BENGALURU: The Burning Girl
By Claire Messud
Pages: 256
Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship.
The Burning Girl is a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about youth and friendship, and straddles, expertly, childhood’s imaginary worlds and painful adult reality—crafting a true, immediate portrait of female adolescence.Claire Messud is as accomplished at weaving a compelling fictional world as she is at asking the big questions: To what extent can we know ourselves and others? What are the stories we create to comprehend our lives and relationships?
Seeing Red
By Sandra Brown
Pages: 432
Kerra Bailey is a TV journalist hot on the trail of a story guaranteed to skyrocket her career to new heights. Twenty-five years ago, Major Franklin Trapper became a national icon when he was photographed leading a handful of survivors to safety after the bombing of a Dallas hotel. For years, he gave frequent speeches and interviews but then suddenly dropped out of the public eye, shunning all media.
Now Kerra is willing to use any means necessary to get an exclusive with the Major—even if she has to secure an introduction from his estranged son, former ATF agent John Trapper. Trapper wants no association with the bombing or the Major. Yet Kerra’s hints that there’s more to the story rousing
Trapper’s interest despite himself.
Polyester Prince
By Hayley B James
Pages: 214
Kyle Edington built his life around clubs, alcohol, nameless sex, and turning a blind eye to his future, but having front row access to his best friend’s perfect relationship leaves him wanting something he doesn’t understand. After an ankle injury hinders his plans for PrideFest and puts his day job selling furniture at risk, Kyle attends Pride anyway to cheer himself up.
Leaving his crutches at home was a mistake, though, and he’s shoved off balance and hits his head. A bike officer keeps him safe until the paramedics arrive. Kyle’s memory of the event is foggy. He doesn’t recall the name or face of his guardian angel, but he definitely remembers the finest polyester-covered ass in all of Albuquerque. But when he goes in search of his polyester prince, Kyle realizes relationships take hard work.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
By John Boyne
Pages: 582
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery, that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from and over his many years will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more. In this, Boyne’s most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man.