EDEN by Yael Hedaya

Yael Hedaya was a screenwriter for the acclaimed Israeli TV drama series Betipul (In Treatment), which was adapted for the United States and currently airs on HBO. This background shows in her novel, EDEN, with her attention to the emotions, human interactions and the inner workings of the characters’ minds. Eden’s translator, Jessica Cohen, does a stunning job. The book flows without awkwardness or hesitation.

This is a book about the intertwined lives of the people of Eden – the good, the bad, the indifferent and the morally ambiguous. Until tragedies hit, they go about their lives in a very insular way. Even with tragedy, they are more apt to talk about it than to take action.

November 29, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Israel, World Lit

THE GIRL WITH THE GLASS FEET by Ali Shaw

In the snow-encrusted archipelago of St. Hauda’s Land, moth-winged bulls and a creature that can turn things white with her gaze share an island with more human lives: people who lose love as quickly as they gain it and who must struggle with the baggage of the past.

November 1, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Allegory/Fable, Contemporary, Debut Novel, Speculative (Beyond Reality), United Kingdom

THE VANISHING OF KATHARINA LINDEN by Helen Grant

Even in these dramatic opening lines, British author Grant’s first novel, THE VANISHING OF KATHARINA LINDEN, has a beguiling, self-absorbed, coming-of-age tone well suited to its appealing 10-year-old narrator, Pia Kolvenbach. Pia is actually recalling these events from young adulthood, seven years later; a distance that allows a certain wry humor in her approach to her younger self, while retaining the immediacy of her traumatic experiences.

Daughter of an English mother and German father, Pia has enjoyed an uneventful childhood in the tiny, ancient, comfortably hidebound town of Bad Munstereifel. This comes to an abrupt end when her grandmother accidentally sets herself on fire lighting the last Advent candle at the family celebration the Sunday before Christmas.

October 10, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Coming-of-Age, Debut Novel, Germany, Mystery/Suspense, Speculative (Beyond Reality)

UNDER THE DOME by Stephen King

What happens when you take an ordinary small town in rural Maine and put a lid on it? An invisible, tougher than Superman, nearly impermeable dome of a lid that extends into the sky nearly 50,000 feet?

At more than 1,000 pages, quite a lot. King’s latest is not so much a horror tale as a horrifying thriller – the dome is a mystifying fact; it’s the people under it that get really scary. In King’s vision, cutting a town off from the world – from accountability – leaves the bullies in charge. Perhaps a different town would have had a different result, but I suspect (on no evidence) that King thinks bullies are attracted to small-town authority.

July 8, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: NE & New York, Speculative (Beyond Reality), y Award Winning Author

BROKEN by Karin Slaughter

Karin Slaughter brings together some of her most memorable characters in BROKEN, her latest thriller. Twenty-one year old Allison Spooner is at the end of her rope. She is short of money, her boyfriend has disappointed her, and her rusted-out hulk of a car is on its last legs. She is struggling to keep up with her college classes at Georgia’s Grant Tech while earning a pittance as a waitress in a diner. Sadly, her dream of escaping her tedious life are shattered when she is attacked and killed by an unknown assailant.

June 23, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Sleuths Series, US South

STARVATION LAKE by Bryan Gruley

Chicago Wall Street Journal bureau chief Gruley has hit on a winning combination for his debut novel – visceral amateur hockey and in-your-face small-town newspapering.

Narrator Gus Carpenter, hockey goalie and editor of the Pilot, isn’t too happy about either role. He had escaped insular Starvation Lake, Michigan, and landed a job at the Detroit News intending never to look back. But the big story that was supposed to win him a Pulitzer earned him a one-way ticket back home in disgrace instead.

May 16, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2009 Favorites, Mystery/Suspense, Sleuths Series, US Midwest