Next week in fiction, two buzzy titles arrive: NBA finalist Dana Spiotta returns with her third novel and British author Glen Duncan delivers a literary werewolf thriller for adults. In nonfiction, Jaycee Dugard tells the story of her kidnapping and 18 years as a captive of her abductor and will appear on major evening and morning news shows, while journalist Ben Mezrich returns with a real-life NASA-related adventure.

Watch List

Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta (Scribner) is the third novel by this National Book Award finalist, about a conflicted artist in Southern California and his sister, who is convinced he’s a genius. PW says its “clever structure, jaundiced affection for Los Angeles, and diamond-honed prose” make this “one of the most moving and original portraits of a sibling relationship in recent fiction.” It also gets an early review in New York magazine, which calls it “good, sly fun, but … also tender, rueful, and shrewd.”

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan (Knopf)  is a literate page-turner about a 201-year-old werewolf who is the last of his kind. It’s getting a big push from the publisher, buzz from early readers, and has been mentioned at BEA’s Shout and Share as well as on our very own GalleyChat. This one’s a fun (and dirty!) read.

Rising Star

Iron House by John Hart (Thomas Dunne Books) is the story of two orphaned boys separated by violence. It’s the fourth literary thriller by this award-winning writer, whose last book (The Last Child) was a bestseller. This one has an announced 200,000-copy first printing and is the #1 Indie Next pick for August.

Usual Suspects

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin (Bantam) is the long awaited fifth installment of the epic fantasy A Song of Ice and Fire series. It already had a strong fan base that was expanded by HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on the first book. Its been in the Amazon Top Ten for a month. Recent news stories about  spoilers surfacing on fan sites on the Web are just adding to the excitement.

Quinn by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s) is a follow-up to Eve that delves deep into the life and psyche of Eve Duncan’s lover and soul mate, Joe Quinn. As a ruthless killer closes in, long-held secrets are gradually revealed. LJ, PW and Booklist all say it’s a pulse-pounder.

Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner (Atria) is the story of four women whose lives intertwine in creating a child through reproductive technology. LJ says, “fans of Marian Keyes, Anna Maxted, and other authors of serious chick lit will thoroughly enjoy this title for its humor mixed with a sympathetic portrayal of real women’s lives and challenges.”

Blood Work: An Original Hollows Graphic Novel by Kim Harrison (Del Rey) brings the authors popular urban crime fantasy series to visual form.

Young Adult Fiction

Dragon’s Oath by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast (St. Martin’s Griffin) is the first in a new mini-series of novellas, and tells the story behind the fencing instructor in the bestselling House of Night series.

Forever by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic) concludes the Wolves of Mercy Falls werewolf trilogy.

Nonfiction

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard (Simon & Schuster) is a memoir by a woman who was kidnapped in 1991 at age 11 and endured 18 years of living with her abductor and his wife, bearing and raising his child before she was discovered in 2009. This one has an impressive news lineup. It’s on the cover of the July 18 issue of People, with an excerpt and a brief Q&A with Diane Sawyer about her  two-hour interview with Dugard, to air on ABC’s PrimeTime July 10th. Sawyer says that her spirit “will astonish you” and that “everything she says makes you stop and examine yourself and your life.” She is also scheduled for Good Morning America on July 12th.

Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History by Ben Mezrich is the story of a fellow in a NASA program who schemed to steal rare moon rocks as a way to impress his new girlfriend. The author wrote Accidental Billionaires (the basis for the movie The Social Network). Our own view is that the details about the space program will be catnip for space junkies (and even those who are not – the James Bond stuff they have at the Johnson Space Center is amazing), but the central character doesn’t have the celebrity value of Mark Zuckerberg, so it may not draw a wider audience. It is currently being developed for a movie, by the same production team that created Social Network, but with Will Gluck (Easy A) directing, rather than David Fincher.

I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 by Douglas Edwards (Houghton Mifflin) is the story of Google’s rise from the perspective of the company’s first director of marketing. PW says, ” The book’s real strength is its evenhandedness” and that it’s “more entertaining than it really has any right to be,” though Kirkus finds it less focused than it could be, given all the other books written about Google.

