Fiction: Fiction Reviews, Week of 8/7/2006

Returning to the scene of The Other Boleyn Girl, historical powerhouse Gregory again brings the women of Henry VIII's court vividly to life. Among the cast, who alternately narrate: Henry's fourth wife, Bavarian-born Anne of Cleves; his fifth wife, English teenager Katherine Howard; and Lady Rochford (Jane Boleyn), the jealous spouse whose testimony helped send her husband, Thomas, and sister-in-law Anne Boleyn to their execution. Attended by Lady Rochford, 24-year-old Anne of Cleves endures a disastrous first encounter with the twice-her-age king—an occasion where Henry takes notice of Katherine Howard. Gregory beautifully explains Anne of Cleves's decision to stay in England after her divorce, and offers contemporary descriptions of Lady Rochford's madness. While Gregory renders Lady Rochford with great emotion, and Anne of Cleves with sympathy, her most captivating portrayal is Katherine, the clever yet naïve 16th-century adolescent counting her gowns and trinkets. Male characters are not nearly as endearing. Gregory's accounts of events are accurate enough to be persuasive, her characterizations modern enough to be convincing. Rich in intrigue and irony, this is a tale where readers will already know who was divorced, beheaded or survived, but will savor Gregory's sharp staging of how and why. (Dec. 5)

Poet Christiansë (Castaway), born in apartheid-era South Africa and now living in New York City, channels the torturous history of South African slavery in her debut novel. Sila van den Kaap, whom Christiansë discovered in an early 19th century document, is a slave serving hard labor at the Robben Island prison colony after murdering her own son, Baro. As Sila breaks and hauls stones, evades the attentions of the prison guards and cares for her small children, she casts her mind back to the daily indignities, fleeting pleasures and larger injustices that have defined her life since, as a young girl, she was brought to South Africa from Mozambique. Addressed primarily to the spirit of her deceased son, Sila's absorbing, lyrical narrative is circular: she alternates between exhausted lament, seething rage and scripture-tinged poetic soliloquy ("their sins are like unto a plague of locusts that eat not fields but bodies and hearts"), and returns repeatedly to the broken promise of her freedom, granted in the will of one of her mistresses, Oumiesies ("old Missus"), and disregarded by Oumiesies's cruel son, Theron. After many passionate digressions, Sila alights, finally, on the death of Baro. In the final pages, she movingly addresses "the daughters and sons of my generations"—those now living with slavery's legacy. (Nov.)

Shaara (To the Last Man; Gone for Soldiers), who has written bestselling and critically acclaimed historical novels covering the American Revolution through World War I, takes on World War II in the wonderful first volume of a planned trilogy. As the book begins, Hitler's forces control western Europe, and U.S. troops face off against the Germans in North Africa. From fall 1942 through spring 1943, the Allies battle Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. Shaara evokes the agony of desert warfare and the utter chaos of an airborne assault through the experiences of Pvt. Jack Logan, a tank gunner, and Sgt. Jesse Adams, a paratrooper. The challenges—and frequent frustrations—of command are seen through the eyes of such luminaries as generals Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton and Rommel. The Allied victory in Africa is followed by the conquest of Sicily and the invasion of mainland Italy in 1943. With the Italian campaign sputtering, the Allies turn to planning for the decisive event of the European theater, the cross-channel invasion of France, which is where Shaara concludes this sprawling, masterful opening act. (Nov.)

In Salway's second novel (after The ABCs of Love), much of Molly Drayton's past is held until the end of the narrative. A scandal involving untoward behavior by her father has landed the unhappily overweight Molly without money or connections in an out-of-the-way English suburb. A dirty old man, stationer Mr. Roberts, takes stern pity on her and offers Molly a room above his shop in exchange for some shelving work, albeit with "conditions." The latter include climbing a ladder and spinning stories about her life while Mr. Roberts gropes her ample calves. Molly obliges with more and more elaborate dissembling, which will catch up with her just as she manages to make a few friends in the neighborhood: Miranda, the similarly weight-battling haircutter across the street whose habit of trading compliments with Molly is suspect; attractive, sweet, delusional Tim, who thinks he's a secret agent; and lonely-hearts librarian Liz, who urges Molly to read The Story of O to build character. Salway's characters are deeply estranged from the mainstream and too calculating to be sympathetic, except perhaps Mr. Roberts, married to a Frenchwoman whose attractiveness overtaxes his poor, dirty heart. Salway's book is a frustrating study in the intimate layering of deception. (Nov.)

The author of My Daughter's Boyfriend re-sifts and comes up with an irresistible title based on a cool-headed premise. Anya Meadows suffers from FSAD—Female Sexual Arousal Disorder ("a condition that affects 47 million women for a variety of reasons"). To keep her husband Neil ("a taller, thinner, less insane version of Mike Tyson") from leaving her and daughter Reese, she proposes a contract: find a girlfriend, sort of: oral sex only, encounters no more than twice a week, no falling in love. The book opens, alas, with Anya sitting at home, awaiting word on the birth of Neil's new son, Braxton, with Neil's contract-girlfriend (and co-worker) Danielle. Rax shifts the book's first person among the three principles fluidly: Anya loves her stay-at-home-mom lifestyle, dependent on Neil's job as a capital projects manager at a local Houston college. Trying-to-do-the-right-thing Neil loves Anya, but also cares for the few-class-tiers-lower Dani, who is (in her own words) "spirited, decent-looking, employed, fun-loving, supportive." But among other drama, Neil's boss finds it unacceptable that a married, "high-profile" member of the department is "openly having babies with someone else." Rax manages the fallout from her exaggerated plot with insight, zip and wit, and airs multiple conflicts within black middle-class life in compelling detail. (Nov.)

This poignant, wise but slight "extension" of the indefatigable Bradbury's semiautobiographical Dandelion Wine picks up the story of 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding in October of 1928, when the warmth of summer still clings to Green Town, Ill. As in his episodic 1957 novel, Bradbury evokes the rhythms of a long-gone smalltown America with short, swift chapters that build to a lyrical meditation on aging and death. Playing at war, the imaginative Douglas and his friends target the town's elderly men, and the outraged 81-year-old bachelor Calvin C. Quartermain attempts to organize a counterattack against the boys' mischief. Rebelling against their elders—and the specter of age and death—Douglas and his gang steal the old men's chess pieces before deciding that Time, as embodied by the courthouse clock, is their true nemesis. The story turns on a gift of birthday cake that triggers Douglas and Quartermain's mutual recognition: "He had seen himself peer forth from the boy's eyes." Soon thereafter, Douglas's first kiss and new, acute awareness of girls serves as the harbinger of his inevitable adulthood. Bradbury's mature but fresh return to his beloved early writing conveys a depth of feeling. Look for a Q&A with Bradbury in the Aug. 21 issue. (Oct.)

