Will Ballantine’s major push for Anne Fortier‘s debut novel Juliet pay off? The tale of an American woman who travels to Italy and discovers her ties to the Giulietta who inspired Shakespeare was first touted on the BEA Editors’ Buzz panel and at ALA’s Shout and Share. Rights have been sold in 29 territories around the world.

Earlier this summer it was chosen as a summer reading pick by the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.

But now, Entertainment Weekly gives it a “B-“, finding that it falls short of its aim to be,

…a distaff version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, with a dash of A.S. Byatt’s Possession tossed in. . . . Fortier’s writing is on firm ground in the book’s historical passages. The modern section, by contrast, feels contrived, and the author resorts to more telling than showing to keep her plot zipping along.

Still, holds are edging up at libraries we checked.

Juliet Anne Fortier Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2010-08-24) ISBN / EAN: 0345516109 / 9780345516107

Notable Young Adult Fiction On Sale Next Week

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic), the doorstopper final entry in the Hunger Games trilogy, is embargoed until 12:01 am next Tuesday, August 23, when bookstores will break into midnight party mode, says USA Today. It’s also been signed for a movie that’s drawn casting speculation from New York magazine’s Vulture blog.

Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney (Delacorte Books for Young Readers) is the suspenseful tale of twins seemingly separated at birth – or are they more than twins? This was one of LisaVon Drasek’s Picks for August, for ages 12 and up.

Other Notable Fiction On Sale Next Week

Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs (Scribner) is the 13th novel starring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Publishers Weekly says, “Reichs, who once again uses her own scientific knowledge to enhance a complex plot and continually developing characters, delivers a whopper of a final twist.”

The Town by Chuck Hogan is the mass market movie tie-in edition of the author’s third novel, Prince of Thieves (2004), about four friends and rivals who rob a bank in Charlestown. The movie, directed by Ben Afleck, opens in theaters on September 17.

The Sonderberg Case by Elie Wiesel, translated by Catherine Temerson (Knopf), is a novel about a New York theater critic whose parents are Holocaust survivors and whose children are Americans living in Israel. PW says, “Wiesel returns to the moral questions that characterize the post-WWII generation in this slim novel that is both overstuffed with plot and skimpy on motive. . . . The ambitious scope of the story, spanning generations, is compelling, but limited by the novel’s length.”

The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard (Morrow) follows the lives of two girls born on the same day in the same hospital in New Hampshire. Entertainment Weekly gives it a C,

The author, whose last novel, Labor Day, was more satisfying and sure-footed, seems to think she’s weaving a knotty tale of family secrets, told in the alternating voices of her likable main characters. And yet all her twists are clumsily telegraphed.

When Washington Post Carolyn See critic loves a book, she doesn’t hide it. Her review for the debut novel The Doctor and The Diva, begins, “Some novels just naturally enslave you, and this is one of them.” Set in Boston in the early 1900’s, it’s about a woman caught in a conflict between her love for her husband, her desire to become an opera singer and her desire for another man.

The novel is based on a true story that the author researched in depth. Writes See,

The details of the novel — such as the long coach rides down a Trinidad beach where the sands are firm as pavement — gets its richness from diaries, clippings and letters. The effectiveness of the narrative comes from the novelist’s striking skill. From the very first pages, we are utterly engaged in what’s going to happen to these three people — they become as close to us as family friends.

It ‘s published under a new Viking Penguin imprint, Pamela Dorman Books. Dorman is known for acquiring and editing The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding and The Deep End Of The Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard.  When she was at Hyperion, she was responsible for The Physick Book Of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, The Monsters Of Templeton by Lauren Groff,  as well as the memoirs The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan, and Perfection by Julie Metz.

The Doctor and the Diva: A Novel Adrienne McDonnell Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 432 pages Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books – (2010-07-22) ISBN / EAN: 0670021881 / 9780670021888

Large Print, Thorndike Press, 9781410428554; October 2010

Entertainment Weekly hands out two high grades to novels going on sale next week.

