Shelf Awareness for Readers for Tuesday, November 5, 2013


G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers: Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee

From My Shelf

All Aboard: Riding the Rails via Fiction

For many of us, trains are fascinating: cargo and passenger trains, subways, high-speed rail. The call of a train whistle--the rumbling, chugging sound--awakens the spirit and encourages the imagination to crisscross time and place. That's what inspired me to write In Transit, a woman-in-jeopardy novel published two years ago. It's the story of a misguided, rookie NYPD transit cop assigned to the labyrinthine New York City subway system and how, when she falls in love with the wrong man, her life derails.

In Trains and Lovers by Alexander McCall Smith, four travelers, diverse in backgrounds and ages, are brought together on a train bound from Edinburgh to London. They pass the time by telling tales of how the railroad played a significant part in each of their love lives.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline is a coming-of-age novel that connects the disparate lives of two women. The story is based on the program that, from the 19th century until the Great Depression, carted orphans via train to adoptive families in the Midwest.

Pandemonium infuses Mrs. Queen Takes the Train. In William Kuhn's clever, inventive novel, Queen Elizabeth gets fed up with the demands of life at Buckingham Palace, slips on a borrowed hoodie and goes rogue, taking public rail transportation to Scotland.

The Train of Small Mercies, a collection of short stories by David Rowell, links the poignant, personal experiences of six ordinary people who witness and grieve as the train carrying the body of Robert F. Kennedy from New York City to his final resting place in Washington, D.C.

The idea of riding the rails conjures romance, intrigue and drama as trains take us on collective and individual journeys--both on the page and off. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines


Sleeping Bear Press: When You Go Into Nature by Sheri M Bestor, Illustrated by Sydney Hanson


The Writer's Life

Victoria Patterson: Honoring Women in Sports

Victoria Patterson is the author of This Vacant Paradise, which was a 2011 New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Her work has appeared in various publications and journals, including the Los Angeles Times, Orange Coast Magazine, Alaska Quarterly Review and the Southern Review. She lives with her family in Southern California and teaches at Antioch University. Patterson's new book, The Peerless Four (Counterpoint), is a fictional account of Canada's women's track and field team at the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928--the first time women were allowed to compete in the sport.

What sparked your interest in the first female Olympic athletes? And why the Canadian athletes?

I happened upon a graphic novel by David Collier about Ethel Catherwood, a Canadian high jumper, which led me to researching the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, where women were allowed to compete in five track and field events for the first time, on a trial basis.

Then I decided to read great sports literature to figure out what makes it so great, including Leonard Gardner's Fat City; Richard Ford's The Sportswriter; W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe; H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights; Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding; Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk; Bernard Malamud's The Natural; David Halberstam's The Best American Sportswriting of the Century; David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest--also his essays on tennis; Don DeLillo's End Zone and Underworld; and Norman Mailer's The Fight.

The more I read and researched, the more I realized that all the so-called classic sports novels, and most of the "best of" writing about sports, were by men and about men. How could I not write into this gaping hole? Also, the record of women in athletics is a story of underdog-status, sacrifice, loyalty, commitment, perseverance and innovation--all the qualities that I'd discovered make for a great sports narrative.

Though fictionalized, I felt it important to honor the women who inspired my novel by keeping their nationality.

Six women made up the track and field team. Why did you focus on four?

My characters are fictional creations--inspired by the six women but not the actual women. The best fiction, whether historical or not, produces a spell where the characters live.

My characters in The Peerless Four have become so real to me that now I have trouble distinguishing the "real" from the fictional. What did I make up? What really happened? I'm not so sure any more.

I know certain facts--for instance, that the javelin wasn't included in the five track and field events permissible for women in 1928. But for my purposes, I included the javelin anyway.

You tell their story through the eyes of their chaperone, Marybelle Ross. Why this perspective?

With her melancholic and searching outlook, Mel gave me my way in, an insider and an outsider. I saw her first while looking at old photographs of women's Olympic teams, and noticing, off to the side of one photo, a chaperone standing beside the athletes, not named in the caption. "That's my narrator," I thought, staring at the anonymous woman.

