Friday, July 31, 2020

New -- From Virus to Vietnam



This week, more new books. Presenting an eclectic collection of recent or upcoming literature.

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Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Del Ray - June 30, 2020

[from the publisher]
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.

Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed speculative novels Gods of Jade and Shadow, Signal to Noise, Certain Dark Things, and The Beautiful Ones; and the crime novel Untamed Shore. She has edited several anthologies, includ­ing the World Fantasy Award–winning She Walks in Shadows (aka Cthulhu’s Daughters). She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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Gloria L. Velásquez
Arizona State University and Ediciones Eón -- July, 2020

[from the publisher]
Gloria Velásquez' new heart warming novel in Spanish and English, is a powerful example of perseverance, loss,and the struggle of living a life of poverty and dislocation, one in which the oral narrative of the main character transcends words on the page and touches deeply the heart of all who read it.  It is Esperanza's story, her life as a child growing up in a farmworker family, and the shattering loss of her brother in the Vietnam War.  It is also Esperanza's journey.  

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Edward Vidaurre
Aztlan Libre Press -- August 15, 2020

[from the publisher]
Pandemia & Other Poems comes to the world as a salve to a trifecta of crises—border issues of children in cages and immigrants being held in tent cities to wait with little or no hope; a virus that has crippled the world forcing us to reevaluate and test our resolve as survivors; and the ongoing issue of police brutality stirring protests around the
world. Vidaurre is a poet who wants to help people, and who works through “the ghostly streets of uncertainty” in the midst of this pandemia with dreams, hope—and love, always, there is love. “There is a different quality to these poems,” writes Odilia Galván Rodríguez, “a maturity that comes with mas
golpes de la vida.”

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Thelma T. Reyna, Editor
Golden Foothills Press -- September, 2020


[from the publisher]
A ground-breaking anthology of 44 distinguished American contemporary poets and prose writers, written in real time in the first half of the historic, devastating coronavirus COVID-19 invasion of America in 2020. In heart-wrenching, wide-eyed observations, firsthand events, tragedies, and reflections, these top authors document for us the horrors, grief, and heroism of friends, family, neighbors as we watched the disease unfold. Here are moments of hope and togetherness as well, seeking respite and balms. This gathering of Poets Laureate, national award winners, poet leaders, essayists, academics, and short fiction writers is a collection to treasure and a touchstone for generations to come.

Later.

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Manuel Ramos writes crime fiction and is working on another Gus Corral novel.

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