In a tale of mystery, there's a choice that reaches to a past that's been missing, for a boy who sees a world of faraway tales, and present secrets. Until now as a young man, Jaan finds a task set before him, by the enigmatic figure of his grandfather. On a journey that leads away from his small village on a quiet fiord, to forgotten routes high among...

A dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames. The regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child.

Hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life.

Is it a miracle?

Is it magic?

Or can it be explained by science?

...

A finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition.

McDowell, an arrogant, selfish, uncaring surgeon--except with his three children whom he ineptly tries to council as they come of age--loses his career, wealth, respect, and fame when his grandson goes on a killing spree and then fails in a suicide attempt living in a vegetative, brain-dead...

An inspiring and powerful memoir of surviving the Jonestown massacre and becoming a fearless voice against injustice and inequality by California congresswoman Jackie Speier.

Jackie Speier was twenty-eight when she joined Congressman Leo Ryan’s delegation to rescue defectors from cult leader Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Ryan was killed on...

Victoria Parker knew her dad's behavior toward her was a little unusual, but she convinced herself everything was fine—until she found herself locked out of the house at 3:00 a.m., surrounded by flashing police lights.

Now, dumped into a crowded, chaotic foster home, Victoria has to tiptoe around her domineering foster mother, get through senior year at a...

Rookie barrister George Winsome, young and arrogant, defends an old boy who thinks he’s Merlin on a manslaughter charge. The riotous trial turns Merlin into a celebrity; money, greed and ambition take hold of George and his partner Heather until the secret of Merlin’s past is revealed as the spirit of Saint Yves intervenes to ensure George and Heather...

After years of suffering under the communist regime in Cold War Hungary, Eszter Turján—fanatical underground journalist—would sacrifice anything, and anyone, to see the government fall. When she manipulates news broadcasts on Radio Free Europe, she ignites a vicious revolution, commits a calamitous murder and is dragged away screaming to a secret...

How Do You Raise an Awakened Child in an Unconscious World?

The birth of a child avatar should be a cause for celebration, but twenty-something Maggie Langford finds that sheltering Anna’s sanctity from the intrusion of the outside world is her first priority. As Anna grows, so do the challenges. How do you tell a child who can heal any injury or disease...

The stunning and shocking debut novel from the award-winning author of Maggie & Me. Set in South Africa You Will Be Safe Here explores legacies of abuse, redemption and the strength of the human spirit 

South Africa, 1901, the height of the second Boer War. Sarah van der Watt and her son are taken from their farm by force to Bloemfontein Concentration Camp...

THE MUST-READ DEBUT NOVEL OF 2019. Sharp, compulsive and darkly funny, this is an unforgettable novel about a world within touching distance of our own.

Ambitious businesswoman Mae Yu runs Golden Oaks – a luxury retreat transforming the fertility economy – where women get the very best of everything, so long as they play by the rules.

Jane is a young...

From the bestselling French novelist. Adults are as lost as the children they should be protecting, in this compelling exploration of the destructive secrets and loyalties that are kept behind closed doors

Thirteen-year-old Théo and his friend Mathis secretly drink on an almost daily basis.

Their teacher, Hélène, suspects something is not right with Théo and...

Warning: heavy profanity, child abuse, graphic sex, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and deeply disturbing psychological content. Also, this book is a character-led literary novel, not a plot-led commercial novel. 

A group of troubled but charismatic boys in a tough Buffalo, NY neighborhood play basketball at a local park and dream of winning a state high...

In 1970, a seventeen-year-old trainee enters the psychiatric technician training program at Sonoma State Hospital. Having volunteered there as a high school student, he feels fairly well prepared and presumes that conditions like those in Jack London’s 1914 short story about the place, “Told in the Drooling Ward” are a thing of the past. He soon discovers...

“I should have gouged his eyes out, made them bleed, and let him die with empty, dry sockets. Just setting the place on fire while he slept may not have been enough to satisfy my craving to kill him.”

The landscape of emotional and explosive events from the first volume of Lemons on a Plate (an alter-ego speaks) changes dramatically as the seeds of revenge...

The poverty-stricken vagabond Barron Desulfer, addicted to drugs and alcohol and once a professor and renowned writer, decides to turn his life around. By chance, he meets up with an ex military Colonel, Ken, who is looking for someone to write his autobiography; this opportunity becomes the only hope that the desperate Barron needs to bring him up from the...