Of Thee I Zing: America’s Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots by Laura Ingraham and Raymond Arroyo (Threshold) criticizes the contemporary American culture of consumerism.

George R.R. Martin has threatened to go all medieval on the Amazon.de employee who accidentally shipped 180 copies of A Dance with Dragon before its official release date. Spoilers have now appeared online and Martin’s response is to threaten to put the person’s head on a spike.

How important are spoilers, really? Go The F@@k To Sleep, continues to be s bestseller, even though it was available online in its entirety before publication. In fact, many attribute it’s success to just that fact.

Nonetheless, a lot of passion is being expressed online about A Dance with Dragon‘s release now being “marred.”

But those supposed spoilers may be red herrings; Entertainment Weekly quotes Elio M. Garcia, Jr. webmaster for Martin fansite Westeros.org, that most of them are “inaccurate or garbled.”

So, what’s the punishment for inaccurate spoilers?

The book’s official release date is Tuesday, July 12

A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice and Fire) George R.R. Martin Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 1008 pages Publisher: Bantam – (2011-07-12) ISBN / EAN: 0553801473 / 9780553801477

Last night marked the finale of Game of Thrones, HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s first book in A Song of Ice and Fire series, which has made best sellers of all the books (Book 5, A Dance with Dragons, Random House, July 1, is currently at #3 on Amazon’s sales rankings. The 4-vol boxed set is at #1).

Season Two begins in the Spring of 2012. Production hasn’t begun yet, which is the reason the teaser trailer is a bit sketchy.

The Washington Post describes the Nebula Awards as “the Screen Actors Guild of the sci-fi world, a prestigious, peer-selected award voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.”

The winner in the novel category, the two-parter Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis (Spectra/Random House; Audio, Brilliance; ebook, OverDrive) is the story of 3 historians who travel from the year 2060 to Britain during WW II. Booklist starred Blackout saying, it “…depicts the times and the spirit of the British people remarkably vividly, and bits of comic relief leaven any somberness.”

The full list of winners is available on the Tor site.

Noting that the SFWA, held in Washington D.C. over the weekend, is not an “outlandish Comic-Con…[but] a writerly conference for writerly people,” the Washington Post reporter comments,

One of the geekier pleasures of living in Washington is wandering past any large Hilton or Marriott, or the Mount Vernon Square Metro stop, and playing “Guess That Convention.” Are the participants…carrying tote bags (librarians) or plastic binders (engineers) or gourmet snacks (pharmacists)?

We always suspected that the locals had us spotted.

Here’s an idea to steal for your library Web site. GalleyCat has created a “mixtape” of the Hugo Award Nominees, such as the story Amaryllis, available in full on the Lightspeed site.

It’s a great way to give readers access to nominees in the novella, short story and novelette categories, many of which have not appeared in book form.

Series titles dominated the Hugo Awards Best Novel nominations, announced yesterday. Women authors also dominated; 4 of the 5 authors are women.

The nominees for Best Novel are below. The full list of nominees in all categories is here. Winners will be announced on Saturday, August 20th, at the World Science Fiction Convention

All Clear, Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra, Hdbk; 9780553807677); followup to Blackout; Audio, Brilliance — also nominated for Nebula Best Novel (winners TBA 5/21)

Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen, Hdbk; 9781439133941); Vorkosigan Saga; Audio, Blackstone

The Dervish House, Ian McDonald (Pyr, Hdbk; 9781616142049)

Feed, Mira Grant (Orbit, Mass Mkt. Original; 9780316081054); the first in the Newsflesh Trilogy. The second, Deadline (Orbit, Mass Mkt. Original; 9780316081061), is coming June 1; OverDrive WMA Audiobook

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit, Trade Pbk. Original, 2/25/10, 9780316043915; Mass Mkt., 10/01/2010; 9780316043922); Audio, Brilliance; this is #1 in The Inheritance Trilogy. It was also nominated for Nebula Best Novel. On her author page, Jemisin notes she’s particularly excited about this nomination because of the “Hugos’ noted bias in favor of science fiction (and against fantasy), more notable embrace of well-known names (vs unknown n00bs), and most notablest aversion to girl cooties or any hint thereof…”
#2, The Broken Kingdoms came out in November (Orbit, Trade Pbk. Original, 11/03/2010, 9780316043960; Mass Mkt., 9/1/2011; 9780316043953).
#3 arrives this October, The Kingdom of Gods, (Orbit; Trade Pbk. Original, 9780316043939).

