Queen Anne Books

Shelf Awareness is an email newsletter "dedicated to helping the people in stores, libraries and on the Web buy, sell and lend books most wisely" (www.shelf-awareness.com). The news is timely and the reviews are always thoughtful, so I was very interested when Marilyn Dahl, the book review editor, explained how Water Ghosts (under the title Locke 1928) was first published by a small publishing house and reviewed by Marilyn in December 2007 where an agent saw the review and was duly impressed. He then contacted the author and learned there was an opportunity to resell the novel to another publisher. Penguin Press bought those rights and Water Ghosts goes on sale (again) April 20th. After all that -- I had to read the novel!

Water Ghosts starts with a kernel of truth. Locke, California is a town founded in 1915 by Chinese workers who worked the asparagus farms and pear orchards along the Sacramento River. The novel focuses on Richard Fong, the manager of the town's gambling parlor and the women he loves or who love him. Poppy See is the owner of the town's brothel and is also a seer. One of her "girls" is Chloe Howell, a young white teenager who showed up on her doorstep about to give birth. Poppy loves Richard, Richard loves Chloe. Already a little muddled, but their lives get a whole lot messier when the boat-women show up.

One afternoon, in the middle of the Dragon Boat Festival, a heavy mist comes up over the river. As the town watches the mist get closer to shore, a small boat is sighted carrying three women. The women appear ghostly -- half dead. And once ashore, one of the women asks for Richard for she is his wife who he left behind in China ten years before.

The story moves back and forth in time, between China and Locke; from 1908 to 1928. It is a window into an unknown piece (for me) of Chinese-American history. The writing is exquisite, mesmerizing, magical and disturbing. It is a book I had a very hard time putting down and which I highly recommend.
~Patti

When Neil Gaiman won the Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book, I decided it was high time I read some of his work. After some discussion with my coworkers, I decided his adult novel Neverwhere would be an excellent place to start.

This wonderful book starts out in London Above, the London we all know, following the fairly boring life of Richard Mayhew. But all that changes when Richard comes to the aid of a wounded girl lying on the sidewalk. Suddenly Richard does not exist in London Above anymore-- he seems invisible and is drawn into the dangerous and unknown world of London Below, an alternate world beneath. Richard joins Door, the girl he helped out on the street above, as she tries to discover who murdered her family; the Marquis of Carabas, a conniving man who trades services for big favors; and Hunter, a mysterious woman hired as a bodyguard. London Below is full of underground tunnels, hidden passageways, lost tube stations, speaking rats, sewer folk, and lots of dark, dangerous places. I totally got lost in this creative novel. What a wonderful imagination Neil Gaiman has!
~Mara

I may be the only person at Queen Anne Books who hasn't read the beloved "John Rain" series by Eisler, so I thought this new stand-alone thriller by the author might be the perfect introduction to the man. It only convinced me I need to go back and read the "Rain" series; what a terrifically entertaining writer! Alex Treven is an ambitious and smart young patent lawyer who may have found a way into the lucrative realm of Partnership in his firm. He has discovered the inventor of a new network encryption application which will bring him the necessary client base and billable hours to become a partner. The morning Alex and the inventor were to meet with a venture capitalist, the inventor is murdered. Then Alex discovers his contact in the patent office has also died under mysterious circumstances. Before he puts the pieces together, someone breaks into Alex's home to do him harm. Finally, Alex contacts Ben, his estranged brother who happens to be in a special undercover, black ops type of unit in the military. Ben has just finished up an assassination in Istanbul which did not go quite as planned so he agrees to head to Silicon Valley and look into Alex's problem.

This is a terrific thriller -- no question! But it is also a fascinating study of two brothers and how their lives took such different roads. Really enjoyable read.
~Patti

In the mood for a great English country house mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie? This classic, originally published in 1934, has just been republished by Sourcebooks. I've just spent quite a while online trying to see if this is part of a series, since it features a gentlemanly Inspector Harding of Scotland Yard who seems a likely recurring character. As yet, my investigations lead to just this one, but what a mystery it is!

