Photoset
April 17, 2013

A little fiction, a little non; a debut, a seasoned pro, and your favorite country man. One thing all these books have in common: achy breaky hearts.  

TOMORROW THERE WILL BE APRICOTS by Jessica Soffer. From a debut author already praised by Colum McCann as a “profound and necessary new voice” comes a novel about two women adrift in New York—an Iraqi Jewish widow and the latchkey daughter of a chef—who find each other and a new kind of family through their shared love of cooking. 

THE VIEW FROM PENTHOUSE B by Elinor Lipman. Two sisters recover from widowhood, divorce, and Bernie Madoff as unexpected roommates in a Manhattan apartment in the latest from Elinor Lipman, “the last urbane romantic” (Julia Glass). 

I CAN’T COMPLAIN: All Too Personal Essays by Elinor Lipman.A winning collection of essays about home, love, cooking, politics, and the writing life from the acclaimed novelist. 

HILLBILLY HEART: A Memoir by Billy Ray Cyrus. From country music legend Billy Ray Cyrus, a revealing book about faith, family, and the power of music. From his turbulent childhood in Kentucky to the trials and tribulations of raising a family, Hillbilly Heart shines a revealing light on one of country music’s most enduring icons. 

Happy reading!

Tags: books lit reading author billy ray cyrus elinor lipman jessica soffer debut fiction nonfiction essays

Photo
May 08, 2012
3 notes
Available TODAY! Jennifer Miller’s dynamite debut, THE YEAR OF THE GADFLY, in which a budding teenage journalist at an elite prep school and her enigmatic science teacher each separately attempt to track down a secret society that may hold damning evidence about a shadowy tragedy in the school’s—and the teacher’s—past. An exhilarating journey of double-crosses, long-buried secrets, and all the charge of adolescence, THE YEAR OF THE GADFLY follows in the footsteps of classic school novels like Prep and The Secret History, and reminding us how these years haunt our lives forever. Read an excerpt. Watch the star-studded book trailer.  Follow Jen on Twitter!

Available TODAY!

Jennifer Miller’s dynamite debut, THE YEAR OF THE GADFLY, in which a budding teenage journalist at an elite prep school and her enigmatic science teacher each separately attempt to track down a secret society that may hold damning evidence about a shadowy tragedy in the school’s—and the teacher’s—past.

An exhilarating journey of double-crosses, long-buried secrets, and all the charge of adolescence, THE YEAR OF THE GADFLY follows in the footsteps of classic school novels like Prep and The Secret History, and reminding us how these years haunt our lives forever.

Read an excerpt. Watch the star-studded book trailer. 

Follow Jen on Twitter!

Tags: jennifer miller the year of the gadfly debut pub day lit

Photo
March 27, 2012
2 notes
Available today! THE UNRULY PASSIONS OF EUGENIE R., a transporting debut set in the backstreets and bordellos of nineteenth-century Paris from Carole DeSanti, vice president, editor at large at the Penguin Group.  Read an excerpt. See the reading group guide.   Enter the streets of Paris with our Pinterest board.  Watch the trailer.  Visit Carole’s website. Love and war converge in this lush, epic story of a young woman’s struggle with life and love during and after the Second Empire (1860-1871), an era that was absinthe-soaked, fueled by railway money and prostitution, and transformed by cataclysmic social upheaval. Eugénie R., born in France’s foie gras country, follows the man she loves to Paris, but soon finds herself marooned, pregnant, and penniless. She gives birth to a daughter she is forced to abandon and spends the next ten years fighting to get her back. An outcast, Eugénie takes to the streets, navigating her way up from ruin and charting the treacherous waters of sexual commerce. Along the way she falls in love with an artist, a woman, and a revolutionary. The capital, the gleaming center of art and civilization in Europe, is enjoying its final years of wanton prosperity before galloping headlong into the Franco-Prussian War. For Eugénie it is a conflicted landscape—grisly, evocative, and addictive. As the gates of the city close against the advancing army, Eugénie must make a decision between past and present—between the people she loves most. THE UNRULY PASSIONS OF EUGENIE R. is a testament to the power of love, friendship, and the art of self-creation.　

