Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence

by David Samuel Levinson

One writer’s mysterious death, another’s relentless quest for fame, and a bitter literary critic’s passion for manipulation drive the story of this haunting novel set in a small upstate New York college town in the 1990s.

Catherine Strayed wonders if she’ll ever know the truth about the death of her husband, a promising writer who died under circumstances that could have been accidental, a suicide, or perhaps even murder. But after his death, instead of leaving the secluded college town to which he had brought her, she simply tries to go on with her life there. When her former mentor, who had also briefly been her lover — a powerful critic who singlehandedly destroyed her husband’s chance for success — takes a teaching job at the college, Catherine’s world threatens to collapse.

For with him has come his latest protege, an exotic young woman named Antonia Lively who has written a novel that has become a literary sensation. She insinuates herself into Catherine’s life, and mysterious and frightening things start to happen as, unbeknownst to Catherine, the younger woman sets out to steal the truth of her life and the death of her husband so that she can plunder them for her next literary triumph.

It’s publication day for the paperback edition of The Receptionist, and we are giving away a free copy. Enter below for your chance to win the novel The Boston Globe called “a literate, revelatory examination of self.”

The Receptionist

by Janet Groth

In 1957, when a young Midwestern woman landed a job at The New Yorker, she didn’t expect to stay long at the reception desk. But stay she did, and for twenty-one years she had the best seat in the house.

In addition to taking messages, she ran interference for jealous wives checking on adulterous husbands, drank with famous writers at famous watering holes throughout bohemian Greenwich Village, and was seduced, two-timed, and proposed to by a few of the magazine’s eccentric luminaries.

This memoir of a particular time and place is an enchanting tale of a woman in search of herself.

Bobcat and Other Stories

by Rebecca Lee

The New York Times included Bobcat in its round-up of recommended beach reads, calling it “a first-rate short-story collection.”

Featuring it in its “Top 10 Things We Love This Week: Must List,” Entertainment Weekly called Bobcat and Other Stories “wise and funny,” and a “near-perfect” collection.

Jane Ciabattari of the Daily Beast said, “For sheer reading pleasure Bobcat is at the top of my late spring list for first story collections…Lee’s narrative flow is ironic, amusing, knowing, humane, energized by unexpected words and surprising turns of phrase, and deepened by a sophisticated layering of background news about Soviet-era Poland, Hong Kong during the Vietnamese boat people crisis, Hurricane Katrina, and the Starr report.”

Now is your chance to win a free copy of Bobcat and Other Stories!

Watery Part of the World by Michael Parker: This vast and involving novel about pirates and slaves, treason and treasures, madness and devotion, takes place on a tiny island battered by storms and cut off from the world. Inspired by two little-known moments in history, it begins in 1813, when Theodosia Burr, en route to New York by ship to meet her father, Aaron Burr, disappears off the coast of North Carolina. It ends a hundred and fifty years later, when the last three inhabitants of a remote island—two elderly white women and the black man who takes care of them—are forced to leave their beloved spot of land. Parker tells an enduring story about what we’ll sacrifice for love, and what we won’t. Includes a FREE preview of Parker’s upcoming novel, Sweet Ride, which will be out in 2014.

You can buy the Watery Part of the World e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, and Kobo.

Off the Deep End by Hodding Carter: Carter dreamed of being an Olympian as a kid. He worshipped Mark Spitz, swam his heart out, and just missed qualifying for the Olympic trials in swimming as a college senior. Although he didn’t qualify for the 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, or 2004 Olympics, he never stopped believing he could make it. And despite past failures and the passage of time, Carter began his quest once more at the age of forty-two.

You can buy the Off the Deep End e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, and Kobo.

