Fiction

Fiction: As Close As You’ll Ever Be
by Seamus Scanlon

January 11, 2013 admin 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from New Yorker Marcelle Thiébaux, the author of The Stag of Love and last year’s historical romance, Unruly Princess). Seamus Scanlon’s 23 stunning tales in his debut collection, As Close As You’ll Ever Be (Cairn Press), feature prize winners among them. About a third have appeared in literary magazines. A Galway-born writer of bardic storytelling gifts, as well as a New York City professor and award-winning librarian, Scanlon creates a […]

This Just In… Dissever by Colee Firman

January 10, 2013 admin 0

Addison Sanders is pretty comfortable spending her days with her grandfather at his centuries old estate, nestled in the snowcapped mountains. But all that changes when she wakes up to find the entire estate has been moved to a mysterious tropical location, right in the middle of a busy tourist town on the ocean. Addy is forced to untangle a web of lies and secrets spun over centuries, ultimately putting her at the center of […]

Best Books of 2012: Fiction

January 6, 2013 admin 1

This is the Best Fiction segment of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2012 feature. Also available are our picks for best non-fiction, best SF/F, best books for children and young adults,  best crime, mystery and thriller fiction of 2012, in two parts: one and two. As well, here are the best cookbooks of 2012.  12.21 by Dustin Thomason (Dial) 12.21 is by one of the authors of The Rule of Four, Dustin Thomason. When I picked it up, I expected it to be good — […]

This Just In… Fifty Shades of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Nicole Audrey Spector

January 5, 2013 admin 0

Meet artist Rosemary Hall and follow her inevitable downfall brought by her lust for the famous Dorian Gray — a tale both familiar and new in this erotic mash up of one of the world’s most beloved novels. First published to sensational scandal amidst accusations that the novel was hedonist, unclean and depicted distorted views of morality, The Picture of Dorian Gray was a hit back in the day. In 1890 the Daily Chronicle wrote […]

New This Week: Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman

January 3, 2013 admin 1

Those who love to start into a new year with a book substantial enough to do some damage when dropped on their foot will enjoy Sharon Kay Penman’s critically acclaimed Lionheart, which came out in paperback on January 1st from Ballantine. It’s 1189 and the newly crowned Richard II, son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, sets off from England to the Holy Land and the Crusades. Penman’s skill at spinning historic events into […]

This Just In… The Kult by Shaun Jeffrey

December 31, 2012 admin 0

People are predictable. That’s what makes them easy to kill. Out of misguided loyalty, police officer Prosper Snow is goaded into helping his friends perform a copycat killing, but when the real killer comes after him, it’s not only his life on the line, but his family’s too. Now if he goes to his colleagues for help, he risks being arrested for murder. If he doesn’t, he risks being killed. “Shaun Jeffrey hits one out […]

Fiction: Me and the Devil  by Nick Tosches

December 17, 2012 admin 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Steven Nester, a resident of McKinney, Texas, and the host of Poets of the Tabloid Murder, a weekly Internet radio show heard on the Public Radio Exchange [PRX]. Nester is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Rap Sheet, Mystery Scene and Firsts Magazine.) You’ll be relieved to learn that rumors you may have heard concerning Nick Tosches writing a vampire novel aren’t quite true, not […]

Fiction: Husk by Corey Redekop

December 12, 2012 admin 0

No one watching such things in Canada doubts his voice or his vision: Corey Redekop has emerged as one of the writers to pay attention to over the coming few years. Redekop’s debut, Shelf Monkey, has been equally lauded and trampled, but the trampling has contained such vitriol, you just knew you had to pay attention. Notice of the other kind was sterling. The book was called one of the Top 40 Essential Canadian Novels of […]

New Today: Invisible by Carla Buckley

December 11, 2012 admin 0

Carla Buckley’s particular blend of domestic drama and suburban suspense is quickly building her a staunch following. Her debut novel, The Things That Keep Us Here, was widely lauded and broadly acclaimed. Her sophomore effort, Invisible (Bantam) promises to please those earlier fans with a tale of secrets in a small town and the lives they hold there. Sisters Dana and Julie were separated by a secret that ripped their family apart. When, as an […]

Holiday Gift Guide: The Judge and the Lady by Marlyn Horsdal

December 10, 2012 admin 0

Author, editor and one-time publisher, Marlyn Horsdal, pulls a page out of British Columbian history for her latest novel, The Judge and the Lady (Touchwood). It is 1870 and beautiful Eleanor Wentworth arrives in the coastal city of Victoria from London just in time to lower her expectations. How can the fledgling city at the edge of frontier ever find its place in society? Though her first thought is to flee (but to where?), she […]