Young Adult: The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress

Author, actor and director Adrienne Kress (Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, Timothy and the Dragon’s Gate) attacks her first young adult novel with cinematic verve. In her newest book, Kress delivers a high-spirited study of the nature of heroism at the hands of a trio of girls in a steampunk world.

The Friday Society (Dial) brings us lab assistant Cora, magician’s assistant Nellie and Michiko,

Fiction: Tiger Rag by Nicholas Christopher

You know it’s going to be a good year in fiction when the very first book you read in the year has the fine, sweet notes of Nicholas Christopher’s searing and beautiful Tiger Rag (Dial Press).

Jazz myths loom large in Tiger Rag, a book that is at least thinly based on  the life of jazz legend Buddy Bolden. I say “thinly” because, truly, not a lot is known about Bolden. His star burned hot, swift

New Today: Invisible by Carla Buckley

Carla Buckley’s particular blend of domestic drama and suburban suspense is quickly building her a staunch following. Her debut novel, The Things That Keep Us Here, was widely lauded and broadly acclaimed. Her sophomore effort, Invisible (Bantam) promises to please those earlier fans with a tale of secrets in a small town and the lives they hold there.

Sisters Dana and Julie were separated by a

Holiday Gift Guide: Seeing Red: The True Story of Blood by Tanya Lloyd Kyi

Many parents of kids with active brains are familiar with Tanya Lloyd Kyi’s work. Kyi’s writing is sharp and her topics are targeted, and betray both the author’s own natural curiosity as well as a way of writing for children that manages to be calm, informative and interesting all at once.

Her most recent book, Seeing Red: The True Story of Blood (Annick Press), is a perfect example.
Blood

New This Week: Ison of the Isles by Carolyn Ives Gilman

In 2011, I was captivated by Carolyn Ives Gilman’s introduction to the Forsaken Isles. While choosing the book as one of my top reads of the year, I said that “Isles of the Forsaken is not one of those works of fantasy that you just fall into. Like some of the very best of the genre, you really have to work at it for a while to discover the richness. It’s a whole new world, after all. One with

New Today: Gossip by Beth Gutcheon

Beth Gutcheon’s ninth novel is rock solid, old-school character driven storytelling. Readers who recall and enjoyed the best of Judith Krantz and Erica Jong will appreciate Gutcheon’s voice and stance in Gossip (William Morrow), a novel that explores the reaches and holds of friendship. How we gain it, how we hang to it and how, under the right circumstances -- or the wrong ones -- we can exploit

Fiction: Puppy Love by Frauke Scheunemann

Readers who loved Garth Stein’s very charming The Art of Racing in the Rain from 2008 will likely also be charmed by Puppy Love, out now from Anansi in Canada and Atlantic in the US. Published to warm and wide acclaim in Germany as Dackelblick in 2010, a book Scheunemann followed up a year later with Katzenjammer, wherein the rescued star of Puppy Love gets a four-legged housemate.But I’m getting

New in Paperback: The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

Southern fiction has its own smooth rhythms. You can feel this along with the smokey hues of the new South in the work of New York Times bestselling Sarah Addison Allen. Her most recent book, 2011’s The Peach Keeper (Bantam), is a memorable example of the best of the type of fiction that this author is becoming known for.Secrets long hidden come to light in the garden of a grand home built by one

Holiday Gift Guide: Roadsworth by Roadsworth with Bethany Gibson

I want Roadsworth to come to my city. I want him to spawn a movement and encourage others everywhere to take up his special brush. It seems that Montreal, or parts of it, anyway, are much more beautiful due to his slightly subversive art.I say “slightly” because it maybe isn’t as subversive as it once was, but even then it was pretty. In 2001, his art started appearing on the streets of Montreal.

Holiday Gift Guide: The Wizard of Oz: A Scanimation Book by Rufus Butler Seder

There’s something charmingly nostalgic and convincingly high tech about artist, inventor and filmmaker Rufus Butler Seder’s Scanimation books. Take his interpretation of The Wizard of Oz (Workman) for instance. It is, in all ways, a perfect little package. A delight. Even before you open the book, the glittery red of Dorothy’s shoes glints at you from the cover. But then you do open the book,

New in Paperback: The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen

Rebecca Rasmussen’s debut novel earlier this year was one of those quiet arrivals that seems to build on its own steam. A scant seven months later, Rasmussen is poised on the brink of something huge and the gorgeous new paperback -- out today from Broadway Books -- reminds readers that the book is a Ladies’ Home Journal Book Club pick. It’s also been selected for the Target Emerging Authors

Art & Culture: Everyday Eden: 100+ Fun, Green Garden Projects for the Whole Family to Enjoy by Christina Symons and John Gillespie

When it comes to gift giving, Everyday Eden (Harbour) is on a par with the best of travel and food books. Whether or not your giftee has any intention of gardening (or traveling or cooking) sometimes it’s nice to just curl up with a great book on the subject and imagine what profound change you could manifest in your life… if only the weather would change and you could pry yourself out of your

SF/F: All Men of Genius by Lev AC Rosen

Lev AC Rosen’s debut is smart, thoughtful and even oddly timely. An intelligent, muscular work of steampunk with a strong central female character and a full load of steam. A great balance and a perfect mix.Violet Adams is a genius. A brilliant inventor and maven of all things mechanical, she wants nothing more than to attend London’s prestigious Illyria College, a scientific academy. But since

New Next Week: The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay

Those who were enchanted by Ami McKay’s 2006 debut, The Birth House, have been anxiously awaiting her sophomore effort. It feels like it’s been a long time coming. And concerned as they are with women and medicine in a different era, The Virgin Cure (Knopf Canada) would seem to feature related themes, in many ways the two books couldn’t be more different, though McKay has opted for a similar