Kathleen Reidy – Engineering a Love Story
Kathleen Reidy’s debut draws its force from the accumulated experience that made it possible. Her protagonist must learn to distinguish a life that looks settled from one she has chosen.
J. Brian Turk – Boston Psychiatric
There are few places less impressed by a fallen pharmaceutical executive than a free clinic. For the disgraced psychiatrist at the center of J. Brian Turk’s “Boston Psychiatric,” this constitutes a thorough education.
Parker Garrett – Adverse Events
Parker Garrett’s debut thriller, Adverse Events, makes the distance between what an organization promises and what it can be persuaded to do a crime scene.
Steena Holmes – When You Tell
“You always know that there’s something behind what’s being shown,” Steena tells me, recalling her years in ministry. That instinct, the suspicion that every polished surface conceals a crack, powers her latest novel, When You Tell.
Jerome Loving – After the Good War
In 1966, Jerome Loving returned from Vietnam to a country that seemed scarcely to have noticed his absence. There had been no victory, and there would be no homecoming of the sort associated with the Second World War, which he calls “the good war.” America was carrying on.
Todd Brown – Anna So Knows ‘Ya
A crime reporter makes an awkward tenant for a haunted mind. His occupation requires the reassuring distinction between what happened and what somebody believes happened. But give him a suspicious sound and certainty may become a professional liability.
Susan L. Katz – Pole Dancers at the Red Barn
In Susan L. Katz’s Pole Dancers at the Red Barn, The Red Barn offers no quick cure for pain, inherited or otherwise. Its promise is smaller and more credible. It
Andru Reeve – Turn Me On, Dead Man
Andru Reeve discusses the biggest rumor of the rock era. Did Paul McCartney die? Was he replaced by a double?
Ronan O’Connell – Hidden In Plain Sight
As Ronan O’Connell suggests in his quietly subversive new book, Hidden in Plain Sight, the deeper truth of our most familiar monuments is not what we see, but what we have failed to notice.
Chris Cheng – Proven in Blood: A Novel of War, Betrayal and Belonging
Six years ago, Chris Cheng was preparing to demonstrate vintage Second World War firearms on a televised talent show. He searched for “Guns of World War II Asian Americans” and found a history he had never encountered in a California classroom.
Molly Guptill Manning – A Librarian’s War
In the winter of 1944, Ray Trautman, a librarian by profession, found himself in an incredible situation. Sent to Europe by General Dwight D. Eisenhower to determine what American soldiers wanted to read, he wandered into the German offensive that would become the Battle of the Bulge.
Patricia Leavy – Sugar Sand Land
At first glance, Sugar Sand Land arrives dressed for vacation. But Dr. Patricia Leavy has tucked a set of contemporary anxieties into the beach bag.