Did you struggle with any aspect of balancing the fact and fiction?

Hilary Mantel said, "Often, if you want to write about women in history, you have to distort history to do it, or substitute fantasy for facts; you have to pretend that individual women were more important than they were or that we know more about them than we do."

There wasn't much out there to draw on regarding these incredible athletes. More often than not, I had to create backstories and imagine their lives.

How, if at all, did the historical nature of The Peerless Four cause your process to differ from your first novel, This Vacant Paradise?

Robert Penn Warren, from his Paris Review interview, states:

"You see the world as best you can, and the events and books that are interesting to you should be interesting to you because you're a human being, not because you're trying to be a writer. Then those things might be of use to you as a writer later on. I don't believe in a schematic approach to material. The business of researching for a book strikes me as a sort of obscenity. What I mean is, researching for a book in the sense of trying to find a book to write. Once you are engaged by a subject, are in a book, have your idea, you may or may not want to do some investigating. But you ought to do it in the same spirit in which you'd take a walk in the evening air and think things over."

I really tried to keep Warren's statement in mind, since this was a departure for me, wandering into historical fiction. Drift and This Vacant Paradise were both set at the end of the 20th century in my fictionalized home-turf of Newport Beach, Calif.

Not only did I read, I watched sports movies and television programs, whether hokey or not, and documentaries. Nothing was off limits, whether it be Friday Night Lights (book, television series and movie), Personal Best or a biography of John McEnroe. After reading a few books on running, I began, much to my surprise, to jog in the late afternoons.

I spent over a year reading and researching, discovering how to enter my novel. When I had all the facts at hand, I had to distinguish how to present them in service of the story. I'd filled myself up--brimming with thoughts and ideas and questions--and it was time to try to make sense of it all. Finding my narrator Mel's voice was key.

Was there anything that really surprised you?

I was really inspired and surprised by all the women who have fought for my right to simply go for a jog, and how recent these gains have been made.

The most fascinating thing you learned?

The struggle to achieve equality has been a fight against an image of female participation in athletics as unnatural, immoral, harmful and disgusting. I was a bit naïve, growing up as I did with the freedoms and benefits of Title IX. For instance, I didn't know that not until 1981--thanks in no small part to Kathrine Switzer--did the International Olympic Committee vote to allow women to compete in marathons.

Was there anything you would have liked to include but wasn't right for the book?

At the end of the novel, I have a timeline of women in sports before 1928. Each one of these women has an incredible story, and for the most part, they've been ignored. They deserve better--they each deserve a novel.

While the women's struggles are obvious in your novel, what universal elements of sport and competition do you hope people see in your work?

The Peerless Four is also a meditation on sports, the relationship between women and men, winning and losing, and what it means to be alive.

Do you have a personal interest in sports of any kind? Participated in a competitive setting?

I understand now that I've always been fascinated by sports, and by how we react to sports, due, in no small part, to my family. I played tennis for many years. I wrote an essay at the Toast about my relationship to sports:

What's next for you?

I'm working on a novel inspired by the Haidl Three gang rape case that took place in Newport Beach in 2002. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts


Blue Box Press: Forgetting to Remember by MJ Rose


Book Candy

Published Novels from NaNoWriMo; 10 Great Sports Books

National Novel Writing Month has begun, and just to give you a little hope, Mental Floss discovered "14 published novels written during NaNoWriMo."

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"The Hidden Hobbit: 10 secrets from Tolkien's Classic" were revealed by the Huffington Post.

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"Celebrate it, bibliophiles." Buzzfeed highlighted the "23 best parts of being a book lover."

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Flavorwire offered "10 books about sports that even non-fans should read."

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"Architects like books--whether they read them or not is beside the point," Architizer noted in highlighting the "top 8 architectural bookshelves."


Book Review

Fiction

The Heavens Rise

by Christopher Rice


Niquette Delongpre and her parents vanish under mysterious circumstances one night. Authorities discover the remains of a car wreck, but there are no human remains. Soon after, Marshall Ferriot throws himself out a window and winds up in a coma. No one makes a connection between the events, because no one knows about the secret rendezvous between Niquette and Marshall--or how they were exposed to a strange parasite released from the swamps outside New Orleans. But when Marshall regains consciousness, he sets off for revenge and much more than the teens' brief fling is about to be exposed.