The prolific Small (Forbidden Pleasures; The Last Heiress) launches a stylish new historical romance with this action-packed erotic tale set in the English and Scottish borderlands just before and during the Tudor period. Small's never-say-die heroine is the beautiful and stubborn Adair Radcliffe, the countess of Stanton—and the bastard daughter of Edward IV. Orphaned at six during the War of the Roses, Lady Adair is taken in by King Edward and raised in the royal nursery. At 16, she flees to her family's estate to avoid a planned marriage. Undeterred, the king marries her by proxy to a 14-year-old. Adair refuses to accept him, and he is killed later by Scottish raiders, freeing her to wed handsome neighbor Andrew Lynbridge. That union ends when Andrew is killed during a dynastic struggle. The new king brands Adair a traitor and strips her of her title and property. Much worse is in store, as Scottish raiders capture and sell her into slavery. She and Conal Bruce, her new master and a local lord, fall in love and wed, and Adair looks to the future in her Scottish home. Small again delivers what her fans have come to expect—a strong heroine and steamy romance—in what promises to be a popular series. (Oct.)

An often dazzling, totally disorienting interior riff, Tillman's fifth novel (after 1995's Haunted Houses) presents an unnamed woman of a certain age, who lingers in a spa (or is it a madhouse?), digressing with authority on loneliness, denim, Eames chairs, the history of silk, the vicissitudes of friendship, Puritanism, the blissfulness of sleep and the pleasures of 100% cotton socks. Dialogue is virtually absent, as is plot; most everything—a painful childhood, beloved pets, a dead father and brother and a troubled mother—is revealed through the woman's first-person recollections and observations. Eventually, it appears the narrator is resident in a New Age, claustrophobia-inducing colony, where she sharply observes her strange fellows and attends absurd guest lectures ("Live Food, Raw Food"). The location and purpose remain ambiguous, as do large chunks of the narrator's personal history, which has left her with an obsession with skin: leg waxing, alopecia, psoriasis, facials (a particular favorite) and scars "whose presence never lets you forget the event, which may have been dramatic or even traumatic." Indeed, her own memories seem to have left her suffering, numb and loquacious. Vividly recorded by the multitalented Tillman (who also writes nonfiction, essays and short stories), this loopy trip through a meandering, fretful mind proves worthwhile. (Oct.)

This book collects 41 tough-minded explorations into human hope, loss and failings by the award-winning author of six novels (including 1978's Final Payments), a memoir and a life of Joan of Arc. Her quietly desperate protagonists range from a mother unable to leave her child alone at school (in "Separation") to a 74-year-old widow who revisits Italy in search of her youth, only to face her mortality ("Death in Naples"). "My Podiatrist Tells Me a Story About a Boy and a Dog," although lighter in tone than many of the entries, concludes with a devastating comment on female desire and later life. Characters are frequently silent, letting their yearnings speak louder than they, and many of the people who inhabit this collection want nothing but to be left alone, if only because it's all that remains to them. Themes of Catholicism, Irish-American families and women struggling with self-image and convoluted relationships concern the deftly delineated characters. Gordon is a master of nuance. Gripping and memorable, this collection, half of which is new or uncollected work, is a study in human connection and the lack of it. (Oct.)

When a young boy loses a leg after being hit by a drunk driver in his East African town of Vunjamguu, the shockwaves that run through his small community force a Belgian expat housewife to re-evaluate her life. Raised by nuns in a secluded mission hospital, Sarie Turner is lonely and isolated from everyone around her, contemptuous of her social-climbing British husband, Gilbert, and at odds with her snooty British contemporaries. Against Gilbert's wishes, Sarie and her young daughter, Agatha, visit the injured boy as he recovers, and Sarie becomes infatuated with the boy's handsome, anguished widower father, Majid Jeevanjee. Sarie seduces Majid; as their affair becomes a respite from her unfulfilling marriage, her feelings toward her husband and the coterie of high-class expats change in unexpected ways. The world Köenings has created in her accomplished debut is tragic and exhilarating, as is her portrayal of weary, left-behind colonialists, poverty-stricken natives and the uneasy manner in which each regards the other. (Oct.)

Carlotto (The Goodbye Kiss), who served time for a murder he didn't commit before becoming a writer, has crafted a subtle and disturbing tale of the effects of violence on its survivors. Wine salesman Silvano Contin's unremarkable but happy life is irrevocably shattered when a pair of bank robbers seize his wife and young son as hostages, and then execute them. Unable to endure much human contact, Contin ekes out a living repairing shoes. When the one murderer who was apprehended is diagnosed with cancer, he seeks Contin's assistance in gaining an early release from incarceration. The widower's desire for justice—and the identity of the killer who escaped scot-free—leads him to make some unusual decisions and propels him down a very dark road. The author manages to make Contin's descent into hell plausible and heartbreaking, and devises an ingenious and even touching resolution. (Oct.)

A house in Point Royal, Va., serves to entangle two families in clannish chaos. When local handyman Oliver Ward is summoned for a job at the house of Holly Grey and her aunt Fiona, he has no idea what to make of the two squabbling, headstrong old ladies who want to divide—literally—their house in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The two are known as "the Crazies" by Holly's son, bookstore owner Will Butterfield, and his wife, high school teacher Elizabeth, who are growing weary of their antics. But they pay Oliver, who begins working at the ladies' house. Oliver's daughter, policewoman and single mother Alison, is later called in to help talk Holly off the roof during a drunken dispute. Meanwhile, Will's grown children, Mark and Gail, from his first marriage (to another Elizabeth, who abandoned the family) are in disagreement over whether they should hunt down their long-gone mother. There are digressions: Gail's sexual identity is an open question; Elizabeth's students are fractious; Will finds himself tempted by a sexy, none-too-stable bartender. When Oliver has a stroke on the job, the two families are thrown together at Holly and Fiona's as the Thanksgiving holiday draws nigh. Author of nine novels and five story collections, Bausch (Wives & Lovers) engages stock characters and a predictable theme of holiday forgiveness this time out, but he injects some crackle into the heartwarming elements. (Oct.)