The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart (Doubleday) is the tale of how a Beefeater, his wife and their menagerie cope with modern life in the Tower of London. Entertainment Weekly gives it a solid A:

“British writer Julia Stuart (The Matchmaker of Périgord) crafts a subculture that is so sweet and enchanting that the whole affair would be terribly twee were it not for the sense of heartbreak and longing that holds it all together.”

It’s also the #2 Indie Next pick for August.

This could be one to keep an eye on – libraries we checked show modest holds on modest orders.

The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise: A Novel Julia Stuart Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2010-08-10) ISBN / EAN: 0385533284 / 9780385533287

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You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin (Riverhead) gets an A- from Entertainment Weekly, which calls it “beautiful, brainy, offbeat,” while praising the author’s “steadying compassion and literary flair in the dissection of miseries, identifying with equal compassion the dissatisfactions of a dead wife and the grief of a bewildered widower.”

But Kirkus, PW and Booklist were all underwhelmed by this debut, calling it “thinly plotted” and criticizing the main character’s “fundamental blandness” – so probably best to wait for more reviews.

You Lost Me There Rosecrans Baldwin Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-08-12) ISBN / EAN: 1594487634 / 9781594487637

Notable Fiction On Sale Next Week

Tough Customer by Sandra Brown (Simon & Schuster) tells the story of a private investigator whose estranged daughter is threatened by a stalker. Kirkus says “the narrative, slowed by too many talky scenes and descriptive filler, eventually rewards readers’ patience with a bang-up surprise ending.”

Cure by Robin Cook (Putnam) follows a couple, both medical examiners, who investigate a mob hit. PW says “Even devoted Cook fans may find that the crimes and subterfuges are resolved too swiftly and perfunctorily.”

Veil of Night by Linda Howard is a romantic suspense novel about a wedding planner and the murder of her bridezilla client.

Death on the D-List by Nancy Grace is the second Hailey Dean thriller by bestselling author, attorney, and TV personality Grace.

City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris (Little, Brown), is the author’s second literary mystery, set in Saudi Arabia and featuring the desert guide Nayir Sharqi and forensic scientist Katya Hijazi. The starred Booklist review calls it “a suspenseful mystery and a sobering portrait of the lives of Muslim women. Recommend this potent thriller as book-club reading.” It was also a pick on the LA Times summer reading roundup and the August Indie Next list. Libraries are showing modest reserves on modest orders.

Mary Roach was the big hit of this year’s BEA Librarian “Shout & Share,” getting votes from all the librarians on the panel for her book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. She was also funny, enthralling and informative during a BEA author breakfast moderated by Jon Stewart (who was cracking up during most of her talk – watch it here). She was equally funny when she spoke to librarians at the AAP breakfast at PLA in March..

Word-of-mouth on the new book is good, but libraries we checked are well behind demand on this title.

Expect major media attention (no surprise, she will be on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Monday) for Roach’s look at some of the bizarre and uncomfortable realities facing future astronauts, as outlined in starred reviews from Library Journal (“While there are occasional somber passages, most of the descriptions of the many and varied annoyances of space travel are perversely entertaining.”) and Kirkus (“There is much good fun with – and a respectful amount of awe at – the often crazy ingenuity brought to the mundane matters of surviving in a place not meant for humans“).

The book trailer, already featured on BoingBoing, illustrates Booklist’s assessment that  “Roach brings intrepid curiosity, sauciness, and chutzpah to the often staid practice of popular science writing,” giving it YA crossover appeal

.

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void Mary Roach Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 334 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2010-08-02) ISBN / EAN: 0393068471 / 9780393068474

Brilliance Audio:

• CD, $99.97; ISBN 9781441876638
• Playaway, $74.99; ISBN 9781441878960
• MP3, $39.97; ISBN 9781441876652

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Though scheduled for release next week, Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography by Andrew Morton (St. Martin’s) was rushed to market this week because some the supposed revelations about the life and career of actress Angelina Jolie were leaking out.

USA Today dissects Jolie’s epic love life, and adds that the Jolie-Pitt household’s legion staff  includes “nannies from Vietnam, the Congo, and the U.S.; four nurses, a doctor on permanent call; two personal assistants; a cook; a maid; two cleaners; a busboy; four bodyguards, and six French former army guards.”

