Two amazing novels!

As a bookseller, one of the great perks of my job is that I often have access to my favorite writers' books before they are released. The down side of that is having to wait to be able to discuss - and more importantly, sell - the books I really love. So I am thrilled that today is the release date for two of the best novels I read in 2015, Lovecraft Country and The Opposite of Everyone.
Reviews written just after I read the books:

Lovecraft Country

Matt Ruff

Harper

Matt Ruff is one of our most imaginative living writers, and Lovecraft Country is simply amazing. It's the story of two African-American families in the Jim Crow era, dealing with terrors both supernatural and man-made. Ruff is a master at creating clever, sympathetic underdog characters who triumph - mostly - over their enemies, and his sharp wit and brilliant world-building make his books delightful to read while leaving you with plenty of food for thought. I highly recommend Lovecraft Country!

The Opposite of Everyone

Joshilyn Jackson

William Morrow

Have you ever loved a book so much that you finished it and immediately went back to the beginning and read it over again? That's exactly what I did with The Opposite of Everyone. Jackson gives us wonderful characters, with fully human qualities and flaws; her ear for language and dialogue is first-rate; her plots manage to be both surprising and satisfying. The Opposite of Everyone centers around Paula, a self-determined, overachieving divorce attorney who appeared in Someone Else's Love Story. The carefully constructed edifice of Paula's life begins to crumble when she learns that her estranged mother is dying, and the events that unfold - surprising, hilarious, terrifying, and delightful - will keep the reader biting their nails until the last page.

Five Days at Memorial

I just finished reading Five Days at Memorial, a stunning, exhaustive work of investigative journalism by Sheri Fink. If you like nonfiction that grips you like a thriller, this book is for you! Fink chronicles the harrowing experiences of staff, patients and visitors at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina, where patients were found to have been given life-ending drug overdoses and medical personnel were accused of murder. Fink does a terrific job of presenting a balanced story and multiple points of view. This is a work that definitely deserves all the accolades it has received. And it's now out in paperback!
More about the author here.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

All the Birds in the Sky

I am the first to admit that as a reader, I am incredibly spoiled. Since I work as a book buyer, I have lots of contact with publisher reps. Since I write a lot of reviews, I get access to lots of books before they are published. One of the only down sides to reading books before the release date is that by the time they are available to the public, they're no longer in the front of my consciousness. This doesn't stop me from recommending them, but I do tend to talk about whatever I've recently finished reading.
In this case, though, I just finished a book that came out on Tuesday, January 26. That's late for indie-review purposes, but pretty much ideal for hand selling. The book is All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, published by Tor (MacMillan). Our lovely MacMillan sales rep sent me a box of advance reader copies, and I grabbed that one because I'd seen a mention that intrigued me on social media. I then set it aside, since I try to prioritize titles that are far enough from the release date to review. Then last week, a friend of mine asked me about it - thanks, Ted! - so I made it a priority and dove right in - and stayed up until midnight to finish it.

All the Birds in the Sky is a stunning, fantastic - in both senses of the word - novel. Anders draws you into a world where magic and science coexist, on a planet that's close to being destroyed by human shortsightedness. Two misfit kids - Patricia, a magician, and Laurence, a scientist - cross paths, sometimes as friends, more often at odds with each other - as they struggle with technology and forces that may save them, if they aren't destroyed first. Brilliant, compelling and slyly humorous, this is an un-put-downable read! 

Interestingly, while I'm not, in general, a science fiction / fantasy fan, many of my favorite authors (William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Patrick Rothfuss, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Matt Ruff) write in those genres. It's always fun to find a new, fantastic writer!