Lins's 1997 fiction debut—the source of the 2002 film published in English for the first time—chronicles two generations over three decades in the infamous Rio de Janeiro City of God, "a neo-slum of concrete, brimming dealer-doorways, sinister-silences and cries of despair." From the slum's creation in the early 1960s for flood victims, through the rise of disco and cocaine in the 1970s, to the horrific gang wars of the 1980s, Lins traces the rise and fall of myriad, often teenaged gangsters for whom guns, girls and drugs are the tools of power. While the film traces the divergent paths of two childhood friends, the novel rushes from vignette to vignette, with an ever-changing cast of characters with names like "Good Life," "Beelzebub" and "Hellraiser." Years, and pages, pass in a haze of smoking, drinking, snorting lines of cocaine, dancing sambas, swearing and planning the next big score. Guns dispense justice; the price for disrespect, whether to a spouse, a friend or the favela, is torture or death. Lins, who grew up in the City, lets the horror speak for itself. He serves up a Scarface-like urban epic, bursting with encyclopedic, graphic descriptions of violence, punctuated with lyricism and longing. (Oct.)

Bestselling authors Weber and Morrison team up in an experiment that brings together "two of their favorite characters." Texas psycho-hottie Ashlee Anderson flies to D.C. to "spend some time alone" after a nasty breakup, but when she meets Jay Crawford at a club, she's smitten. Jay beds Ashlee, who afterwards flies back to Dallas, stops taking her antidepressants and begins to unravel. As unsubtle indications of Ashlee's mental disorder surface (court-ordered psychiatry, for one), the long-distance romance bumps and grinds along. Jay, whose lust for Ashlee blinds him to her craziness, tries to play down Ashlee's jealousy, but after his ex-girlfriend, Tracy, reappears with his child, Ashlee's manic episodes increase in frequency and intensity, causing Jay to break up with her the night he had planned on proposing. Jay reunites with Tracy, and a scorned Ashlee plots sweet, crazy revenge. The book, were it not hobbled by pedestrian prose ("Expectations were the detour to the demise of my happiness") and a phoned-in portrayal of pathological behavior, could be reminiscent of Fatal Attraction. A sequel is hinted. (Oct.)

After penning several humorous novels about Christian singles (Flabbergasted), Blackston swaps publishers from Revell to Warner Faith and tries his hand at a dual–story line comic allegory with mixed results. Larry Hutch is a novelist who has a fashionable manuscript about an apparent "reverse rapture": the Christians are left behind, along with a few random pagans. Larry's protagonist, pagan Lanny Hooch, spends his allotted pages trying to find out what has happened to his girlfriend, Miranda, who has disappeared. As Lanny teams up with a pagan disc jockey, they attempt to avoid Christian zealots who are hot on their trail to capture and convert them. There are some attempted humorous looks at what the world might be like as an intentionally over-the-top, all-Christian society: Devil's Food Cake becomes David's Food Cake; the Beatles sing "I Wanna Hold Your Tithe"; and McDonald's staff all wear gold crosses on their sleeves instead of golden arches and serve fries called "McScriptures." But the humor falls flat, and the alternating chapters between the novel's plot and Larry's discussions with various people who are all eager to read his work in progress (and can't put it down once they do) feel like an attempt to persuade the reader that this is good stuff. Even Blackston's fans will be hard-pressed to find the humor here. (Oct. 25)

Mixing fact and faction effectively, MacKinnon chronicles the poignant personal story of a senior CIA agent, Paul Patterson, in the months before 9/11. Patterson has been investigating the assassination of an agency operative in Pakistan who had been on the trail of Osama bin Laden before the terrorist became a household name. The case leads Patterson to a disturbing chain of events—porous U.S. immigration policies, White House indifference, CIA bungling—that in hindsight provides the perfect set of circumstances for 9/11. At the same time, Patterson juggles a painful divorce after the accidental death of a teenage son. With this second novel (after 1985's Finding Hoseyn), MacKinnon, a Middle East expert whose specialty is Iran, shows great insight into the inner workings of U.S. intelligence. His clipped prose style, descriptive discipline and tone-perfect dialogue elevate this thriller above the pack, though the central plot, stopping just short of 9/11, ends with more of a whimper than a bang. (Oct.)

Richman (The Mask Carver's Son; Swedish Tango) speculates in her third novel that Vincent Van Gogh found his muse in the 21-year-old daughter of his last doctor. Marguerite Gachet, accustomed to her father's revolving door of artist patients (Cezanne, Pissarro, Bernard among them), finds herself enamored of the disheveled Van Gogh ("a rare blend of vulnerability and bravado") shortly after his arrival at her father's home in Auvers, where Van Gogh undergoes treatment for his manifold illnesses. Though Marguerite is little more than a servant to her father, a failed painter turned physician who prides himself to an absurd extent on his art collection, she manages, with the help of her cloistered half-sister, to begin a covert flirtation with Van Gogh. Between sitting—thrice—for Van Gogh and carrying on her household duties, Marguerite uncovers a family secret and has a clandestine rendezvous with the painter. Though Marguerite's frustrated love is carefully rendered, other characters are mostly memorable for their quirks (her father, the failed painter; her brother, the goofy sycophant; her half-sister, the gold-hearted sage). The climax may be a bit breathless, but, then again, Van Gogh isn't remembered for his subtlety. (Oct.)

With luminous simplicity, Jenoff's breathtaking debut chronicles the life of a young Jewish bride during the Nazi occupation of Kraków, Poland, in WWII. Emma Bau, a shy librarian, escapes the city's Jewish ghetto with the aid of the underground resistance movement that Jacob, her activist husband, has already joined. Emma assumes a new gentile identity as Anna Lipowski and goes to live with Jacob's elderly aunt, a wealthy Catholic widow who has also taken in Lukasz Izakowicz, the only surviving child of a famous rabbi and his murdered wife. As Anna, Emma catches the eye of Kommandant Georg Richwalder, second in charge of the General Government, at a dinner party. The handsome Nazi is so impressed by her German language skills (and her beauty) that he asks her to become his personal assistant. Emma accepts, hoping to secure valuable information for the resistance, but the chemistry between them presents challenges that test her loyalties to Jacob and her heart. This is historical romance at its finest. (Oct.)