Available today! THE UNRULY PASSIONS OF EUGENIE R., a transporting debut set in the backstreets and bordellos of nineteenth-century Paris from Carole DeSanti, vice president, editor at large at the Penguin Group. 

Read an excerpt.

See the reading group guide.  

Enter the streets of Paris with our Pinterest board. 

Watch the trailer. 

Visit Carole’s website.

Love and war converge in this lush, epic story of a young woman’s struggle with life and love during and after the Second Empire (1860-1871), an era that was absinthe-soaked, fueled by railway money and prostitution, and transformed by cataclysmic social upheaval.

Eugénie R., born in France’s foie gras country, follows the man she loves to Paris, but soon finds herself marooned, pregnant, and penniless. She gives birth to a daughter she is forced to abandon and spends the next ten years fighting to get her back. An outcast, Eugénie takes to the streets, navigating her way up from ruin and charting the treacherous waters of sexual commerce. Along the way she falls in love with an artist, a woman, and a revolutionary. The capital, the gleaming center of art and civilization in Europe, is enjoying its final years of wanton prosperity before galloping headlong into the Franco-Prussian War. For Eugénie it is a conflicted landscape—grisly, evocative, and addictive. As the gates of the city close against the advancing army, Eugénie must make a decision between past and present—between the people she loves most.

THE UNRULY PASSIONS OF EUGENIE R. is a testament to the power of love, friendship, and the art of self-creation.　

Tags: the unruly passions of eugenie r carole desanti penguin group paris debut lit prostitution absinthe

Photo
July 19, 2011
33 notes
One of the  most buzzed about debuts of 2011 is here: PIGEON ENGLISH by Stephan Kelman. Click through for reviews, an excerpt, buying info and more.  Lying in front of Harrison Opuku is a body, the body of one of his classmates, a boy known for his crazy basketball skills, who seems to have been murdered for his dinner. Armed with a pair of camouflage binoculars and detective techniques absorbed from television shows like CSI, Harri and his best friend, Dean, plot to bring the perpetrator to justice. They gather evidence—fingerprints lifted from windows with tape, a wallet stained with blood—and lay traps to flush out the murderer. But nothing can prepare them for what happens when a criminal feels you closing in on him. Recently emigrated from Ghana with his sister and mother to London’s enormous housing projects, Harri is pure curiosity and ebullience—obsessed with gummy candy, a friend to the pigeon who visits his balcony, quite possibly the fastest runner in his school, and clearly also fast on the trail of a murderer. Told in Harri’s infectious voice and multicultural slang, Pigeon English follows in the tradition of our great novels of friendship and adventure, as Harri finds wonder, mystery, and danger in his new, ever-expanding world.

One of the  most buzzed about debuts of 2011 is here: PIGEON ENGLISH by Stephan Kelman. Click through for reviews, an excerpt, buying info and more. 

Lying in front of Harrison Opuku is a body, the body of one of his classmates, a boy known for his crazy basketball skills, who seems to have been murdered for his dinner.

Armed with a pair of camouflage binoculars and detective techniques absorbed from television shows like CSI, Harri and his best friend, Dean, plot to bring the perpetrator to justice. They gather evidence—fingerprints lifted from windows with tape, a wallet stained with blood—and lay traps to flush out the murderer. But nothing can prepare them for what happens when a criminal feels you closing in on him.

Recently emigrated from Ghana with his sister and mother to London’s enormous housing projects, Harri is pure curiosity and ebullience—obsessed with gummy candy, a friend to the pigeon who visits his balcony, quite possibly the fastest runner in his school, and clearly also fast on the trail of a murderer.

Told in Harri’s infectious voice and multicultural slang, Pigeon English follows in the tradition of our great novels of friendship and adventure, as Harri finds wonder, mystery, and danger in his new, ever-expanding world.

Tags: lit fiction debut mystery