When Owen Laukkanen ventured into the young adult writing world under the pen name of Owen Matthews, he created a new, unique style that is all his own. Just as with the Anthony-Award nominated How to Win at High School, Owen’s new YA novel, The Fixes, employs the briefest of chapters, contemporary and unfiltered language, and topical themes to tell a cutting-edge story highlighting the trials and tribulations of today’s youth.
Navigating the balance between familiar and fresh can be tricky business, but with her debut crime fiction title, Black Wood, SJI Holliday makes it look easy. Black Wood is one of those novels that employs the use of unreliable memory as a device to heighten the mystery and suspense.
From The Booking Desk:
As the summer begins to edge towards fall, publishing slows down just a bit. But rest assured, there are still new releases worth checking out.
Flynn Berry’s Under the Harrow is a crime fiction debut that packs quite a punch. This slim volume is so densely packed with descriptive language and beautiful imagery that readers will struggle with wanting to read faster to know what happens and slowing down to savor the author’s writing acumen.
From The Booking Desk:
This week’s selections of books to be on the look out for is a hodgepodge in terms of style and tone, but represent authors at the top of their game. Any or all of them would make great additions to a varied crime fiction collection.
Since her debut novel, Last Rituals, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir has been one of the most popular Icelandic authors of crime fiction. In 2015, The Silence of the Sea was awarded the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year.