After being signed based on a manuscript back in 2007, there’s been little news about the adaptation of last summer’s debut sci fi hit, The Passage by Justin Cronin (Ballantine). That changed this week with the announcement that Ridley Scott’s been replaced as director by Matt Reeves and the script is being rewritten, with Scott producing. Reeves, who directed Let Me In, is described by The Hollywood Reporter as “thoughtful and intellectual.”

The book was planned as the first in a trilogy. When will the next one come out? Random House tells us that book 2, The Twelve is scheduled to pub summer 2012.

The trade paperback of The Passage arrives next month, with quite a different cover from the hardback.

The Passage: A Novel Justin Cronin Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 800 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2011-05-17) ISBN / EAN: 0345504976 / 9780345504975

Going straight to #1 on the March 20th NYT Hardcover Fiction list is The Wise Man’s Fear, the second in the fantasy trilogy, by Patrick Rothfuss.

The first book, The Name of the Wind, came out in 2007 and was a hit with libraries. It won both the Alex Award and the RUSA Reading List Fantasy Award in that year. Librarian Nancy Pearl talked about it on NPR Morning Edition and recently tweeted that the new book is “a worthy sequel…Well worth the 4 year wait.”

In fact that wait may be part of the secret of its success,  (more…)

Fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series have been waiting, none to patiently, for the next volume in the series. On his Web site today, Martin finally announces an end to the six-year wait; the next volume in the series, A Dance with Dragons, will be published on Tuesday, July 12.

Addressing fans who have had their hopes dashed in the past, Martin acknowledges,

Yes, I know.  You’ve all seen publication dates before: dates in 2007, 2008, 2009.  None of those were ever hard dates, however.  Most of them… well, call it wishful thinking, boundless optimism, cockeyed dreams, honest mistakes, whatever you like.

This date is different.   This date is real.

The book will be huge, literally, at more than 900 pages.

A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice and Fire) George R.R. Martin Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 1008 pages Publisher: Bantam – (2011-07-12) ISBN / EAN: 0553801473 / 9780553801477

Entertainment Weekly simultaneously posted the news and also an exclusive new trailer for the HBO Game of Thrones series, an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, which begins April 17.

The official Web site is at HBO.com.

The debut to watch this week is Cleaning Nabokov’s House by Leslie Daniels (Touchstone). It follows a woman rebuilding her life after losing her children to her ex-husband. It’s an in-house favorite at S&S because it “hits the sweet spot of being both literary and commercial.” PW agrees, “Despite the curiosities of the grief-to-gumption plot, Daniels’s writing is slick and her characters richly detailed, and even when it dips into sheer goofiness, it’s still a pleasure to read.” Blackstone publishes the unabridged audio and a large print version is coming from Thorndike in July (9781410438478; $30.99). The author lives in Ithaca, NY.

Usual Suspects

Sing You Home by Jody Picoult (Atria) follows a custody battle for fertilized embryos between a lesbian couple and one of their newly religious ex-husbands. Booklist says  “Picoult’s gripping novel explores all sides of the hot-button issue.” It has a 150,000 copy first printing, and includes a CD of songs that correspond to each chapter.

Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy (Knopf) takes place in a closely knit Irish neighborhood where a young alcoholic struggles with unexpected fatherhood. Library Journal calls it “an enjoyable novel about life, love, and second chances.”

The Night Season by Chelsea Cain (Minotaur/Macmillan) is, amazingly, the fourth novel featuring Portland detective Archie Sheridan. The Wall Street Journal features the author today, calling the new book Cain’s “tamest to date” and says her “bid to reach a broad, mainstream audience without disappointing Gretchen fans may prove tricky.”

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW)  is a continuation of the 2007 fantasy novel The Name of the Wind, in which an innkeeper recalls a life of heroic deeds. Library Journal declares it “reminiscent in scope of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and similar in feel to the narrative tour de force of The Arabian Nights, this masterpiece of storytelling will appeal to lovers of fantasy on a grand scale.”

