 MostlyFiction.com Newsletter Update
Posted to subscriber list on
September 7, 2005
Hello, MostlyFiction.com readers!
25 new reviews were recently posted to MostlyFiction.com. Click on the book cover to read the review; click on reviewer's name to learn more about the reviewer.
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 WHAT HAPPENED TO HENRY
by Sharon Pywell
Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie
Henry is experiencing a bizarre phenomenon - he has access to the thoughts of
Suriya Asagao, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing who died a few months later. A thought provoking, inventive and lyrical debut novel.
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 DESERTION
by Abuldrazak Gurnah
Reviewed by Mary Whipple
When Martin Pearce, an Englishman nearly dead from thirst, staggers out of the
desert and into the life of Hassanali, a shop seller in a village south of
Mombasa, he sets in motion events and themes which echo throughout the novel.
Also read Mary's reviews of BY THE SEA and PARADISE by this same author and added this update.
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 WILLFUL CREATURES
by Aimee Bender
Reviewed by Debbie Lee Wesselmann
With her singular mix of surrealism, musical prose, and keenly felt emotions,
Aimee Bender's returns with more sublime, beguiling, and breathtakingly original stories of love, sex,
heartbreak, and potato babies.
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 THE GREAT INLAND SEA
by David Frances
Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie
The twisted relationship between a jockey and the horse jumper who becomes the
object of his obsession frames Francis's dark, brooding debut, which traces the
path of the would-be lovers as they pursue careers in 1950s East Coast horse
culture.
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 A LONG STAY IN A DISTANT LAND
by Chieh Chieng
Reviewed by Debbie Lee Wesselmann
The Lums, the Chinese-American family Chieng writes about, have a peculiar
history. Too many of them suffer an untimely demise. Chieng with his deadpan wit and sense of irony, has made an auspicious debut.
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 THE ICARUS GIRL
by Helen Oyemi
Reviewed by Mary Whipple
Oyeyemi has created a psychological horror novel which dares to be different,
incorporating a clash of cultures and parallels with the Icarus legend in this
memorable debut novel.
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 TO DARKNESS AND TO DEATH
by Julia Spencer-Fleming
Reviewed by Eleanor Bukowsky
Clare Fergusson, an Episcopal priest, and Russ Van Alstyne, the Police Chief of
Millers Kill, witness the terrible events that occur in a small Adirondack town when a conglomerate
called Global Wood Products is poised to purchase thousands of acres of
timberland.
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 PRETTY BIRDS
by Scott Simon
Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie
Women served as snipers for both Bosnian and Serbian forces during the siege of
Sarajevo; Simon, a prize-winning correspondent and NPR Weekend Edition host, interviewed one of them and has masterfully imagined her life.
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 BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS
by Louis de Berniéres
Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie
In his first novel since Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire.
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 SECRET PURPOSES
by David Baddiel
Reviewed by Debbie Lee Wesselmann
Baddiel takes a little-known fact of WWII history—the internment of refugees on the Isle of Man—as inspiration for his compelling novel about a German-Jewish couple who escape the Nazis only to be wrenched apart by the British government.
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 HAUNTED
by Charles Palahniuk
Reviewed by Cindy Lynn Speer
A bus load of individuals secretly abandon their everyday life to enter an agreement to go to a writer’s retreat in which they will have no distractions to prevent them from writing that novel, screenplay, poem, etc. that they know is within them. This is truly ingenious, original, inventive writing, though macabre.
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 DEAD AT DAYBREAK
by Deon Meyer
Reviewed by Mary Whipple
South African crime writer Meyer features an ex-cop Zapotek "Zet" van Heerden who has seven days to solve a seemingly unsolvable crime.
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 THE NIGHT GARDEN
by Pamela Holm
Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie
Holm captures the ephemeral nature of relationships, and the multitude of emotions ignited when a partnership/romance ends. A quirky tale of people whose lives are in flux, and who are able to handle their changed status creatively.
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 NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
by Cormac McCarthy
Reviewed by Mary Whipple
Seven years after Cities of the Plain brought his acclaimed Border Trilogy to a close, McCarthy returns with a suspenseful modern-day western.
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 THE SWIMMER
by Zsuzsa Bánk
Reviewed by Mary Whipple
In this poignant story of loss and longing, first-time novelist Bánk sensitively portrays the barren world of 1950s Hungary through a child's eyes.
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 SOMETHING ROTTEN
by Jasper Fforde
Reviewed by Eleanor Bukowsky
Thursday is the head of Jurisfiction, the policing agency that "safeguards the stability of the written word" in literature. However, she is tiring of her hectic, stressful, and often dangerous job and she needs a break. She returns to her home town of Swindon, England, determined to bring back her "eradicated" husband, Landen Parke-Lane.
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 DARK HARBOR
by David Hosp
Reviewed by Mary Whipple
Scott Finn, an orphan from Southie who worked his way out of juvenile detention
and into a job at a prestigious Boston law firm, is devastated when his
colleague and former lover, Natalie Caldwell, turns up dead on the Southie
waterfront.
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 THE VANISHED HANDS
by Robert Wilson
Reviewed by Eleanor Bukowsky
A wealthy businessman, Rafael Vega, and his wife, Lucia, are found dead in
their luxurious home. At first glance, it looks like a straightforward case of
murder/suicide, but Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon has his doubts.
Also read Jana's review of IN THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS by this author and added this update.
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 DEATH'S LITTLE HELPERS
by Peter Spiegelman
Reviewed by Chuck Barksdale
Shamus-winner Spiegelman's intricate, intelligent second thriller to feature
all-too-human New York PI John March, explores skulduggery in the world of high finance.
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 LIFE SENTENCES
by Alice Blanchard
Reviewed by Eleanor Bukowsky
Boston-based scientist Daisy Hubbard is driven to find a cure for the rare
genetic disease that claimed the life of her brother. But her progress is
interrupted when she learns her unstable sister Anna has gone missing from her
California home.
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 WITCH HUNT
by Ian Rankin
Reviewed by Eleanor Bukowsky
Originally written in 1993 under the pseudonym Jack Harvey, this combo police procedural and spy thriller features an ingenious female assassin.
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 THE POLITICS OF TRUTH: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity
by Joseph C. Wilson
Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie
In 1991, President George H. W. Bush called Ambassador Joseph Wilson a "True American Hero." In 2003, senior officials in President George W. Bush’s White House tried to intimidate critics and punish Wilson for what he knew—and finally made public—about the administration’s lies before the invasion of Iraq.
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Happy reading!
Judi Clark
MostlyFiction.com
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