Tidewater Blood by William Hoffman: Set in Virginia in the 1980s, this novel opens at the annual LeBlanc family celebration. Rich, pretentious, and proud, the LeBlancs operate a prosperous plantation and celebrate their heritage each year in grand old Southern fashion on the mansion’s portico. But this year, the front of the mansion explodes and everyone on the portico is instantly killed. As the dust settles, all fingers point to embittered brother and ex-con Charles LeBlanc, who lives as a hermit outside town. When it seems he’s going down on a murder rap, Charley flees to begin his own investigation. Charley must win the trust of one person after another–from his frat-boy lawyer to an old backwoods woman harboring a special hatred of the LeBlancs. Charley solves the crime moments before he faces imprisonment, but not before he learns long-hidden secrets about that illustrious LeBlanc blood.

You can buy the Tidewater Blood e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, and Kobo.

The Waterman by Tim Junkin: Set along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, this first novel tells the story of Clay Wakeman, who spent his boyhood on the water and finds he can’t leave it. When his father is lost in a storm off the Eastern Shore, Clay drops out of college to take possession of his father’s boat and his work as a waterman, that is, as an independent commercial fisherman. Since the old boat constitutes his sole inheritance, Clay starts out small. He recruits his oldest friend, Byron, a traumatized Vietnam vet, to join him in a crabbing business. Clay falls irrevocably in love with the spoken-for Kate; Byron’s demons pursue him with even greater vengeance; and out in the Bay the partners stumble onto a drug running operation.

You can by the The Waterman e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, and Kobo.

Swim to Me by Betsy Carter: It’s a fresh start for Delores Walker when she boards a Greyhound bus bound for Florida. Leaving the Bronx far behind, she’s headed for sunny Weeki Wachee Springs, frayed roadside attraction in danger of becoming obsolete with the opening of Walt Disney’s latest creation, only miles up the road. Always more suited for a life underwater, Delores joins a group of other aquatic hopefuls in this City of Live Mermaids, where she discovers a world of sequined tails and amphibious theme shows that even Disney couldn’t dream up. It’s in this fantastic place of make-believe and reinvention that Delores Walker becomes Delores Taurus, Florida’s most unlikely celebrity.

You can buy the Swim to Me e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, and Kobo.

A Miracle of Catfish by Larry Brown: In November 2004, Brown sent the nearly completed manuscript of his sixth novel to his literary agent. A week later, he died of a massive heart attack. He was fifty-three years old. A Miracle of Catfish is that novel. This beautiful, heartbreaking anthem to the writer’s own North Mississippi land and the hard-working, hard-loving, hard-losing men it spawns is the story of one year in the lives of five characters—an old farmer with a new pond he wants stocked with baby catfish; a bankrupt fish pond stocker who secretly releases his forty-pound brood catfish into the farmer’s pond; a little boy from the trailer home across the road who inadvertently hooks the behemoth catfish; the boy’s inept father; and a former convict down the road who kills a second time to save his daughter.

You can buy the A Miracle of Catfish e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, and Kobo.

Music of the Swamp by Lewis Nordan: Nordan’s fiction invents its own world, a world populated by madly heroic misfits. In Music of the Swamp, he focuses his magic and imagination on a single theme–a boy’s utterly helpless love for his utterly hopeless father. “Lordy, Lordy, can Lewis Nordan write!”–Los Angeles Times Book Review

You can buy the Music of the Swamp e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, and Kobo.

- 10:30am: Lee Smith will be signing her novel Guests on Earth at the Algonquin booth, #839/939.

-2pm: Welcome our Algonquin Young Readers line into your family with the YR booth takeover. Get signed galleys from Amy Herrick, Sara Farizan and Hollis Seamon. Plus we have pretty tote bags for you!

- 4pm: Toast 30 years of publishing from Algonquin Books and Storey Publishing with bubbly, beer and cupcakes at booth #839-939. There will be balloons, too, so you know it’s going to be a party!

Here’s a schedule of  Thursday’s highlights:

10am: Alice Hoffman (yes, that Alice Hoffman) takes over the Algonquin booth and signs copies of Survival Lessons. We have special Survival Lessons T-shirts for the first 100 people in line.

12:15pm: This one’s not in our booth, but an appearance by the immitable Lee Smith is always worth mentioning. Lee will be speaking about her upcoming novel, Guests on Earth, to the folks at the AAP Librarian Lunch.