Florand's debut novel is the semiautobiographical story of the intercontinental courtship of Laura H— and Sébastien Florand. Laura, in Paris for a year on a Fulbright in 2001, isn't looking for love, but after her friends dare her, she invites to a party the hot bistro waiter she's been salivating over. They, of course, hit it off; Sébastien proves to be suave, romantic and smart, and a talented artist to boot. When Laura's scholarship ends, she returns to America, but unable to bear their separation, she quits her Ph.D. program and returns to Paris to live with Sébastien in an apartment "smaller than most American cars." Clashing cultures—she's from rural Georgia—supply much of the humor; after Laura and Sébastien decide to marry, his extended family flies to Georgia to see the couple wed at her family home, and though the French contingent's reactions to American culture—no wine on Sundays?— are funny, preparations for the epic French village wedding are much more interesting. The lovers' quarrels, however, are tedious, and Florand's lengthy descriptions of the vast spools of red tape the couple encounter while trying to secure work permits and visas seem extraneous in this frothy French confection of a novel. (Oct.)

In bestseller Baldacci's entertaining if overly long sequel to The Camel Club (2005), renegade CIA agent Roger Seagraves has set himself up in the business of freelance assassination and selling our country's secrets to the highest bidder. The Camel Club, a group of four dysfunctional crime solvers headed by ex-CIA assassin Caleb Shaw, becomes involved with Seagraves through a killing at the Library of Congress, where one of the club members works. Meanwhile, an enigmatic young woman, Annabelle Conroy, is assembling a team to engineer a "long con," a $33 million scam targeting Jerry Bagger, the sleazy owner of an Atlantic City casino. This time around, Baldacci wisely tones down the wackiness of the club members, focusing instead on bringing Seagraves to justice while Annabelle works her ingenious scam. The splicing of the two plots is problematic, but Baldacci sacrifices a bit of believability to cobble together a new cast of characters destined to continue fighting the forces of evil in the next installment. (Oct.)

Vince Mellon and Joy Downer meet as late-blooming teenagers on a beach vacation, and lose their virginity to one another, then reunite as adults kept apart by bad timing and miscommunication in the winning fourth novel by British bestseller Jewell (A Friend of the Family; Thirtynothing). The first misstep occurs when Joy's vacation is cut short, and the goodbye note (including her contact information) she leaves for Vince outside his window is rendered illegible by the elements. Seven years later, Vince's roommate's wandering cat finds its way to Joy's apartment, which miraculously happens to be around the corner. Too bad for Vince that Joy is about to get married, albeit to a man she isn't attracted to. The narrative takes flight at this point, as Jewell weaves a history of Vince and Joy settling for the wrong people—Vince has a child with a woman who cheats on him, Joy's marriage fails—before fate intervenes one last time. Jewell's lively prose and amusing observations ("They talked about sex like two dieters circling a pile of profiteroles") effortlessly guide the story toward a satisfying ending. (Oct.)

At the start of Freeman's solid second thriller (after 2005's Immoral), detective Jonathan Stride has left his job in Duluth, Minn., for Las Vegas, Nev. The action begins with a flashback to Sin City in the 1950s and the murder of a famous exotic dancer, a case never fully resolved and having a lot to do with the present-day brutal assassination of a rich young "trust fund baby," MJ Lane, whose dad may have been involved in the earlier murder. As Stride and his new police partner, Amanda Gillen, investigate, they plunge deep into the roots of the city. Freeman depicts his characters well, especially the good-natured Stride; his cop girlfriend, Serena Dial; and his partner, Amanda. Freeman has crafted a strong narrative, rife with sex and violence, though the complex plot at times gets bogged down by overly extensive backstories and a prose style that shades toward the purple. (Oct.)

Bestseller George (With No One as Witness) departs from the usual investigative nuts and bolts of her Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers mystery thrillers with this searing examination of the lives of one horribly dysfunctional family and their immigrant London milieu. Switching uncomfortably at times from dialogue in a rough patois to exposition in a language both formal and sociological, George delivers a stinging indictment of a society unable to respond effectively to the needs of its poorer citizens. Kendra Osborne, a 40-year-old woman with modest ambitions and plans to achieve them, has no idea how to cope when her mother "dumps" her sister's three children on her doorstep and heads for Jamaica. Fifteen-year-old Ness, 11-year-old Joel and seven-year-old Toby each have a wealth of problems exacerbated by their mixed-race heritage. It's no accident that George refers to Dickens on the first page of this earnest but perhaps overly didactic novel, which focuses on the burdens borne by Joel as he's swept by forces he can neither understand nor control into a fatal encounter. 8-city author tour. (Oct.)

In her debut novel, This American Life contributor O'Neill offers a narrator, Baby, coming of age in Montreal just before her 12th birthday. Her mother is long dead. Her father, Jules, is a junkie who shuttles her from crumbling hotels to rotting apartments, his short-term work or moneymaking schemes always undermined by his rage and paranoia. Baby tries to screen out the bad parts by hanging out at the community center and in other kids' apartments, by focusing on school when she can and by taking mushrooms and the like. (She finds sex mostly painful.) Stints in foster care, family services and juvenile detention ("nostalgia could kill you there") usually end in Jules's return and his increasingly erratic behavior. Baby's intelligence and self-awareness can't protect her from parental and kid-on-kid violence, or from the seductive power of being desired by Alphonse, a charismatic predator, on the one hand, and by Xavier, an idealistic classmate, on the other. When her lives collide, Baby faces choices she is not equipped to make. O'Neill's vivid prose owes a debt to Donna Tartt's The Little Friend; the plot has a staccato feel that's appropriate but that doesn't coalesce. Baby's precocious introspection, however, feels pitch perfect, and the book's final pages are tear-jerkingly effective. (Oct.)

