Can't Wait To Read!
Welcome to today's guest author Janet McNally (Girls in the Moon and The Looking Glass) who is highlighting recently or soon to be released books. If you're an author, and would like to curate a future Can't Wait to Read, contact susanna@spinemagazine.co. Readers, we encourage you to visit your local library or bookstore and take a look at these new titles.
Stacey Lee, The Downstairs Girl
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, August 13, 2019. Stacey is a friend of mine, and I’ve loved and taught both of her historical young adult novels. I’m always blown away by the way she can open a door into the past and give us a completely compelling protagonist to guide us. Her books are clever, warm, and funny, and this story of a seventeen-year-old lady’s maid and secret advice columnist in 1890’s Atlanta promises to be a great read.
Tea Obreht, Inland
Random House, August 13, 2019. Tea Obreht’s first book, The Tiger’s Wife, counts as one of my most magical reading experiences ever. This one is told in two perspectives—Nora, a tough frontierswoman and mother, and Lurie, an outlaw who can see the dead. I bet we can expect Obreht’s trademark lyrical language and sense of wonder.
Kate Atkinson, Big Sky
Little, Brown and Company, June 25, 2019. I thought we’d never get another Jackson Brodie mystery, but the universe is kind sometimes. One great thing about this series (this is the fifth book Atkinson has written about the * private investigator) is that it revolves through a cast of characters, chapter by chapter, and only as you read on do you see the brilliant ways they intertwine. Atkinson’s novels are a master class in character development, even if I do have to get my friend Harriet to translate some of the Britishisms from time to time.
Brittany Cavallaro and Emily Henry, Hello Girls
Katherine Tegen Books, August 6, 2019. Bri and Emily are also friends of mine (yes, much of my reading material comes from writer friends) and I’m so looking forward to reading this novel, the first where they’ve combined forces. If I know anything about the way these two write, this story of two teenaged best friends on the run (a little nod to Thelma and Louise) will explore some hard topics with a big heart.
Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Random House, August 6, 2019. Jia Tolentino is one of my favorite essayists at the moment (she’s a staff writer for the New Yorker), and I love the way she examines American culture with an often humorous but always unflinching eye. I can’t help but think about the way the internet has rewritten my brain, and Tolentino is out to address that question. She also writes about the way each of us constructs our sense of self in our current world, where much of what we put out to the world is curated and purposeful.
Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone
Riverhead Books, September 17, 2019. Woodson is one of my favorite writers, and her Another Brooklyn was one of my favorite novels of the past few years. This one, out in September, sounds like it has what I’ve come to love from her: a deep examination of a family, shifting around in time to reveal its secrets and struggles.
Janet McNally is author of the young adult novels Girls in the Moon and The Looking Glass (HarperCollins), and a collection of poems, Some Girls, winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. She has an MFA from the University of Notre Dame, and has twice been a fiction fellow with the New York Foundation for the Arts. Janet teaches creative writing at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York.