In a slight departure from previous thrillers like Blind Fall or The Moonlit Earth, Christopher Rice's The Heavens Rise delves into the paranormal. While realists may struggle with some of the supernatural elements, the depth of character, chilling atmosphere and moral dilemma are all marks of a superb story.

Ben, Niquette's best friend, and Anthem, the boyfriend she'd just gotten back together with before the accident, forge a bond through their shared grief after her disappearance. Rice's depiction of this friendship is gripping. The two teens grow into men with a deep, compassionate understanding and acceptance of each other, and the authenticity of Rice's portrayal of their relationship may cause readers to care more about their story than Niquette's.

Rice draws upon his New Orleans roots to create a Louisiana that may seem familiar but is a bit more terrifying, bringing about a perfect blend of spooky and memorable. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

Discover: Christopher Rice dances at the edges of his mother Anne's supernatural territory, but puts his own distinctive stamp on a story of two teenagers coping with the effects of a strange parasite.

Gallery Books, $26, hardcover, 9781476716084

Science Fiction & Fantasy

The Circle of Thirteen

by William Petrocelli


The Circle of Thirteen, the debut novel from William Petrocelli--co-owner of Book Passage, one of the West Coast's best-known independent bookstores--is equal parts mystery, thriller, dystopian fiction and feminist polemic--all of it compelling from first page to last. It opens in 2012 in Dallas, as a little boy crouches in a closet, clutching a medal his father earned fighting in Iraq and trying to block out the voices in the next room. His father, Jack, is screaming that his mother, Linda, is no good because she is no longer attentive to the Reverend's teaching and he's calling her girlfriend a dyke. The fighting ends with gunshots, leaving three people dead. Who is the killer? What are the ramifications of Jack's bullying behavior toward his wife and son? For how many years, and in how many ways, will this violence roil in the boy and then in the man?

The story moves on to 2082 and an explosion at the dedication ceremony of the new United Nations headquarters in New York City. Part of the ceremony was the unveiling of a sculpture dedicated to the "Circle of Thirteen," the 13 founders of Women for Peace, who gave their lives to achieve world peace and justice. It seems likely that Patria, a misogynistic gang of terrorist thugs, would want to destroy the monument and the movement. Security director Julia Moro has been looking for Patria's leader; the search will take her deep into her own past, to places too painful to imagine.

Petrocelli gives us a richly imagined story that also incorporates themes of climate crisis and economic disparity--and amid an abundance of characters and plot lines, what stays with the reader is the bond between and among women of character, integrity and action. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

Discover: This debut novel from an indie bookseller is a multi-layered, multi-generational exploration of the half-life of violent beginnings and what they engender--and the women who try to counter them.

Turner Publishing, $26.95, hardcover, 9781620454145

Biography & Memoir

Holding on Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore

by Linda Leavell


Marianne Moore's poetry preceded by three decades the female icons of 20th-century American "modernism," Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Compared to the edgy profligacy of Plath and Sexton, Moore lived a rather prosaic life. In her exhaustive biography Holding On Upside Down, Linda Leavell suggests Moore lost the academic spotlight because "the wizened, androgynous, admittedly prudish little lady in the tricorne would come to seem irrelevant, even embarrassing, within the youth culture of the late 1960s and '70s." Little did they know, she adds, the "fatherless Moore had been reared by lesbians and educated by feminists."

Leavell covers Moore's early years in depth. Her absent father's religious fanaticism led to his institutionalization for "delusional monomania." When she was 10, her mother fell in love with her pastor's daughter; they shared a surprisingly open relationship for decades. After graduating from Bryn Mawr, Moore never married, moved back in with her mother and had an almost obsessive lifelong attachment to her older brother. Much of their correspondence is still available, and Leavell quotes liberally to fill in the story.