For those who want a break from serious books about Buddhism (and virtually all books on the subject are fairly solemn), Tibetan teacher and translator Magee offers a rare and imaginative novel. Set in 22nd-century Tibet, the action centers around a future female Dalai Lama imprisoned by the Chinese, who still rule the mountainous country. The principal character is her adviser, a nationalist who loves both his country and his leader, and who has been released from prison into a dystopian society as the book opens. Magee's fluency in Tibetan allows him to authenticate the text with Tibetan words and references. He also adds some visionary touches to this future—dogs bred for empathic intuition, for example. Land mines and sex contribute danger and excitement. None of the characters is fully or persuasively drawn and so sometimes characters' motivation is thin, but the adventure and exotic aspects compensate somewhat for lack of human depth. Moral questions about using violence to achieve political ends also flow naturally from the action, making the Buddhist framework highly relevant. Magee has written a proficient novel that adds highly unusual elements to a story of love, adventure and politics. (Oct.)

The verdict on Batista's debut legal thriller: guilty of delivering not only sharp courtroom drama but steamy romantic escapism as well. Vincent Sorrentino, a crackerjack Manhattan DA (not unlike Batista, a commentator on Court TV), is leading the legal team for 14 defendants accused of bribing Congressman Daniel Fonseca, including Selig "Sy" Klein, owner of a shady trucking empire personally represented by Sorrentino's colleague and friend, Tom Perini, a former Heisman Trophy winner. Tom's murder while running in Central Park shatters his wife and toddler's world and almost lands Fonseca a mistrial. Grieving Julie Perini suffers more shocks as she learns about her husband's secret underworld association connected to the ongoing trial. Batista provides a gripping, if sometimes confusing, insider look into the seamy side of justice and the politics behind criminal shenanigans. The sweet resolution might feel too good to be true, but is still satisfying. (Oct.)

How much can one middle-class Victorian-era woman endure? Plenty, as evidenced by this engrossing second novel from Graham (Firebird). A tailor's daughter living on London's Savile Row, Veda Grenfell expects that one day she will marry up and shed her status as a tradesman's daughter. But as she comes of marrying age, her brother dies in a riding accident, her mother and unborn sibling die during childbirth and a bout of typhoid fever leaves Veda deaf. Realizing her deafness will ward off suitors, Veda goes to work at her father's shop, where she proves herself a talented seamstress, and intrigue and possible romance simmer. Charismatic Lord Ormelie is interested in more than Veda's stitch work; the repellant Balducci, the head cutter at Grenfell's, uses Veda to further his position at Grenfell's; and Mr. Nicholls, a clergyman hired by Veda's father as a tutor, is prone to caustic jealousy of other men who pay attention to Veda. Veda's deafness is smartly played, and Graham's depiction of the tailor shop's inner workings is instructive. Though the litany of setbacks Veda endures makes it seem like the world has it in for her, the redemptive ending will please fans of the genre. (Oct.)

Examining the nooks and crannies of contemporary backwater life in the South and Midwest, Downs's debut collection opens with a kaleidoscopic description of an extended family breaking apart that is as disorienting as it is beautiful. "Black Pork" follows a white minor league pitcher back to the former sharecropper's shack he shares with his dementia-plagued grandfather, and manages to be simultaneously excruciating and deeply insightful about race as it centers on the two men's relationship with the black single mother and daughter across the lane. In "Ain't I a King, Too?" (set in 1935) a man about to leave his family finds himself abducted when he is mistaken for the then just assassinated Huey P. Long, the corrupt former governor of Louisiana. "Freedom Rider" turns similarly odd when a school trip turns into a physical free-for-all among the adolescent participants. Even more darkly, in "A Comparative History of Nashville Love Affairs," a middle-aged man considers the frailties of his own marriage after observing a colleague eyeing a group of the colleague's wife's students. A strong sense of style and unfaltering command of his material allow Downs to take the kinds of risks in tone and subject that make his debut a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. (Oct.)

The sunny sequel to Gilbertson's debut, Moon Over Madeline Island, finds gal pals Eve Moss and Ruby Prévost, and their crew of apron-making employees, enjoying the fruits of a flourishing small business on northern Wisconsin's Madeline Island. Eve is "forty-seven, single and NOT looking" for a man. Instead, she's found college professor Helen Williams, the now-grown daughter she gave up for adoption 30 years ago. Their reunion inspires Eve to reach out to her own estranged father, who in turn reveals a difficult piece of family history. But Gilbertson knows to keep his story lighthearted, and less serious subplots abound—the gang takes up belly dancing, tries to quit smoking and stumbles upon a few island secrets. Despite the goings-on, the narration is slowed by attention to mundane details, and the references to armpit pads and girdles, Wisconsin fashion ("head-to-toe in a tasteful denim number") and music (Dean Martin, Edith Piaf) firmly place the book in lady lit territory. Readers who, like Eve, "sincerely don't want a relationship" will appreciate the book's attention to family and friends over lovers. (Oct.)

A narrative gimmick isn't enough to overcome the tired plotting, undeveloped characters and clichéd dialogue that dog this pooch's-eye-view of one couple's romantic contretemps. The reader meets Miles, the streetwise half-Chihuahua, half-dachshund rapscallion who narrates, as he languishes in a New York City animal shelter. Jen, an Upper East Side resident who is prone to jealousy, and her boyfriend, Bob, a "kind but firm" guy who lives downtown, stop by the shelter on a whim and are charmed by Miles's scruffy appearance; they adopt him the next day. Both gun-shy from previous divorces, the two have not moved in together, and their relationship is soon derailed after Jen gets it in her head that Bob is cheating on her with Valerie, a sexy actress Bob meets while walking Miles. After the breakup, custody of Miles is shared, and Miles reports on their dating foibles before their inevitable reconciliation. With lines like "The sky hung real low like a pregnant bitch's swollen belly," Miles's view of the world is occasionally amusing, but the effect loses its luster rapidly, and the ending, which brings closure to Miles's troubled past, is absurd. (Oct.)

This collection of 11 stories written over the past 15 years reads like a series of studies for Weiner's larger chick lit portraits. As in the novels (Goodnight Nobody; Good in Bed), smart, acerbic, 30-something women battle dating damage and broken childhoods (absent fathers in particular) in order to build their own families—or to convince themselves they still want to. In "The Wedding Bed," a new bride realizes, "I thought that every story I would tell for the rest of my life will somehow be about this: about the man who left and never came back." "Mother's Hour" tightly focuses on new toddler trauma as experienced by first-time mothers and shows how motherhood can be another conduit for woman-to-woman envy and suspicion. In "Swim," sometime scriptwriter and obsessive swimmer Ruth, her face scarred from the car accident in which her parents died, must eschew the verbal "edge" she finds so compelling in men in order to find love. One roots for Weiner's characters as they come to terms—and in some cases, heal—from disappointment and neglect. (Sept.)