New York Times critic Janet Maslin chastizes Morton for not citing sources and for his many frivolous details (e.g. the type face of a particular Jolie tattoo never seen in public), while praising him (sort of) for connecting the biographical dots of Jolie’s life.

Entertainment Weekly reads Morton’s bio so you don’t have to and the AP uses it as a springboard to opine that unauthorized celeb bios (such as Oprah by Kitty Kelley) are not doing well these days.

Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography Andrew Morton Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Press – (2010-08-03) ISBN / EAN: 031255561X / 9780312555610

Available from Blackstone Audio on 7/31/2010

CD LIB:; 9781441755124; $52.50
MP3CD LIB: 9781441755155; $14.98
Playaway; LIB; 9781441755186; $45.49
9 Tape LIB; 9781441755117; $36.48

Notable Kids & YA Fiction on Sale Next Week

I Am Number Four by Pitticus Lore (HarperCollins) is a YA novel about nine alien refugee teenages who land on Earth. Three are already dead, and number four is next. As we mentioned earlier, Entertainment Weekly has been running exclusives about this title, including an interview with the author, who claims to be “an extraterrestrial Elder from Lorien named Pittacus Lore.”

Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer (Hyperion); this will be the next-to-last entry in the best-selling middle-grade fantasy series, as Colfer revealed this week to the UK’s Guardian.

Notable Fiction on Sale Next Week

My Hollywood by Mona Simpson (Knopf) is her first novel since Off Keck Road (2000), narrated in alternate chapters by Claire, a composer whose marriage is strained by her husband’s late hours as a TV writer, and Lola, the Filipina nanny she hires. Entertainment Weekly gives it an “A-“: “Claire, privileged and damaged, floats along in a daze of unfulfillment, while the ever-practical Lola observes her L.A. milieu with a realist’s eye in imperfect yet oddly poetic English… A character as rich as Lola won’t easily fade from anyone’s mind.”  There’s also an interview with Simpson in the New York Times.

I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Graywolf Press), from the author of the surprise hit Out Stealing Horses, is the story of a Danish communist who faces divorce and a dying mother. Entertainment Weekly gives it a “B,” saying: “A times it’ll feel alien to readers who’ve never been young Communists… (The translation can also be quite a rickety bridge.) But there’s no denying the novel’s Raymond Carver-like power as Arvid and his mother come to terms with how life hands you hope just before it hands you disappointment and tragedy.”

Hangman by Faye Kellerman (Morrow) is the newest mystery novel with spouses Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. Booklist says Kellerman fans will be reasonably satisfied, but “if you’re new to Kellerman…this is not the place to start. Kellerman works primarily in dialogue, with very sketchy narrative support, which requires readers unfamiliar with the backstory to act as their own detectives, figuring out what the heck is going on in each scene.”

Burn by Nevada Barr (Minotaur Books) is the 16th book with National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon, though this time she is transplanted out of her element, to New Orleans. Booklist says, “Barr develops the narrative carefully, never letting the eerie black-magic elements overshadow her solid and suspenseful plotting. A definite winner.”

The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone) chronicles the War of the Roses through the perspective of Henry VII’s mother.

Scarlet Nights: An Edilean Novel by Jude Deveraux (Atria) follows a woman whose fiancé turns out to be a scheming criminal. Booklist says it’s “another guilty-pleasure romance of suspense that will hook readers and leave them with a smile.”

In Harm’s Way by Ridley Pearson (Putnam) is the fourth thriller with Idaho sheriff Walt Fleming. Booklist is not so impressed: “although this novel is sufficiently entertaining, it lacks both the taut plotting and intricate excitement of his best work.”

One of the librarians’ Shout & Share picks from BEA, A Fierce Radiance, was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday. In the novel, author Lauren Belfer tells the true story of the development of penicillin, featuring a fictional Life magazine photographer on assignment to cover the story. Belfer says she read every issue of Life magazine from 1939 to 1945 to get a feel for the time.

