starred review - Macmillan Library

FOUR STARS for Caroline Bock’s LIE!

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Ali Fisher

We are blown away by the reviews for Caroline Bock's LIE, a sensitive and complex YA novel about a small town hate crime. Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist have all given LIE a starred review!

Kirkus Reviews calls LIE, "unusual and important," and says, "This effective, character-driven, episodic story examines the consequences of a hate crime on the teens involved in it. [...] Realistic and devastatingly insightful, this novel can serve as a springboard to classroom and family discussions."

Publishers Weekly says, "Avoiding preachiness, Bock handles the novel's multiple viewpoints exceptionally well, rotating among the painfully believable voices of high school students and adults. Her characters may keep the truth inside, but their story reads like a confessional."

Library Journal says, "Bock’s debut will grip readers searching for complete realism in their fiction."

Booklist has yet to publish their full review, but we'll update when they do!

This is an excellent read for all Americans, teen and up.

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Southern Debuts with Spirit and Stars

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Ali Fisher

Reviewers and librarians have been giving a lot of pre-pub love to RANCHERO, a gem of a debut that'll have you bombing around the Missippi Delta. Now we're starting to see some love for another action-packed, southern-style debut, THE TERRITORY by Tricia Fields.

When a remote corner of Western Texas becomes a hot spot for Mexican drug runners, many of the locals would rather take the law into their own hands than get help from police chief Josie Gray.

After arresting one of the cartel's hit men and killing another, Josie finds her life at risk for a job that many people would rather see her quit. And when the town's self-appointed protector of the Second Amendment is murdered, it's clear that she doesn't have to pick sides in this war. She's battling them both.

Set in a desert landscape as beautiful as it is dangerous, THE TERRITORY captures the current border issues from the eyes of a tough, compelling heroine and richly evokes the American Southwest.

"Fields’s rich plotting, nonstop action, and deft characterizations show the personal side of the larger issue of drug cartels on both sides of the border." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Starred Audio Books Seeking Road Trips

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Ali Fisher

Your audio-loving patrons will be delighted to hear that Publishers Weekly just gave starred reviews to two great Macmillan Audio books, THE LEFTOVERS and 40 LOVE.

Narrators Dennis Boutsikaris and Katherine Kellgren have made the already exceptional texts into enchanting experiences with their excellent storytelling. Sounds like the perfect time to take that road trip!

"Proving to be a superb narrator for Perrotta’s work, Boutsikaris’s quiet excellence is akin to that of the author." -Publishers Weekly on THE LEFTOVERS (starred review)

"Kellgren’s narration is marvelous, inhabiting various characters’ states of mind, shifting among anxiety, fury, and guilt as the book’s POV changes. A delightful performance not to be missed." -Publishers Weekly on 40 LOVE (starred review)

Listen to an excerpt from 40 LOVE here.

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A Burial at Sea: Best Charles Lenox Mystery To Date!

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Ali Fisher

Charles Finch's fifth Charles Lenox Mystery, A BURIAL AT SEA, has earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly! Here's a quick peek at the story:

It's 1873 and a string of English spies have been found dead on French soil. The threat of all-out war prompts government officials to ask Charles Lenox to visit the newly-dug Suez Canal on a secret mission. Once he is on board the Lucy, however, Lenox finds himself in the midst of a new mystery: the ship’s second lieutenant is found dead on the voyage’s first night, his body cruelly abused. Lenox finds the trail, but in the claustrophobic atmosphere on board, where nobody can come or go and everyone is a suspect, he has to race against the next crime—and also hope he won’t be the victim.

"Agatha Christie meets Patrick O’Brian in Finch’s accomplished fifth whodunit set in Victorian England (after 2010’s A STRANGER IN MAYFAIR), the best in the series to date." –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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First Star for Cherie Priest’s Ganymede!

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Ali Fisher

Clockwork Century fans rejoice! Cherie Priest's third installment in the steampunk series, GANYMEDE, will be out in October and has already received its first glowing review. Publishers Weekly stamped a star on GANYMEDE and said,

The smashing third volume in Priest’s Clockwork Century steampunk alternate-history Civil War series (after 2010’s DREADNOUGHT) stars Josephine Early, New Orleans brothel owner and Union spy, who must deliver Ganymede, a prototype submarine, to the North. There are only a few problems: no one has ever successfully piloted the craft, and the Texian and Confederate armies are actively searching for it. Josephine’s former lover, Andan Cly, agrees to help while completing his primary mission of retrieving supplies for blighted Seattle, where noxious gas forces residents to live underground and zombies remain a constant peril. Priest is at the top of her game, equally deft with pirate battles and mature romance: Cly is tentatively connecting with earlier protagonist Briar Wilkes, sheriff of Seattle, making him elegantly cautious around Josephine as they both try to focus on their mission. Clockwork Century fans will dub this installment the best yet.

