Turns out, the lady was a fake. Published in 1973, the sensational bestselling story about a woman with sixteen personalities — which later became a movie starring Sally Field — always seemed terrifying but somewhat implausible. Debbie Nathan reveals the incredible hoax perpetrated by the three main characters: the patient, the shrink, and the journalist who wrote the fabricated story. Lives were ruined, and it’s hard to tell who’s nuttier, the inmates or those running the asylum.
Available at amazon.com, $17.
Alice Hoffman’s new novel is set in Masada, a mountain town in ancient Israel where 900 Jews held out for months against the Roman army before committing a mass suicide in 70 A.D. Only two women and five children eventually survived. Hoffman weaves the bizarre history of Masada with the stories of four women who worked with the mountain’s doves. Expect magical realism, historic tragedy, and beautiful but bleak imagery: all classic Hoffman, without too much wand waving.
Available at amazon.com, $17.
L.A. journalist Héctor Tobar’s heroine, illegal immigrant Araceli, tends to the cooking and cleaning for an affluent family in sunny Southern California. When the economy wrecks the family’s finances and marriage, Araceli takes the couple’s accidentally abandoned boys on a quest to find their estranged grandfather. We love Tobar’s sharp, brainy details and twisting plot in which everyone gets what they have coming.
Available at amazon.com, $16.
REAMDE is an online virus run amok in Neal Stephenson’s action-packed techno thriller about a multiplayer online video game that turns against its human creator. Fasten your seatbelt and speed through the 1,000-page romp through global mayhem. The story’s nearly ten separate plots somehow come together in one epic ending. A fun note: Because of all the gunpower, Stephenson had to employ a ballistics copy editor (who knew?).
Available at amazon.com, $21.
“These things happen all the time. You catch a stranger’s eye, for a moment too long, and then you look away.” Thus goes the first interaction between married-to-others Gina and Sean. Set in Dublin and crafted by Irish Booker Prize winner Anne Enright, the story of their obsessive, passionate affair seduced us from the start and made us complicit in the wreckage that followed.
Available at amazon.com, $16.
Thirteen-year-old Nellie Peck, the heroine of Mary McGarry Morris’s new novel, is a spunky cross between Harper Lee’s Scout and Harriet the Spy. Morris, who delighted us with Songs in Ordinary Time, spins a haunting coming-of-age story that weaves in secrets, betrayals, and a brutal crime. Lesson learned: Eavesdropping on the private conversations of adults can reveal truths even they fail to recognize.
Available at amazon.com, $16.
Zombie lit for the cerebral crowd? Colson Whitehead thrills and chills with his literary telling of a pandemic-ruined Manhattan littered with two kinds of leftover humans: the uninfected and the infected (a.k.a. the living and the living dead). Read with the lights on and prepare for Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder.
Available at amazon.com, $14.
You know you want to press your nose up against the windows of those fabulous Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, and Bel Air megamansions. Author Michael Gross gets you access with his juicy, secret history of L.A.’s wealthiest, glitziest, over-the-top enclaves. Get behind-the-scenes details of the lurid luminaries of La La Land with an engaging read that starts with the mob history of Beverly Park.
Available at amazon.com, $18.
Airline pilot Chip Linton relocates his family to northern New Hampshire after ditching his jet in Lake Champion in Chris Bohjalian’s genre-blending psychological thrill ride. Thirty-nine passengers die — the same number of bolts sealing a door in the dusty basement of Linton’s Victorian home. Warning: Ghosts, witches, and deranged herbalists will haunt your dreams; think American Horror Story on paper.
Available at amazon.com, $14.
Kimberly Cutter brings Jehanne d’Arc to life, complete with the visions, voices, courage, and superpowers she used to persuade thousands to follow her into battle to save her beloved France from the English army. Cutter’s Joan is conflicted, the battles are gory, and the ending — well, you know how it ends: The 19-year-old Maid of Orleans is burned at the stake for heresy.
Available at amazon.com, $17.
Turn the page on Cissy Patterson, the debutante who became the powerful Washington Times-Herald publisher in the 1930s. D.C. writer Amanda Smith delves into the scandals and excitement surrounding Patterson, who was described as “probably the most powerful and perhaps the most hated woman” in America. It’s hard to say no to that.
Available at amazon.com, $25.
Bonnie Nadzam would rather you didn’t compare her debut novel to Lolita. But you won’t be able to stop yourself. In the book, a middle-age man seduces an 11-year-old girl. It’s unnerving and haunting, and everything you think a child abduction might be — and then not that at all. The author claims that the age difference between the characters “is not that essential,” but we disagree. We held our breath from paragraph to paragraph and often couldn’t bear to turn the page.
Available at amazon.com, $12.
Hillary Jordan’s second novel is a stunning retelling of The Scarlet Letter. It’s set in a not-too-distant future where there is no separation of church and state, abortion is illegal, and convicted felons don’t go to prison, but are injected with a substance that genetically alters their skin color according to their crime. Hannah Payne is Hester Prynne — and every inch of her body is as red as a stop sign. It’s an uncomfortable and often dangerous life, but Hannah’s not totally alone in her struggle to survive.
Available at amazon.com, $16.
Nelson is a three-legged beagle/poodle who travels the country on a quest to find his way back to previous owner Katey, the great love of his life. Alan Lazar, a platinum-selling musician/composer slumming as a debut novelist, writes in a way that is as joyous and sorrowful as a song. Original music from the author accompanies the charming portrayal of one loyal dog’s grand adventure — but he had us at beagle/poodle.
Available at amazon.com, $14.
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