We had to invent a new category, “Hard to Call,”  for Lauren Beukes’s new title, Broken Monsters, (Hachette/Mulholland Books) in our look-ahead to books arriving this week. Its graphic murder scenes and “grotesque and perpetual sense of doom,” as Entertainment Weekly says, may put off readers.

NPR’s reviewer has no such problem saying, “You could say that she’s as edgy as James Ellroy, as creepy as Stephen King and as darkly funny as Kurt Vonnegut, but Beukes is an author whose work is resistant to easy comparisons. Broken Monsters is one of the most remarkable books of the year, and one of the best suspense novels you’ll read in quite some time.” Stephen King himself tweeted that it’s “Scary as hell and hypnotic. I couldn’t put it down.”

Buekes’s 2013 title, The Shining Girls, (Hachette/Mulholland), was dubbed  “a strong contender for the role of this summer’s universal beach read,”  by the NYT‘s Janet Maslin. While it didn’t achieve that status, it received some strong reviews and hit #13 on the L.A. Times best seller list.

If you want to judge this one for yourself, you can read the grisly first chapter in the OverDrive Sample. Tell us what you think in the comments.

Enough with the creepy teasers, below is the creepy first full trailer for the FX series, The Strain, based on the vampire novel trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. The 10-episode premieres next month.

Tie-in:

The Strain: TV Tie-in Edition

Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Harper, June 24, 2014

Mass market; 9780062344618,  $9.99

The creepy teasers have been piling up for The Strain, the 10-episode TV series based on the vampire novel trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. The latest comes with a difference, a definite premiere date, July 13.

We’ll hold off on grossing you out further until the actual trailer arrives. Those with strong stomachs can watch all the teasers on The Strain’s official Web page.

Tie-in:

The Strain: TV Tie-in Edition

Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Harper, June 24, 2014

Mass market; 9780062344618,  $9.99

Calling a new book “One of the Great Horror Novels of All Time” is high praise. The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s influential reviewer Laura DeMarco applies it to a novel by Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir, saying, “I have read a lot of horror fiction, and a lot of psychological suspense books, and I Remember You, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin, also in trade pbk, both, March 25), ranks among the scariest, right up there with the best of Stephen King and Peter Straub. It’s that good. And that scary. And, ultimately, that moving.”

Sigurdardottir, known for her mysteries, makes a departure in this standalone, which, says DeMarco, “chills with sounds and smells and shadows, not blood.”

DeMarco mentions that the covers of the American and U.K. editions were changed from the original, which Icelanic fans complained was too terrifying. Link here to see it on the Candian version (Icelanders must be sensitive).

The teasers for The Strain, the 10-episode TV series based on the vampire novel trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, coming to the FX Network in July [UPDATE: Premieres July 13], are so creepy that one observer has taken to ranking them.

Below is the next-to-latest, which is ranked as not-that-creepy; click here to view the creepiest. Yet another was released yesterday (it’s tough to keep up), but it’s so obscure, few are likely to get it.

The newly-released cover for the upcoming the tie-in is pretty creepy in its own right:

The Strain: TV Tie-in Edition

Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Harper, June 24, 2014

Mass market; 9780062344618,  $9.99

Recovered from the remake of Flowers in the Attic? Prepare for another blast from the past. Ira Levin’s 1967 novel Rosemary’s Baby is coming to NBC as a two-part series, which begins Sunday, May 11.

The book was famously adapted in 1968 by director Roman Polanski, with Mia Farrow as Rosemary and John Cassavetes as her husband. This time, however, the story is set in Paris, rather than in New York’s Dakota Building.

Rosemary’s Baby
Ira Levin, Intro by Otto Penzler
Pegasus (dist by W.W. Norton)
May 5, 2014
9781605981109, 1605981109
Paperback $14.95
 

Below is the trailer for the original (it seems trailers were longer in those days):

Featured on the cover of the upcoming NYT Book Review is Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; Thorndike). Not only is it a surprise to find the Book Review covering a book by a best-selling author close to publication date (likely the doing of the new editor, Pamela Paul, who began that position in May), but the name of the reviewer is also a surprise, Margaret Atwood.

Perhaps to justify that choice, a callout quotes Atwood’s review, “Some may look skeptically at ‘horror’ as a genre, but it’s one of the most literary of all forms.”

