The Reader's Shelf

From Library Journal

A Strange Magic:  Debuts in Magical Realism

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street By Pulley, Natasha 2015-07 - Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 9781620408339 Check Our Catalog In 1884, Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his London apartment to find a new watch on his pillow. But he has bigger things to worry about than generous burglars; he is a telegraphist at the Home Office, where he has just received a bomb threat. Six months later, the watch saves his life, warning him of a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. At last, he goes in search of its maker. …More

The Gracekeepers By Logan, Kirsty 2015-05 - Crown Publishing Group (NY) 9780553446616 Check Our Catalog For readers of "The Night Circus" and "Station Eleven," a lyrical and absorbing debut set in a world covered by water As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, laying the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean. Alone on her island, she has exiled herself to a life of tending watery graves as penance for a long-ago mistake that still haunts her. …More

The Book of Speculation By Swyler, Erika 2015-06 - St. Martin's Press 9781250054807 Check Our Catalog ""Dear Mr. Watson, ""I came across this book at auction as part of a larger lot I purchased on speculation. The damage renders it useless to me, but a name inside it--Verona Bonn--led me to believe it might be of interest to you or your family...."" " " " "Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home--a house, …More

The Bookseller By Swanson, Cynthia 2015-03 - Harper 9780062333001 Check Our Catalog A mesmerizingly powerful debut novel about the ways in which past choices can irrevocably define the present--and the bittersweet confrontation of what might have been 1962: It may be the Swinging Sixties in New York, but in Denver it's different: being a single gal over thirty in this city is almost bohemian. Still, thirty-eight-year-old Kitty Miller has come to terms with her unconventional …More

Wildalone By Zourkova, Krassi 2015-01 - William Morrow & Company 9780062328021 Check Our Catalog In this darkly imaginative debut novel full of myth, magic, romance, and mystery, a Princeton freshman is drawn into a love triangle with two enigmatic brothers and discovers terrifying secrets about her family and herself--a bewitching blend of Twilight, The Secret History, Jane Eyre, and A Discovery of Witches For every world, there is an underworld. Arriving at Princeton for her …More

The Night Circus By Morgenstern, Erin 2011-09 - Doubleday Books 9780385534635 Check Our Catalog Awards: Alex Awards (2012), Locus Awards (2012), Nutmeg Book Award (2014) To enter the black-and-white-striped tents of Le Cirque des Reves is to enter a world where objects really do turn into birds and people really do disappear. Even though visitors believe the performances are all illusion, they are obsessively drawn to this extraordinary night circus. Those who run and perform in the circus are its lifeblood. Marco Alisdair runs the operation from London as …More