The book has been garnering strong reviews;

NYT Book Review, Pharma Drama, Maggie Scharf, “[Belfer] knows how to turn esoteric information into an adventure story, and how to tell that story very well.”

Chicago Tribune, Review by Celia McGee, “… who can’t be grateful for a long, interesting, if over-full, historical novel that isn’t about vampires?”

USA Today, War, love and loss burst from Lauren Belfer’s ‘Radiance’, Erik Brady, “…A Fierce Radiance, a genre-blending historical novel, is love story and murder mystery rolled into panoramic family saga and industrial-espionage thriller.”

A Fierce Radiance Lauren Belfer Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 544 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061252514 / 9780061252518

OverDrive Adobe EPUB eBook

Lots of major fiction arrives next week, as publishers prepare for the lead-up to Mother’s Day in bookstores. Here are the highlights of next week’s crop, all of which have strong holds in libraries we checked.

Deliver Us from Evil by David Baldacci (Grand Central): Holds are huge for this one, but unfortunately, PW says it “lacks the creative plotting and masterful handling of suspense that marked his earlier thrillers.”

Deliver Us from Evil David Baldacci Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2010-04-20) ISBN / EAN: 0446564087 / 9780446564083

This Body of Death (An Inspector Lynley Novel) by Elizabeth George is “richly rewarding,” according to PW, with “an intricate plot that will satisfy even jaded fans of psychological suspense.”

Burning Lamp by Amanda Quick (Penguin). Library Journal says: “With quirky humor and typical flair, Quick has penned another riveting, fast-paced adventure that… will leave readers anxious for the final installment, Jayne Castle’s Midnight Crystal, coming in September.”

Lucid Intervals (A Stone Barrington Novel)  by Stuart Woods (Penguin). “Woods mixes danger and humor into a racy concoction that will leave readers thirsty for more,” PW declares.

The Double Comfort Safari Club (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series #11) by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon) gets a positive review from PW, which notes that the tale’s resolution many seem “unduly fortuitous, but it makes sense within the framework of these books, which are more about humanity than logic.”

Eight Days to Live by Iris Johansen (Macmillan). “Think The Da Vinci Code crossed with an Anne Stuart romantic suspense novel, and you’ll have a sense of the plot and tone,” says Library Journal.

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (Knopf). Reviews in PW and Booklist are enthusiastic, along with Library Journal, which sums up: “Written by a two-time Booker Prize winner, this engaging book will be particularly appreciated by readers interested in early 19th-century American history, the French aristocracy, and emerging democracy.” It’s also reviewed in the current NYT BR.

One of the debuts we’re watching this season is The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. Many have compared it to Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. In fact, it’s received strong praise from Stockett (she even interviews Blake on Amazon’s site), and both books share the same editor, Amy Einhorn, who has her own imprint at Putnam.

In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin also makes the comparison to The Help, which she calls a “socially conscious pulp best seller,”

Each of these novels appropriates galvanizing social issues in the service of a well-wrought tear-jerker. And each is crammed with talking points.

But Maslin also admits,

…the real strength of  The Postmistress lies in its ability to strip away readers’ defenses against stories of wartime uncertainty and infuse that chaos with wrenching immediacy and terror.

She also predicts that, like The Help, “this book will click in a major way.”

The books may share many qualities, but the settings are different. Rather than 1960’s Mississippi, The Postmistress takes place during World War II, which has led others to compare it to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.

The Postmistress releases today and has been steadily rising on Amazon (it’s now at #84). Library holds are also growing rapidly on conservative ordering; as high as 210 on 16 copies.

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199

Available from Blackstone Audiobooks

• CD: $100; ISBN 9781441725714
• MP3 CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781441725745
• Cassette: $65.95; ISBN 9781441725707

Audio and e-book available from OverDrive

Entertainment Weekly gave it a middling “C” grade, but Elizabeth Kostova’s second book The Swan Thieves (after her 2005 blockbuster vampire-themed The Historian) gets more love from the Associated Press. The author was also interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

But the review that blows away the nay-sayers is from Laura Miller in the Barnes and Noble Review. Miller, a respected critic who writes for Salon, opens the review by marveling that The Historian was such a success; it’s “a vampire story without gore or brooding passions, a historical thriller without much in the way of action” but Kostova “…placed her faith in the conviction that readers are pleased to sink slowly into a novel, until the world it conjures has closed over their heads, submerging them entirely.” Miller feels she does the same with this book, even though the subject matter (Impressionist painting, rather than vampires) is quite different.

