We Are All Guilty Here
Karin Slaughter (William Morrow)
The blockbuster author of the Will Trent books is kicking off a new series with this mystery set in a small town called North Falls.
When two teenage girls go missing, Officer Emily Clifton vows to find her daughter’s friends, but the teens are hiding unexpected secrets. Aug. 12.
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Our Mothers’ Names: Love in Many Languages
Uma Menon, illus. by Rahele Jomepour Bell. Candlewick, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-5362-2250-0. Ages 4–8. A child’s investigation into the many different words for mother opens up the world of languages in this cross-cultural reflection. Jomepour Bell’s mixed-media illustrations show mothers and children dancing, crafting, baking, and celebrating throughout this fond accounting of maternal monikers.
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Our Mothers’ Names: Love in Many Languages
Uma Menon, illus. by Rahele Jomepour Bell. Candlewick, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-5362-2250-0
A child’s investigation into the many different words for mother opens up the world of languages in this cross-cultural reflection. A pajamaed narrator begins, “When I wake up, the first person to greet me is my mother”—known as Amma, in Malayalam. Playing with bilingual friend Angelina, whose family is from Mexico City, the narrator learns that Mamá is the Spanish word for mother. And through other friends, the protagonist learns how mothers are addressed in countries around the world. The canvas like surface of Jomepour Bell’s heavily textured mixed-media illustrations are a backdrop for crisp-edged mothers and children dancing, crafting, baking, and celebrating throughout this fond accounting of maternal monikers. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Language facts conclude. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)
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Casualties of Truth, by Lauren Francis-Sharma (Atlantic Monthly). “Memories were dangerous things, grenades with shaky pins,” Prudence—a wealthy housewife, and the central character of this pointed novel—reflects, after a man from her past reappears and forces her to relive long-suppressed experiences. Twenty-two years earlier, Prudence spent time in South Africa, observing Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. The horrors she was made to confront, however, transcended the courtroom in which the sessions were held. The story, alternating between two time lines, tests the limits of forgiveness and explores the boundary between resistance and revenge. “Violence? What is violence?” Prudence once asked her therapist. Now, faced with an impossible decision, she learns how “very violent a person might become to maintain their hold on life.”
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Lauren Francis-Sharma was a young law student interning in Johannesburg in 1996 when she was given the opportunity to observe portions of the Truth and Reconciliation Amnesty Hearings, which were set up to expose the horrors of apartheid in South Africa.
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Interview by Karin Slaughter
Three decades into a long and varied writing career, Briscoe's latest reinterprets du Maurier's "Rebecca" for a modern audience.
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Chloe: A Novel of Secrets and Lies
Connie Briscoe (March 18)
The New York Times bestselling author puts a new spin on Daphne Du Maurier’s classic novel 'Rebecca.' A spirited woman named Angel marries a Black billionaire only to be haunted by the spirit of his first wife, who may have died under nefarious circumstances.
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Author of OFF THE BOOKS Soma Mei Sheng Fraizer's EAT BITTER ANASTASIA, about a would-be photographer and museum curator who inherits her grandfather's Victorian home in Oakland's Chinatown, along with all of its needed repairs, and will have to decide if she is going to "eat bitter" and take care of her grandfather's legacy, or leave it all behind for grad school, to Micaela Carr at Holt, with Andy Tan-Delli Cicchi editing, by Victoria Sanders at Victoria Sanders & Associates (world).
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Chloe, Connie Briscoe
This one had me at “‘Rebecca,’ but make her Black.” Angel is working as a private chef for a family in an exclusive Black enclave on Martha’s Vineyard when a visiting billionaire falls for her. But he’s mourning the death of his wife, Rebecca — er, Chloe — and anyone who has read Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic “Rebecca” knows things will be much more complicated than they seem. Briscoe also includes a creepy housekeeper, named Ida instead of Mrs. Danvers, and it will be fun to see how she deals with the fact that most readers already know the devious “Rebecca” twist. The “Chloe” subtitle, “A Novel of Secrets and Lies,” offers a few clues. March 11
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Book Marks provided a nice compilation of review links of Casualties of Truth, listing it as one of its best reviewed fiction books of the week.
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Casualties of Truth moves briskly between two timelines and settings: Johannesburg, South Africa in the 1990s and Washington, D.C. in 2018. It opens in post-apartheid South Africa where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings are underway, allowing victims and perpetrators to confront the brutal history of apartheid. The narrative then shifts to Washington, D.C., where Prudence Wright, a former McKinsey consultant, lives a comfortable, affluent life with her husband and young son. When she encounters Matshediso, a man she met decades earlier as a law student in South Africa, the secrets and consequences of the two timelines merge, threatening to upend everything that Prudence cares about.
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Lauren Francis-Sharma’s new novel opens on an unsettling note, as a police officer nurses his injuries from the day’s work — “The American girl had done some real damage,” he thinks — and then finds that his car tires have been slashed.
The events that trigger that act of vandalism, and the violence unleashed afterwards, are the engine of “Casualties of Truth.” It draws on the author’s firsthand experience in South Africa, observing hearings held by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which heard testimony about human rights abuses committed by the state during the apartheid years, as well as violations committed by the liberation movements.
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“Casualties of Truth” is a tale of dual reckonings, of a woman and a country both forced to face their histories and the harrowing violence that has shaped them. Despite the pain chronicled in its pages, and despite having no easy answer to the complex question of what real accountability looks like, the book does contain a shred of hope: Though the truth alone is not justice, there is still freedom in it.
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Cozbi Cabrera’s book was recently featured in a New York Times roundup of Children’s picture books perfect for Valentine’s Day. They also had this to say about it:
“The intimate, poetic text makes each moment feel authentic, and the painterly artwork balances poignancy and playfulness.” — New York Times
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Alexander Smalls, James Beard Award-winning chef and Grammy-winning opera singer, joins TODAY to talk about his new children’s book called When Alexander Graced the Table and then shares two recipes from his youth for crispy okra fries and lemon meringue icebox pie.
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Casualties of Truth
By Lauren Francis-Sharma
A brutal history lesson in the guise of a thriller, Francis-Sharma’s third novel, about the horrific legacies of South African apartheid, jumps back and forth between 1996 Johannesburg and 2018 Washington, D.C., where the wife in a wealthy Black “power couple” encounters a shadowy figure from her past. Beneath the tightly plotted narrative, the author explores the nature and function of amnesty and human rights.
Atlantic Monthly Press, Feb. 11
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Sing the Truth: The Kweli Journal Short Story Collection
Edited by Laura Pegram. Authors Equity. Out May 13.
I simply could not create this list and not include Kweli Journal’s short story collection in celebration of 15 years! Contributors include Susan Muaddi Darraj, Edwidge Danticat, Ivelisse Rodriquez and many more.
Chef Alexander Smalls is revealing more into the upbringing that shaped his taste through a new children’s book.
The chef became famous for infusing his South Carolina roots in dishes loved from down South to Dubai. Now, he details his “origin story” to a tinier audience in When Alexander Graced The Table (Simon & Schuster, $19.99), released on Jan. 7.
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