This may be the only review of Doctor Sleep that mentions Vladimir Nabokov and Salvador Dali in the first paragraph. Atwood calls it,

… a very good specimen of the quintessential King blend. According to Vladimir Nabokov, Salvador Dali was ‘really Norman Rockwell’s twin brother kidnapped by gypsies in babyhood.’ But actually there were triplets: the third one is Stephen King.”

The review is peppered with literary references. Atwood gives King respect as a  writer, noting that he “loves wordplay and puns and mirror language … The names of King’s characters are frequently appropriate: Daniel ‘Lion’s Den’ Anthony the (the tempted saint) Torrance (it never rains but it pours) is a case in point.” She also gives him respect as entertainer, “by the end of this book, your fingers will be mere stubs of their former selves.”

This may be the only review of Doctor Sleep you need to read (currently, it’s only available in print; it will be online Friday afternoon).

Atwood’s latest book is Maddaddam (RH/Doubleday/Talese), which was reviewed earlier in the NYT Book Review.

Stephen King’s new book, Doctor Sleep, (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; Thorndike), may be the definition of “review-proof.” It’s on multiple most anticipated list from the literary-leaning L.A. Times critic David Ulin’s to the more populist USA Today‘s and, really, what more does one need to say than “it’s the sequel to The Shining“?

But that won’t stop the reviewers. The NYT‘s Janet Maslin tackles it today, over a week before publication, saying it’s “scary enough to match the first book, though not better or scarier … Doctor Sleep is less panic-inducingly surreal.” She becomes more enthusiastic by the review’s end, saying that King “is so good at scaring that he can even raise goose bumps when he writes about the measles.”

Maslin’s isn’t the first review. Two others beat her to it yesterday. New York magazine judges the sequel as not as good or as scary as the first, but finds it, “Funnier, slyer, and less genre-bound.” Conversely, the New York Daily News Shcrryl Connelly is a fan, saying Doctor Sleep represents “King at his best, perhaps not as shrill as in The Shining, but thoroughly terrifying.”

The Shining was published nearly forty years ago. So far, the only review to address whether the sequel stands on its own is Library Journal‘s which says it will “satisfy anyone new to this icon in the King canon.”

The second trailer for the new adaptation of Stephen King’s classic horror story, Carrie, debuted online this week. Directed by Kimberly Peirce, it stars Chloë Grace Moretz in the title role and Julianne Moore as her fanatically religious mother. The movie arrives in theaters on Oct. 18.

Brian De Palma directed the original adaptation in 1976, with Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie as her mother.

Tie-ins to Carrie from RH/Vintage will be released on Sept. 24 in mass market, audio (Sissy Spacek narrates) and Spanish-language editions.

Director Kimberley Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) has said on her Facebook page that her Carrie will not be a remake of De Palma’s version:

… I have gone back to the wonderful STEPHEN KING Book CARRIE; I am also modernizing the story as one has to in order to bring any great piece of work written in one era into the next and especially given how very relevant this material is right now.

That explains the presence of cell phones in the trailer (for more insight on Peirce’s approach to the novel, see MovieWeb‘s on-set interview with the director).

Official Movie Site: Carrie-Movie.com

Below is the trailer:

Stephen King is making news this week. In an interview on Entertainment Weekly, he talks about Doctor Sleep, (S&S/Scribner; 9/24/13; S&S Audio), his eagerly anticipated followup to The Shining, which answers the question, “Whatever happened to Danny?”

And, a SuperBowl ad ran yesterday for a CBS series based on another of his books, Under the Dome, which begins this summer. The tie-in will be published May 14 (S&S/Gallery).

.

The new season of AMC’s zombie apocalypse series, The Walking Dead, beat out all other programming, including broadcast shows, to become the #1 entertainment series on TV. The first three episodes drew at least 6.5 million viewers each, stunning industry observers.

The Walking Dead began life as a comic series, written by Robert Kirkman (see our earlier story). Compilations of those series have dominated the NYT Graphic Books Best Seller list for months (Book 1, published by Image Comics, is at #3 on the o hardcover list after 67 weeks; the most recent, Book 8, at #2, took up residence 3 weeks ago).

Last year, Kirkman wrote the first in a projected series of prose novels, The Walking Dead: Rise of The Governor, which hit the extended list last year at #18 and stayed on for one week.

Volume two, The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne Books; Macmillan Audio), outdid its predecessor last week, arriving on the main list at #11 (it slips to #31 on the extended list this week). Several libraries are showing heavy holds.

