Sometimes I buy books for the stories on their pages; sometimes I buy them for the stories between the pages. My copy of Porcupines and China Dolls was purchased second-hand at the Trinity College booksale more than ten years ago. Because of a handful of folded sheets tucked inside the back
How many times have I fallen for this trick? A Stephen King novel opens with a vividly sketched scene, of ordinary and likeable people going about the business of their everyday lives, when disaster strikes, and someone dies. Gallery Books - S&S, 2016 Mr. Mercedes is no different.
What Jane Ozkowski captures beautifully in Watching Traffic is the very sensation embodied in the debut novel's title: Emily is overwhelmed by motion even while in a state of stillness. Groundwood Books, 2016 It's the summer after high-school gradulation, and Emily is working at a catering company, making egg-salad sandwiches and
“'What the hell makes you think,' she said, in her most glacial voice, 'that I am anybody’s victim?'” Soho Press, 2016 Nina's question, in an earlier volume of the series, is ironic in this context: The Considerate Killer begins with two blows to the back of Nina's head
Massacre, killer, murder: when these words appear on a novel's first page, readers are fore-warned. And, yet, the first third of Sara Taylor's Boring Girls (2015) is a coming-of-age story. "It was becoming more and more apparent that I had been right all along. No one could truly understand me, unless they got
