After years of keeping secrets, Rakhee Singh's "demons" have finally "clawed their way free." Without confronting what happened to her family that summer in India when she turned 11, she finds herself unable to embrace her future – her impending architecture degree, her promising design job, and most importantly,...
Okay, I confess the cover put me off from opening the book for months (well, actually, years); I recently compromised by choosing to go aural and was surprisingly delighted to spend almost eight hours with narrators Laural Merlington and Emily Durante (who take turns reading as mother and...
I really, really don't want to tell you what this book is about because I don't want to ruin your delight of discovery. I knew nothing at all of its premise ...
First thing first: although every volume offers possibly standalone chapters, to get the full narrative arc, you really need to read them all in order. [Click here to check out the rest of Ikigami.] If you're not yet familiar with this chillingly effective, utterly addictive series, the most important...
Here's lucky #7 of the bilingual I See the Sun series from internationally-minded boutique press Satya House – lucky because India celebrates the series' gravitas by being the first to be offered in lasting hardcover. This summer, the rest of the series also reappears in solid incarnation;...
Amin Ahmad not only writes mysteries – The Caretaker and The Last Taxi Ride make up two-thirds of his Ranjit Singh thriller trilogy – I confess he remains quite a personal mystery.] While he’ll answer almost any question from a distance, he’s been quite agile avoiding our carefully...
So much happens in the first few pages, you might need to re-read them a few times before moving on. Blanche is covered in blood, while Jenny lies dead. "Not quite a month ago," Blanche was again screaming because of Jenny, this time having just been thrown to the...
“You Won’t Believe What Happened!”: A.X. Ahmad’s Ranjit Singh Mysteries “Everyone in my family is a storyteller,” A.X. Ahmad told Charlene Allen in an interview for The Brooklyn Rail. “Nobody has ever had a normal day, and the stories always started with, ‘You won’t believe what...
As sensational as Hollow City is, Ransom Riggs' latest novel most definitely is not a standalone. Take that "The second novel of ...
"2010 late July. A record of the biggest, hottest summer of my life." High school student Kenji is 17, and mourning the fact that he "failed to become Japan's rep in the Math Olympics." At the suggestion of his best friend Sakuma, he's agreed to...
While Ranjit Singh’s trimming days as The Caretaker might have been left behind on Martha's Vineyard, he can't escape for long from the corruption and intrigue in the murderous lives of the power-elite. In the second installment of A.X. Ahmad's label-defying trilogy, Ranjit reinvents himself as a seasoned New York City cabbie, now divorced...
Laila, 15, is newly arrived from an unnamed Middle East country. She's living in a modest apartment in the suburbs of Washington, DC, with her mother and younger brother. She's at a new school with new friends, and she's doing her best to adjust to her...
While production doesn't seem to have started just yet, news that Marie Lu's bestselling dystopic trilogy is coming to a theater near you keeps resurfacing since CBS Films bought rights to Legend in 2011. That Lu has a much-hyped new series, The Young Elites, hitting shelves this fall, will surely add pressure to...
Regardless of how many more books I might read this year, Bich Minh Nguyen's second novel (and third title) will undoubtedly remain one of my top three for 2014. So engrossing is this Girl, that even Bernadette Dunne's occasionally faltering narration (oh, those fake Asian accents!) couldn't put me...
Confession: this post appears today only because of the word "Mother" in the title. In the U.S. and many countries around the world, the second Sunday in May is designated "Mother's Day" [check out this comprehensive chart for a Mother's Day near you!]. So here's the warning: if you're...
Okay, so let's start with the first line (which, I admit, was almost the last line for me): "The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." Given my other life involved...
Before you open this tasty title, ask your stomach if it's full. Any hint of hunger and you just might embarrass yourself salivating. The cover is already a toothsome teaser: salmon-and-burdock seasoned mixed rice, boiled bamboo shoots with konjac and wakame seaweed, eggplants and tomatoes with Chinese-style...
As much as he likes to paint, do puzzles, and sing the loudest during circle time, Morris' favorite part of going to school is the dress-up center. There he dons the tangerine dress, marvels at its swish and crinkle, and loves that the bright color...
*STARRED REVIEW Celeste Ng’s debut is one of those aching stories about which the reader knows so much more than any of the characters, even as each yearns for the unknowable truth. “Lydia is dead,” the novel opens – blunt, unnerving, devastating. She’s only 16, the middle of three...
The timing is horrifyingly surreal: capital punishment emerged as a major topic this week, from the tragically innocent, to the mistreated guilty – and somehow, unrelatedly, I managed to choose this title. Once begun, I couldn't stop until the final page. "In this world, you are either good...