Get ready for the next gen Carrie. The teaser trailer for a new film based on Stephen King’s classic debuted at New York ComicCon over the weekend.

Starring Chloë Grace Moretz as Carrie and Julianne Moore as her deranged mother, the movie arrives in theaters on March 15. 2013.

Official Web site: Carrie-Movie.com

The excitement in the upcoming week is in nonfiction, starting with a new collection of Beatle John Lennon‘s private letters, a new Barbra Streisand bio by William J. Mann, and a biography of photographer Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan, along with a YA adaptation of Navy Seal Eric Greitens‘s bestselling memoir. Usual suspects include James Patterson (with Marshall Karp), Robert K. Morgan and the man known as the “Stephen King of children’s literature,” R L Stein, delivers his first adult horror novel (thanks for the correction; this is actually his second book for adults, after his 1995 title, Superstitious).

Nonfiction

The John Lennon Letters by John Lennon, edited by Hunter Davies (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio) collects the beloved Beatles private letters to family, friends, strangers, and lovers from every point in his life, with annotations by Hunter Davies, author of  the authorized biography The Beatles (1968).

Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand by William J. Mann (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Thorndike Large Print) focuses on the singer’s breakthrough years in the Sixties, when she starred in Funny Girl on Broadway and recorded three platinum albums. PW says, “Combining extensive interviews (some anonymous) and exhaustive archival research, Mann balances intimate personal details with audience reactions and critical acclaim to etch an indelible portrait of the artist as a young woman.”

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Dreamscape Audio) is the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer’s account of 19th C portrait photographer Edward Curtis, who gave up a thriving career to chronicle more than 80 Native American tribes before their way of life disappeared. The result was Curtis’s classic 20-volume set, The North American Indian, which took 30 years to complete and left him divorced and destitute. Kirkus says, “Lucent prose illuminates a man obscured for years in history’s shadows.”

Jesus Today: Experience Hope Through His Prescence by Sarah Young (HarperCollins/Thomas Nelson) is the second book from the missionary and breakout author of Jesus Calling.

There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe (Penguin Press; Penguin Audiobooks) blends political analysis, history, and personal reminiscences of the Nigerian civil war of 1967-70 in a coming of age memoir. The author best known for the novel Things Fall Apart, which has sold ten million copies worldwide since 1958. Kirkus says, “a powerful memoir/document of a terrible conflict and its toll on the people who endured it.”

Nonfiction – Young Adult

The Warrior’s Heart by Eric Greitens (HMH Young Readers) adapts the author’s bestseller The Heart and the Fist for teen readers, focusing on the youthful adventures that led him to become a humanitarian and a Navy SEAL. Kirkus says Greitens retraces his coming of age “with well-deserved pride but not self-aggrandizement,” and says it’s “as thought provoking as it is entertaining.”

Usual Suspects

NYPD Red by James Patterson and Marshall Karp (Hachette/Little, Brown; Little Brown Large Print; Hachette Audio) finds the NYPD on high alert when a deranged killer strikes a series of red carpet celebrity events.

Red Rain by R L Stein (S&S/Touchstone; Simon & Schuster Audio) is the first second adult horror novel by the bestselling author of the  Goosebumps and Fear Street series, involving a hurricane and psychopath. PW says it “fails to compel.”

Lots of titles to watch next week, including librarian favorites from rising novelists Emma Straub and Tatjana Soli, Spanish sci-fi bestseller Felix J. Palma, and British debut author Morgan McCarthy. Usual suspects include Zadie Smith, James Patterson, Dale Brown and Clive Cussler and Thomas Perry – plus Elizabeth George makes her YA debut.

After dominating news all this week, No Easy Day, the eyewitness account of the killing of bin Laden is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday, but the Pentagon has warned that the author is in breach of the non-disclosure agreements he signed when he became a Navy SEAL and that “Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements.”

Christopher Hitchens posthumously delivers his last words on mortality, Gretchen Rubin shares more tried and true advice on cultivated happiness, and NBA superstar Dwyane Wade reflects on his rise as a basketball player and his role as a father.

Watch List

Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub (Penguin/Riverhead; Thorndike Large Print; Dreamscape Media, read by Molly Ringwald) is the story of a farm girl’s rise (and fall) as a movie star in early Hollywood – and Riverhead’s lead debut novel for the fall. Entertainment Weekly  gives it an “A-“ saying, “Though the tale may be familiar, Emma Straub’s fantastic debut novel… brings fresh sparkle to the journey.” It’s a B&N Discover Great New Writers pick. It also had buzz during our August GalleyChat.

