New Literary Fiction

Ravaged and sore from giving birth to her first child, Megan is mostly raising her newborn alone while her husband travels for work. Physically exhausted and mentally drained, she’s also wracked with guilt over her unfinished dissertation - a thesis on mid-century children’s literature. Enter a new upstairs neighbor: the ghost of quixotic children’s book writer Margaret Wise Brown - author of the beloved classic Goodnight Moon -whose existence no one else will acknowledge.

A mother and daughter travel from abroad to meet in Tokyo. They walk along the canals through the autumn evenings, escape the typhoon rains, share meals in small cafes and restaurants, and visit galleries to see some of the city’s most radical modern art. All the while, they talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here - is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey?

Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch vividly captures the arc of one woman’s life at the racetrack—the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner’s circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the “particular language” of “grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody”—with economy and integrity. Whittled down with a singular artistry, Kick the Latch bangs out of the starting gate and carries the listener on a careening joyride around the inside track.

Eleanor Morse's Margreete’s Harbor begins with a fire: A fiercely-independent, thrice-widowed woman living on her own in a rambling house near the Maine coast forgets a hot pan on the stovetop, and nearly burns her place down. When Margreete Bright calls her daughter Liddie to confess, Liddie realizes that her mother can no longer live alone. She, her husband Harry, and their children Eva and Bernie move from a settled life in Michigan across the country to Margreete’s isolated home, and begin a new life.

The singles ministry at New Day Temple of Faith is beginning to unravel, and the pastor is considering dissolving it. Some members believe the only way to hold it together is by getting their pastor to join. And why shouldn't their leader show support by joining, considering the pastor's own single status? Some church members support the idea, while others frown upon the fact that they are being led by a shepherd who is single in the first place.

It's not easy getting close to people. Amelia's meeting a lot of men but once she gets the sex she wants from them, that's it for her: she can't connect further. A terrible thing happened to Daniel last year and it's stuck inside Amelia ever since, making her stuck too. Maybe being a cosmetician at her family's mortuary business isn't the best job for a young woman. It's not helping her social life. She loves her job, but she's not great at much else. Especially emotion.

I'm in trouble. Again. And instead of facing my problems head-on, I've run away. Far away this time, and no one can catch me - not my two younger sisters, Violet and Rose; not my father, my grandmother, or that witch, Pilar, who wants to take control of my family's cosmetics company. Now I'm in Hawaii, enjoying the sun and sand and water, where nobody knows the hot mess known as Lily Fowler. And I'm loving every minute of it. But someone is watching me. Following me. He's gorgeous.

After the stunning historical novels The Clearing and The Missing, Tim Gautreaux now ranges freely through contemporary life with 12 new stories and eight from previous collections. Most are set in his beloved Louisiana, many hard by or on the Mississippi River, others in North Carolina, and even in midwinter Minnesota. But generally it's heat, humidity, and bugs that beset his people as they wrestle with affairs of the heart, matters of faith, and the pros and cons of tight-knit communities.

The protagonist of Orhan Pamuk's fiendishly engaging novel is launched into a world of hypnotic texts and (literally) Byzantine conspiracies that whirl across the steppes and forlorn frontier towns of Turkey. And with The New Life, Pamuk himself vaults from the forefront of his country's writers into the arena of world literature.

Disguised as Diplomats and on behalf of the British Intelligence Holmes and Watson attend the Congo Conference in Berlin. But when a high ranking representative disappears without a trace, the Congress threatens to fail. The German Chancellor, Bismarck, urges Holmes for help.

Shortly after the death of the famous socialistic theorist Karl Marx, his literary executor, Friedrich Engels, approaches Sherlock Holmes. While international guests are traveling from all over the world to the funeral in London, he is in need of assistance with solving mysterious events that have occurred and culminate in a showdown at the cemetery.

Holmes faces a moral dilemma, when it turns out that his newest client is a former pirate captain. Years ago, he got cheated out of his share by his comrades, now he is asking Holmes for help with recovering his lost booty.

There is a mole hiding in the British Embassy in Brussels. Important secret papers regarding the colonial politics have been stolen. In order to keep a diplomatic and international crisis from happening Holmes and Watson travel, of course incognito, to Belgium. There they want to put a stop to the traitor's game.

A seriously ill man, who is firmly convinced that he has been cursed by three witches, asks Sherlock Holmes to investigate. Convinced that their client must have an explainable cause for his illness Holmes and Watson are traveling to Eastbourne to get to the bottom of this, before their client departs from life.

Holmes faces a moral dilemma, when it turns out that his newest client is a former pirate captain. Years ago, he got cheated out of his share by his comrades, now he is asking Holmes for help with recovering his lost booty.

Advised to take a day off, Holmes and Watson take a trip to the Royal Parks of Kew Gardens. But life has something else in store for them. Inside the alm house a bizarly placed body was found. The local security manager asks Holmes and Watson for their help.

A malicious murder of a highly unusual victim leads Sherlock Holmes to London Zoo. While Scotland Yard attaches little importance to the matter and closes the investigation, Holmes' logical prowess and astute observation skills lead him and Watson down a politically motivated and quite interesting road.

Shortly before the opening of a new ancient Egyptian exhibition at the British Museum, the main attraction disappears: The Pharaoh's Mummy was stolen from its Sarcophagus. The Curator desperately turns to Holmes and Watson and they happily take the case.

When the Crown Prince of Portugal visits London, a precious diamond, the Iguana's Tear, is stolen from him. Faced with the possibility of a devastating financial and political backlash for the Iberian Royal Family, Holmes and Dr. Watson are brought in to investigate matters before they escalate.

When Dr. Watson returns to London from a weekend seminar, he finds hat Sherlock Holmes has been arrested. Inspector Lestrade refers Watson to a questionable psychiatric hospital where Holmes is jailed for mental incapacity.