Fiction Realism

Set in an unnamed slum in contemporary Argentina, Eartheater is the story of a young woman who finds herself drawn to eating the earth - a compulsion that gives her visions of broken and lost lives. With her first taste of dirt, she learns the horrifying truth of her mother's death. Disturbed by what she witnesses, the woman keeps her visions to herself.

The student witches are growing increasingly reckless, preying on the mundanes below the mountains as their tutors plot and scheme to take advantage of the chaos. And no one seems to know why. Emily is in no condition to intervene. But she cannot refuse. Heading to Laughter, Emily finds herself dragged into a world of schoolgirl games, staffroom politics, and a deadly plot aimed at the heart of the Allied Lands themselves.

Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home - a house, perched on the edge of a bluff, that is slowly crumbling toward the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a traveling carnival reading tarot cards and seldom calls.

I’m an occultist living in a haunted brownstone in upstate New York. The building is a ghostly double-image of itself, like a picture painted brightly over an older, weirder picture. It’s an equinox place, my mother once said, where dark and light things are equally in power. I want to tell you, dear strangers, why I was there and what I found.

Born in the Argentine town of Mina Clavero, Camila is designated male but begins to identify from an early age as a girl. She is well aware that she’s different from other children and reacts to her oppressive, poverty-stricken home life, with a cowed mother and abusive, alcoholic father, by acting out—with swift consequences. Deeply intelligent, she eventually leaves for the city to attend university, slipping into prostitution to make ends meet. And in Sarmiento Park, in the heart of Córdoba, she discovers the strange, wonderful world of the trans sex workers who dwell there.

Together alone: Meena and Rahm have crossed into a world that is unrecognizable. What comes next is so dangerous that it could break them both.

Launching into new territory that the author hadn’t mapped out when he embarked on the series, Nekomonogatari (White) tells the tale of heroine Tsubasa Hanekawa from her own perspective, in her own voice - if that can hold true for a damaged soul who, depending on who you’re asking, suffers from a split personality or a supernatural aberration.

Xavier T. Fletcher is an Odd Duck. At least, that’s what everyone in his sleepy little suburb seems to think. Luckily, birds happen to be the aspiring naturalist’s favorite things, so he doesn’t mind the label quite as much as you might expect. But when Xavier’s father loses his job, everything changes. His family is forced to move to his Nana Susan’s farm. There, he meets Clementine, a strange, messy girl who doesn’t see him as an Odd Duck at all. Too bad she has the unfortunate habit of using her slingshot to hunt the birds he loves.

Set in Denmark in the here and now, The Quiet Girl centers around Kaspar Krone, a world-renowned circus clown with a deep love for the music of Johan Sebastian Bach, and an even deeper gambling debt. Wanted for tax evasion and on the verge of extradition, Krone is drafted into the service of a mysterious order of nuns who promise him reprieve from the international authorities in return for his help safeguarding a group of children with mystical abilities - abilities that Krone also shares.

They said the truth would set you free, but it’s the lies that make you powerful. A wonder-filled story about a small city with a big secret and a high school junior, who accidentally rips the mask off of a magical coverup, discovering two powers at war within herself and vying for domination. But she may not be the only casualty.

Marietta Stelle longs to be a ballerina but, as Christmas draws nearer, her dancing days are numbered - she must marry and take up her place in society in the New Year. But, when a mysterious toymaker, Dr Drosselmeier, purchases a neighbouring townhouse, it heralds the arrival of magic and wonder in Marietta’s life. After Drosselmeier constructs an elaborate theatrical set for her final ballet performance on Christmas Eve, Marietta discovers it carries a magic all of its own - a magic darker than anyone could imagine.

Dissatisfied with his empty, Sisyphus-like existence in New York City, where he has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate advertising, a highly cultured aspiring composer wants nothing more than to tear his life up from the root. He soon finds his escape hatch: a university-sponsored mission to South America to look for indigenous musical instruments in one of the few areas of the world not yet touched by civilization. Retracing the steps of time, he voyages with his lover into a land that feels outside of history.

An apocalyptic cult member carries out a gas attack on a rush-hour metro, but what connects him to a jazz buff in Tokyo? A woman on a holy mountain talks to a tree, and the tree talks back. Add to this a Mongolian gangster, an English spy, a despondent "zookeeper", a nuclear scientist, a ghostwriter, a ghost, and a late night New York DJ. All of them have tales to tell, and all must play their part as they are caught up in the inescapable forces of cause and effect.

Like many teenagers, there's a lot about Daniel Meadows' life that's out of his control. For example, having to start in a new school district for his freshman year of high school thanks to his dad's new job. Inside the realm of his control, however, is the decision to try a brand-new sport purely to impress a girl. But the day of tennis tryouts proves far more fateful than Dan ever could have imagined, when a failed attempt by Truck-kun and the powers that be to kill him and transport his consciousness to a fantasy realm leaves him on Earth with miraculous abilities instead.

Harper Harlow, ghost hunter extraordinaire, has seen it all. Ghosts, back-from-the-dead boyfriends, and parents ping-ponging between divorce and reconciliation are the norm for her. Finally, though, she’s about to get everything she’s ever wanted - if the ghosts don’t get in the way first. Join Harper and her motley crew of friends, as they solve mysteries, and have a heck-of-a lot of fun!

With a singular voice in the narrative-bending tradition of Kafka, Cortázar, and Bulgakov, Lima speaks to Brazilian-American immigrant experiences—of ambition, fear, heartbreak, and home—with equal parts warmth and agitation. Strange, intimate, haunted, and hungry, Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is a powerful experience: once listened to, you’re as much a part of the stories as they’re a part of you.

The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef. She shares special points of her favorite preparations with listeners throughout the story.

Love, be it wild or tender, often defies logic. In fact, at times, the only rationale behind the instant connection of two souls is plain magic. Bibiña Aranda, runaway bride, wakes up in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao still wearing her wedding dress, draped in the loving arms of a naked man whose name she doesn’t know. She and the man with no clothes, Indar Zubieta, attempt to explain to the authorities how they got there. It’s a story of love at first sight and experience beyond compare, one that involves a dreamlike journey through the museum.

Life near the North Korean border is a zero-sum game, an ongoing battle in which you either win or you lose. This dangerous, shadowed netherworld is home to an unforgettable woman known only as the “trickster.” Inspired by the story of Lee’s great aunt, one of the oldest women to escape alone from North Korea, 8 Lives of a Century Old Trickster consists of eight dark and spellbinding chapters that follow this remarkable character and her family as they struggle to survive during the most turbulent times of modern Korean history.

Mary Robinette Kowal stunned readers with her charming first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, a loving tribute to the works of Jane Austen in a world where magic is an everyday occurrence. This magic comes in the form of glamour, which allows talented users to form practically any illusion they can imagine. Shades debuted to great acclaim and left readers eagerly awaiting its sequel. Glamour in Glass continues following the lives of beloved main characters Jane and Vincent, with a much deeper vein of drama and intrigue.