Breed by Scott Spencer writing as Chase Novak (Hachette/ Mulholland Books; Hachette Audio) is a medical thriller about an infertile couple who transform themselves into parents via reproductive technology, but it has an unexpected side effect, causing them to develop strange appetites that scare their twin children. Janet Maslin gave it an early review in  Thursday’s New York Times, in which she calls Spencer the “gently literary author still best remembered for the lush prose of his 1979 Endless Love…[who has] has started writing in a pulpier and more diabolical vein.”  She that, while it displays “keen antennas for sensory detail,” it is  “a gruesome book, a full-bore foray into the horror genre, so literary loveliness goes only so far. It is probably best avoided by anyone not wishing to know exactly what it’s like to eat a baby pigeon.”  The cover sports a blurb from Stephen King, “By turns terrifying and blackly funny, Breed is a total blast.” Entertainment Weekly, however, gives it just a “B,” saying, “Breed is being touted as a modern-day Rosemary’s Baby, but Spencer… delivers the camp better than he does the scares.” A followup, Brood, is in the works.

John Saturnall’s Feast by Lawrence Norfolk (Grove Press) is a historical novel set in 17th century England about a boy who’s orphaned when his mother is accused of being a witch. He goes on to become the greatest cook of his generation. PW says, “Known for intellectual prose and complex plots, Norfolk this time out attempts to interweave time and senses, reality and myth, rewarding steadfast readers with savory recipes and a bittersweet upstairs-downstairs love story.” It was a BEA Librarian’s Shout ‘n’ Share pick, and is an Indie Next pick for September.

Norfolk offers a look at the surprising sophistication of English cooking in the 17th C:

The Map of the Sky by Felix J.Palma (S&S/Atria) is the Spanish author’s sequel to his bestselling take-off on H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Here, the action begins when a New York socialite challenges her fiance to recreate Wells’ The War of the Worlds, setting off a chain reaction across time and space. LJ says, “Palma has again managed to infuse something very familiar with a new edge and life.” This one also kicked up some buzz on GalleyChat in August, where a librarian said that the novel “brings War of the Worlds to life.”

The Forgetting Tree by Tatjana Soli (St. Martin’s Press; Tantor Media; Thorndike Large Print) was a BEA Shout ‘n’ Share pick for Cuyahoga’s Wendy Bartlett. Here’s her pitch: “This book opens with a family tragedy that occurs in the first few pages. The rest of this thoughtful book is about how we heal–or don’t–after an unspeakable tragedy. It’s set on a  citrus ranch in Southern California. Soli’s first book, The Lotus-Eaters, did very well with our customers, and was really good for book discussion. She reminds me of a young Barbara Kingsolver. Her language is simple but not plain, her characters are extremely well drawn, and the setting is like a movie it’s so easy to visualize.”

The Other Half of Me by Morgan McCarthy (S&S/Free Press) is a paperback original about two siblings who grow up in a dysfunctional aristocratic English family in Wales with secrets that go back for generations. Robin Beerbower, our go-to librarian for scary titles, says this one “is being compared to Ian McEwan’s Atonement, but I’m finding it more compelling than that. The pacing is a bit slow but it features a completely unreliable but fascinating narrator and the gorgeous writing kept me engrossed.”

Returning Favorites

NW by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press; Penguin Audiobooks) is Smith’s first novel in seven years and one of the most anticipated titles of the early fall (it even gets an early review from BusinessWeek). It focuses on three characters who have risen above their childhoods in a Northwest London housing estate in the 1970s, with varying degrees of success. Michiko Kakutani, in the NYT, expresses disappointment, calling it a “much smaller, more meager book” than Smith’s critically acclaimed debut, White Teeth. In the Washington Post, Ron Charles expresses sympathy for the author, who, “Ever since… her dazzling debut in 2000, Zadie Smith has labored under an enviable weight of critical and popular expectations.” He acknowledges that the new novel it difficult, but worth the effort: “At times, reading NW is like running past a fence, catching only strips of light from the scene on the other side. Smith makes no accommodation for the distracted reader — or even the reader who demands a clear itinerary. But if you’re willing to let it work on you, to hear all these voices and allow the details to come into focus when Smith wants them to, you’ll be privy to an extraordinary vision of our age.” Smith spoke out this week to protest the possible closing of hundreds of  local libraries in Great Britain.

