Christina Dalcher certainly isn’t content with tackling small and meaningless topics, with her second novel Master Class examining potential extreme our society might yet reach one day.
The story takes place in a society where the worth of individuals is determined by their quotient score (Q), and follows a mother’s efforts to save her daughter who gets transferred to a state boarding school hundreds of miles away after failing a monthly test.
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Clash of Reality and Fiction
“The Word is Murder” by Anthony Horowitz – A Partnership with the Morbid
Anthony Horowitz Begins the Hawthorne Chronicles The distinction between fiction and non-fiction, I'd like to believe, is clear enough where I don't need to explain it. When we read fictional … [Read More...]
The Mysterious Straggler
“The Winter Soldier” by Daniel Mason – The Healer’s Sacrifice
Daniel Mason Wakes the Demons of the Great War While the act of waging war might very well date back to the invention of the club, our understanding of its effects on us is something we've only begun to explore very … [Read More...]
The Journey of Two Lunatics
“Naked Came the Florida Man” by Tim Dorsey – The Heroic Psychopath
Tim Dorsey Pursues the Insane Adventure Despite humour being one of the oldest evolutionary mechanics we've come to acquire over the course of our existence, many people are still fairly terrible at it. As we've grown … [Read More...]
A Tale of Intersections
“Last Night in Montreal” by Emily St. John Mandel – Searching for a Vanished Memory
Emily St. John Mandel Shines in her Debut Most of us are born into this life with already somewhat of a predetermined place in the world, largely by virtue of our … [Read More...]
The Grounded Strangeness
“Things in Jars” by Jess Kidd – Child of the Underworld
Jess Kidd Winds up the Paranormal Pursuit As much as most of us enjoy our lives in the real world, the appeal of there being another universe, where the doors to what we consider impossible are … [Read More...]
The Isolated Adventure
“Providence” by Max Barry – Alone in the Void
Max Barry Sends his Crew to their Doom Loneliness is a powerful state of being, in the sense we're largely wired to avoid it for we are, by nature, social creatures. As a matter of fact, the idea of being alone in the … [Read More...]
Explore
“The Glass Hotel” by Emily St. John Mandel – From Swindlers to Ashes
Emily St. John Mandel isn’t one to tread the simple path in her novels, often favouring layering her works in complexity, as she once again masterfully did in her latest novel, The Glass Hotel.
Taking place in modern times, the book follows a sister and her half-brother as they find themselves caught up in a massive Ponzi scheme which ruined many lives, with far-reaching consequences they are both about to experience.
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“The Book of Longings” by Sue Monk Kidd – The Rebellious Thorn
Sue Monk Kidd has never run short on imagination in her books, and her latest work, The Book of Longings, yet again bears testament to this.
Set in the first century during the Roman occupation of Israel, the novel borrows some elements from history to tell the story of Ana, who is determined to give a voice to the other silenced women of her times while trying to carve a most difficult path for her own fulfillment.
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“Last Day” by Luanne Rice – Promises to the Fallen
Luanne Rice has been pumping out quality novels since the mid-80s at a staggering rate, but it certainly hasn’t dulled her edge as we can see in her latest work, titled Last Day.
Taking us to a small seaside community, we follow a detective who failed to keep his promise. Twenty years ago, he swore to protect two sisters whose mother was taken, along with a famous Moonlight painting. Now, one of them has been murdered, and the painting has gone missing yet again.
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“The Holdout” by Graham Moore – The Unforgiven Juror
Graham Moore has injected into to his novels his own experience as an award-winning screenwriter, giving them a more eventful atmosphere and a quicker pace.
In his most recent novel, The Holdout, he introduces us to Maya Seale, a young juror who convinces her peers as to the innocence of a suspect in a murder case. Now, ten years later, after a true-crime series reassembles the jurors, one of them is found dead in Maya’s hotel room, launching the ultimate search for truth as to what really happened the first time around.
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“The Man in the Red Coat” by Julian Barnes – Free-Range Intellectualism
Julian Barnes has long ago distinguished himself as one of the most intellectually-stimulating authors of our times, and with The Man in the Red Coat he puts his talents to use once again, taking us to the heart of the Belle Epoque Paris.
Through a journey on which we are guided by Samuel Pozzi, a pioneering gynecologist of his times, we make the acquaintance of the many remarkable people who populated the end of the 19th century, and the unexpected parallels drawn between this epoch and our own.
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“The King at the Edge of the World” by Arthur Phillips – What Does a Monarch Believe?
Arthur Phillips has really been exploring his abilities as an author by diving into different genres since his first novel, and in The King at the Edge of the World he transports us into the realm of historical fiction.
Taking place in 1601, we follow a web of courtly intrigues anchored around the impending death of Queen Elizabeth I, the leading candidate to her succession King James VI, and Mahmoud Ezzedine, a Muslim physician who stayed behind from the Ottoman Empire’s last diplomatic visit.
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“To The Center Of The Earth” by Greig Beck – The Dwellers in the Core
Greig Beck has visibly grown as an author since his first arrival on the scene, and most recently he found the motivation to tackle an ambitious project, re-telling a classic with his latest novel, To The Center Of The Earth.
Following a team of cave explorers diving deep below the earth in the former Soviet Union, we witness their incredible journey following the instructions of a madwoman locked in a Russian asylum, after having travelled there herself fifty years ago.
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“The Source” by James A. Michener – The Holy Land Madhouse
James A. Michener had a rather peculiar specialty as an author, focusing on rather lengthy historical novels profoundly focusing on a specific geographical location.
The Source, originally published back in 1965, takes us on a journey thousands of years long through the Holy Land, recounting the origins of Judaism, the rise of the early Hebrews, and all which happened since then until the modern conflict with Palestine.
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“Revenge at Sea” by Brian O’Sullivan – Detective Newsman
Brian O’Sullivan is further and further stretching his writing arm in the thriller genre, moving away from political topics to give us a more classic crime story in his latest book, Revenge at Sea.
Following a small-time reporter by the name of Quint Adler, the story takes us on a wild chase as he becomes a suspect in some gruesome murders and is forced to finish the search for truth he foolishly started in hopes of moving up in life.
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