Erika Swyler recommends
A Short Walk Through a Wide World (2024)Douglas Westerbeke"That rare book that immediately becomes a dear friend... beautiful... This is a novel that asks what it is to love the world, and what it is for the world to love us. A grand adventure that begs to be revisited again and again"Island Rule (2024)Katie M Flynn"A wonderfully eerie collection, Island Rule haunts and delights. Flynn's writing is taught and teeming, making a world of bone mounds and monsters as alarmingly real as teenage angst and midlife crises. The creeping darkness of Island Rule revels in exploring darkness at the edges of our world, and what happens when we invite it in." Shoot the Moon (2023)Isa Arsén"A uniquely tender and beautiful book.....A novel of wonder and in-betweens that asks us to consider grief, hope, love, and ambition in equal measure." Edith Holler (2023)Edward Carey"Edith Holler is a masterpiece. Carey's prose teems with wonderfully twisted humor and play, breathing life into the spirits that haunt its gothic framework. It is that special novel that makes you wonder why there aren't more like it. The answer, of course, is that there is just one Edward Carey. Edith Holler is singular - a dark delight from beginning to end" Not Alone (2023)Sarah K Jackson"Tense, brutal, and tender, Not Alone cuts to the core of how and why we survive. Jackson gives readers a truly harrowing adventure about the pull of light in the darkest hour." Singer Distance (2022)Ethan Chatagnier"An achingly beautiful look at living in the shadow of genius, science, math, and loving the difficult to love. Chatagnier looks at the sky and people with equal wonder, and the result is deeply moving. Singer Distance is a book for readers of Sagan, lovers of paradoxes, anyone who has ever looked up. This truly gorgeous novel will live with me for a long time." How High We Go in the Dark (2022)Sequoia Nagamatsu"Gorgeous, terrifying, compassionate. With funerary skyscrapers, a generation ship painted with history, and a pyramid of souls reaching for light, How High We Go in the Dark is both powerful and original. Nagamastu elegantly dissects disaster with an eye toward empathy and curiosity. At this book's center is a great big, beautiful heart. An exceptional accomplishment that left me equal parts hope and wonder." A History of Wild Places (2021)Shea Ernshaw"Dark and atmospheric, A History of Wild Places is a twisting, engrossing delight. Ernshaw’s skillful mix of mystery, psychological thriller, and paranormal-tinged drama keeps the ground shifting beneath her characters and readers. What a wonderful rabbit hole to fall down." The Chosen and the Beautiful (2021)Nghi Vo"A sumptuous novel that tangles with race, magic, sexuality, and class. Nghi Vo creates a world that drips with champagne and magic, where outsider’s views are the only ones that matter, and it's impossible to be sure who is or is not other. It’s bold to play in the realm of The Great Gatsby and Vo’s acerbic Jordan Baker is the perfect woman to do it." The Rock Eaters (2021)Brenda Peynado"This book. This beautiful, fierce, tender, aching, and glorious book. The Rock Eaters has the range, depth, art, and humanity that is short fiction at its peak. These are stories that demand you sit and breathe after finishing. From rocks that hold sorrow to hands and arms that stretch forever, Peynado's voice is singular. An extraordinary collection." A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray (2021)Dominique Barbéris"A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray is an exquisite inquiry into the nature of longing. Atmospheric, eloquent, and tinged with danger, it’s the perfect way to spend a Sunday. Simply, I loved this book." The Lost Apothecary (2021)Sarah Penner"Dark, clever, and wickedly fun, The Lost Apothecary is a true page-turner. Sarah Penner has given us a puzzle box of women's lives, betrayal, power, and history. It's a book that slyly asks what any of us deserve and if, sometimes, that might not be a little poison." Body of Stars (2021)Laura Maylene Walter"Body of Stars sparks with tenderness and beauty, and Walter’s writing on the female body is genuine art. A thought-provoking exploration of fate and forced binaries, this is a book that lingers." The Upstairs House (2021)Julia Fine"The Upstairs House is a haunting that truly haunts. Julia Fine’s writing is sharp, dark, and delightfully twisty. A totally absorbing, fiercely feminist read that keenly dissects not just a psychological break, but the identities of and impossibilities for the women at its heart. This is a book that lingers." The Once and Future Witches (2020)Alix E Harrow"Harrow has created a gorgeous world of magic that is at once familiar and startlingly new. With lush writing and a sense of wonder, The Ten Thousand Doors of January examines power, progress, and identity. It is an adventure in the best and grandest sense." The Animals at Lockwood Manor (2020)Jane Healey"Jane Healey has created an eerie puzzle box of a book and a gothic in the tradition’s best sense. A fading great house filled with taxidermy is the perfect backdrop for Healey’s facile atmospheric prose, which brings to mind both Sarah Waters and Sarah Perry. Tense, broody, romantic and subversive, The Animals of Lockwood Manor is a deeply consuming read and a fantastic novel to get lost in." Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts (2019)Tuesday Mooney Wore Black
(Tuesday Mooney, book 1)Kate Racculia"Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is so much fun it should be criminal. A mystery hidden in a game, hidden in a romp around Boston, with intrigue, a little romance, and a ghost? Perfection. Racculia has a gift for both humor and creating deeply relatable oddballs. Genuinely funny, whip-smart, and at times profound, it is a novel that reminds us both of the pure joy of play, and the importance of finding people who matter." Westside (2019)(Westside , book 1)W M Akers"A fascinating, delightfully twisty mystery. Westside crosses prohibition-era New York with the dark strangeness of Neverwhere. Fierce young detective Gilda Carr makes you believe that small mysteries hold the answers to everything." Things in Jars (2019)Jess Kidd"A perfect mix of hilarity, the macabre, and a touch of romance, THINGS IN JARS is ridiculously entertaining, all as it sneaks up and makes you feel things. Would that more books had such daring. The language is perfection. Simply: Jess Kidd is so good it isn't fair." Invitation to a Bonfire (2018)Adrienne Celt"A dangerously seductive and viciously smart read. Celt proves herself a master of form, effortlessly moving from the punch of noir to the sumptuousness of Nabokov. She is a writer to envy." Hanna Who Fell from the Sky (2017)Christopher Meades"Beautiful and delicate, Meades has written a powerful meditation on how we define ourselves, the gift and cruelty of faith, and the redemptive act of storytelling. A gorgeous blend of dreamy folklore and gritty reality." Visitors also looked at these authors
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