The work of an award-winning memoirist and poet, Finding Caruso is an unsentimental and unforgettable novel about two brothers trying to find their place in the world.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
Updated 2.28.03 - Drop City
Author: Boyle, T.C.
Publisher: Viking $ 25.95 ISBN: 0670031720 Date: 2003KirkusBooklistPW
Boyle has proven himself to be a master storyteller who can do just about anything. But even his most ardent admirers may be caught off guard by his ninth novel, for Boyle has delivered something completely unexpected: a serious and richly rewarding character study that is his most accomplished and deeply satisfying work to date.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 1.3.03 - Suicidal Tendencies:
Stories
Author: Broughton, T. Alan
Publisher: Univ of Colorado $ 24.95 ISBN: 1885635052 Date: 2003Kirkus
Updated 3.27.03 - Brownsville
Author: Casares, Oscar
Publisher: Little, Brown $ 13.95 (paper) ISBN: 0316146803 Date: 2003PW
At the country's edge, on the Mexican border, Brownsville, Texas, is a town like many others. It is a place where people work hard to create better lives for their children, where people bear grudges against their neighbors, where love blossoms only to fade, and where the only real certainty is that life holds surprises.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Latino/Latina Stars
Updated 2.24.03 - Iron Rose
Author: Canham, Marsha
Publisher: Signet $ 6.99 (paper) ISBN: 0451208153 Date: 2003PW
Following a Spanish galleon's attack on his English merchant ship, Varian St. Clare discovers that the captain of the privateer who saved him is Juliet Dante, daughter of the legendary Pirate Wolf, who Varian has been sent to find. Juliet agrees to take him to her father--but only as her hostage.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 2.10.03 - Alva & Irva: The Twins
Who Saved a City
Author: Carey, Edward
Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 0151007829 Date: 2003Booklist
Alva and Irva Dapps are identical twin sisters who live in the city of Entralla. Yet the twins feel each other's emotions, think each other's thoughts, love and hate and suffer as one. And thereby hangs this inventive tale of creativity, obsession, and genius bred by necessity.
Suggested Reading: Twin Stars
Updated 3.31.03 - Bruiser
Author: Choaro, Ian
Publisher: Atria $ 24 ISBN: 0743437756 Date: 2003Booklist
In an accomplished first novel, Choro captures all the beauty, violence, and wonder of life as perceived by a ten-year-old boy in search of relief from the chaos of a shattered home.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens | Debuts
Updated 2.28.03 - The Hills at Home
Author: Clark, Nancy
Publisher: Pantheon $ 25 ISBN: 037542203x Date: 2003PWLJ
Directing an irrepressible New England clan against the backdrop of the late 1980s recession and the sweeping political and economic changes taking place around the world, Clark delights with her lively prose and her affectionate exploration of the forces that strain and sustain a family.
Updated 2.12.03 - Crumbtown
Author: Connelly, Joe
Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375413642 Date: 2003PW
Four years after his stunning debut with Bringing Out the Dead, Connelly returns with a darkly comic, wildly imaginative whirlwind of a new novel. Don Reedy is out after 15 years served for a staged armed robbery, and now embarks on a parole-required return to Crumbtown to consult on the TV show based on his life. He's got other ideas, however.
Updated 2.24.03 - The Point of Return
Author: Deb, Siddhartha
Publisher: Ecco $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060501510 Date: 2003Booklist
Set in the remote, northeastern hills of India in the 1970s, The Point of Return revolves around the father-son relationship of a willful, curious boy, Babu, and Doctor Dam, an enigmatic product of British colonial rule and Nehruvian nationalism.
Suggested Reading: Stars of India | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.31.03 - I Am Madame X
Author: Diliberto, Gioia
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743211553 Date: 2003Booklist
Even before John Singer Sargent painted her portrait, Virginie Gautreau's reputation for promiscuity and showy self-display made her the subject of Paris gossip. Her scandalous portrait, unveiled in 1884, provides the inspiration for this debut novel--a compulsively readable immersion in Belle Epoque Paris.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Biographical Fiction Stars
Updated 12.2.02 - The Brother's Keeper
Author: Groot, Tracy
Publisher: Moody $ 11.99 (paper) ISBN: 0802431054 Date: 2003Booklist
This imagined tale based on the few known facts from the life of James, the brother of Jesus, tells the story of the latter part of Jesus' ministry, up through his death and resurrection, as seen through the eyes of His own family. Groot takes readers on a journey from unbelief to belief as James grapples with the question of whom Jesus is.
