Tochi Onyebuchi published his first novel this week, Goliath, a futuristic story that tries to tell us something about our present.
This week, Fiona Davis is also out with a new novel, The Magnolia Place. And John Darnielle and Marie Benedict are releasing new books, too.
Summaries of each author’s new releases are below.
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Four new novels hitting shelves on Jan. 25, 2022
Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi’s Goliath, his first published novel, takes us to the 2050s.
Many people from Earth who have money have moved to space colonies. Left behind on Earth, a planet that’s become unhealthy for most humans, are mostly poor folks. Many of them are people of color.
A gay white couple decides to return to their home planet. They want to buy and renovate a house in New Haven, Conn. After all, those with the means to colonize space have also been able to alter themselves enough to exist in Earth’s cancer-causing environment.
Meanwhile, stackers are work crews on Earth who dismantle the homes and buildings left behind. Most stackers are Black, and it's from their perspectives Onyebuchi tells much of Goliath’s story.
Onyebuchi weaves together various narratives in this science fiction tale that seeks to shed light on America’s struggles today with gentrification, race, and class.
From the publisher: In his adult novel debut, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and NAACP Image Award finalist and ALA Alex and New England Book Award winner Tochi Onyebuchi delivers a sweeping science fiction epic in the vein of Samuel R. Delany and Station Eleven.
Get the book: Amazon | Bookshop
The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis
Fiona Davis’s new novel, The Magnolia Place, delivers two parallel storylines.
One finds Veronica Weber in 1966 New York City. There, she uncovers clues that can lead to finding a pink diamond once owned and lost by the Gilded Age industrialist Henry Clay Frick.
The other storyline takes us to 1919 and finds Lillian Carter, a former model working as Frick’s daughters’ secretary. Carter wants to earn enough money to pay for her move to Hollywood and, she hopes, eventual movie stardom.
As Weber tracks down the diamond, Carter gets entwined in the Frick family, including their secrets.
From the publisher: Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue, returns with a tantalizing novel about the secrets, betrayal, and murder within one of New York City's most impressive Gilded Age mansions.
Get the book: Amazon | Bookshop
Devil House: A Novel by John Darnielle
Singer-songwriter John Darnielle is out this week with his third novel, Devil House.
True-crime writer Gage Chandler moves into a house in Milpitas, Calif., where two murders occurred at the peak of America’s 1980s Satanic panic. He wants to research and write about the killings but, along the way, learns more than he ever expected.
Chandler, whose mother told him he descended from kings, has to contend with what he discovers about the murders and himself.
From the publisher: Devil House is John Darnielle’s most ambitious work yet, a book that blurs the line between fact and fiction, that combines daring formal experimentation with a spellbinding tale of crime, writing, memory, and artistic obsession.
Get the book Amazon | Bookshop
Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict
Marie Benedict’s latest novel, Her Hidden Genius, is a fictionalized account of Dr. Rosalind Franklin. Franklin was a British chemist who helped us better understand DNA, although she received little recognition for her contribution in her lifetime.
In Her Hidden Genius, Benedict has Franklin discovering DNA’s double helix in a Paris lab in 1947. While Franklin takes time to verify her research, her male colleagues seek to undermine and take credit for Franklin’s discovery.
From the publisher: Marie Benedict's powerful new novel shines a light on a woman who sacrificed her life to discover the nature of our very DNA, a woman whose world-changing contributions were hidden by the men around her but whose relentless drive advanced our understanding of humankind.
Get the book Amazon | Bookshop
Four new books this week
Tochi Onyebuchi and Fiona Davis are out with new books on Jan. 25, 2022.
Here are four new notable novels hitting shelves this week:
- Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi (Amazon | Bookshop)
- The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis (Amazon | Bookshop)
- Devil House: A Novel by John Darnielle (Amazon | Bookshop)
- Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict (Amazon | Bookshop)
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