Usual Suspects

Zoo by James Patterson (Hachette/Little Brown; Hachette Audio) revolves around Jackson Oz, a young biologist, who witnesses a coordinated lion ambush in Africa that spurs him to heroic action.

Tiger’s Claw: A Novel by Dale Brown (HarperCollins/ Morrow; Harperluxe; HarperAudio) is a thriller in which China and the U.S. find themselves fighting over the Pacific after a preemptive strike.

The Tombs by Clive Cussler and Thomas Perry (Penguin/Putnam; Thorndike Press; Penguin Audiobooks) is the fourth outing with multi-millionaire treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo, who join an archaeologist in excavating an ancient Hungarian battlefield. PW says, “this adventure series stands as one of the crown jewels in the Cussler empire.”

Young Adult

The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George (Penguin/Viking) is the veteran mystery author’s first YA novel, the start of a series about a psychic 14 year-old girl who must fend for herself after her mother runs away from her stepfather. Booklist says, “what’s best here are the characters, both young and adult. There are no stereotypes, and their humanity keeps the story moving, even when the plot is tied in knots.”

Nonfiction

No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden (Penguin/Dutton; Penguin Audio; Thorndike recently acquired large print rights) is under embargo until Tuesday, but copies  are already out and details are being reported widely. On Thursday, the Pentagon warned the author, reports Reuters, that he “in material breach and violation of the non-disclosure agreements you signed,” and “Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements.” There’s no news on how this might affect the author’s scheduled media appearances.

Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin (RH/Crown Archetype; Random House Audio; BOT) picks up where the author’s bestselling The Happiness Project left off, with ideas to simplify and enhance one’s domestic life with children. PW says, “Although it lacks the freshness and originality of her earlier book, this perceptive sequel offers elegant musings about the nature of happiness combined with concrete ways to make the place where we sleep, eat, and watch TV truly a home.”

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens (Hachette/Twelve; Twelve; Hachette Audio) is the lauded cultural critic’s look at illness, suffering, cancer etiquette, religion and his own incipient death from esophageal cancer in December 2011. PW says, “Hitchens’ powerful voice compels us to consider carefully the small measures by which we live every day and to cherish them.” 125,000 copies.

A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball by Dwyane Wade (HarpreCollins/Morrow) is a memoir by the NBA superstar, Miami Heat player and divorced single dad of two sons that charts his upbringing by his drug-addicted mother on Chicago’s South Side. Kirkus says, ” A refreshing chronicle of a fervent sportsman with his head and heart in all the right places.”

Next week’s debuts to watch include Outside magazine contributing editor Peter Heller‘s post-apocalyptic literary debut, and Cambodian refugee Vaddey Ratner‘s autobiographical novel. Usual suspects include Sherrilyn Kenyon, Julie Garwood, Chelsea Cain, Lisa Jackson and W.E.B. Griffin, and Michael Koryta – plus new childrens and YA novels from James Patterson, Amanda Hocking and Rebecca Stead. In nonfiction, there’s a new bio of Julia Child by Bob Spitz.

Watch List

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (Knopf; Random House Audio) is a literary debut about a pilot who survives a flu pandemic that wipes out 99% of the population, and then sets out to find the distant voice he hears on his radio. Booklist‘s starred review calls it a “surprising and irresistible blend of suspense, romance, social insight, and humor… [a novel] of spiky pleasure and signal resonance.” It is an Indie Next pick for August.

City of Women by David R Gillham (Penguin/Putnam/Amy Einhorn; Penguin Audiobooks) is the third in the Penguin Debut Author program. Set in Berlin during World War II, it effectively presents the lives of ordinary Germans living in extraordinary times, forcing readers to wonder what they would have done. It is an Indie Next pick for August. Read our online chat with the author here and our brief audio interview.

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner (Simon & Schuster; Thorndike Large Print) is a debut told through the eyes of a seven-year-old survivor of Cambodia’s genocide under the Khmer Rouge, written by a woman who escaped the country as a refugee in 1981. It was a Book Expo Editor’s Buzz Panel pick, and also a People pick in last week’s issue: “Ratner’s lyrical first novel finds love and surprising humanity in a horrifying setting …Raami, the book’s 7-year-old heroine, is lame from polio (as is the author) yet she remains a tenacious dreamer.” An Indie Next pick for August, it is scheduled for media attention next week on NPR in USA Today, the NYT Book Review and several monthly magazines.