Suggested Reading: Christian Fiction Stars
Updated 3.13.03 - The Spinning Man
Author: Harrar, George
Publisher: Blue Hen $ 24.95 ISBN:039914983x Date: 2003PW
Evan Birch is charming and affable, handsome, and gentle. So when the police bring him in for questioning in the disappearance of a high school cheerleader, everyone is sure of Evan's innocence. But then the evidence builds, and Evan begins to strain the will to believe in him in this brilliantly told and suspenseful novel.
Updated 3.3.03 - The Very Virile
Viking
Author: Hill, Sandra
Publisher: Leisure $ 6.99 ISBN: 0843950641 Date: 2003PW
Strangely transported to a kingdom called "Holly Wood, " Viking warrior Magnus Ericsson meets the woman of his dreams--a modern-day winemaker who fails to recognize Magnus as her soul mate. So he must prove to her that he is a man of exceptional talents.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 2.20.03 - The Affair
Author: Hingston, Sandy
Publisher: Berkley $ 6.99 (paper) ISBN: 0425189074 Date: 2003Booklist
Years after meeting gambling proprietress Christiane d'Oliveri in Paris, Irish lord Gannon Finn carries a torch for her--despite her humiliation of him. Now a respectable headmistress of an academy for girls, Christiane is about to learn a hard lesson when the rakish Gannon comes back into her life.
Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
Updated 3.13.03 - What I Loved
Author: Hustvedt, Siri
Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805071709 Date: 2003PWLJBooklist
From the author of The Enchantment of Lily Dahl comes a powerful and heartbreaking novel that chronicles the epic story of two families, two sons, and two marriages."
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.20.03 - The Office of
Innocence
Author: Keneally, Thomas
Publisher: Doubleday $ 25 ISBN: 0385507631 Date: 2003KirkusPW
Poignantly depicting the conflicts between the secular and the holy, and between the family of a Father's birth versus the brotherhood of priests, this is a tale set in the most compelling of circumstances. Keneally has created an endearing protagonist who speaks to the conundrums of the age while paying tribute to quiet heroes of the past.
Suggested Reading: Questions of Faith
Updated 12.23.02 - The Buzzing
Author: Knipfel, James
Publisher: Vintage $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 1400031834 Date: 2003Kirkus
In his first novel, Knipfel--author of the critically acclaimed memoirs Slackjaw and Quitting the Nairobi Trio--tackles modern life as it may be currently lived in New York City, and gives new meaning to the phrase "conspiracy theory."
Updated 12.02.02 - Safe in Heaven Dead
Author: Ligon, Samuel
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060099100 Date: 2003KirkusPW
A spellbinding literary noir, Safe in Heaven Dead reveals a world of people struggling to do what's right when everything seems wrong, a world of people resisting surrender to the corruption that surrounds them, and a world that, in the face of apparent hopelessness, somehow still breeds hope.
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled|Noir
Updated 3.13.03 - The Coffee Trader
Author: Liss, David
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375508546 Date: 2003PW
With wit, imagination, and mystery, Liss depicts a world of subterfuge, danger, and repressed longing, where religious and cultural traditions clash with the demands of a new and exciting way of doing business. Readers of historical suspense and lovers of coffee will be up all night with this intriguing novel.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Drink Up
Updated 1.28.03 - The Clarninet Polka
Author: Maillard, Keith
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312308892 Date: 2003KirkusBooklistLJPW
This hard-edged, sweet-souled story of a heart's homecoming is deeply and authentically rooted in Polish-American culture. A remarkable novel from an important writer.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Music & Fiction
Updated 1.3.03 - A
Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies: Stories
Author: Murray, John
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060509287 Date: 2003PWBooklist
The eight stories in this remarkable collection take their inspiration from the world of medicine and science. Intricately plotted and structured, with a novelistic scope and depth, these long stories share themes of love, loss, and redemption, and the sense that it is always possible to transform a life.
Updated 2.28.03 - All Over Creation
Author: Ozeki, Ruth L.
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670030910 Date: 2003KirkusPWBooklist
From the author of My Year of Meats comes the story of a Japanese-American prodigal daughter just trying to make sense of it all as the unceasing cycle of all creation continues around her.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Asian American Stars | Adult Books for Tens
Updated 2.20.03 - Drinking
Coffee Elsewhere
Author: Packer, Z.Z.
Publisher: Riverhead $ 23.95 ISBN: 1573222348 Date: 2003KirkusPWLJ
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is the highly anticipated debut of a remarkable writer of short stories and winner of the Whiting Writers' Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | First Fiction & Mystery Debuts | African American Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 1.16.03 - The Pearl of Kuwait
Author: Paine, Tom
Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 0151005184 Date: 2003Booklist
California surfer Cody "Cowboy" Carmichael's life is forever changed when he meets Private Tommy Trang at boot camp. A powerful first novel by an award-winning writer, Paine has created an enthralling, joyful, and original story with the classic ingredients of love and war.
