Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #109
by muffy
In Girls in Trucks we first meet Sarah Walters and her Camellia (Society) girls at the Charleston Cotillion School for future debutantes. Then come the Ivy League college days and the decade as single girls in the big city. We watch as they make consistent bad choices about men, drugs and alcohol, falling short of the Camellia Society ideal (no riding in shiny red trucks with boys), and in danger of totally missing out on a chance for happiness.
Told in the linked-short-story format, Katie Crouch’s “exceptional, stylish debut” is distinguished by its “gentle humor and sharp observation couched in straightforward prose with none of the preening preciosity so often seen in Southern fiction.”
Fresh, heartwarming and engaging, it reminds one of Melissa Bank’s The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Last Girls by Lee Smith.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #108
by muffy
It's not often that you come across a debut novel as sure-footed and well-crafted as Tom Rob Smith's Child 44*.
In the last winter of Stalin's reign, Leo Demidov, a national hero and a ranking officer of the Moscow MGB (State Security) is aware that his good fortune (nice apartment, beautiful wife, imported foods) is precarious at best – balancing on luck and political gamesmanship. When he refuses to denounce his wife on trumped up charges as a spy, he was demoted and exiled to a remote city and quickly becomes involved hunting down a serial killer preying on young children. What Leo sees as his redemption cast him as the enemy of the state and a fugitive on the run.
Bleak, brooding and chillingly affecting, with a “relentless” pace and a layered plot, this unexpected story of love and family, of hope and resilience is a hypnotic psychological thriller - surely not to be missed. Prepublication film rights already sold to Ridley Scott.
For fans of the Arkady Renko series by Martin Cruz Smith and Emil Brod series by Olen Steinhauer.
* = Starred Reviews
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #107
by muffy
Playwright Theresa Rebeck has won an Edgar and a Peabody for her TV work and numerous awards for her plays and shows great promise as a novelist.
Her debut Three Girls and Their Brother* refers to teenagers Amelia, Polly and Daria Heller - "insanely beautiful" sisters of a well-connected Manhattan family, and their brother Philip. A lavish spread in the New Yorker makes the sisters overnight media sensations and instant celebrities. Exposure and fame brings on enormous opportunities, as well as the paparazzi, lechers and rivalry. When the grown-ups around them prove unreliable guardians, the siblings are forced to take responsibility for themselves.
Three Girls is “a wickedly enjoyable expose on modern celebrity”, “a timely and entertaining morality tale” --- much more than a fluffy chick lit.
* = Starred Reviews
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #106
by muffy
In this Olympic year, all eyes are on China. Coincidentally, we have a bumper crop of FFF by expat. Chinese writers, as well as a number of outstanding mysteries set in China.
The Eye of Jade, by Chinese exile Diane Wei Liang who fled her country after participating in the Tiananmen Square protests, is an impressive debut.
Set in the late 1990s' Beijing, P.I. Mei Wang was hired by a family friend to track down a jade seal from the Han Dynasty, supposedly destroyed by the Red Guards. Challenging family relationships, bureaucratic intricacies and an unconventional protagonist made for a fascinating read.
Two other outstanding mystery series set in China are: Peter May's Li Yan/Margaret Campbell* series, and the Inspector Chen* series by Xiaolong Qiu.
* = Starred Reviews
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #105
by muffy
Literature professor (Louisville, Kentucky) Will Lavender’s debut novel Obedience is one tautly strung thriller!
Students at Winchester University’s Logic and Reasoning 204 are greeted on the first day of class with one startling assignment – find a hypothetical missing girl name Polly before the end of term or she will be murdered.
As the clues set forth by the creepy prof. point more toward something real and sinister rather than a logic exercise, three of the students find disturbing personal connections with Polly. What looks like an academic exercise at first could turn deadly.
Obedience hooks you fast and hard. Ride it out and brace for the shock.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #104 (The Fourth Man)
by muffy
"An absorbing study of sexual enthrallment, dogged police work and a harrowing twist or two" marks The Fourth Man, the American debut of Oslo police inspector Frank Frolich.
Soon after Frolich rescues Elisabeth in a robbery-homicide, he is drawn into a risky and sorted tangled web of "art theft, blackmail, torrid sex and double crosses". With his career and his life on the line, all the likely suspects turning up dead and Elisabeth missing, the identity of a possible 4th man becomes ever more crucial. Recommended for fans of Karin Fossum and Kjell Eriksson.
K.O Dahl is an award-winning author in his native Norway. Another new name to watch for nordic mystery fans.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #105
by muffy
Black Ships* is debut novelist Jo Graham's captivating retelling of Virgil's The Aeneid from the perspective of Gull, a slave girl taken at the sacking of Troy.
At 17, Gull was chosen by the oracle Pythia as her successor for her prophetic visions, but she must decide if she would give up her exalted position and sail with exiled Trojan Prince Aeneas on the black ships, in order to guide him to his destiny.
Graham ably re-creates a vivid picture of the ancient world in this historically based fantasy. Her spare style complements the action-filled plot, and the “smoldering emotional resonance” fully engages the reader.
For historical fantasy fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana Paxson.
* = Starred Reviews
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #104
by muffy
L.A., gangs, turf war. Sound familiar? Well, Toby Barlow's debut Sharp Teeth* is anything but!
Written in free verse, this "highly addictive, enormously enjoyable, and unexpectedly moving", horror/thriller is about the fantastical world of werewolves. Caught in the middle of savage pack rivalry is Anthony, a kindhearted, down-and-out dogcatcher and the girl he loves who is in fact, a female werewolf.
This adrenaline-packed, fast-paced, darkly comic (card-playing dogs, crystal meth labs, surfing) debut by a Michigan author will surprise and entertain. Barlow is the Executive Creative Director of the giant ad agency JWT, whose clients include Ford, Shell and MTV. He lives in downtown Detroit.
* = Starred reviews
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #103
by muffy
Tired of the bleak Feb. days? Looking for something light and engaging? You might want to try Gods Behaving Badly by first time novelist Marie Phillips.
The immortals of Mount Olympus have fallen, and not just on hard times. Apollo, Aphrodite, Artemis, Eros and Zeus are slumming in modern day London, working menial jobs as a dog walker, a phone sex operator, a TV psychic; and falling for their cleaning woman, all the while worrying about their waning power and each other with their endless squabbling.
"Phillips imagines a hilarious world that explains all that is inexplicable in our own". "Fanciful, humorous and charming, this satire is as sweet as nectar" ~ Publishers Weekly.
Phillips is a graduate of Cambridge University currently working at the BBC and writes for the blog StrugglingAuthor.blogspot.com.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #102
by muffy
"Shades of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Caleb Carr's The Alienist, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, and Kim Newman's Dracula-inflected Victoriana"(Kirkus)... now, if that does not intrigue you, let me tell you this is by far one of the best thrillers I have come across in quite awhile.
A guaranteed page-turner, British(Oxford)scholar Jonathan Barnes' hectic, layered, odd and oddly affecting literary extravaganza The Somnambulist* features the shadowy magician/private detective Edward Moon and his sidekick - the 8' tall, bald, mute somnambulist.
"Barnes is up to something very special here. He's created a new genre, really, a graphic novel written in longhand, and it combines the subtle horror of Patricia Highsmith, the goofy gore of Christopher Moore, and the cartoon action of the TV series Heroes. Read for the sheer fun of it"~ Jen Baker for Booklist. Trust us on this one.
* = Starred Reviews