Europa Editions

A novel of suspense and psychological tension set in the world of international humanitarian aid by a founder of Doctors Without Borders.

The four men accompanying Maud, a young French idealist, on an aid convoy to Bosnia are very different from the clichéd image of the humanitarian volunteer. One by one, they reveal the secret wounds that have brought them to this conflict zone and, mile by mile, the true nature of their cargo . . .Prize-winning author, Jean-Christophe Rufin offers up a powerful psychological literary thriller that asks vital questions about the role of humanitarian action in today’s world, bringing to light the most fundamental dilemmas of our age. As a new kind of violence insinuates its way into the heart of Europe, this novel asks whether it is more effective to take up arms against the enemy or attempt to counter violence with benevolent acts and enlightenment ideals.

“An enthralling, cleverly told novel.”—Elle (France)

“This taut thriller is distinguished by its literary polish and moral heft.”—Publishers Weekly

“This mix of well-crafted characters, psychological suspense, and the harsh realities of life in wartime results in a nail-biting, challenging literary thriller.”—Kirkus Reviews

“As a philosophical novel, Checkpoint is very engaging. . . . Gun battles, explosions, and fights all appear after the first one hundred pages. . . . Checkpoint is about the nature of modern warfare and the various definitions of humanitarianism.”—New York Journal of Books

The second historical mystery featuring Commissario Ricciardi, “one of the most interesting and well-drawn detectives in fiction” (The Daily Beast).

Commissario Ricciardi has visions. He sees and hears the final seconds in the lives of victims of violent deaths. It is both a gift and a curse. It has helped him become one of the most acute and successful homicide detectives in the Naples police force. But all that horror and suffering has hollowed him out emotionally. He drinks and doesn’t sleep. Other than his loyal partner, Brigadier Maione, he has no friends.
Naples, 1931. In a working-class apartment in the Sanità neighborhood, an elderly woman by the name of Carmela Calise has been beaten to death. When Ricciardi and Maione arrive at the scene, they learn that Calise was moonlighting as a fortuneteller and moneylender whose clients were some of the city’s rich and powerful. She predicted their futures in such a way as to manipulate and deceive and made many enemies—those indebted to her, swayed by her lies, disappointed by her prophesies or destroyed by her machinations. Murder suspects in this atmospheric thriller abound and Commissario Ricciardi, one of the most original and intriguing investigators in contemporary crime fiction, will have his work cut out for him.

“The promise that each life will intersect keeps Ricciardi and Maione’s investigation lively.”—Publishers Weekly

“A well-crafted, ultimately moving crime novel set in 1931 Naples . . . This is a solid series with an intriguing detective, and fans will eagerly await the third volume.”—Library Journal

A mother’s brief reunion with her imprisoned son is saturated in both love and menace in this complex and compelling novel.

Linus has been granted a five-day furlough from prison, where he is serving a life sentence for murder. His mother has decided to take him to Delphi. A few days spent in that magical place, she thinks, might distract him from his awful fate. She also hopes this brief time together might be a chance for them to repair what has become a damaged relationship. To that end, she has a difficult revelation to share with her son: ten years earlier, it was she who led the police to him; she is responsible for his arrest and imprisonment.
Over the course of five days, as mother and son wander the magnificent ruins of Delphi, matters concerning Linus’s childhood that have been buried for decades resurface. This is a return to the origins of Greek tragedy, a story about guilt and innocence, about the monsters that lurk even in everyday life, and about the complex and fascinating relationship between mothers and their sons.

“One can not stop reading until the end.”—L’Espresso

PI Marco “the Alligator” Buratti returns in a thriller from the author whose “brand of crime writing is tougher than even the toughest American noir” (Josh Bazell, national bestselling author).

Massimo Carlotto has been described as “the reigning king of Mediterranean noir” (Boston Phoenix), “about as gritty as they come” (The New York Times), and “the best living Italian crime writer” (Il Manifesto). Now, he gives his American readers his most memorable character yet: ex-con turned private investigator Marco Buratti, a.k.a. the Alligator.
Closing the door on a crime-ridden past, Buratti plans to spend the rest of his days in the darkness of a seedy nightclub sipping Calvados and listening to the blues. But things don’t quite work out as he planned: though he may be through with his past, his past isn’t through with him. When his gangster friend Beniamino Rossini’s girlfriend is kidnapped, Buratti is forced to investigate a case of international drug dealing. He will be thrown headfirst into the underworld he has struggled to escape. In the world of Massimo Carlotto’s fiction, new and old criminal organizations collide and innocent bystanders are as hard to find as honest cops.

“A cocktail of mystery and romanticism, a novel in which there are no real heroes and no signs of redemption. In short, classic Carlotto.”—Rolling Stone (Italy)

“A gripping novel that can be read on different levels, as a breathtakingly dark noir novel or as a means of penetrating reality. These two levels magically blend in Massimo Carlotto’s books.”—Il Manifesto

“The setting is beautifully—if grimly—realized. La dolce vita it ain’t—but this is top-notch Mediterranean noir.”—Kirkus Reviews

A defiant woman and her colorful neighbors reclaim their homes in Chernobyl in this “enthralling story of humor, tragedy, and triumph” (World Literature Today).

There may be government warnings about radiation levels in her hometown of Tschernowo—also known as Chernobyl—but Baba Dunja has returned. And she’s brought a motley bunch of her former neighbors with her. With the town largely to themselves, and lots of strangely misshapen fruit, they have everything they need to start anew.
The terminally ill Petrov passes the time reading love poems in his hammock; Marja takes up with the almost 100-year-old Sidorow; Baba Dunja whiles away her days writing letters to her daughter. Life is beautiful. But then a stranger turns up in the village, and once again the little idyllic settlement faces annihilation.
From Alina Bronsky, the acclaimed Russian-born German author of Broken Glass Park and The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, comes the story of a post-meltdown settlement and an unusual woman who finds her version of paradise late in life.

“A quirky coming-of-age story . . . Female adolescence as imagined by one of the 20th century’s best—and most peculiar—writers” (Kirkus Reviews).

Originally published in 1977, Jane Gardams Bilgewater is an affectionate and complex rendering-in-miniature of the discomforts of growing up and first love seen through the eyes of inimitable Marigold Green, an awkward, eccentric, highly intelligent girl. The Evening Standard described Bilgewater as “one of the funniest, most entertaining, most unusual stories about young love.”
Motherless and sixteen, Marigold is the headmaster’s daughter at a private backwater all-boys school. To make matters worse, Marigold pines for head boy Jack Rose, reckons with the beautiful and domineering Grace, and yanks herself headlong out of her interior world and into the seething cauldron of adolescence. With everything happening all at once, Marigold faces the greatest of teenage crucibles.

A smart and painterly romp in the rich tradition of The Hollow Land and A Long Way from Verona, Gardam’s elegant, evocative prose, possessed of sharp irony and easy surrealism makes Bilgewater a book for readers of all ages.

“This is no ordinary bildungsroman.” —New Pages

“A striking story.”—Times Literary Supplement

It is the moment every twenty-something must confront: the time to grow up. Adulthood looms, with all its numbing tranquility and stifling complacency. The end of prolonged adolescence is near.

Laura and Tyler are two women whose twenties have been a blur of overstayed parties, a fondness for drugs that has shifted from cautious experimentation to catholic indulgence, and hangovers that don't relent until Monday morning. They've been best friends, partners in excess, for the last ten years. But things are changing: Laura is engaged to Jim, a classical pianist who has long since given up the carousing lifestyle. He disapproves of Tyler's reckless ways and of what he percieves to be her bad influence on Laura. Jim pulls Laura toward adulthood and responsibility, toward what society says she should be, but Tyler isn't ready to let her go. But what does Laura want for herself? And how can she choose between Tyler and Jim, between one life she loves and another she's "supposed" to love?

Raw, uproarious, and deeply affecting, Animals speaks to an entire generation caught between late-adolescence and adulthood wondering what exactly they'll have to give up in order to grow up.  

An explosive crime thriller from the author of The Goodbye Kiss, “the reigning king of Mediterranean noir” (Boston Phoenix).

Giorgio Pellegrini, the hero of The Goodbye Kiss, has been living an “honest” life for eleven years. But that’s about to change. His lawyer has been deceiving him and now Giorgio is forced into service as an unwilling errand boy for an organized crime syndicate. At one time, Giorgio wouldn’t have thought twice about robbing, kidnapping, and killing in order to get what he wanted, but these days he realizes he’s too long in the tooth to face his enemies head-on. To return to his peaceful life as a successful businessman he’s going to have to find another way to shake off the mob. Fortunately, Giorgio’s circumstances may have changed, but deep down he’s still the ruthless killer he used to be.

“Carlotto . . . provides a machine-gun pace, a jaundiced eye for political corruption and a refreshing absence of anything approaching a moral vision.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Carlotto’s taut, broody Mediterranean noir is filled with blind corners and savage set pieces. Pellegrini’s deeds are unquestionably loathsome, but his witty Machiavellian perspective, amplified by a class rage well attuned to the current Italian zeitgeist, makes you root for him all the same.”—The New Yorker

“[Carlotto’s] narration allows gruesome glimpses into an unscrupulous psyche.”—Publishers Weekly

“A surprisingly enjoyable romp . . . a very solid noir thriller, and very good (if slightly queasy-making) fun. One of Carlotto’s better works.”—The Complete Review

This “beautifully written and utterly compelling” novel by the acclaimed South African author traces E. M. Forester’s journey of self-discovery (The Times, London).

The year is 1912, and the SS Birmingham is approaching India. On board is Edward Morgan Forster, a reserved man taunted by writer’s block, attempting to come to terms with his art and his homosexuality. During his travels, the novelist confronts his fraught childhood and falls in unrequited love with his closest friend. He also finds himself surprisingly freed to explore his “minorite” desires as secretary to a most unusual Maharajah.
Slowly, the strands of a story begin to gather in Forster’s mind: a sense of impending menace, lust in close confines, under a hot, empty sky. But it will be another twelve years and a second stay in India before the publication of his finest work, A Passage to India. Shifting across the landscapes of India, Egypt, and England, Forster’s life is informed by his relationships—from the Egyptian tram conductor Mohammed el-Adl, to the Greek poet and literary titan C. P. Cavafy. Damon Galgut’s reimagining of Forster’s life is a clear and sympathetic psychological probing of one of Britain’s finest novelists.

“Galgut inhabits [Forster] with such sympathetic completeness, and in prose of such modest excellence that he starts to breathe on the page.”—Financial Times

The second Inspector Sebag mystery following Summertime, All the Cats Are Bored: “A man like this—a cop like this—is definitely worth knowing” (Los Angeles Review of Books).

Inspector Sebag is a policeman in southern France with an unparalleled sixth sense, who excels at slipping into the skin of killers and hunting them down. However, when a retired French Algerian cop is discovered in his apartment with the symbol OAS left near his body and few indications as to who killed him or why, Sebag’s skills are put to the test. Days later, when a controversial monument is destroyed and another French Algerian is shot down, Sebag begins to put the pieces together. Bringing to light the horrors, hopes, and treasons committed during the war in Algeria fifteen years ago, in this sequel to Georget’s Summertime, All the Cats Are Bored, Lt. Gilles Sebag discovers more than just a killer, but an entire secret history that not everyone wants revealed.

“French crime writers are on a roll . . . Just savour the Gallic charm of this sizeable case for Inspector Sebag, a tenacious copper in the south of France with a sixth sense for tracking down killers.”—Financial Times

“The subtlety, the imaginative style, the brilliant dialogues, and the extremely strong subject make Autumn, All the Cats Return a crime novel not to miss.”—Black Novel

“Well structured, solidly documented, written with verve, Autumn, All the Cats Return has everything needed to satisfy even the most demanding of readers.”—UnPolar.com

A raucous debut novel of organized—and unorganized—crime. “A story that takes itself unseriously enough to be funny” (The Daily Beast, “This Week’s Hot Reads”).

Diego is a forty-something car salesman with a talent for telling half-truths. Fausto sells watches over the phone. Claudio manages (barely) his family-owned neighborhood supermarket. The characteristic common to each of these three men is their abject mediocrity. Yet, mediocrity being the mother of outrageous invention, they embark on a project that would be too ambitious in scope for any single one of them, let alone all three together. They decide to flee the city and to open a rustic holiday farmhouse in the Italian countryside outside Naples.
Their misconceived endeavor would have been challenging enough for these three unlikely entrepreneurs, but when a local mobster arrives and demands they pay him protection money, things go from bad to worse. Now their ordinary (if wrongheaded) attempt to run a small business in an area that organized crime syndicates consider their own becomes a quixotic act of defiance.
A “miraculous” Italian comedy that will have readers laughing out loud, Alfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles marks Fabio Bartolomei’s vivid debut.

“An entertaining and humorous debut.”—La Repubblica

“A melancholy yet hopeful fable told with a smile.”—Internazionale

“Left the kind of smile on my face that doesn’t go unnoticed and which people often mistake for a kind of facial paralysis.”—Valentina Aversano, Setteperuno

The final novel from the author of the Marseilles trilogy. “A bleak, affecting tale about a man on the skids, despairing of love’s ability to heal” (Publishers Weekly).

Rico has been banished to society’s margins; he has neither a roof over his head nor a steady income on which to depend. When a friend and fellow vagabond dies of exposure after a night spent in the Paris metro, Rico decides to flee the northern cold for his beloved south, for Marseilles and the warmth of the Mediterranean. Diverted and hindered along the way, he suffers the vagaries of human cruelty and pettiness, and is warmed by occasional, fleeting instances of human tenderness. His return to the Mediterranean is simultaneously a homecoming and a pilgrimage in search of lost love, innocence, and humanity.
From the celebrated author of the Marseilles trilogy, this is both an affecting on-the-road novel and a tender exploration of love’s power to both heal and destroy.

“Our last true romantic, Jean-Claude Izzo transmits warmth to his readers, as if granting them a mouthful of pure love. A Sun for the Dying is beautiful, like a black sun, tragic and desperate.”—Le Point (France)

“Like a chanson by Jacques Brel or Charles Aznavour, Izzo’s harsh, honed prose perfectly embodies that Gallic genius for balancing bleak unsentimentality with intense, frank emotion, making this a likely hit not just with fans of noir (including Izzo’s own Marseilles trilogy) but also with devotees of Charles Bukowski, Hubert Selby Jr., and other great modern tragedians.”—Booklist (starred review)

The barn becomes font and inspiration for a series of vivid stories involving sundry strangers, the Bruni parents themselves, and their nine children—seven boys and two girls—who will grow into young men and women during World War I and its aftermath. Told in the tradition of country folktales and framed by the devastating years of strife—two world wars and the years of fascism—these stories will delight readers from the first page to the last. Manfredi’s A Winter’s Night provides a timely reminder that simple values and a sense of solidarity with our fellow human beings remain of vital importance, above all in a world undergoing momentous and rapid change.

This novel of a wounded Vietnam veteran’s homecoming is both “a searing war story and a page-turning thriller” (The Washington Post)

.Billy Flynn has always wanted to fly, like the birds he draws with pencils and paints. He is also a patriot, so in 1970 he cannot resist the call to serve in Vietnam. A year later, he is the only one to survive after his helicopter is shot down.A wounded Billy returns home to his family in upstate New York, including Nell, his adoring younger sister. In his absence, the woman he loves has mysteriously disappeared. His wounds have crippled his ability to hold a pencil and his hearing loss has cut him off from the natural world he loves so much. Nell, a brilliant student headed for a career in science, is determined to do all that’s possible to save him.
A Catalog of Birds is the story of a community confronted with shattered innocence and with wounds that may never heal, in “a beautiful book about family, loss, and love [whose] memorable characters will haunt you long after you put it down” (Claire Messud, New York Times–bestselling author of The Woman Upstairs).

“Stunning natural descriptions provide a rich backdrop for Harrington’s beautifully articulated coming-of-age story, which captures the pain of loved ones grappling with the after effects of war.”—Booklist (starred review)

Book One in the Carrigan and Miller series. “[A] masterly thriller . . . with [a] complicated and compelling detective duo” (The New Yorker).

Jack Carrigan, a promising young musician, is on a post-graduation holiday in Africa with two friends. Driving at night, unsure of their route, they encounter a rebel force high on drugs and their own cruelty. Years later, Jack is now an inspector with the Metropolitan police. The two survivors of the deadly confrontation meet regularly but are unable to talk about the tragedy until Jack unites with young, spirited detective Geneva Miller and the pair begins to investigate the murder of an African scholar studying in London. The case pulls Carrigan and Miller into a London diaspora, a largely inscrutable cauldron of illegal immigrants and fugitives. They soon discover that the scholar was researching African rebel groups and had uncovered the complicity of an African government in a brutal campaign to silence dissent. Carrigan and Miller find themselves caught in a fierce conflict between the obligation to follow evidence wherever it leads and foreign alliances critical to the British government. This combination of a bruising crime investigation competing against the forces of powerful political interests unleashes events that will forever change the lives of both the innocent and the guilty.

“The action builds to a jaw-dropping resolution. Readers will want to see more of this convincingly flawed hero.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A clever, multi-layered beginning to a promising new series . . . Sherez does a masterful job with a particularity haunting plot.”—The Daily Mirror (Book of the Week)

“A superior novel.”—The Times (London)

“Far more than just another coming-of-age story” from the award-winning author of the Old Filth trilogy (Bustle).

Jane Gardam’s marvelous stories of young girls on the threshold of womanhood—God on the Rocks and Crusoe’s Daughter—have delighted fans and critics alike. These “modern classics” are now joined by a novel that is equally fresh and genuine, comic and touching (The Independent). Jessica Vye introduces herself with an enigmatic pronouncement: “I ought to tell you at the beginning that I am not quite normal, having had a violent experience at the age of nine.” A revered author has told Jessica that she is, beyond all doubt, a born writer. This proves an accurate prediction of the future, one that indelibly colors her life at school and her perception of the world. Jessica has always known that her destiny would be shaped by her refusal to conform, her compulsion to tell the absolute truth, and her dedication to observing the strange wartime world that surrounds her. What she doesn’t know, however, is that the experiences and ideas that set her apart will also lead her to a new and wholly unexpected life. Told with grace and inimitable wit, A Long Way from Verona is a wise and vivid portrait of adolescent discovery and impending adulthood.

“A book to be judged by the highest standards.”—The Spectator

“A brilliant, witty, and agonizingly true-to-life novel.”—The Times Literary Supplement

“A fiercely funny and personal book.”—The Economist

“The qualities for which Gardam is cherished (the quirkiness, the bright-eyed wonder at reality) are already apparent in this early work.” —Kirkus Reviews

A young man’s political awakening takes shape in the aftermath of Castro’s Revolution in this “prayer of a novel” by the grandson of Che Guevara (Cleaver Magazine).

At the dawn of Communist Cuba, our unnamed hero, a young black Cuban man, loses his father to death and his mother to emigration. Now he spends much of his time with his Russian neighbor, discovering the pleasures of reading. The books he reads gradually open his eyes to the incongruity between party slogans and the oppressive reality that surrounds him: the office routine; the daily complaints of his colleagues; his own obsessive thoughts which circulate around his mind like a broken record.
Every day he photographs the spontaneous eruptions of dissent on the streets and witnesses the sad spectacle of young people crowding onto makeshift rafts to escape the island. His frustration grows until a day when he declares his unwillingness to become an informer. And this is when his real troubles begin.

“Not since Reinaldo Arenas has a Cuban literary voice arrived on American shores with such beaten madness, and sense of personal desperation.”—Cleaver Magazine

Winner of the Landerneau Prize for Crime Fiction: “A combination of a South American Western and a noir [with] airs of Faulknerian tragedy” (Lire).

By the time Rafael is born, the family farm has already gone to hell. Rafael’s father has abandoned them. His older twin brothers blame Rafael for their father’s departure and exact revenge. Rafael’s other sibling is a simpleton whose affections and allegiances change with the shifting winds. And ruling over this dysfunctional roost is a tyrannical and avaricious mother.
On the lonely Patagonian steppe, life is lived to the rhythms of the family farm. But there is nothing bucolic about the existence described in these pages: it is ruthless, unforgiving, and bloody. As the family tensions mount, daily life degenerates into open warfare, in a gripping, unsentimental, ultimately majestic story about life in one the most inhospitable places on Earth.

A “sharply satirical” novel about an oppressive religious dictatorship and one man’s discovery of an underground resistance (Library Journal).

2015 Winner of the Le Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française

A tribute to George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984 and a cry of protest against totalitarianism of all kinds, Boualem Sansal’s 2084 tells the story of a near future in which religious extremists have established a caliphate that forbids autonomous thought. In the year 2084, in the kingdom of Abistan—named after the prophet Abi, earthly messenger of the god Yölah—citizens submit to a single god, demonstrating their devotion by kneeling in prayer nine times a day. Remembering the past is forbidden, and an omnipresent surveillance system instantly informs the authorities of every deviant act, thought, or idea.
The kingdom is blessed and its citizens are happy, filled with purpose and piety. Those who are not—the heretics—are put to death by stoning or beheading in city squares. But Ati has met people who think differently: In ghettos and caves, hidden from the authorities, exist the last living heretics and free-thinkers of Abistan. Under their influence, Ati begins to doubt. He begins to think. Now, he will have to defend his thoughts with his life.
2084 is “a rare, powerful book, at the intersection of fable and lampoon, of satire and science fiction,” a cry of freedom, a gripping novel of ideas, and an indictment of the kind of closed-minded fundamentalism that threatens our democracies and the ideals on which they are founded (Lire).

“Alison Anderson’s deft and intelligent translation [conveys] Sansal’s abhorrence of a system that controls people’s minds, while explaining that the religion was not originally evil but has been corrupted. A moving and cautionary story.”—The Times Literary Supplement

“A powerful novel that celebrates resistance.”—The Guardian

A “magical, marvellous” epic of an empire in collapse: Book one in the acclaimed Ottoman Quartet by the award-winning Turkish author and political dissident (La Stampa, Italy).

Tracking the decline and fall of the Ottoman empire, Ahmet Altan’s Ottoman Quartet spans fifty years from the end of the nineteenth century to the post-WWI rise of Atatu¨rk as leader of the new Turkey. In Like a Sword Wound, a modern-day resident of Istanbul is visited by the ghosts of his ancestors, finally free to tell their stories “under the broad, dark wings of death.”
Among the characters who come to life are an Ottoman army officer; the Sultan’s personal doctor; a scion of the royal house whose Western education brings him into conflict with his family’s legacy; and a beguiling Turkish aristocrat who, while fond of her emancipated life in Paris, finds herself drawn to a conservative Muslim spiritual leader. As their stories of intimate desire and personal betrayal unfold, the society that spawned them is transforming and the sublime empire disintegrating.
Here is a Turkish saga reminiscent of War and Peace, written in lively, contemporary prose that traces not only the social currents of the time but also the erotic and emotional lives of its characters.

“An engrossing novel of obsessive love and oppressive tyranny, a tale of collapse that dramatizes the fateful moments of an empire and its subjects.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Kei’s intense and impressive debut is the story of two women who bond in their adopted country of Australia . . . An immigrant tale that readers won’t forget” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Winner of the Kenzaburo Oe PrizeFar from her native country of Nigeria and now living as a single mother of two, Salimah works the night shift at a supermarket in a small Australia town. She is shy and barely speaks English, but pushes herself to sign up for an ESL class offered at the local university.At the group’s first meeting, Salimah meets Sayuri, who has come to Australia from Japan with her husband, a resident research associate at the local college. Sayuri has put her own education on hold to take care of her infant daughter, and she is plagued by worries about financial instability and her general precariousness.
When Sayuri faces a devastating loss, and one of Salimah’s boys leaves to live with his father, the two women look to one another for comfort and sustenance, as they slowly master their new language, in this “unexpectedly riveting” debut novel (Financial Times).

The Planeta Prize–winning novel from the author of the Petra Delicado series: “A highly literate noir, a powerful tale of lives spiraling out of control” (NB magazine).

Irene’s husband has left her for a younger woman and her family business is on the verge of collapse, but the last thing she wants is to be the subject of gossip or pity. So she starts spending time with a divorcée who, in liberating herself from the bonds of marriage, has also freed herself from the clutches of the old crowd of “couple friends.”
Javier is a literature teacher who suddenly loses his job at a Catholic school. He’s not ambitious—the months go by and no work materializes. Then, almost by accident, he gets back in contact with a cocky friend from his youth who introduces him to the world of stripping and male prostitution.
Circumstance brings Irene and Javier together: he gets some extra cash and mental stimulation out of their relationship, and she finds an outlet for her frustrations. However, Irene doesn’t want to have sex with him—she just wants to see him naked, humiliated, dominated. Their relationship takes a troubling turn, but things may be even more complicated than they seem.
Alicia Giménez-Bartlett weaves a tale of economic and personal devastation, portraying the ways that life’s disappointments can bring people to do things they never would have imagined.

“Incendiary . . . This provocative dive into gender, power, and class uses diverse viewpoints to craft a powerful story and an unpredictable, memorable ending.”—Publishers Weekly

“A stark realist portrait of characters who are searching for their place in a world without redemption.”—Culturamas

Amazon Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book of 2018

One of Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best YA Books of 2018

One of Publishers Weekly's Best YA Book of the Year

A National Indie Bestseller

Longlisted for Irish YA prize Great Reads Award

Lose yourself in the fantastic world of the arks and in the company of unforgettable characters in this French runaway hit, Christelle Dabos’ The Mirror Visitor quartet.

Plain-spoken, headstrong Ophelia cares little about appearances. Her ability to read the past of objects is unmatched in all of Anima and, what’s more, she possesses the ability to travel through mirrors, a skill passed down to her from previous generations. Her idyllic life is disrupted, however, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a distant clan. Ophelia must leave all she knows behind and follow her fiancé to Citaceleste, the capital of a cold, icy ark known as the Pole, where danger lurks around every corner and nobody can be trusted. There, in the presence of her inscrutable future husband, Ophelia slowly realizes that she is a pawn in a political game that will have far-reaching ramifications not only for her but for her entire world.

The World of the Arks

Long ago, following a cataclysm called the Rupture, the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands, now known as arks. Over each, the spirit of an omnipotent and immortal ancestor abides. The inhabitants of these arks each possess a unique power. Ophelia, with her ability to read the pasts of objects, must navigate this fantastic, disjointed, perilous world using her trademark tenacity and quiet strength.

An unforgettable heroine, a rich and bountiful universe, intrigue and suspense: A Winter’s Promise is perfect for readers of Margaret Rogerson’s An Enchantment of Ravens, Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood, V.E. Schwab’s “Shades of Magic” series, Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone, Kenneth Oppel’s “Airborne” series, and N.K. Jemisin “Broken Earth” series.

Extract:

I think we could have all lived happily, in a way, God, me and the others, if it weren’t for that accursed book. It disgusted me. I knew what bound me to it in the most sickening of ways, but the horror of that particular knowledge came later, much later. I didn’t understand straight away, I was too ignorant.

This coming of age novel by the acclaimed Belgian author is “a disarmingly simple yet deeply complex study of a mother-daughter relationship” (The Washington Post).

One of the Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of fiction in 2018

Marie is the prettiest girl in her provincial high school, and dating the most popular boy in town. She is the envy of all her peers—and she loves it. But when she gives birth to Diane, things begin to change. Diane steals the hearts of all who meet her, inciting nothing but jealousy in her mother.
This is Diane’s story. Young and brilliant, she grows up learning about life through her relationships with other women: her best friend, the sweet Élisabeth; her mentor, the selfish Olivia; her sister, the beloved Célia; and, of course, her mother. It is a story about the baser sentiments that often animate human relations: rivalry, jealousy, distrust.
Revered throughout Europe, Belgian novelist Amélie Nothomb has won numerous prizes, including the French Academy’s Grand Prix. In Strike Your Heart, she offers a telling adult fable about womanhood and the mother-daughter bond.

“Signs, wonders, and witchcraft beset 17th-century France” in this “grim but spellbinding” novel of a mother searching for her son inspired by true events (Kirkus Reviews).

France, 1673. A young woman from the country, Charlotte Picot must venture to the fearsome city of Paris in search of her last remaining son, Nicolas. Either fate or mere coincidence places the quick-witted charlatan Adam Lesage in her path. Adam is newly released from the prison galleys and on the hunt for treasure. But Charlotte, believing him to be a spirit she has summoned from the underworld, enlists his help in finding her child. Charlotte and Adam—comically ill-matched yet essential to one another—journey to Paris, then known as the City of Crows.
Evoking pre-revolutionary France with all its ribaldry, superstition, and intrigue, “Womersley weaves a haunting tale of the drastic lengths people will go to achieve their deepest desires” (Publishers Weekly).

“A gothic masterpiece.”—Better Read Than Dead

“Intense, passionate, desperate: a wonderful, first-person story about a young woman falling seriously in love. The writing is terrific” (Christopher Nicholson, author of Winter).

In 1988, before her senior year of high school, Nina and her best friend spend the summer alone on Cape Cod. Nina has grown up with her ailing grandmother—and she yearns for the chance of a deeper connection. When she enrolls in an acting course, she soon finds romance with Sarah, one of the teaching assistants.
Nina’s own world revolves around Sarah, while the rest of the world moves urgently on. Nina’s high school teacher does not take the end of their relationship well; her best friend feels abandoned; the AIDS epidemic rages; her fellow actors grow and hone their talents. The novel perfectly captures the revelatory feelings that arrive with young adulthood—the startling awareness of oneself outside the bounds of friends and family, and the twin senses of loneliness and liberation that accompany this knowledge. After a summer of love and loss, Nina slowly finds her way back home.

“A breathtakingly tender coming of queer age . . . Wolff stunningly captures that space between unknowing and knowing and the impossibility of bracing oneself for the heartbreak of first love.”—A. M. Homes, author of May We Be Forgiven

“Wolff’s debut, coming-of-age novel casts a literary spell that recalls the dazzling second book of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, The Story of a New Name (2013).”—Booklist

“Tragic, heartfelt, funny, and charming . . . Captivating and achingly realistic, this is a stunning debut.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“An entertaining tale rich in schadenfreude as bad things happen to a hapless billionaire” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Jay Gladstone was born to privilege. He is a civic leader and a generous philanthropist, as well as the owner of an NBA team. But in today’s New York, even a wealthy man’s life can spin out of control, no matter the money or influence he possesses.
Jay sees himself as a moral man, determined not to repeat his father’s mistakes. He would rather focus on his unstable second marriage and his daughter, Aviva, than worry about questions of race or privilege. However, he moves through a sensitive and aware world: that of Dag Maxwell, the black star forward, and white police officer Russell Plesko, who makes a decision that has resonating consequences—particularly for a DA whose hopes for a future in politics will rest on an explosive prosecution.
Set during Barack Obama’s presidency, this artful novel illuminates contemporary America and does not shy away from questions about our scalding social divide—why is conversation about race so fraught, to what degree is the justice system impartial, and does great wealth inoculate those who have it?—and explores the aftermath of unforgivable errors and the unpredictability of the court of public opinion.

“Greenland takes a Dickensian delight in letting the plot sprawl with parallels, digressions, false leads, and twists.”—Kirkus Reviews(starred review)

“A wild and funny page-turner of a novel that grabs you and doesn’t let go.”—Larry David

The award-winning author’s “vivid historical novel based on the true story of the five Sacco brothers” who fought fascism and the mafia in 1920s Sicily (Publishers Weekly).

Sicily, 1920s. As socialists who run successful farms and businesses, the Sacco brothers are a prime target of the local Mafia’s extortion racket. When their father receives an anonymous letter demanding protection money, he goes to the police. But what can they do with such a complaint? No one in the village has ever dared denounce the Mafia before.
From that moment on, the Sacco brothers must defend themselves as they face an escalating war against the Mafia, corrupt police, and fascist leaders who declare the Saccos a gang of bandits. Facing violent attacks and false accusations, they become fugitives who can trust no one in their battle for freedom.

“A twisted morality tale worthy of the wild west.”—The Guardian

“This thoughtful autobiographical work by an award-winning Australian novelist” chronicles a young author’s adventuresome coming of age (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

In this epic yet intimate autobiographical novel, acclaimed Australian author Alex Miller returns to his fictional alter ego Robert Crofts, the subject of his debut work, Watching the Climbers on the Mountain. To flee his abusive father in the years after World War II, sixteen-year-old Robert leaves his childhood home in London for the Australian Outback. After a sojourn there, Robert moves to cosmopolitan Melbourne where he meets Lena Soren, the woman who becomes the true center of his life.
As their intimacy deepens, Lena struggles to free herself from the familial demands and social norms that suffocate her. Very much in love, Robert follows Lena to the end of the earth and back again as their relationship nourishes both his artistic aspirations and her ever stronger sense of self.
The Passage of Love is the story of a young man discovering his calling, a young woman pursuing her own destiny, and a modern country struggling to define itself through shifting mores.

National Book Award Finalist: “A multigenerational epic of the Sadr family’s life in Iran and their eventual exile . . . Full of surprises” (The Globe and Mail).

Winner of the 2019 Albertine Prize and Lambda Literary Award Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now twenty-five and facing the future she has built for herself, as well as the prospect of a new generation, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them. It is Kimiâ herself—punk-rock aficionado, storyteller extraordinaire, a Scheherazade of our time, and above all a modern woman divided between family traditions and her own “disorientalization”—who forms the heart of this bestselling and beloved novel, recipient of numerous literary honors.

“Where initially Disoriental seems focused on Kimiâ’s father and his pro-democracy activism—first against the Shah, then the Ayatollah Khomeini—this is truly Kimiâ’s story of disorientation—national, familial and sexual—and finding herself again.”—The Globe and Mail

“A tour de force of storytelling . . . Djavadi deftly weaves together the history of 20th-century Iran [and] the spellbinding chronicle of her own ancestors. . . . Perfectly blends historical fact with contemporary themes.”—Library Journal

“Riveting . . . Djavadi is an immensely gifted storyteller, and Kimiâ’s tale is especially compelling.”—Booklist (starred review)

“A wonder and a pleasure to read.”—Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

WINNER 2019 ALBERTINE PRIZE

WINNER 2019 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD

FINALIST 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

FINALIST 2019 CLMP FIRECRACKER AWARD

FINALIST 2019 BEST TRANSLATED BOOK AWARD

WINNER LE PRIX DU ROMAN NEWS

WINNER STYLE PRIZE

WINNER 2016 LIRE BEST DEBUT NOVEL

WINNER LA PORTE DORÉE

PRIZE ONE OF THE GLOBE & MAIL’S BEST BOOKS OF 2018

Colorado Book Award Winner for Literary Fiction: “The colorful characters make this account of the War of 1812 a rollicking page-turner” (Publishers Weekly).

In the early nineteenth century, young Henry Phipps is on a quest to realize his dying mother’s last wish: to be buried at sea, surrounded by her family. Not an easy task considering Henry’s ne’er-do-well father is in debtors’ prison and his comically earnest older brother is busy fighting the redcoats on the battlefields of Maryland.
But Henry’s stubborn determination knows no bounds. As he dodges the cannon fire of clashing armies and picks among the ruins of a burning capital, he meets looters, British defectors, renegade slaves, a pregnant maiden in distress, and scoundrels of all types. Mad Boy is at once an antic adventure and a thoroughly convincing work of historical fiction that recreates a young nation’s first truly international conflict and a key moment in the history of the emancipation of African American slaves.
Entertaining, atmospheric, and touching, it is “a wartime coming-of-age story filled with nonstop action and genuine pathos” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

“This brilliant musket blast of a novel—in which the lucky reader will encounter falling cows, repurposed pickle barrels, fascinating schemes and fabulous schemers—is alive with humor, heat and heart. Mad Boy is a tremendous accomplishment. Nick Arvin is the real thing.”—Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome

The Philip K. Dick Award–winning sci-fi novel: “A riveting page-turner” about the behavior of primates—human and otherwise—“in a very near and dire future” (The Washington Post).

Winner of the 2019 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Speculative Fiction

One of The Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of fiction in 2018

In a world where coastal cities flood, dust storms plague the Midwest, and implants connect humans directly to the Web, Dr. Francine Burk has broken new ground in the study of primate sexuality. While in recovery from a long-needed surgery—paid for with a portion of her McArthur “genius” award money—Frankie is offered placement at a prestigious research institute where she can verify her subversive scientific discovery: her Theory of Bastards.
Leaving Manhattan for a research campus outside Kansas City, Frankie finds that the bonobos she’s studying are complex, with distinct personalities. She comes to know them with the help of her research partner, a man with a complicated past and perhaps a place in her future. But when the entire campus is caught in a sudden emergency, the lines between subject and scientist—and between colleague and companion—begin to blur.
Audrey Schulman Award–winning novel explores the nuances of communication, the implications of unquestioned technological advancement, and the enduring power of love in a way that is essential and urgent in today’s world.

A weary man faces the ghosts of his past while caring for his grandson in Naples in this National Book Award finalist novel by the acclaimed author of Ties.

In Trick, Domenico Starnone presents an unusual duel between two formidable minds. One is Daniele Mallarico, a once-successful illustrator who feels his artistic prowess fading. The other is Mario, Daniele’s four-year-old grandson. Daniele is living in virtual solitude in Milan when his daughter asks him to come to Naples to babysit Mario for a few days

Shut inside his childhood home—an apartment in the center of Naples that is filled with memoires of Daniele’s past—grandfather and grandson match wits as Daniele heads toward a reckoning with his own ambitions and life choices. Meanwhile, Naples pulses outside, a wily, passionate city whose influence can never be shaken.

As translator Jhumpa Lahiri says in her introduction, Tricks is “an extremely playful literary composition” by the Strega Prize–winning novelist whom many consider to be one of Italy’s greatest living writers.