Rodin’s Debutante by Ward Just (Houghton Mifflin) follows a boy’s adolescence and early adulthood in Chicago during the mid-20th century. Entertainment Weekly gives it an A-, “Don’t be misled by the title; this engaging coming-of-age tale has little to do with either Auguste Rodin or a debutante.”

River Marked by Patricia Briggs (Ace) is book six in the supernatural Mercy Thompson series.

Children’s Books

Fancy Nancy: Aspiring Artist by Jane O’Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser (HarperCollins) is a children’s book about the artistic aspirations of a little girl with glitter markers.

Fondly remembered by critics and booksellers for her 2003 debut hit I Don’t Know How She Does It, Allison Pearson returns next week with I Think I Love You, a wistful novel about a grown woman who looks back on her dream of becoming Mrs. David Cassidy in 1970s Wales, and winds up heading to Las Vegas to meet him in mid-life.

People gives it four stars and designates it a People Pick. Even the New York Times‘ Michiko Kakutani is wooed:

[Pearson] shows how Petra’s crush on David Cassidy is really a kind of rehearsal for the love and passion she wants to one day lavish on a real boy in real life, and how those youthful emotions both endure — and are transformed — as the years and decades tick by. . . . [A] groovy little novel whose charms easily erase any objections the reader might have to the prepackaged and heavily borrowed plot.

I Think I Love You Allison Pearson Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 1400042356 / 9781400042357

CD: Random House Audio, $40, ISBN 9780307747525

Check Your Holds

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah E. Harkness (Viking), a debut is the first in a planned trilogy, about witches and vampires that is rising fast on Amazon (now at #3), with growing holds in libraries. Part of the story is based on real events; like her main character, Harkness discovered a manuscript, missing since the 1600’s, that was once owned by Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer.  Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+, complaining of some bloat, but summing up, “as the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own.”  Parade Magazine was unequivocal on Sunday, making it a Pick of the Week and calling it “580 pages of sheer pleasure.” Harkness spoke at the AAP Trade Libraries Breakfast at ALA MidWinter. It will be available in large type from Thorndike in March (9781410436337).

Usual Suspects

The Secret Soldier by Alex Berenson (Putnam) is the fifth thriller featuring ex-CIA man John Wells, by the winner of the 2007 first novel Edgar for The Faithful Spy. Kirkus says, “the plot unfolds along predictable lines in a story arc that Tom Clancy readers or viewers of TV’s 24 will find old hat.” 

A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Mystery by Bradley Alan (Delacorte) is Ms. Flavia de Luce’s third outing, after her bestselling debut in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and return in The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag. Here, she demonstrates a firm knowledge of poisons while saving a gypsy from accusations of child abduction. PW calls it, “a splendid romp through 1950s England led by the world’s smartest and most incorrigible preteen.” 

The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney (Random) is the sequel to Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show, in which matchmaker Kate Begley plies her profession in neutral WWII Ireland. Booklist says, it “combines the charm of an Irish yarn with the excitement of a political thriller and the romance of a 1940s war movie.”

Heartwood: A Novel by Belva Plain (Delacorte) explores the inevitable endings of romantic relationships through the experiences of a mother and daughter. 

Also worth watching:

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French (Doubleday) is the tale of a once unwitting subject of an experiment in radioactivity, who sets out to avenge the dire consequences of that same study. It follows the author’s much praised 2002 debut novel, Mermaid on the Moon. LJ says, “mixing the suburban angst of Tom Perrotta with the snarky humor of Carl Hiaasen, Stuckey-French has written a page-turner that is thoughtful, amusing, and nearly impossible to put down.”

Kids:

No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko (Dial) is a children’s fantasy about three siblings whose plane lands in a mysterious world, by an author best known for her Newbery Award-winning historical fiction. Kirkus calls it, “convoluted” with “a confusing host of secondary characters. Fascinating, if not entirely successful.”

After a long wait, HBO has finally announced that the ten-part series based on George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones will begin on April 17.

Official Web Site: HBO.com/GameOfThrones

Next week, book lovers and Jackie Onassis fans may enjoy the first of two books looking at her career as an editor in the publishing industry: Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books by William Kuhn.