What was that last line again? "Clockwork Century fans will dub this installment the best yet!" Well done, Ms. Priest.

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Two Stars for End of Days

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Ali Fisher

The apocalyptic thriller END OF DAYS has reviewers comparing Robert Gleason to Cormac McCarthy, Robert McCammon, and Stephen King. Here's a quick look at what's in store:

Lydia Lozen Magruder—the great-granddaughter of a female Apache war-shaman—has seen visions of the End since childhood. She has constructed a massive ranch-fortress in the American Southwest, stocked with everything necessary to rebuild civilization.

Now her visions are coming true. John Stone, once a baseball star and now a famous gonzo journalist, stumbled across a plan to blast humanity back to the stone age. Then he vanished. Lydia’s only hope of tracking him down lies with her stubborn, globe-trotting daughter, Kate, Stone’s former lover.

Publishers Weekly calls Gleason "an expert on all things apocalyptic" and says, "It all adds up to a thrilling take on a frighteningly possible future, one that makes the journey in Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD look like a stroll through the park."

And Booklist says, "Comparisons to Stephen King’s THE STAND and Robert McCammon’s SWAN SONG are well founded, but Gleason’s novel is in a class by itself."

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Two Stars for Ranchero

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Ali Fisher

Rick Gavin's southern road-story debut, RANCHERO, is a hit and earning more stars than, well, the Texas state flag, for starters.

Down in the Mississippi Delta, Nick Reid has a simple job to do: repossess a flat screen TV from Percy Dwayne Dubois. But Percy Dwayne sees fit to go, the way his sort will, all white-trash philosophical and decides the world is stacked against him anyway. He hits Nick over the head with a fireplace shovel, ties him up, and makes off with the mint-condition calypso coral-colored 1969 Ranchero that Nick borrowed from his landlady. And he takes the TV with him.

Nick will do anything to get the Ranchero back. And it turns out he might have to.

"This first novel from Gavin is a little miracle. The dialogue is pitchperfect, Desmond and Nick are likable, tough-but-not-psychotic protagonists and the bad guys are an unsettling mix of stupid and deadly. [...] One of the most enjoyable crime debuts in a very long time." -Booklist (starred review)

"Gavin’s first novel is a sure winner. Reminiscent of Tim Dorsey’s 'Serge Storms' series but with a more likable protagonist, it will appeal to down-home good old boys and their armchair counterparts. Recommended." -Library Journal (starred review)

UPDATE: RANCHERO earned a third(!) starred review, this time from Publishers Weekly.

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A Fourth Star for The Marriage Plot!

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Ali Fisher

We've been waiting for the last star to roll in for Jeffrey Eugenides' THE MARRIAGE PLOT, and here it is!

Library Journal just gave the novel a rave review:

"Your standard love triangle? Absolutely not. This extraordinary, liquidly written evocation of love’s mad rush and inevitable failures will feed your mind as you rapidly turn the pages. Highly recommended."

See the three previous reviews here.

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Three Starred Reviews for The Marriage Plot!

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Ali Fisher

When we saw that THE MARRIAGE PLOT received three starred pre-pub reviews, no one gasped, double-took, or spit their coffee out on their corporate casuals. We saw it coming.

Here's a quick look at what's to come in this brilliant novel:

It’s the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to the Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels, when real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. (Get ready to puff paint Team Mitchell or Team Leonard on a t-shirt!)

"Eugenides's first novel since 2002's Pulitzer Prize–winning MIDDLESEX so impressively, ambitiously breaks the mold of its predecessor that it calls for the founding of a new prize to recognize its success both as a novel--and as a Jeffrey Eugenides novel." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Dazzling work—Eugenides continues to show that he is one of the finest of contemporary novelists." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"With this tightly, immaculately self-contained tale set upon pillars at once imposing and of dollhouse scale, namely, academia [...] Eugenides realizes the novel whose dismantling his characters examine." -Booklist (starred review)

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Lots of Love for K’wan and Ice-T

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Ali Fisher

What's the only thing hotter than these two covers? Their reviews!

Highlighted in yesterday's Library Journal article, The Word on Street Lit, both EVICTION NOTICE and KINGS OF VICE got a lot of love.

"K’wan, K’wan, K’wan. You hooked me hard, and now I’ll read anything you write. [...] K’wan has risen from 'just another street lit author' to a writer who produces thrilling plots, and his descriptive prose holds its own against many top-selling authors. Load up with copies. Demand will soar." —Library Journal (starred review)

As for KINGS OF VICE, Library Journal says, "Ice-T, what’s going on? Last month you reeled me in with your ICE: A MEMOIR OF GANGSTER LIFE AND REDEMPTION—FROM SOUTH CENTRAL TO HOLLYWOOD, and now you hit me with a cool novel about the streets! Slow down, dude. No, check that—write more!"

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