Here are what our writers and editors recommend this week!
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka. (Amazon synopsis)
Holed up with other mothers-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory and fell in love with the married owner, Boss Yeung. Now she’s carrying his baby. To ensure that his child - his first son - has every advantage, Boss Yeung has shipped Scarlett off to give birth on American soil. As Scarlett awaits the baby’s arrival, she spars with her imperious housemates. The only one who fits in even less is Daisy, a spirited pregnant teenager who is being kept apart from her American boyfriend.
Then a new sonogram of Scarlett’s baby reveals the unexpected. Panicked, she goes on the run by hijacking a van - only to discover that she has a stowaway: Daisy, who intends to track down the father of her child. The two flee to San Francisco’s bustling Chinatown, where Scarlett will join countless immigrants desperately trying to seize their piece of the American dream. What Scarlett doesn’t know is that her baby’s father is not far behind her. (Amazon synopsis)
Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.
Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future. (Amazon synopsis)
An exploration of the role that artists play in resisting authoritarianism with a sci-fi twist.
In poetry, dialogue and visual art the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers.
Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe history of Hip Hop, and part “Letters to a Young Poet”-style toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders, it's also a one-of-a-kind practitioners' take on poetry, power, and possibility.
NOT A LOT OF REASONS TO SING is a:
-post-apocalyptic road journal
-alternate universe history of Hip Hop
-“Letters to a Young Poet”
-toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders
it's also a one-of-a-kind practitioners' take on poetry, power, and possibility. (Amazon synopsis)
When Hazel Wong's beloved grandfather passes away, Daisy Wells is all too happy to accompany her friend (and Detective Society Vice President) to Hazel's family estate in beautiful, bustling Hong Kong.But when they arrive they discover something they didn't expect: there's a new member of the Wong family.Daisy and Hazel think baby Teddy is enough to deal with, but as always the girls are never far from a mystery.Tragedy strikes very close to home, and this time Hazel isn't just the detective. She's been framed for murder!The girls must work together like never before, confronting dangerous gangs, mysterious suspects and sinister private detectives to solve the murder and clear Hazel's name - before it's too late . . . (Amazon synopsis)