The 17th novel from former NYPD deputy commissioner Daley falls short of his previous work (Year of the Dragon and the excellent nonfiction account Prince of the City). His new hero, Vince Conte, is marking time as a PI for a security firm after he ruined a promising career with the NYPD by assaulting the deputy police commissioner for carrying on with Conte's gorgeous anchorwoman wife. Conte is doing unglamorous inquiries into employee theft when his company is retained to identify the plotters behind an extortion plot in a small European duchy. The unknown parties have already succeeded in breaking up the marriage of the duke's daughter by publishing compromising photos of her husband's poolside tryst. The clichéd European characters coupled with the absence of suspense and plot twists add up to an outing that lacks Daley's customary grit. (Nov.)

Clare Fergusson, a helicopter pilot turned Episcopal priest, and Russ Van Alstyne, police chief of Millers Kills, N.Y., are suffering in the wake of their affair in Anthony-winner Spencer-Fleming's fifth mystery, her most captivating yet (after 2005's To Darkness and to Death). After Russ separates from his wife and Clare's Albany superiors chastise her, the "problem priest" vows never to see Russ again. But when Russ's wife is found murdered in the Van Alstynes' home and the New York State police deem him the prime suspect, Clare risks everything to clear his name. The high-stakes plot evolves seamlessly with totally unexpected twists and turns, culminating in a climax that surpasses the drama of previous outings. Clare and Russ continue to struggle with their feelings and the confines of their respective vocations, while interesting new characters join the familiar residents of Millers Kill. Fans, once they start reading, will hang Do Not Disturb signs on their doors. (Oct.)

Quality writing from some of the biggest names in the genre marks the 10th collection in this series, though Turow concedes in the introduction that the 21 stories are more crime tales than mysteries. Walter Mosley contributes the collection's standout, "Karma," a classic noir exercise that brings the sweat and despair of the characters to life. Jeffery Deaver's "Born Bad" and Jane Haddam's "Edelweiss" are also solid entries, with nifty plot twists reminiscent of the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the short stories of Roald Dahl. A number of stories share the same hook, though, which lessens the impact, and the editor's omission of even one fair-play whodunit will disappoint some readers. Series editor Otto Penzler provides his usual cogent, candid foreword. (Oct.)

Set in 1920s Scotland, McPherson's cunning second mystery to feature well-heeled, ballsy and very funny Dandy Gilver, who debuted in After the Armistice Ball (2005), takes Dandy to South Queensferry to help her friend Frederica preside over the Ferry Fair, the local carnival. When the titular Burry Man (played by a local carpenter, Robert Dudgeon, who's actually covered in burrs) drops dead in the midst of the fair, people assume he died of a heart attack, but Dandy suspects foul play. Dudgeon assumed his annual role with inexplicable reluctance, his bereaved widow is acting suspicious and the town temperance advocates objected to the rowdy festival from the start. Charming historical details add an extra something to this altogether satisfying cozy. (Oct.)

At the start of Tapply's entertaining 22nd Brady Coyne novel (after 2005's Nervous Water), the Boston lawyer's dog uncovers a pregnant teenager dying in his snow-covered backyard. After the coroner finds Brady's Beacon Hill address in the girl's pocket, Brady pursues the girl's identity among street kids, a couple of whom shortly turn up murdered. The investigation leaps forward when Brady's girlfriend, Evie Banyon, recognizes the girl from the morgue photos, and another clue leads to a defunct New Hampshire genetics lab. Brady heads north to question the geneticist who headed the lab and becomes convinced that the man has something to hide. In the page-turning denouement, Brady outfits himself commando-style to survey the scientist's secluded farmhouse and learn the truth. Longtime series fans will be most rewarded. (Oct.)

When a retired businessman is pushed to his death on Manhattan's subway tracks, his daughter retains the services of PI Rachel Alexander in Benjamin's well-plotted, thoughtful ninth episode (after 2005's Without a Word) in her series starring the former dog trainer and her trusty pit bull, Dashiell. The police believe a homeless man killed the victim, Gardner Redstone, so Rachel—escorted by her canine companion—goes undercover as a homeless woman to track down the perpetrator. Numerous interviews give her cause to believe that malice rather than madness motivated the crime, and Rachel cleans up to pose as an employee at Redstone's upscale leather goods store, now run by his daughter, Eleanor. Rachel's sleuthing efforts finally pay off, but not before she experiences firsthand the painful gap between New York City's fabulously wealthy and abject poor. Benjamin brings a strong sense of place and social conscience to her latest outing. (Oct.)

Eight books into British author Rowe's acclaimed mystery series set in second-century Roman Britain (Enemies of the Empire, etc.), her period detail, plotting and characterization are as strong as ever. A string of suspicious coincidences make Libertus, a former slave turned mosaic maker and sleuth, the prime suspect in the kidnapping of the wife and son of his patron and protector, Marcus Aurelius Septimus. Struggling with illness, Libertus must also defy the accusations of a crafty Greek physician, who has gained Septimus's confidence, to track down the criminals and save two lives. Though not well known in the U.S., Rowe more than holds her own with the two leading authors of ancient Roman historicals, Lindsey Davis (the Marcus Didius Falco series) and John Maddox Roberts (the SPQR series). (Oct.)

Family betrayal, a power-mad serial killer and a potential diplomatic crisis threaten the independent-minded heroine of Snyder's fine sequel to Poison Study (2005). With the overthrow of the royal family of Ixia, 20-year-old Yelena Zaltana, who was kidnapped as a child by the evil magician Mogkan, is now free to return home to Sitia. Her reunion with the family she hasn't seen in 14 years palls when her brother spreads rumors she's actually a spy from Ixia. At the Magician's Citadel, where Yelena enrolls to hone her prodigious magical talents, her powers raise concern that she might be a rare, powerful Soulfinder. Then a string of ugly murders reveals the presence of a rogue magician in the area. As Yelena joins the hunt for the killer, complications grow with the arrival of a diplomatic mission from Ixia—including her lover, Valek, a notorious spy and assassin, sure to be executed if anyone sees through his disguise. Snyder's lively, charming mix of romance and fantasy is sure to gain her new fans. (Oct.)

