OBD New This Month Fiction

"A stoic private investigator finds himself employed by a devilishly bright apothecary whose business is brimming with tinctures to cure any ailment . . . except perhaps true love. When Lucinda Peterson's recently perfected formula for a salve to treat croup goes missing, she's certain it's only the latest in a line of misfortunes at the hands of a rival apothecary. Outraged and fearing financial ruin, Lucy turns to private investigator Jonathan Thorne...

"Marty seems to do no wrong. Trent can't seem to get things right. When they are thrown together by tragedy, they find their futures may be defined by more than just their good intentions. Stonesmere is an English seaside suburb, defined by poignant traditions passed from generation to generation. Marty is a golden girl here, albeit one who quietly chafes against the legacy of her father's accomplishments and the care of her saintly mother - an outsider...

"I'd seen the Senator speak a few times before my life got caught up, however distantly, with his, but the first time I can remember paying real attention was when he delivered the speech announcing his run for the Presidency. When David first hears the Senator from Illinois speak, he feels deep ambivalence. Intrigued by the Senator's idealistic rhetoric, David also wonders how he'll balance the fervent belief and inevitable compromises it will take...

For a sixteen-year-old, a summer internship working for a private investigator seems like a dream come true--particularly since the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana, in decades. A local woman has vanished, and the last time anyone saw her, she was in the backseat of a police car driven by a man impersonating an officer. Marshall Miller's internship puts him at the center of the action, a position he relishes...

An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family's unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic,...

"The author of Love Buzz follows her acclaimed first novel with a delightful Caribbean-set romp about an ambitious designer of apocalyptic video games with a strategy for (almost) everything who discovers what happens when her best-laid plans go off course . . .Sloane Cooper is up for her dream job as a designer for a top video game company. During the interview, though, she somehow promises the all-male panel that she’ll remain single and fully...

For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she's arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it's being read and who's doing the reading, revealing startling new...

"A hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community living in a reformatory center—a stunning work of great emotional power from the critically acclaimed author of If You Leave Me. In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: a young Korean American woman holding a familiar-looking knife—a knife Eunju hasn’t seen in thirty years, and that...

Thelonius "Monk" Ellison is an erudite, accomplished but seldom-read author who insists on writing obscure literary papers rather than the so-called "ghetto prose" that would make him a commercial success. He finally succumbs to temptation after seeing the Oberlin-educated author of We's Lives in da Ghetto during her appearance on a talk show, firing back with a parody called My Pafology, which he submits to his startled agent under the gangsta pseudonym...

"Equal parts thought-provoking and entertaining, Emmy Award winning reporter Christina Estes introduces Jolene Garcia in her Tony Hillerman Prize winning debut, Off the Air. Jolene Garcia is a local TV reporter in Phoenix, Arizona, splitting her time between covering general assignments-anything from a monsoon storm to a newborn giraffe at the zoo-and special projects. Stories that take more time to research and produce. Stories that Jolene wants...