Articles tagged "Indie Next list"
Happy #BookBday (4/10/2018 Edition)
Oh what a lovely day for a #BookBday!
AFTER ANNA by Lisa Scottoline
An April 2018 Indie Next Pick!
“In this nail-biting domestic thriller from Scottoline, prominent Pennsylvania pediatric allergist Noah Alderman, a widower, finds love again with Maggie Ippolitti. She adores his son, and they have a happy life. But everything changes when Maggie gets a call from her daughter, Anna, whom she lost custody of when the girl was six months old . . . Filled with plenty of twists and complex characters, this entertaining story builds to a satisfying conclusion.“ —Publishers Weekly
HOTEL ON SHADOW LAKE by Daniela Tully
Tully’s first novel, an intricate read-it-in-one-sitting mystery-cum-family saga, spans a hundred years, two continents, and two world wars . . . Told from the point of view of three central characters—and including its own fairy tale—this is a story about murder, greed, love (won then lost), and, above all, intrigue.“ —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Sneak Peek: September 2017 Indie Next List
The September 2017 Indie Next list includes 3 Macmillan titles!
[updated 8/23]
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
3 starred reviews!
“This breathtaking…novel will do for motherhood what Gone Girl did for marriage. ‘A story requires two things: a great story to tell and the bravery to tell it,’ Joan observes. Wolas’ debut expertly checks off both boxes.”—Booklist, starred review
“Like John Irving’s The World According to Garp, this is a look at the life of a writer that will entertain many nonwriters. Like Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, it’s a sharp-eyed portrait of the artist as spouse and householder. From the start, one wonders how Wolas is possibly going to pay off the idea that her heroine is such a genius. Verdict: few could do better.”–Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Debut author Wolas’s sure hand applies layer upon layer of precisely meshed poetic and cinematic scenes to realize a life of such quiet majesty and original consideration of family interplay that she does the impossible. Readers not only will mourn coming to the end, they will feel compelled to start over to watch the miracle of this novel unfold again. Breathtaking.”—Library Journal, starred review
The Hidden Light of Northern Fires by Daren Wang
“Action packed, taut with tension, and filled with memorable characters, this powerful debut displays the currents of history as they run through one small town, carrying away lives in their wake.”–Booklist
“A vivid, compelling portrayal of the heartbreaking price exacted for freedom.”–Kirkus Reviews
Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems by Danez Smith
“Smith follows the Lambda Literary Award–winning debut [insert] boy with a further display of transcendent talent for close-to-the bone articulation, celebrating the lives of “we citizens/ of an unpopular heaven// & low-attended crucifixions.” Poised at the bruising intersection of black and queer identity, poems such as “dear white america” (“I tried to love you, but you spent my brother’s funeral making plans for brunch”) lose no impact moving from spoken-word stage to page. Smith brilliantly metaphorizes the experience of receiving an HIV diagnosis in Lorca-esque fashion, as becoming “a book of antonyms” and leavens the gravity with moments of mordant wit. An erasure of Diana Ross lyrics leaves the message “if there’s a cure for this/ i want it,” capturing camp’s confrontation with the intolerable. Though visually and formally varied, the collection’s most striking pyrotechnics are rhetorical: “& he will say tonight, I want to take you/ how the police do, unarmed & sudden.” Describing a “down-low house party,” a speaker observes: “we say yo meaning let my body// be a falcon’s talon & your body be the soft innards of goats.” Luminous and piercing, this collection reassembles shattering realities into a shimmering and sharp mosaic.”–Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Remarkable… The content as well as the writing is transcendent… VERDICT Highly recommended.”–Library Journal, starred review
Sneak Peek: August 2017 Indie Next List
The August 2017 Indie Next list includes 4 Macmillan titles!
EMMA IN THE NIGHT by Wendy Walker
“Both twisted and twisty, this smart psychological thriller sets a new standard for unreliable narrators.” — Booklist, starred review
“Walker’s portrayal of the ways in which a narcissistic, self-involved mother can affect her children deepens the plot as it builds to a shocking finale.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
HAPPINESS: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After by Heather Harpham
“An award-winning writer, performer, and teacher of physical theater/improvisation, Harpham tells a heartrending story of young love, getting pregnant, her partner’s lack of interest in having children, returning home alone, then discovering hours after giving birth that something was dangerously wrong with her baby. There are terrible choices to make and a crooked little road to follow toward some kind of radiant happiness.”–LJ Pre-Pub Alert
“Harpham’s ability to capture an audience’s emotions takes center stage as a memoirist. Her deeply personal yet witty narrative style makes the reader feel instantly connected, as if Harpham is a close friend traveling a familiar ‘crooked little road to semi-ever after.’ Hers is a journey evoking a spectrum of emotions: hope, sadness, anger and, yes, happiness.” — Shelf Awareness
THE BEDLAM STACKS by Natasha Pulley
“The imagination [Pulley] showed in her impressive debut was no fluke…Pulley understands her genre–swashbuckling costume fantasy–but she deals in surprises, not clichés…[A] meditation on love, trust, and the passage of time.”–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Fans of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (who will be pleased that a character from that novel makes a cameo appearance) know that Pulley has a way with damaged characters who are looking for a new purpose in life. While there are steampunk elements, including clockwork lamps, there’s also a subtle inexplicable magic running throughout the unusual, remote setting.”–Library Journal
BEAST by Paul Kingsnorth
“A tour de force, reminiscent of the best of John Fowles and David Mitchell.”–Kirkus Reviews, starred review