Photograph: Venera Alexandrova
FIVE MUST-READ NEW RELEASES SELECTED BY OUR LOCAL ELM STREET BOOKS TEAM
RECOMMENDED BY BOOKSELLER PAT HOEG
LONG ISLAND
by Colm Tóibín
on sale May 7
Compelling and immersive, Long Island is a sequel to Tóibín’s bestseller Brooklyn and picks up 20 years later. Ellis has been betrayed by her husband and manipulated by his family and returns to Ireland for her mother’s 80th birthday. This story is poignant and beautifully told, exploring the complex and submerged emotions of Eilis, her friend Nancy and former flame Jim, who are all in midlife. They have experienced loss and loneliness and feel trapped by their circumstances and other people’s expectations.
RECOMMENDED BY BOOKSELLER MANDA RIGGS, STORE MANAGER
LONELINESS & COMPANY
by Charlee Dyroff
Debut author Charlee Dyroff has achieved the herculean task of writing a sweet, thoughtful, smart and wickedly precise story of artificial intelligence. Lee is the overachiever we all know, but when she is hired to teach an AI program on the meaning of loneliness, her life skills are challenged. Dyroff draws an artful and memorable portrait of a woman trying to find her own answers in a world consumed by technology. It gave me enormous hope for the future. Dyroff is a force to be reckoned with!
RECOMMENDED BY BOOKSELLER SKY MINCKLER, CHILDREN’S BUYER
SNOW GLOBE
by Soyoung Park
This dystopian YA novel is set where the “real world” is a frozen wasteland, and everyone tunes into shows about what happens in the paradise-like Snow Globe, where people are on camera 24/7 (think The Truman Show). Readers are challenged to consider what they’d be willing to do, and who they’d be willing to become, in order to remain in the Snow Globe. Dark and sinister, this book revels in the gray areas of morality and the choices we all must make.
RECOMMENDED BY BOOKSELLER KRISSY BORCHETTA
LISTEN FOR THE LIE
by Amy Tintera
This is a brilliant, twisty dark-comedy-meets-murder mystery. Lucy, a blunt, smart sarcastic anti-heroine, is a complex character you can’t help but root for, even though she may be a cold-blooded murderer. Lucy claims she cannot remember that fateful night, but most people in her small Texas town think she is lying. And now Lucy is beginning to think that maybe she did kill her best friend. This book promises superb characters, hilarious dialogue, a great plot and a fun, dysfunctional family dynamic. A must-read!
RECOMMENDED BY BOOKSELLER EVE TABEN
BLANK
by Zibby Owens
Zibby Owens makes her fiction debut with Blank. A wife, mother and frustrated writer faces an impossible deadline for turning her life around in a hilarious novel about family, friendship, success and exhilarating self-(re)discovery.
Pippa’s second novel is due in five days; if she doesn’t submit a manuscript, she will forfeit her already spent advance. When Pippa’s publisher gets involved, it unlocks a series of twists she never saw coming.
This feel-good romp is a page turner. You’ll be rooting for Pippa at every turn. laughed, I cried, I did not want this book to end. I devoured every page.