Leavell traces the evolution of Moore's style with brief illustrations from both published and unpublished work. She comfortably folds critical commentary into her narrative with quotations from the letters of Moore's contemporaries who encouraged and praised her.

Reed thin and plagued with frequent illness, Moore was a lifelong scholar and poet whose experiments with stanza, rhyme and image heralded the end of 19th-century poetry and the dawn of a freer, more vernacular verse. Holding On Upside Down goes a long way toward restoring Moore's place as a cornerstone of modern American poetry. --Bruce Jacobs

Discover: Linda Leavell's exhaustive new biography reveals Marianne Moore's eccentricities and her place in the vanguard of modern American poetry.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30, hardcover, 9780374107291

The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son

by Pat Conroy


With The Death of Santini, Pat Conroy returns to the autobiographical roots of one of his first successes, the 1976 novel The Great Santini. In this memoir, he recalls father, a larger-than-life Marine hero who was an abusive monster to his family, from the perspective of decades passed. This is, he promises, the last story he'll tell of his father--and of his mother, the beautiful false Southern belle.

Conroy's style and ability to portray time and place are as mesmerizing and evocative as ever; the painful, neurotic (or, as he frequently says, "f-ed up") family dynamics among the seven Conroy children and their mythically proportioned parents are peppered with humor. After his brother Tom's suicide, for example, the family is shocked to realize that the funeral cards list the information for another brother, Tim, but then they start razzing him mercilessly. Another sibling notices the animosity their sister has for Conroy and reflects how hard it must be to hated so much. "No, I hate all you guys that much," Tim says, to which brother Jim replies, "Shut up, Tim. You're dead."

As Conroy takes us through his convoluted relationship with a man he hated and feared, but eventually loved and felt close to (more or less), his gift for storytelling makes his story perfectly understandable and sympathetic. Don Conroy never ceased denying that he was falsely accused, but he softened over time and, it seems, in his dying years finally learned how to be a father. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Discover: Conroy's memoir is a remarkable ode to the real-life inspiration behind one of the most hated fathers of American literature and film.

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $28.95, hardcover, 9780385530903

When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over

by Addie Zierman


Born into a close-knit, loving church community, Addie Zierman grew up memorizing Bible verses and dreaming of wedded bliss with a handsome missionary. As a teenager, she donned multiple "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets and spent her babysitting money on Christian rock CDs and pastel-covered novels of chaste love. Eventually, though, the hyped-up language of the evangelical subculture began to feel hollow and false; when depression descended like a gray cloud, Zierman found herself flailing blindly, unsure if she belonged in the church where she had once felt so much at home.

Zierman writes with honesty and grace in When We Were on Fire, describing the gawky teenage years when she felt like the only Christian at her school and her time at a small Christian college, where every aspect of campus life was filtered through a spiritual lens. She draws deft, realistic portraits of the people she encounters on her journey: well-meaning "Church People" who are kind but speak in faded clichés, the two girlfriends who stick by her even when their own beliefs change and the calm, steady man who becomes her husband. Her wine-fueled downward spiral of grief and loneliness eventually gives way to a slow redemption, a gradual turning back to the genuine faith buried under a pile of evangelical platitudes.

Heartbreaking, wry and completely sympathetic, When We Were on Fire is a grace-filled story of leaving the religious clichés behind in search of a wild, genuine, beautifully complex faith. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: A wry, heartbreaking story of rediscovering one's faith.

Convergent, $14.99, paperback, 9781601425454

History

Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House

by Peter Baker


Peter Baker's Days of Fire revisits the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency to examine the inner dynamics of a White House in turmoil. Baker, the senior White House correspondent for the New York Times, has done his homework--his account is meticulously researched and buttressed by interviews with key figures from the administration as well as a treasure trove of declassified documents, internal memos and e-mails. (He also benefits from the willingness of several parties involved to speak freely now.)

Baker focuses on several themes he sees as key to interpreting Bush's presidency--prominent among them, his complex and unprecedented relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney and how everyone else interpreted that relationship. Baker deftly debunks many of the myths surrounding their arrangement. In his second term, for example, Bush gradually began to remove members of Cheney's inner circle from his foreign policy advisory council, and his views shifted into alignment with those of Condoleezza Rice's more internationalist, diplomatically focused approach. Cheney was no longer--as the myth goes--"pulling the strings."