In this exciting first of a new fantasy trilogy, bestseller Brooks effortlessly connects the Tolkien-infused magic of his Shannara books (First King of Shannara, etc.) with the urban, postapocalyptic world of his Word and the Void series (Running with the Demon, etc.). The author envisions a chilling near-future U.S., where civilization has collapsed from environmental degradation, plagues, global warfare and supernatural threats. The last surviving members of the Knights of the Word, Logan Tom and Angel Perez, seek to keep the "balance of the world's magic in check" as they battle the Void—embodied by demons, their leader Findo Cask and their vicious human mutant counterparts known as "once-men." The Ghosts, an endearing tribe of street teens led by the resourceful Hawk, also scrabble for survival. Meanwhile, the human-demon war threatens the coexisting Elven nation. Longtime Brooks fans and newcomers will be riveted as the fate of the human and Elven worlds hangs in the balance. (Sept.)

Brooks, the author of the determinedly straight-faced parody The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), returns in all seriousness to the zombie theme for his second outing, a future history in the style of Theodore Judson's Fitzpatrick's War. Brooks tells the story of the world's desperate battle against the zombie threat with a series of first-person accounts "as told to the author" by various characters around the world. A Chinese doctor encounters one of the earliest zombie cases at a time when the Chinese government is ruthlessly suppressing any information about the outbreak that will soon spread across the globe. The tale then follows the outbreak via testimony of smugglers, intelligence officials, military personnel and many others who struggle to defeat the zombie menace. Despite its implausible premise and choppy delivery, the novel is surprisingly hard to put down. The subtle, and not so subtle, jabs at various contemporary politicians and policies are an added bonus. (Sept.)

Like Tim Lucas in The Book of Renfield (2005), Hambly retells Bram Stoker's Dracula from the viewpoint of its most memorable peripheral character, the mad, insect-eating Renfield. His role as the count's human factotum and facilitator complicates a larger story in which Renfield struggles to conceal from conniving relatives and doctors the whereabouts of his beloved wife and daughter. Though Renfield dies at his employer's hands before the end in Stoker's original, Hambly (Circle of the Moon) contrives an imaginative way to prolong his involvement in the story. Unfortunately, the madman's ravings become repetitive, tedious and improbable once certain truths about him are revealed. Though Hambly tries to craft a portrait of Renfield as a tragic victim, his frequent references to Stoker's characters and their adventures only remind the reader that a more interesting vampire adventure is unfolding beyond the borders of Renfield's asylum and the events of this novel. (Sept.)

In Baker's fast-paced new Company novel, the sequel to The Life of the World to Come (2004), Alec Checkerfield shares his cyborg body uncomfortably with the Recombinant personalities of 19th-century spy Edward Bell-Fairfax and 16th-century scholar Nicholas Harpole. Each man, in his own time, worked for—and was betrayed by—Dr. Zeus Inc. (aka the Company), which uses time travel to recover and hoard important historical artifacts. In their quest to destroy the Company, Checkerfield and his unlikely partners must rescue Mendoza, an immortal female cyborg and Company botanist each fell in love with in his own time, from a Company torture facility. Though Mendoza herself is more plot device than character, Baker invests the book with plenty of inventive energy and absurdity. (Sept.)

This second installment in Clegg's unfolding Vampyricon epic brims with the same dazzling invention and creative mythography as its predecessor, The Priest of Blood (2005). Aleric, the Breton falconer, returns as heir apparent to the vampire throne, but in a world vastly different since he breached the Veil separating the ordinary world from the world of the vampire myth stream. The "lost century" he finds himself in after years of imprisonment in a silver-sealed well is a cruel, plague-ridden time where he and his un-dead companion, Ewen, are forced to fight gladiatorial battles against human and animal opponents. Old friends and enemies appear in new guises, and unforeseeable plot twists abound. Clegg's rich descriptions, ingenious variations on vampire lore and intriguing speculations on a secret history underlying our own make this an exuberantly imagined dark fantasy. (Sept.)

In this rousing old-fashioned space opera, the latest to feature Cdr. Daniel O'Leary, Drake (Hammer's Slammers) explores how a charismatic leader can inspire a ship's crew to glorious feats beyond the call of duty. O'Leary, now on the outs with the command of the Royal Cinnabar Navy, finds himself trying to prevent the trading partner of an ally from falling under the influence of a puppet of the opposition Alliance with only a single decommissioned corvette that doesn't even carry missiles. Before he can leave orbit, O'Leary must first rescue his crew members from the bureaucratic limbo into which they have fallen. Drake, a Vietnam veteran with a gift for describing realistic combat and its aftermath, creates vivid characters you can care about. Patrick O'Brian and Bernard Cornwell fans as well as military SF readers will be well rewarded. (Sept.)

Strahan's wonderful "best of" anthology provides a little something for everyone, from traditional fantasy that pays homage to J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and M.R. James to slipstream wackiness that defies categorization. Of the 16 stories, the three standouts are Peter Beagle's gorgeous return to his Last Unicorn world, "Two Hearts"; Jane Yolen's scary classic Scotland-infused witch fantasy, "A Knot of Toads"; and Richard Bowes's "There's a Hole in the City," a gripping 9/11 ghost story. Other highlights include Neil Gaiman's funny epicurean adventure, "Sunbird"; Paul Di Filippo's delightful cyberfantasy, "The Emperor of Gondwanaland"; Theodora Goss's bittersweet fairy tale about grief recovery, "Pip and the Fairies"; Bruce Sterling's powerful fable, "The Denial"; and Kelly Link's hilarious campfire chiller, "Monster." Four tales overlap with a rival anthology, Fantasy: The Best of the Year (2006 Edition) (Reviews, July 31). (Sept.)

The 10 stories in this collection from British author Brown (Engineman) thoughtfully address questions of morality, life and death while creating deeply personal worlds. Two of the best are "The Children of Winter," about a first contact gone awry and its repercussion years later, and "Hunting the Slarque," about a man brought back from death who hunts down the creature that killed him. Death—or its absence—weaves together three stories set in a post–first contact Earth where the alien Kéthani have abolished death, including "The Kéthani Inheritance," in which a man has to come to terms with his resurrected, abusive father, and "Thursday's Child," in which a terminally ill girl's parents fight over whether to give her the implant that would guarantee her immortality. While some readers may feel the stories stop short of a full resolution, all can appreciate the graceful writing. (Sept.)

