Last year, I showcased ten new releases to look forward to in 2015. Since then, the UK and US covers of Nnedi Okorafor's The Book of Phoenix were revealed and there are a few more books to add to that list. Here's to another great year of reading.
Day Four by Sarah Lotz
May 2015
Sarah Lotz returns with the chilling follow-up to The Three. In Day Four, four days into a five day singles cruise on the Gulf of Mexico, the ageing ship Beautiful Dreamer stops dead in the water. With no electricity and no cellular signals, the passengers and crew have no way to call for help. But everyone is certain that rescue teams will come looking for them soon. All they have to do is wait. That is, until the toilets stop working and the food begins to run out. When the body of a woman is discovered in her cabin the passengers start to panic. There's a murderer on board the Beautiful Dreamer ... and maybe something worse.
101 Detectives by Ivan Vladislavić
June 2015
What kind of Detective am I? Eardrum or typanum? Gullet or aesophagus? Pussy or pudena? A Detective needs a language almost as much as a language needs a Detective.
In this new collection of stories, award-winning author Ivan Vladislavić invites readers to do some detective work of their own. Each story can be read as just that - a story - or you can dig a little deeper. Take a closer look, examine the artefact from all angles, and consider the clues and patterns concealed within.
Whether skewering extreme marketing techniques or construction dystopian parallel universes; whether mounting a mother's loss or tracing a translator's on-stage breakdown, Vladislavić's pitch-perfect inquisitions will make you question your own language - how it defines you, and how it undoes you.
Confession of the Lioness by Mia Couto (Translated by David Brookshaw)
July 2015
Mia Couto's latest novel is a dark, poetic mystery about the women of the remote village of Kulumani and the lioness that hunt them.
Told through two haunting, interwoven diaries, Mia Couto’s Confession of the Lioness (A confissão da leoa) reveals the mysterious world of Kulumani, an isolated village in Mozambique whose traditions and beliefs are threatened when ghostlike lionesses begin hunting the women who live there.
Mariamar, a woman whose sister was killed in a lioness attack, finds her life thrown into chaos when the outsider Archangel Bullseye, the marksman hired to kill the lionesses, arrives at the request of the village elders. Mariamar’s father imprisons her in her home, where she relives painful memories of past abuse and hopes to be rescued by Archangel. Meanwhile, Archangel tracks the lionesses in the wilderness, but when he begins to suspect there is more to them than meets the eye, he starts to lose control of his hands. The hunt grows more dangerous, until it’s no safer inside Kulumani than outside it. As the men of Kulumani feel increasingly threatened by the outsider, the forces of modernity upon their traditional culture, and the danger of their animal predators closing in, it becomes clear the lionesses might not be real lionesses at all but spirits conjured by the ancient witchcraft of the women themselves.
Both a riveting mystery and a poignant examination of women’s oppression, Confession of the Lioness explores the confrontation between the modern world and ancient traditions to produce an atmospheric, gripping novel.
Based on true facts and written in atmospheric language, A confissão da leoa skilfully interweaves the enthralling stories of Arcanjo and Mariamar, constantly surprising the reader with unexpected twists and turns.
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May 2015
Sarah Lotz returns with the chilling follow-up to The Three. In Day Four, four days into a five day singles cruise on the Gulf of Mexico, the ageing ship Beautiful Dreamer stops dead in the water. With no electricity and no cellular signals, the passengers and crew have no way to call for help. But everyone is certain that rescue teams will come looking for them soon. All they have to do is wait. That is, until the toilets stop working and the food begins to run out. When the body of a woman is discovered in her cabin the passengers start to panic. There's a murderer on board the Beautiful Dreamer ... and maybe something worse.
101 Detectives by Ivan Vladislavić
June 2015
What kind of Detective am I? Eardrum or typanum? Gullet or aesophagus? Pussy or pudena? A Detective needs a language almost as much as a language needs a Detective.
In this new collection of stories, award-winning author Ivan Vladislavić invites readers to do some detective work of their own. Each story can be read as just that - a story - or you can dig a little deeper. Take a closer look, examine the artefact from all angles, and consider the clues and patterns concealed within.
Whether skewering extreme marketing techniques or construction dystopian parallel universes; whether mounting a mother's loss or tracing a translator's on-stage breakdown, Vladislavić's pitch-perfect inquisitions will make you question your own language - how it defines you, and how it undoes you.
July 2015
Mia Couto's latest novel is a dark, poetic mystery about the women of the remote village of Kulumani and the lioness that hunt them.
Told through two haunting, interwoven diaries, Mia Couto’s Confession of the Lioness (A confissão da leoa) reveals the mysterious world of Kulumani, an isolated village in Mozambique whose traditions and beliefs are threatened when ghostlike lionesses begin hunting the women who live there.
Mariamar, a woman whose sister was killed in a lioness attack, finds her life thrown into chaos when the outsider Archangel Bullseye, the marksman hired to kill the lionesses, arrives at the request of the village elders. Mariamar’s father imprisons her in her home, where she relives painful memories of past abuse and hopes to be rescued by Archangel. Meanwhile, Archangel tracks the lionesses in the wilderness, but when he begins to suspect there is more to them than meets the eye, he starts to lose control of his hands. The hunt grows more dangerous, until it’s no safer inside Kulumani than outside it. As the men of Kulumani feel increasingly threatened by the outsider, the forces of modernity upon their traditional culture, and the danger of their animal predators closing in, it becomes clear the lionesses might not be real lionesses at all but spirits conjured by the ancient witchcraft of the women themselves.
Both a riveting mystery and a poignant examination of women’s oppression, Confession of the Lioness explores the confrontation between the modern world and ancient traditions to produce an atmospheric, gripping novel.
Based on true facts and written in atmospheric language, A confissão da leoa skilfully interweaves the enthralling stories of Arcanjo and Mariamar, constantly surprising the reader with unexpected twists and turns.
US covers of Day Four and Confession of the Lioness