"exquisite" and "extraordinary" 

A chance discovery in the back of a drawer tugs Violet back to her thirteenth year, to tell a coming of age story that is irresistibly romantic, inevitably comic, and unavoidably tragic. 
Even before her pen-pal Albert arrived outside the gates of The Abbess Etheldreda School for Girls, she had decided they must fall in love...

Justin Moore, a young Catholic priest, witnesses a crime he might have prevented, and the incident undermines his mental health. He takes a leave of absence and moves to a downtown San Diego apartment, where he reads and ponders his life’s mission. One day, when he answers an ad to be a driver for a wheelchair-bound resident, he meets an elderly gentleman...

A year after her best friend died in a house fire, Lara can’t come to terms with the loss. Logic says there was no more she could have done to save the mercurial and unhappy Alice, but Lara can’t escape the feeling that she is somehow to blame for the tragedy.

She spends a weekend at the rebuilt house with Alice’s charismatic widower, Crow, and his...

Her name isn’t Cordelia, her hair isn’t black, and she has no parents. These are the tragical facts of Anne Shirley’s life until she comes to Green Gables and faces another: she’s a girl. 

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert wanted a boy to help with the farm work but of all the things Anne can imagine, leaving Green Gables isn’t one of them. She’ll do anything to...

We see them on the corners and doorsteps of every major city but we know very little about them. Who are these people on the fringes of our society? How did they get there? And was it ever by choice? Welcome to the world of society's Underground--the outliers, the disenfranchised, the truly mad, and those who have dropped out and are living on the...

In his debut collection, Paul Alan Ruben portrays father and son as
intimate enemies, each yearning to be understood, acknowledged, and
validated by the other. Raw and gripping, these nine stories take place in
collision territory—where father and son engage one another in uncertain
terms, both desperately trying to repair the emotional damage that has led to...

It’s 1907 and former surgeon Tom Justice sits in a San Francisco jail on murder charges. The attorney hired to defend him is perplexed: the doctor hasn’t confessed to the crime—if there even was a crime—but why won’t he declare his innocence?

The reasons are complex, reaching back to Tom’s youth and influencing the decisions he makes about his career...

Get an inside look at Algonquin’s outstanding forthcoming fiction with the Fall 2018 Algonquin Reader. Discover the inspiration behind each book through an original essay by the author. Then enjoy a short preview of each novel. The books featured in this issue are:

The Collector's Apprentice by B. A. Shapiro

Sugar Run by Mesha Maren

Other People's Love...

In Some Rise, book two of the Furnass Towers Trilogy, The return of Harry Todd Sutcliff after 20 years to the Western Pennsylvania mill town of Furnass rekindles the competition with his younger brother Dickie who took over the family’s prosperous real estate firm. Dickie Sutcliff finds himself dealing with a possible take-over of the business by his...

Judith is a painter, dodging the law and whispers of murder in hopes of becoming the first woman admitted to the prestigious Haarlem artist’s guild. Maria is a Catholic in a country where the faith is banned, hoping to absolve her sins by recovering a lost saint’s relic.

Both women’s destinies will be shaped by their ambitions, running counter to the...

Yara Zgheib’s poetic and poignant debut novel is a haunting portrait of a young woman’s struggle with anorexia on an intimate journey to reclaim her life.

The chocolate went first, then the cheese, the fries, the ice cream. The bread was more difficult, but if she could just lose a little more weight, perhaps she would make the soloists’ list. Perhaps if...

Near the midpoint of the Upper Peninsula, along a Lake Michigan bend of shore, is the town of Manistique, Michigan. Mark had never heard of Manistique before the death of his estranged aunt, but as sole beneficiary of Vivian’s estate, he travels there to settle her affairs. As Mark tours his aunt’s house for the first time, the doorbell rings.

Days after...

From the #1 international bestselling author of The Lost Wife and The Velvet Hours comes an emotionally charged story about a mother's love, a teacher's promise, and a child's heart...

Katya, a rising ballerina, and Sasha, a graduate student, are young and in love when an unexpected tragedy befalls their native Kiev. Years later, after the couple...

A workplace novel that captures teaching with humor, insight, and heart. This perspective-hopping debut follows educators at an urban high school as their professional lives impact their personal lives and vice versa.

Each year brings familiar educational challenges to Brae Hill Valley, a struggling high school in one of Texas's bigger cities. But...