The title of Grace O'Connell's debut novel is pulled from a poem by Helen Humphreys, "Blurring".* It's ironic that the closer you examine something, the harder it is to focus, and this is a truth which Maggie Pierce inhabits when Magnified World opens. She is reeling from her
Novels: The piles are a-bloom, ever expanding. Each book has its own bookmark, each some degree of commitment attached, some commanding that kind of nervous energy that erupts when you begin a book and think that it might just be a perfect book written just for you. Like a debut novel
Each of us has experienced those moments, when passing noise and bustle, of feeling removed from what really matters. You know, those moments of startling clarity, when you are surrounded by stillness, observing the action but separated from it? Like this, in Frances' words, in Harriet Lane's debut
As with the fiction of Julia Glass and Bonnie Burnard, Meg Mitchell Moore is interested in what makes families work. Reagan Arthur Books - Little Brown, 2011 That's not to say that they always work well: when The Arrivals opens, some aspects of family life are taut and
Whimsical and lyrical: Lucy Wood's short stories will touch the curious and sensitive reader who is willing to believe. Houghton Mifflin, 2012 If you like your stories to be rooted in realism, Diving Belles is not for you, but if you enjoy discovering the extraordinary in the ordinary,
