Novels Now

I suspect my destiny was written from the very start, my first sensation of life was the smell of machli ka salan, a spicy fish curry, rising through the floorboards to the cot in my parents’ room above the restaurant. To this day I can recall the sensation of those cot bars pressed up [...]

It is the night of Easter Sunday. I’ve already been to chapel and received God on my tongue. I sit in my cell with the lights off. Everyone’s light is off. I wait for the man with the cross to begin his walk. He’s been doing it once a year [...]

Time played tricks on him whenever he stood in front of the easel. Hypnotized by the rhythm of the brush on the canvas, by one color merging into another, the two shades creating a third, the third melting into a fourth, he was lulled into a single-minded consciousness focused only on the image emerging. [...]

I’m supposed to feel so blessed to be seventy-five years old. Hell, I tell people that myself, but that’s mostly to make myself feel better. [pg 1]

29: A Novel by Adena Halpern
Touchstone, 2010
Fiction; 269 pgs
Sometimes I come across an unexpected gem of a book. In this case, it’s a book I never would [...]

There are some stories no one wants to hear. Some stories, one told, won’t let you go so easily. I’m not talking about the tedious, the pointless, the disgusting: the bugs in your bag of flour; your hour on the phone with the insurance people; the unexplained blood in your urine. I’m [...]

She tried to summon her best composure but her expression changed like a cloud movement: flashes of red emerged in sudden streaks across her face, and tears began coursing along her cheeks. her countenance betrayed such anxiety that Connery eyed her closely. His instinct told him to remain still–emotional moments like these were [...]

She lay on her side afraid to move until the silence filled the dark. She focused on a tree trunk a few feet away. She knew she should be cold. She wasn’t. She knew she should hurt. She didn’t.
[. . . ]
A phrase she remembered played in her head, [...]

She sprang from the womb and waved to the crowd. Then she smiled and took a bow. [opening. pg. 3]

Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show by Frank Delaney
Random House, 2010
Fiction (historical); 448 pgs

A young man on the cusp of adulthood has lead a relatively good life up until that point. His father is a [...]

Johnny learned early. If somebody asked him why he was so different, why he held himself so still and why his eyes seemed to swallow light, that’s what he’d tell them. He learned early that there was no safe place, not the backyard or the playground, not the front porch or the quiet [...]

I knew something was wrong with me when I fell asleep in school. I never fall asleep in public because it is way too embarrassing. Your face goes slack. If you’re sitting up straight, your mouth hangs open. You could say something stupid or say someone’s name or make some weird [...]

The recording began with a click: the sound of a woman picking up her telephone, which had been tapped the day before the call came in. A man’s voice: It’s done. There is a sound on the tape here — the woman’s sharp intake of breath — but all she says in reply is Thank [...]

She giggled.
He hated her. [ excerpt from The Killing of Mindi Quintana]

The Killing of Mindi Quintana by Jeffrey A. Cohen
Welcome Rain Publisher, 2010
Crime Fiction; 256 pgs
Not everyone likes to read the synopsis of a book before reading the book; you know, the one that falls on the back cover or inside flap of a [...]

Imagine, a woman in a tree, a silly, foolish young woman holding a gun and preparing to kill a man she does not even know. [excerpt from Beautiful Assassin]
Beautiful Assassin by Michael C. White
William Morrow, 2010
Fiction; 464 pgs
For all the books I have read over the years set around or during World War II, I [...]

Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead: The Frank Meeink Story as Told by Jody M. Roy, Ph.D.
Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts, 2010
Nonfiction; 350 pgs
In June of 2001, I had the opportunity to join my mother and a contingent from her school on a tour of the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, California. Although I am [...]

Breathe, she told herself. Rest, and soften the shoulders, and stop the mind’s seesawing, at least until dawn. Yes, dawn. And then, young adult or not, she would track him down. She would touch his cheek and hug him tight - mother him until he shrugged her off - so [...]

Helen picked her way back home using the less traveled streets and alleys, avoiding the larger thoroughfares such as Nguyen Hue, where trouble was likely. When she first came to Saigon, full of the country’s history from books, it had struck her out little any of the Americans knew or cared about the country, [...]

If your name is Britney Brassieres, being taken down by a tsunami of champagne might seem only fitting.

One minute she was belting out “Oops! . . . I Did It Again,” the next she was on the floor, her arms flailing as the Moët - not the really expensive kind, but that White Star [...]

Professor Bullock’s office was an academic’s hideaway, a throwback to an earlier era. Bookshelves ran up every wall, which between the dim lighting and the constant fog of tobacco seemed to be even taller than they probably were, reaching to an unseen - doubtless smoke stained - ceiling. A series of lamps, some [...]

Forcing his head up into the deluge, Clark peeled back an eyelid and squinted. The heavens had paled to a deathly green, with clouds rolling and tumbling, black as midnight with fire boiling inside. A great sheet of white lightening ripped the sky so violently that Clark felt it vibrate through his hair [...]

I close my eyes and imagine the touch of my mother’s hand on my forehead, smoothing away the residue of childhood nightmares. Her finger moves across my forehead, tracing letters and words of prayer that I never understood, never wanted to understand, her mouth whispering in nearly silent accompaniment. Now, waking from the [...]