You can read an excerpt here. The book’s Web site offers information on the historical background of the novel.

The Swan Thieves Elizabeth Kostova Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0316065781 / 9780316065788

Audio from Hachette:

• CD: $39.98; ISBN 9781600247453

Large Print:

• Little Brown: $28.99; ISBN 9780316043663

Playaway:

• $104.99; ISBN 9781607884828

The heaviest holds for fiction going on sale next week are on Robert Crais‘s thriller, The First Rule: A Joe Pike Novel, an IndieBound pick for January and a popular Amazon preorder.

The First Rule (Joe Pike Novels) Robert Crais Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Putnam Adult – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0399156135 / 9780399156137

Audio available from Brilliance Corporation:

• CD: $87.97; ISBN 9781423375494
• CD, MP-3: $24.99; ISBN 9781423375500

Large Print from Wheeler Publishing:

• $35.99; ISBN 9781410421418

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Elizabeth Kostova‘s The Swan Thieves – her second novel after her blockbuster 2005 debut, The Historian – has hold ratios of about four to one in libraries we checked.

Entertainment Weekly grades it a “C,” with the criticism that this literary thriller about a mentally ill painter obsessed with a dead woman doesn’t maintain a sense of urgency – “a desperate flaw for a story of passion and obsession.”

The Swan Thieves Elizabeth Kostova Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0316065781 / 9780316065788

Read an Excerpt

Audio from Hachette:

• CD: $39.98; ISBN 9781600247453

Large Print:

• Little Brown: $28.99; ISBN 9780316043663

Playaway:

• $104.99; ISBN 9781607884828

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Beth Hoffman’s debut novel Saving Ceecee Honeycutt, which was acquired by the same editor as Sue Monk Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees, is getting a push from the publisher and many enthusiastic quotes from booksellers. It’s also the first pick in the new Sam’s Club Book Club, according to GalleyCat, and will be featured in all 600 of the chain’s big box stores.

Prepub reviews included a starred Library Journal review:

“Southern storytelling at its best, this coming-of-age novel is sure to be a hit with the book clubs that adopted Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees.”

Libraries we checked are showing modest holds.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt Beth Hoffman Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0670021393 / 9780670021390

Penguin Audio

• CD: $39.95; ISBN 9780143145547

Large Print from Thorndike

• $34.95; ISBN 9781410422750

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Melanie Benjamin‘s portrait of Alice Liddel, Lewis Carroll’s muse in Alice I Have Been, is a big favorite of Random House’s library marketing team, who compare it to Nancy Horan’s reading-club favorite Loving Frank. In fact, the author invites reading groups to contact her and possibly arrange a phone-in.

Prepub reviews bear out the inhouse enthusiasm; Booklist says, “First-novelist Benjamin tells … a story that is a mixture of historically accurate fact and liberally imagined fiction, including her solution to the mystery of what actually happened to estrange Carroll … from his muse’s family.”

Most large libraries have ordered modestly, with 2:1 holds. However, one library clearly expects strong demand, ordering 80 copies.

Alice I Have Been Melanie Benjamin Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0385344139 / 9780385344135

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Elena Gorokhova‘s memoir of  growing up in 1960s Leningrad, A Mountain of Crumbs, has already received positive reviews in Elle and More magazines. Libraries are showing holds of three to one on modest orders.

A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir Elena Gorokhova Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 1439125678 / 9781439125670

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Also on sale next week:

• John Lescroart’s new mystery, Treasure Hunt
• Amy Bloom’s new story collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. Her novel, Away, was a bestseller. People gives the new collection 3.5 stars and makes it a People Pick. Bloom’s subject is love. Several of the stories are interlinked and People says they “hit harder than the stand-alones: mapping passion’s fallout takes time.”