Baker also portrays a dysfunctional national security apparatus marked by political infighting, countered by Bush's own dislike and avoidance of conflict and his desire to stand apart from his father's legacy. In all, Days of Fire is a magisterial panorama that manages to present very recent history with the urgency and drama of a political potboiler. --Benji Taylor, freelance writer, student, blogging at Destructive Anachronism

Discover: A veteran Washington reporter's account of George W. Bush's presidency as seen from inside the White House.

Doubleday, $35, hardcover, 9780385525183

All the Time in the World: A Book of Hours

by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins


In the frenetic pace of modern society, many of us forget the simple pleasure of taking life just a tiny bit slower, having what Jessica Jenkins describes in All the Time in the World as "an agenda turned upside down in favor of the impractical and the ephemeral: drinking hot cocoa, taking a nap, waltzing until dawn." Revolving around the seasons and the clock, these tidbits of historical sketches come from all parts of the world. Food, love, writing, music and travel are among the many topics Jenkins touches upon as she meanders through history. 

Japanese kabuki dances, cherry blossom festivals and an excerpt on the joys of making fruit jam mingle with essays on American circuses, Roman baths and how Madame de Pompadour applied her make-up, not once but twice each morning, for the entertainment of the likes of Voltaire and Diderot. The articles explore the minutiae and leisure activities of daily life; needlework was considered a virtuous pastime for young women, but reading a novel might "affect the nervous system, leading [the women] to the verge of hysteria, or worse."

Entertaining and informative, All the Time in the World gives readers a chance to breathe deeply and to savor moments in ways that were likely easier to experience before computers and cell phones took control and the rushed, stressful speed of today became the norm. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

Discover: A rich compendium of vignettes on elegant living throughout history from the author of Encyclopedia of the Exquisite.

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $28.95, hardcover, 9780385535410

Nature & Environment

The Hunted Whale

by James McGuane


"The hunt is one of man's most ancient endeavors," begins The Hunted Whale. James McGuane's photographic exploration into the bygone practice of whaling transports the reader back in time, when whale oil lit the streetlights of the world's major cities and lubricated the burgeoning textile industry. Whaling was a significant economy unto itself, employing countless young men who were convinced to ship out for years at a time by employment agents known as "land sharks." It was a trade performed by hand, and McGuane looks at its many aspects: hunt, ship, whaleboat, crew, whale, tools and more.

McGuane's text is accompanied by more than 200 fine, detailed color photographs depicting whaling artifacts, including several examples of scrimshaw--the art of painted, engraved or carved whalebone or teeth. Photographs of twisted and mangled--but intact--harpoons give visceral evidence of the whale's power to resist human efforts, and McGuane details the methods in practice. Also showcased are innovative technologies, such as toggled harpoons or "irons."

Selections from Logbook for Grace, a diary kept by naturalist Robert Cushman Murphy aboard the whaleship Daisy in 1912, add a valuable firsthand perspective and bring McGuane's subject to life. With all its salty flavor, The Hunted Whale is an obvious choice for fans of Moby-Dick, but history or naval buffs and fans of pre-mechanized times will be equally charmed by this detailed pictorial view of the ancient industry of whaling. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Discover: An evocative photographic study of historic whaling tools and techniques.

W.W. Norton, $39.95, hardcover, 9780393069129

Poetry

How to Be Alone

by Tanya Davis, illus. by Andrea Dorfman


Tanya Davis's poem "How to Be Alone" debuted as a YouTube video, animated by Andrea Dorfman, in 2010; it has garnered nearly six million views since then. The poem now appears in book form, accompanied by Dorfman's colorful illustrations.

"If you are at first lonely, be patient," Davis begins, her words appearing in loopy white cursive beside a lone bright pink sock hanging on a clothesline among pairs. By the time the sock has found its quirky, striped mate, Davis is gently urging readers to embrace solitude. "Start simple," she says, extolling the pleasures of solo baths, quiet hours at the coffee shop, even public transportation ("because we all gotta go places"). Then, she advises, take yourself to the movies, out to dinner, even dancing--in a pair of orange high heels, of course.