Usual Suspects

Time Untime by Sherrilyn Kenyon (St. Martin’s Press; Macmillan Audio) is the latest installment in the popular Dark Hunter series, in which warrior Ren Waya, must kill Kateri Avani, the one person he has always cherished, to ward off an ancient evil.

Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood (Penguin/Dutton; Brilliance Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is a romantic thriller about an IRS attorney determined to bring down her father’s shady scheme, and the FBI agent who rescues her from an assault. Kirkus says, “The evil characters lack any semblance of humanity, and the good characters, including the Fed-crossed lovers, are perfect and unbecomingly smug about it. A standard melodrama with occasional flashes of originality.”

Kill You Twice by Chelsea Cain (Macmillan/Minotaur Books; Macmillan Audio; Thorndike Large Print) marks the return of Gretchen Lowell, otherwise known as “The Beauty Killer,” who appeared in Cain’s first three novels – along with police detective Archie Sheridan. Kirkus says, “Cain’s abiding determination to outdo the suspense, plot twists and gore of each previous outing is both perverse and awe-inspiring.”

You Don’t Want to Know by Lisa Jackson (Kensington; Brilliance Audio) is a standalone thriller about a woman who loses her grip on reality after her child disappears, and becomes the prime suspect in a string of murders. PW says, “Multiple red herrings and a host of sinister characters help keep the pages turning.”

The Spymasters: A Men at War Novel by W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth, IV (Putnam Adult; Brilliance Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is the seventh in this thriller series and the third the author has written with his son. The plot centers on threats to the Manhattan Project during WWII, Kirkus says the authors “are completely at ease mixing fact and fiction, skillfully piecing together pieces of their narrative puzzle. Their writing is straightforward to a fault, sometimes reminding you of a scholastic You Are There novel, but the book never sags, and the characters never lose our interest.”

The Prophet by Michael Koryta (Hachette/Little Brown; Little Brown Large Print) is the author’s ninth novel, about two brothers in a small Midwestern town who were divided as teenagers by the death of their sister, and clash again years later when another local teen dies. PW says, “Koryta has a gift for melding a suspenseful, twisty plot with a probing, unflinching look at his protagonistsa weaknesses.” His So Cold the River and Cypress House are being developed for movies. Adaptation rights were also sold for this new title at the end of May (Deadline).

Childrens & Young Adult

Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure by James Patterson (Hachette/LBYR; Hachette Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is the final installment in the Maximum Ride series.

Wake by Amanda Hocking (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin, Macmillan Audio) is the first installment in the new Watersong series about three contemporary sirens. It follows Hocking’s successful self-published Trylle Trilogy (later republished by St. Martin’s). Entertainment Weekly‘s “Shelf Life” blog features an “exclusive” trailer this week  and an interview with Hocking. PW says, “While Hocking’s writing isn’t always polished (the foreshadowing can be painfully heavy), the well-structured story and strong characters carry readers over the rough spots. A cliffhanger ending sets up the next book, Lullaby, due [in] six months.”

Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead (RH/Wendy Lamb Books; Listening Library) is the story of two boys who become friends when one moves into the other’s Brooklyn neighborhood. PW says “chock-full of fascinating characters and intelligent questions, this is as close to perfect as middle-grade novels come.” Stead’s When You Reach Me won the 2010 Newbery Medal.

Movie Tie-in

Gangster Squad by Paul Lieberman (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; also trade pbk and mass market; Macmillan Audio) is the tie-in to the movie starring Sean Penn, famously rescheduled to next year because of a scene uncomfortably close to reality (a shooting in a movie theater). That scene was created for the movie and is not in the book, which is shipping as originally planned. This will be the book’s first publication (which is the reason it arrives in hardcover, audio, as well as two tie-in editions). Both the book and the movie are based on the LA Times writer Lieberman’s research into the LAPD’s eight-man “Gangster Squad” and their efforts to trap gang leader Mickey Cohen.

Nonfiction

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio) raises the question, do we need another book about Julia Child? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” from librarians at BEA’s Shout ‘n’ Share panel. PW says, “Released to coincide with Child’s centenary [August 13], Spitz’s delightful biography succeeds in being as big as its subject.” Why did Spitz, the author of major works about the Beatles and Bob Dylan turn his attention to a celebrity cook? He answers that question in an interview on the RH Library Marketing blog.