1:30pm: New York Times bestselling author of A Friend of the Family, Lauren Grodstein signs copies of The Explanation for Everything at the Algonquin booth, #839/939

The Art Forger

by B.A. Shapiro

A New York Times bestseller in hardcover, The Art Forger is a Costco Pennie’s Pick for June in paperback and the winner of the New England Society Book Awards winner for fiction.

“[A] nimble mystery…Shapiro’s brisk narrative takes the reader through Boston’s art world, the logistics of forgery and the perils of attribution.”
—The New York Times Book Review

B.A. Shapiro will be touring the country this summer with artfully crafted events for this “not just emotionally involving but addictive” book, as Entertainment Weekly called it. Click here for her tour schedule.

Going Away Shoes

by Jill McCorkle

We’ve been talking a lot lately about Jill’s new novel, her New York Times bestselling novel — her first novel in 17 years! — Life After Life, but it’s her first novel in 17 years because she’s been spending that time amazing us with her perfect little stories, her almost-a-novel-in-a-short-story stories.

Going Away Shoes is also one of the featured titles in this month’s Lucky 7 e-book promotion, seven amazing collections of short stories — all at just $1.99 apiece during May and all with a free preview of our upcoming story collection, Bobcat & Other Stories by Rebecca Lee.

Facing the Music by Larry Brown

Man and woman collide time and time again, with alcohol and violence (a troubled coupling, too) often tearing at the relationships in this unflinching collection. Brown shines a brutal light on his subjects but offers unusual rewards for those readers who are willing to look unblinkingly along with him.  Includes a preview of Bobcat and Other Stories.

You can buy Facing the Music at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, and iBOOKSTORE.

Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle

From tennis shoes to high heels to slippers, our shoes say something about us. McCorkle explores how the women in those shoes pull themselves up—even without bootstraps—and keep moving forward, from divorcing their longtime husbands to finding the perfect prince to finding themselves.  Includes a preview of Bobcat and Other Stories.

You can buy Going Away Shoes at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, and iBOOKSTORE.

Dog on the Cross by Aaron Gwyn

Gwyn explores the small space between faith and doubt, sin and self-delusion, when a young faith healer arrives in Perser, Oklahoma, a town whose citizens include a preacher who fakes speaking in tongues, a grandmother who tries to make her grandson famous, and a man who plummets from a drilling rig.  Includes a preview of Bobcat and Other Stories.

You can buy Dog on the Cross at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, and iBOOKSTORE.

The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue by Manuel Muñoz

The misunderstandings and secrets kept by the residents of this close-knit Mexican American neighborhood in California come to shape their lives. This fresh and dazzling collection unravels the truth about home and belonging: you always live with its history.  Includes a preview of Bobcat and Other Stories.

You can buy The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, and iBOOKSTORE.

Don’t Make Me Stop Now by Michael Parker

These eleven arresting and comic stories testify to the force of love, the lengths we’ll go to claim it, the delusions we’ll believe, and the absolute necessity of it all. Each character wants to believe he is making the messy world turn out neatly.  Includes a preview of Bobcat and Other Stories.

You can buy Don’t Make Me Stop Now at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, and iBOOKSTORE.

Phone Calls from the Dead by Wendy Brenner

This highly original collection probes people’s need to connect with each other and with something greater than themselves. The characters struggle with the most basic human instincts of loss and longing, even when supernatural elements appear.  Includes a preview of Bobcat and Other Stories.

You can buy Phone Calls from the Dead at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, and iBOOKSTORE.

The Half-Mammals of Dixie by George Singleton

The stories in this collection are wild and wooly—or maybe we should say wild and half-wooly. Singleton follows the curious lives of the off-the-beaten-track South, where big hearts, big stories, and big laughs are found.  Includes a preview of Bobcat and Other Stories.

You can buy The Half-Mammals of Dixie at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, GOOGLE, and iBOOKSTORE.

Is This Tomorrow

by Caroline Leavitt