How to Be Alone is not only a paean to solitude, but a call to pay attention to the world: to sit on a bench and notice strangers, to explore unfamiliar cities and snowy woods, to "translate your thoughts" and truly listen to them. "Society is afraid of alone," Davis admits, but, she insists, "alone is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it."

Dorfman's watercolor illustrations, full of whimsical details, will inspire a new respect for aloneness and its quiet but rich rewards. How to Be Alone is the perfect gift for people who cherish solitude or find themselves thrust into it unexpectedly. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: A sensitive, moving poem on the beauty of solitude, accompanied by whimsical and colorful illustrations.

Harper, $17.99, hardcover, 9780062280848

Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems

by Billy Collins


Billy Collins's gift--a rare one--is taking the everyday and turning it like a prism, holding it up to the light to reveal its different facets. Aimless Love, a compilation of new and selected poems, is laced with Collins's signature whimsy and depth, exploring ordinary moments and touches on themes playful and profound.

The collection takes its title from a poem first published in Collins's 2002 book Nine Horses, one of four volumes excerpted here. The poem details his affection for "the miniature orange tree,/ the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,/ the highway that cuts across Florida." As Collins falls in love with the minutiae of the everyday again and again, readers will find their hearts, like his own, "propped up/ in a field on [a] tripod,/ ready for the next arrow."

Ranging from Florida to Paris, from a public bath in Istanbul to quiet country lanes, Collins travels through space and time, aiming only to notice and savor. He pokes sly fun at his own profession ("If This Were a Job I'd Be Fired") and muses on mortality ("Writing in the Afterlife," "Cemetery Ride"). But even when his poems begin in jest, they end in quiet, sincere grace. The final poem, "The Names," is so deeply moving that, as Collins says, "there is barely room on the walls of the heart."

By turns tender and mischievous, wryly humorous and contemplative, Aimless Love is Collins at his best. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: A compilation of new and selected poems from Billy Collins, laced with his signature whimsy and depth.

Random House, $26, hardcover, 9780679644057

Children's & Young Adult

Constable & Toop

by Gareth P. Jones


Gareth P. Jones's (the Dragon Detective Agency series) latest is both a mystery and ghost story set in Victorian London. The novel begins with a murder and quickly moves into the realm of ghosts and the gritty chaos of the "real" world.

Lapsewood, a ghost with a desk job, is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a ghost in London and soon discovers she is not the only one missing. Fourteen-year-old Sam Toop, the undertaker's son, has the peculiar ability to see and communicate with ghosts. When Lapsewood discovers something is driving the ghosts from London, Sam's services are sought to help save its otherworldly inhabitants.

Gareth P. Jones expertly blends humor with the more sinister subjects of murder and death to create a compulsive read that has the feel of a Neil Gaiman novel mixed with Terry Pratchett. The lightness in tone does not detract from the suspense Jones builds as he pieces together the plot and disreputable acts therein; readers never forget that dark forces are at work, forces not even the dead can escape. The colorful characters prove memorable, from the Man in Gray who haunts the Drury Lane Theatre, whispering forgotten lines to actors on stage, to a three-legged spirit hound named Li'l Mags. The ambiance and brilliant storytelling make this book an ideal pick for fall, when haunting tales are in high demand. Constable & Toop will appeal to fans of Harry Potter, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and Joseph Delaney's Last Apprentice series. --Julia Smith, blogger and former children's bookseller

Discover: In this Victorian murder mystery, 14-year-old Sam Toop helps put an end to attacks on the ghosts of London.

Amulet/Abrams, $16.95, hardcover, 416p., ages 10-14, 9781419707827

Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled: How Do We Know What Dinosaurs Really Looked Like?

by Catherine Thimmesh


Sibert-winning author Catherine Thimmesh (Team Moon) takes a brilliant and fresh approach to dinosaurs--through the viewpoints of the paleoartists who paint their portraits.

