From The Seattle Times May 20, 2025 Bethany Jean Clement, Seattle Times food writer Partway through the first page of Moira Macdonald’s debut novel “Storybook Ending,” I started crying. Not with sorrow — the novel starts with the most intriguing two sentences, then takes us directly into the luminous, cinematic mind of one of the …
In the early 2000s, Laura Stanfill (Forest Avenue Press) and Nancy Townsley (author of the new debut novel Sunshine Girl) were colleagues at a community newspaper chain in Portland, Oregon. Nancy’s new novel follows Eliza Donovan, the daughter of a journalist, as she pursues her own reporting career amid turbulent industry changes and, in the …
Martyr! took over my brain completely. Kaveh Akbar created a revelatory experience in novel form about the absurdities of living, loving, dying, and discovering one’s identity. Each poetic page was filled with passages I want to keep close. — Torrin, Queen Anne Book Company, Seattle, WA Explore the National Book Awards finalists at Queen Anne …
Karen of Beach Books, Seaside, OR recommends The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr. From the publisher: Clayton Stumper might be in his twenties, but he dresses like your grandpa and fusses like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists …
Here is a debut novel. This is Argylle, a new spy thriller written by Elly Conway, now a motion picture starring lots of pretty people. The film is about a struggling writer who inadvertently exposes an international conspiracy in the plot of her book and the shenanigans that follow. The film stars Henry Cavill as …
To read the work of Melinda Moustakis is to be transported to the rushing Kenai River, to a chum line at a cannery, to a rough-hewn cabin on a homestead—and to be swept away by beautiful and startling language and scenery. Alaska is Moustakis’s imaginative territory and the setting of much of the family history …
Wright was one of the wittiest voices to emerge from the 1980s stand-up comedy boom. In his first novel, we follow the mind of seven-year-old Harold (Wright in miniature) throughout a school day in the 1960s. Filtered through a stream of brilliant jokes, Harold’s worldview takes shape via crushes on his classmate Elizabeth and his …
Harini Nagendra’s The Bangalore Detectives Club is out in paperback. It’s the first in a charming cozy series set in 1920’s Bangalore. It’s more Alexander McCall Smith than Jo Nesbø, if you were wondering where we’re going to shelve it in the mystery section. Book club peeps, take note. –A Good Book, Sumner, WA Treat yourself …
From Madison Books, Seattle, WA: [April is] National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which makes this an especially fitting time for us to host author Alle C. Hall. She [was with us Sunday April 16] to read from and discuss her new novel, As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. The …
Oscar Hokeah’s debut novel welcomes the reader into the life and community of Ever, a Kiowa-Cherokee-Mexican boy growing up in a native community in Oklahoma. Told from the perspective of several family members; each voice is authentic and unique. Powerful, gritty storytelling. As a reader, I honor this book and look forward to sharing it. …
