Dear BookBrowsers,
In this issue, we review Dinaw Mengestu's latest novel
Someone Like Us, the dark but lyrical story of an unconventional immigrant family living in Chicago and the DC suburbs, and the vast, unspoken isolation borne by a father and son.
This e-zine also features several works of vivid historical fiction that don't just recreate a period but reimagine it.
Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi conjures a vision of 15th-century West Africa that draws from Yorùbá mythology, following a young blacksmith as she negotiates a new life of power and intrigue among royals.
Nicked by M.T. Anderson is a sweet, humorous story about an 11th-century Italian monk caught up in a heist plot that sprinkles in supernatural elements from medieval texts. In Kevin Barry's
The Heart in Winter, a pair of lovers flee an Old West mining town in a universe beset with strong premonitions and a hovering sense of fate. And Lev Grossman's
The Bright Sword adds to the long tradition of tales of King Arthur, beginning at a time of chaos and turmoil after the famed ruler's death. Related Beyond the Book articles supplement our reviews of these inspired novels with background knowledge, covering the
Yorùbá deity Ṣàngó, the Catholic church's history of
stolen holy relics,
personal ads in the Old West, and the
contemporary world of Arthuriana.
Looking for a top-notch summer mystery? With an intricate structure stretched between 1950 and 1975, Liz Moore's
The God of the Woods traces a compelling story of missing children in the Adirondacks.
We also bring you a couple of gorgeous new young adult graphic novels: Ondjaki's
Our Beautiful Darkness, focusing on two teenagers forming a quiet connection amid civil war in 1990s Angola, and Rosena Fung's
Age 16, which follows three generations of family members during their respective adolescences.
You can enjoy these along with many other reviews and articles, a look at how our coverage compares to the recent
New York Times Best 100 Books of the 21st Century list,
author interviews,
news, and more.
Thanks for being a BookBrowse subscriber!
Davina & Nick
Founder & Publisher
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