Suggested Reading: Gulf War I Stars | Debuts | Marines
Updated 2.28.03 - The Jester
Author: Patterson,James & Andrew Gross
Publisher: Little Brown $ 27.95 ISBN: 0316602051 Date: 2003PW
With the unstoppable pace and plot of his page-turning thrillers, The Jester is a breathtakingly romantic, pulse-pounding adventure set in the Middle Ages--one that could only be conjured by the mind of international bestselling author Patterson.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 2.4.03 - Circle of Five
Author: Riccio, Dolores Stewart
Publisher: Kensington $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 0758203004 Date: 2003Booklist
Now that her children are grown, her lout of an ex-husband is gone, and her herbal remedy business has taken off, Cass Shipton is free to enjoy the simple comforts of her grown-up life. But Cass's idyllic, small-town life changes after she bumps carts at the local supermarket with a stranger in a green cap.
Suggested Reading: Magic & Magicians | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.13.03 - The Boy on the Bus
Author: Schupack, Deborah
Publisher: Free Press $ 23 ISBN: 0743242203 Date: 2003KirkusLJ
With the precision of a literary wordsmith and the deftness of a psychological thriller writer, Schupack has crafted an extraordinary tale of a mother's love for her son, and a mystery that may ultimately rip them apart.
Updated 2.12.02 - Eyesores: Stories
Author: Shade, Eric
Publisher: U of Georgia $ 24.95 ISBN: 0820324329 Date: 2003Booklist
Updated 4.28.03 - A Ship Made of Paper
Author: Spencer, Scott
Publisher: 0060185341 $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060185341 Date: 2003KirkusPW
In this new work by the author of Endless Love, a passionate interracial love affair threatens to destroy two families and injure everyone close to them.
Updated 2.4.03 - Ballpark Blues
Author: Tooke, C.W.
Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385506406 Date: 2003Kirkus
Russ Bryant, a lonely, downtrodden reporter trapped in a job he hates, stumbles into the story of a lifetime when he befriends a promising rookie named Casey Fox--a man possessed of mythic talents but mortal insecurities.
Updated 12.27.02 - The Songs of the Kings
Author: Unsworth, Barry
Publisher: Talese $ 26 ISBN: 0385501145 Date: 2003KirkusPW
As the harsh wind holds the Greek fleet trapped in the straits at Aulis, frustration and political impotence turn into a desire for the blood of a young woman--blood that will appease the gods and allow the troops to set sail. High-sounding principles clash with private motives, and dark comedy ensues.
Suggested Reading: Ancient Greece | Adult Books for Teens | Trojan War
Updated 2.20.02 - Summer
in the Country
Author: Willett, Marcia
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 031228781x Date: 2003Booklist
In this spellbinding tale born of the difficulties endured by both mothers and daughters, a woman is abandoned by her mother as a child but now the prodigal mom returns. Her summer lodger is also concealing a painful past with stunning repercussions.
Suggested Reading: Summertime Stars
Updated 5.14.03
February
- In the Electric
Eden
Author: Arvin, Nick
Publisher: Penguin $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 0142002569 Date: 2003Booklist
In this dazzling debut, Arvin, a former engineer, layers his knowledge of technology, mechanical design, and human character into this collection of ten emotionally riveting stories that, though seemingly linked, come together to form an awe-inspiring whole.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 1.25.03 - Under the Skin
Author: Blake, James Carlos
Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 0380977516 Date: 2003Library Journal
Blake's latest tough-skinned novel is a 1930s crime saga with roots on both sides of the Rio Grande. Under the Skin is the tale of Jimmy Youngblood, bodyguard to gangster brothers. As the story ranges from steamy Galveston to the brutal Mexican desert, Jimmy's life takes its most fearsome turn yet when he fails for the wife of a powerful and vengeful Mexican warlord.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
Updated 1.16.03 - Any Human Heart: The Intimate
Journals of Logan Mountstuart
Author: Boyd, William
Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375414932 Date: 2003KirkusPW
From the acclaimed author of Armadillo and The Blue Afternoon comes a new novel that invokes the tumult, events, and iconic faces of our time as it tells the story of Logan Mountstuart--writer, spy, and man of the world--through his intimate journals.
Updated 11.12.02 - Revenge
of the Middle-Aged Woman
Author: Buchan, Elizabeth
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670032069 Date: 2003PW
Full of humor, clever insight, and a whimsical sense of the absurd, Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman