Mending: New and Selected Stories / by Sallie Bingham

Although a middle-aged woman's life is consumed by doctor's appointments which do little more than offer emotional reassurance, it's the only way she can receive intimacy, and, in effect, the only way to "mend" her damaged soul. Two sisters, the eldest one which escaped the downtrodden family farm years ago and the younger one that didn't, talk about what's to be done with it now that their mother's succumbed to cancer. Ignoring her younger sister Shirley's emotional bond to the plot of land which she's been a part of all her life, the elder Miriam spares no tact in talking up her intentions of selling it all to the realtors, even envisioning her plan for the perfect cottage community. On another dying family farm, a capricious widow, still grieving the loss of her teenage daughter as well as her husband, hires a family of Haitian refugees against the will of her semi-bigoted land manager. Amid obvious discomfiture and through nearly impregnable language and cultural barriers, the more subtle admonitions of each's feelings about the other steadily bridge the communication gap, ultimately augmenting the perpetually tenuous social situation and initiating a serendipitous kind of connection.

Born and raised on a farm in Kentucky, literature professor, author, poet and playwright Sallie Bingham has spent much of her life in New York City, amid frequent trips to New Mexico, and has been married three times. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and Southwest Review and been featured in several anthologies and collections like this one which includes 5 new stories as well as sampling of her earlier work. Perhaps classified as a mildly feminist author with a realistic voice similar to Joyce Carol Oates or Margaret Atwood, Bingham also has something of Chekhov in her prose, a steady, astute in-the-moment type of voice, economically deconstructing the scene in any given situation and presenting a masterfully dissected arrangement of people and feelings. With striking swiftness, the reader gets to know the principal characters--who they are, where they've been and (to some degree) what they'll do next--in a manner that's at once abrupt and palpable. It's a fun experience, worthy of its praise. (FIC BINGHAM)

Caribbean Fiction

In The Name of Salome: A Novel / by Julia Alvarez

The life of Salome Urena, called the “Emily Dickinson of the Dominican Republic”, begins in 1850 when she’s born into a country undergoing intense political upheaval and cultural tension. A brilliant writer with a beautifully poetic soul, Salome is only 17 when she publishes her first set of captivatingly patriotic poems instantly transforming her into a national icon. But her fame comes at a price, as witnessed by the travails of her and her daughter Camila later in life. (FIC ALVAREZ)

Island Beneath The Sea / by Isabel Allende

In 1700, Zariete is born a slave in Haiti (then called Saint-Domingue) and soon bought by plantation owner Toulouse Valmorain. Though a reasonable master, Toulouse is soon consumed by the complications of plantation life where it seems the only means to make a profit is through brutality and oppression. Things change quickly when, following Overture’s legendary slave revolt, Zariete and Toulouse are forced to escape with their two children, had illegitimately, to the bawdy streets of New Orleans and a new and different life. (FIC ALLENDE)

The Dew Breaker / by Edwidge Danticat

In modern times, “the Dew Breaker” is seen by those around his Brooklyn neighborhood as a quiet, kind family man and upstanding citizen. But in his former life in Haiti, he was a brutally violent individual, a ‘torturer’ and murderer of many, his vulgar bloodlust virtually knew no end. Jumping back and forth through time, the dual lives of the man known as the Dew Breaker resonates at a particularly keen level, showing how the past contributes to the present and some men are never as they seem. (FIC DANTICAT)
 

Beautiful Maria of My Soul: Or The True Story of Maria Garcia y Cifuentes, the Lady Behind A Famous Song: A Novel / by Oscar Hijuelos

Maria Garcia y Cifuentes is the jewel of post-WWII Havana. A poor girl who has risen to prominence through her distinguished beauty, she can be seen everywhere from advertisements in magazines, dancing in nightclub hotspots and walking the streets on the arm of one of the city’s richest and most powerful businessmen. But it’s all come at a very high price, one which becomes even costlier with the onset of the Cuban revolution. ‘Beautiful Maria’ is a sequel to Hijuelos’ Pulitzer winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. (FIC HIJUELOS)
 

The Book of Night Women / by Marlon James

In early 19th century Jamaica, slave Lilith is both feared and ostracized for her fiery green eyes which immediately set her apart from others on the plantation. But after killing a slave driver who tries to rape her, Lilith catches the attention of the Night Women, a secret society plotting a rebellion against the plantation owners. Soon a plan of action towards revolt is put into motion with Lilith squarely in the middle of things. (FIC JAMES)

Annie John / by Jamaica Kincaid

On the island of Antigua, 10-year-old Annie John lives with her mother and attends the local grammar school for girls. In the succeeding years as Annie reaches adolescence and womanhood as well as the recognition of her growing clinical depression. With time, she’s propelled toward the critical decision of whether to depart from her home and native culture or remain near the family and heritage she loves. (FIC KINCAID)
 

He Drown She In The Sea / by Shani Mootoo

On the Caribbean island of Guanagaspar (fictional), half-caste Harry St. George falls hopelessly in love with wealthy society girl Rose, the daughter of his mother’s employer. Doomed to love her from afar throughout adolescence and into early adulthood, Harry is forced to forget about her when he moves to Canada. But fate brings them together again when Rose also relocates to the same Canadian city. Can their love bloom now that the social divides have changed? (FIC MOOTOO)

A House for Mr. Biswas / by V.S. Naipaul
Born to Indian immigrants on the British colonial island of Trinidad, Mohun Biswas has been declared something of a bad seed since birth, a local Hindu prophet stating that he’d soon be the downfall of his parents and a constant bane to the local Indian community. Knowing this, Mohun has always yearned for a place to live, a place he can call his own even though it’s evident that luck is never on his side. But with his plucky initiative, it’s clear that Mr. Biswas is one islander who won’t be put down by obstacles. (FIC NAIPAUL)

Prospero’s Daughter / by Elizabeth Nunez

In this retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, fugitive English doctor Peter Gardner has managed to abscond with his three-year-old daughter, Virginia, to a small island off the coast of Trinidad. Befriending them there is five-year-old native boy Carlos who gradually entwines himself into the lives of the two new arrivals. (FIC NUNEZ)

Broken Paradise: A Novel / by Cecilia Samartin

In Cuba of 1956, cousins Nora and Alicia are members of the privileged class enjoying a life of lavish parties, fine dining and idyllic days at the beach. But in the coming years, as revolution washes over the island and Fidel Castro oversees the removal of aristocratic advantages, Nora and Alicia are forced to depart ways with Nora emigrating to America and Alicia staying behind. As the years then decades pass, the two keep in touch, each remembering a past gone forever amid an always uncertain present. (FIC SAMARTIN)
 

The Feast of the Goat / by Mario Vargas Llosa

In the final days of the Trujillo regime, the dictator himself goes about his business, seemingly waiting patiently for his impending assassination. Meanwhile his Secretary of State has sequestered himself and his family into self-imposed exile in another country. Nearly thirty years later the former secretary’s youngest daughter, Urania, returns to her birthplace to confront the after effects of her home country. (FIC VARGASLL)

Natural Disaster Fiction

City of Refuge: A Novel / by Tom Piazza

In the steamy heat of late summer, two New Orleans families, each from different backgrounds make preparations as Hurricane Katrina approaches. SJ Williams, a self-employed carpenter and widower, lives in the city's Lower Ninth Ward with his sister and nephew while across town Craig Donaldson, a midwestern transplant lured by the city's music and culture, faces deepening cracks in his own family who want to move back to Minnesota. But the hurricane’s arrival is only the beginning as each family struggles to come to terms with the reality of lives uprooted. (FIC PIAZZA)

Blown Away / by Sharon Sala

When Cari North stumbles across her ex-fiance Lance Morgan digging a grave in the swampy Louisiana woods, she knows something’s not quite right. Now suspecting the truth, that Lance may have murdered someone, Cari flees the scene only to encounter a tornado spawned by a hurricane right in her path. Just when she thinks she's home free, Cari finds that the storm has swept in another twist of fate, one that will change her fate--forever. This is the first book in Sala’s “Storm Front” series. (FIC SALA)