The action takes place during a week at The Grange, the country house of General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith, a retired army man with quite a temper, and his lovely young second wife, Fay. The weekend's entertaining brings together an unlikely household: Miss Dinah Fawcett, Fay's fantastically smart and straightforward sister; the flirtatious Camilla Halliday and her long-suffering husband Basil; poetic son Geoffrey and his flamboyant cabaret-dancing Mexican fiancée Lola de Silva; Fay's loyal but frustrated lover-from-afar, Stephen Guest; the playboy nephew; the stodgy local clergyman and his wife; the matronly divorcée neighbor; not to mention the restrained butler and overdramatic servant girl.

Heyer’s lively characters, snappy dialogue, and hard-to-guess whodunnit make this an easy book for me to recommend. One chapter, in which the third person narration follows each person during preparations for dinner, was particularly striking as a cinematic and humorous literary masterstroke. I’m so excited to find a “new” classic author to follow who has more titles coming back to print. (Heyer also has delightful Regency romantic novels for fans of Jane Austen, so that’s something else to add to my must-read list.
~Tegan

This is not the typical book I pick up because it sounds like one of those "family relationships/skeletons in the closet" kind of novel. This beautiful novel is so much more.

After You've Gone is the story of Henry Dorn, a man born in the late 1800's in a fishing town in Nova Scotia. But more than anything, this is a story of people, of characters. Through Henry you learn about his Uncle George, a wise and important father figure to Henry. George, along with his brother Fred, are successful businessmen in their town running fishing boats and a mercantile where Henry got his first job. We get to know Euphemia, Henry's imposing, often unreasonable and strict mother.

We learn how Henry met his wife Olivia and how she introduced him to the pleasures of music and sensuality. His children become real and we ache along with Henry and Olivia when their son Robert gets whooping cough. After going back and forth in time to meet the important people in Henry's life, we come to the moment when everything changes: when Olivia and Robert, now a wounded veteran of the Great War, are killed in a traffic accident. A year and a half after the loss, Henry retires from teaching at the women's college he has taught at for so many years and takes a steamship to Holland where he intends to spend time in Amsterdam. On the cruise Henry meets Lydia, a firecracker of an independent woman: a woman who has pushed at societies boundaries her entire life.

This is a remarkable book -- not just for the beautiful and captivating writing; not just for the memorable characters I grew to know and care for; and not just for the weaving storyline which kept me pulling at the threads as though I were worrying a tatty sweater. This is a remarkable book because of all of that and the surprise that awaited me at the end.
~Patti

As many of you know by now, the staff of Queen Anne Books compiles a list of their favorite books every December. By assigning point values to each book, the "Queenie Award" is then given to our favorite book of the year. For 2008 that book was The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway and we are so excited to welcome Mr. Galloway to the store this month!

The Cellist of Sarajevo is an eloquent and compelling novel set during the Siege of Sarajevo which lasted from 1992 to 1996 where it is estimated 10,000 people were killed and 56,000 injured. This novel was inspired by a local cellist who played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor at the site of a mortar attack which resulted in 22 deaths and wounded many more (and was witnessed by the cellist).

I vividly remember watching the news about the Bosnian war and the Siege of Sarajevo but what I actually remember are the labels given to the different peoples: Muslim, Croat, Bosnian, Serb. Those labels not only confused me, but they depersonalized the war and tragedy by making it seem so foreign. And that is one reason Galloway's novel is so powerful. He removes the labels instead referring to 'Sarajevans' and 'the men in the hills' who are sniping at the city dwellers. He brings the war to a personal level by writing about a young woman who has taken the name Arrow and who has become a skilled sniper. By writing about a baker, who is so grateful for his job which provides some food, but who everyday must dodge sniper fire just to get to work. By writing about a young father who must make a dangerous journey across town, including 'sniper alley,' just to find potable water. And by writing about a cellist who uses the magic of his music to honor just of few of the innocent victims of war.

Beautifully written and now out in paperback, please join us in welcoming this talented and thoughtful writer.
~Patti