According to Kirkus, “Kuhn argues that Jackie touched on forbidden themes in her own life—her husband’s adultery, the humiliation of marriage, political machinations—only through her list, including such books as Barbara Chase-Riboud’s controversial novel Sally Hemings (1979) and Elizabeth Crook’s novel about Sam Houston and Eliza Allen, The Raven’s Bride (1991).

The New York Times Fashion section explores the rivalry (complete with trash talk) between author Kuhn and Greg Lawrence, whose Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis will arrive on January 4 from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press.

Libraries we checked have modest orders in line with modest holds for both titles.

Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books William Kuhn Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-12-07) ISBN / EAN: 0385530994 / 9780385530996

…………………………

Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Greg Lawrence Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books – (2011-01-04) ISBN / EAN: 0312591934 / 9780312591939

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week

Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man by Steve Harvey (Amistad) is the popular radio show host’s followup to his #1 New York Times bestselling book of relationship advice, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. Lots of publicity is line up, including Good Morning America on Tuesday, publication day and a profile in the NYT Sunday Arts & Leisure section (tentatively scheduled for 12/19).

The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop by Dan Charnas (NAL Hardcover) chronicles the financial history of rap and hip-hop.

Fiction: Usual Suspects

Dead or Alive by Tom Clancy with Grant Blackwood (Putnam), the newest geopolitical military thriller with Jack Ryan, arrives with a 1.75 million printing.

Queen Hereafter: A Novel of Margaret of Scotland by Susan Fraser King (Crown) is historical fiction set in 11th-century Scotland. PW says, “Though clichés often plague the prose… King’s blend of historical figures and fictional characters turns a medieval icon into a believable mother, wife, and ruler.”

Buttons and Bones by Monica Ferris (Berkley Hardcover) follows Betsy Devonshire, amateur investigator and owner of Crewel World Needlework in investigating another mystery.

Young Adult

Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy Series #6) by Richelle Mead is the final installment in the bestselling Vampire Academy series.

It’s years in the making and it seems it will also be months in the promoting. Last night, HBO presented the newest teaser trailer for Game of Thrones, based on the first book in George R.R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire. The series begins some time in 2011 (some say it will be Spring). HBO aired an earlier trailer back in June.

Official Web Site: HBO.com/GameofThrones

Next week’s media darling is shaping up to be An Object of Beauty, the third novel by actor, author and art collector Steve Martin, which follows an ambitious young woman as she cuts a swath through the New York art world.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an A-:

A dramedy of manners that doubles as an immersion course in the rarefied world of high-end art…. It takes a certain nimbleness to play the dual roles of proxy art-history professor and compelling storyteller without falling off the literary balance beam. Martin, wry, wise, and keenly observant, rarely misses a step.

The New York Times just ran a profile of Martin, noting that he received “a little pushback from Sotheby’s, which plays a small but slightly controversial role in the book, when one of the characters, a Sotheby’s employee, attempts a bidding scheme there. The people at the auction house were not pleased.” It just broke into the Top 100 on Amazon and is rising.

Libraries we checked had orders in line with substantial reserves.

An Object of Beauty Steve Martin Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2010-11-23) ISBN / EAN: 0446573647 / 9780446573641

Ususal Suspects on Sale Next Week

The Athena Project by Brad Thor (Atria) is the debut of a new thrille rseries about an elite all-female counter-terrorism unit. Deadline reports that Warner Bros. just picked up the film rights.

The Emperor’s Tomb (Cotton Malone Series #6) by Steve Berry finds ex-federal agent Cotton Malone and old heartthrob Cassiopeia Vitt “on a dangerous mission to retrieve a priceless Chinese lamp from the third century B.C.E. in Berry’s rousing fifth thriller…. A goose-pimpleraising showdown in a remote monastery–is worth the wait.”

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card (Simon Pulse) gets a starred review from Booklist: “Card’s latest title has much in common with his Ender Wiggins books: precocious teens with complementary special talents, callously manipulative government authorities, endlessly creative worlds, and Card’s refusal to dumb down a plot for a young audience.”

Night Whispers by Erin Hunter (HarperCollins) is book three in the feline fantasy Warriors: Omen of the Stars series.