"Recreating dinosaurs is like putting together a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle--with plenty of pieces missing," the author writes. When a dinosaur bone is discovered, paleontologists, geologists and paleobotanists working together ask themselves a series of questions: What kind of dinosaur is it? How old are the fossils? What did the dinosaur eat? Thimmesh explains, "Finally, the paleoartists (who are often scientists as well) attempt to create an image." One spread pairs a 1901 painting of Triceratops by Charles R. Knight with another by Mark Hallett painted nearly 100 years later. Thimmesh ticks off four major differences in scientists' understanding of dinosaurs in the intervening century. John Sibbick's color series of Parasaurolophus demonstrates the challenge of determining a dinosaur's outer markings ("Color is a real problem," Sibbick said).

With reproductions of the paleoartists' paintings and sculptures, Thimmesh's unusual approach allows her to discuss the history of dinosaur research. For instance, after a "virtual standstill" during the Great Depression and World War II, "dinosaur science came roaring back" with a "seismic shakeup," mostly thanks to John Ostrom's 1964 discovery of Deinonychus, which supported the theory that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. Stephen Czerkas describes the move from scales to feathers on the model he created with Sylvia Czerkas for Deinonychus saying, "You have to change what you think in the face of new scientific evidence." This book will be a hit among dinosaur lovers and budding scientists alike. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Discover: A dinosaur book guaranteed make kids think about all the evidence that goes into making a replica of these giant creatures.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $17.99, hardcover, 64p., ages 9-12, 9780547991344

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Author Buzz

Forgetting to Remember

by M.J. Rose

Dear Reader,

I've always loved reading time travel but it took a 19th century tiny portrait of a man's eye--just a man's eye--framed in small colorful opals to inspire me to write one myself. 

Who was he? Who had painted a portrait of just his eye? Why?

Forgetting to Remember is my answer to those questions.

Setting aside grief from the fallout of the second World War and putting her energy into curating an upcoming show critical to her career as the Keeper of the Metalworks at London's renowned Victoria and Albert Museum, Jeannine Maycroft stumbles upon a unique collection of jewel-framed miniature eye portraits--a brilliant romantic device and clandestine love token of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

One piece among the assembly intrigues her more than all the others: a twilight-blue man's eye framed by opals shimmering with enchanting flashes of fiery color. But the beauty is just the beginning. Not only is the painting a self-portrait of one of her favorite Pre-Raphaelite artists, Ashe Lloyd Lewis, but the brooch itself is a portal eight decades into the past.

Despite being cast into an era she was never meant to be in, Jeannine and Ashe develop an immediate and passionate bond, complicated by the undeniable fact that she does not belong in 1867, and the disaster about to destroy her family and reputation in her time.

Striving to live a dual life and dangerously straddling two time periods, Jeannine fights to protect her career and her father from scandal in the present while desperately trying to save her lover's life in the past.

M.J. Rose
https://www.mjrose.com/content/

Buy now and support your local indie bookstore>

AuthorBuzz: Blue Box Press: Forgetting to Remember by M.J. Rose

Publisher: 
Blue Box Press

Pub Date: 
March 26, 2024

ISBN:
9781957568942

List Price: 
$16.99 Paperback

Where It Begins:
A Pucked Novella

by Helena Hunting

Dear Reader,

Falling in love isn't easy. But as a single mom with a teenager, falling in love with a single dad is on par with mountain climbing while wearing Crocs: Dangerous and verging on impossible. 

Where It Begins is the origin story of Skye Hall and Sidney Butterson (such an unfortunate last name), the parents of the heroine in the NYT Bestseller Pucked. It's a laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about finding love where you least expect it.

Helena Hunting
https://helenahunting.com/
https://www.1001darknights.com/authors/collection-ten/helena-hunting-where-it-begins/


Available on Kobo

AuthorBuzz: Where It Begins: A Pucked Novella by Helena Hunting

Publisher: 
1001 Dark Nights Press

Pub Date: 
March 4, 2024

ISBN:
9798885420488

List Price: 
$2.99 e-book

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