Deep Freeze / by Thom Racina
Only the most unusual of natural disasters could disrupt the normally unremitting course of daily activity in Southern California, a place which is, after all, used to routine floods, mudslides, earthquakes, brush fires, even swarms of Africanized Honeybees. But a winter storm of mass proportions does that, making roads impassable, freezing swimming pools into blocks of ice and generally creating a frenzied atmosphere bordering on mayhem for all sectors of society. (FIC RACINA)

Avalanche: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery / by Patrick F. McManus
When luxury ski lodge owner Mike Wilson goes missing, Blight County (ID) Sheriff Bo Tully suspects that Wilson is probably just off on another fling. But, doing his duty, Tully drives up to the lodge anticipating an easy missing persons case only to meet an oncoming avalanche head-on. Now stuck at the lodge, after having just barely made it safe inside, Tully finds there may be more to Mike’s disappearance than he originally thought. (MYS MCMANUS)

One Amazing Thing / by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Nine strangers are caught together in a passport and visa office one afternoon when a violent earthquake rips through area, trapping all of them inside. As the office begins to flood and the struggle for survival becomes intensified, all begin to share pieces of themselves, emotionally uplifting tidbits from their own lives to life morale. As their surprising stories of love, loss and self-revelation unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression helps them cope with time running out. (FIC DIVAKARU)

Acts of Nature / by Jonathon King
Private Eye Max Freeman and his girlfriend, Detective Sherry Richards have relocated to the Florida Everglades to be much needed R&R. It's the kind of life they've looked forward to for a while with no TV, no phones, no neighbors. But with the arrival of a devastating hurricane, more than just their little piece of paradise is uprooted as Sherry is severely injured and with no means of calling for help, the couple begins a treacherous trip back to civilization only to run in to some thoroughly undesirable characters who've been uprooted as well. (MYS KING)

Ark / by Stephen Baxter
In the not-so-distant future, life on planet earth lies on the brink of extinction after a massive flood submerged nearly everything. In a last ditch attempt to secure the survival of mankind, two specially designed space crafts, Ark One and Ark Two, have been designed to transport survivors to another life-sustaining planet many light years away. Holle Groundwater is one of the chosen few who've been trained since childhood for destiny and is finally ready to embark on her destiny when she uncovers a secret revealing that escaping earth may be a more dangerous task than remaining behing on a drowning planet. (SF BAXTER)

New Humorous Fiction

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones / by Alexander McCall Smith
A quirky set of circumstances is currently underway at 44 Scotland St. where six-year-old Bertie is trying to get out of the cub scouts, Domenica tries to cure her loneliness, and bachelor Cyril falls helplessly in love with a sexy model.

Nanny Returns: A Novel / by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
It’s been twelve years since Nan Hutchinson left her nanny job with the formidable Mr. & Mrs. X and their darling but neglected son Grayer. Now married, Nan returns to Manhattan to try and rescue Grayer and his younger brother Stilton from their cold, soulless home life.

Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’easter / by Lisa Patton
Southern Belle and prototypical daddy’s girl agrees to follow her husband, Baker, from their Memphis home to Vermont where he plans to own and operate a small country inn. But when Baker leaves her for another woman, Leelee must face a world of sudden change and transition she never anticipated.

The Pint Man: A Novel / by Steven Rushin
Sportswriter and veteran journalist Rushin pens his first novel about an aimless, jobless barfly. Rodney Poole is an unemployed and unambitious middle-aged man who spends most of his time at a New York City bar until he meets a mysterious woman who seems to actually like him.

Callisto: A Novel / by Torsen Krol
Odell Deefus of Yoder, Wyoming is a big dumb Hick who, feeling his life is going nowhere in Yoder, plans to enlist in the army. But before he can even sign up, a wacky incident involving his pickup truck sets off a zany string of far-out capers with hilarious consequences.

How to Rob an Armored Car / by Iain Levison
Three hapless youths who are fed up with their dismal lives in a rundown Pennsylvania coal town decide to steal a car, an act setting off a string of further mischief and mayhem for the bumbling amateur criminals.

A Bump in the Road: From Happy Hour to Baby Shower / by Maureen Lipinski

Party girl Claire Finnegan loves a good time, always ready and willing for a night on the town accompanied by some strong elixirs. But after finding out she’s pregnant, how can all her old habits be subdued in favor of a less cosmopolitan lifestyle.