Heiress Meg Piddington has an unladylike desire—for 1890s London—to help run her family's chocolate factory. While her father recovers from an injury, she pitches in to near-disastrous effect when she gets mysteriously locked in a storage room after hours with the new employee, handsome Gareth Mandeville. Although they escape without being detected, Meg faces a dilemma when Gareth is accused of a theft for which she alone can provide an alibi—but only at the cost of her reputation. She and her friends in the Ladies' Amateur Sleuth Society, introduced in DeHart's A Study in Scandal, set out to solve the crime. Trying to guard the secret of his own background as an impoverished viscount, Gareth insists on serving as Meg's protector as they unravel the clues; stubbornly independent, Meg resists his efforts but can't quiet the attraction sizzling between them. DeHart handles her romance well, but the anemic mystery comes to very little. An entirely predictable villain and some childish behavior from the heroine hinder the suspense and the sensuality, but those in search of a light Regency diversion may enjoy DeHart's breezy style. (Oct.)

When Jessica Matthews, a suburban divorcée and mother of two, gets savagely attacked one night by a werewolf, she awakens to find herself sucking blood from the thigh of 4,000-year-old vampire Patrick O'Halloran. He explains that the only way to have kept her from dying was to turn her into a vampire like himself. Now Jessica finds herself recruited to hunt the rampaging Lycan, who may be Patrick's brother, alongside Patrick and the mysterious paranormal organization called the Consortium. Bardsley has done considerable research into Celtic legends in order to create her vampire society, but her research doesn't make for a successful book. Rather than giving us, as the title would suggest, a satirical look at a soccer mom turned "sucker mom" attempting to balance normal daily life with a most abnormal nightlife, Bardsley focuses on Jessica's explicit sexual longing for Patrick and the mundane conflict between the Consortium and their evil counterparts, the Wraith. Though amusing at times, the meat of this vampire tale is oddly bloodless. (Sept.)

The third novel in Ray's Grayson family saga is a warm, winning story of friendship, lust and love—and how the lines between them can blur. Sexy restaurant owner Brandon Grayson is the next child on his mother's matchmaking hit list: she'd like him married off, and quick, just like his two brothers. Determined to thwart her plan and hold on to his freedom, Brandon decides to go celibate, forgoing dating altogether. When a leaky pipe in his apartment must be repaired, he puts up at the hotel run by Faith McBride, one of his oldest friends and the little sister of one of his best buddies. What Brandon doesn't know is that Faith has been in love with him since she was a self-conscious teen, and she's got a plan to snare him. Of course, between Faith's kindness and curves, Brandon begins rethinking his friendship, and his vow of abstinence. The pair's cat-and-mouse game is suspenseful and fun, and even though Ray's writing doesn't dazzle, the novel is sweet and honest without being saccharine, making it a full, enjoyable read. (Sept.)

Thompson's romantic time-traveler begins in 1811 with Thea Barrington, a young Londoner living with her fiancé, Nigel Cosgrove, on his remote Irish estate. Thea's family has much to gain from the wealthy Nigel, so she makes the best of the arrangement despite Nigel's increasingly violent treatment. Thea has another reason to stay on at Nigel's castle—a mysterious gypsy has told Thea that she is destined to become the bride of Ros Drumcondra, also known as the Black Falcon, a half-Gypsy, half-Celt clan chieftain who lost Cashel Cosgrove to Nigel's grandfather more than a hundred years before. Wondering how she could be linked to the fate of this long-lost warrior, Thea stumbles on a portal that takes her back to 1695, the same year Drumcondra disappeared. She is promptly kidnapped and brought to Drumcondra, who, believing she is intended for the Cosgroves, holds her for ransom. Appalled at first by Drumcondra's rough treatment, Thea begins to warm to the handsome chieftain. Though eager to return to her own time, she decides to do what she can to save Drumcondra from the betrayal she believes cost him his life. Readers hoping to make sense of Thompson's time-shifting plot line might find themselves with a headache, but those looking for passion and escape will be pleased. (Sept.)

Huizenga has created some of the most remarkable comics of recent years, and this volume collects stories published in anthologies and random comic books. Huizenga's work, drawn in a deceptively simple and quietly expressive cartoon line, is marked by a focus on philosophical quandaries. Nearly all of his stories take place in an anonymous suburbia, and his everyman protagonist, Glenn Ganges, is a likable character possessed of a Charlie Brown–like calm. The strongest story in this book, "28th Street," is a fanciful meditation on fertility in which Ganges turns to supernatural solutions for his all too corporeal problems. Another excellent story, "Jeepers Jacobs," explores the nature of heaven and hell through the fictionalized work of a theologian protagonist. Another story, "Green Tea," is an adaptation of a 19th-century thriller. It's quite a range, and Ganges's thoughtful wonderment at all of his experiences opens up the world to the reader. Huizenga is an inclusive, empathic artist who communicates without lectures—rather, he simply shows the world as it might be and allows us, through Ganges, to experience it with him. His excellent ear for dialogue and measured prose style accomplish this without flash. These are wonderfully considered, profound comics. (Oct.)

In what is clearly a labor of love, artist Lemelman has created a "memoir" told in the voice of his mother, Gusta, a survivor of the Holocaust. With the characteristic phrasing of one who comes to English later in life, Gusta's is a gritty eyewitness report on the great upheaval of eastern Europe in the 1930s and '40s, based on Lemelman's recording of his mother in 1989; at the harshest moments, the reader can take a small bit of comfort that Gusta survived to live a long life in the U.S.A. Her tale begins with her childhood in the town of Germakivka, Poland (in the current-day Ukraine), and kicks into high gear when the Nazis bring war into her village, destroying an entire way of living. Her voice rolls on inexorably, a stark account of human weakness and fear, tragic missteps with fatal consequences, and unimaginable hardships as she survives for two years with two brothers in a hole in the ground. Lemelman's subdued art gives the story its heart; with a combination of charcoal drawings and photographs, he creates a sense both of an almost mythical time gone by and the very real lives that were snuffed out. (Oct.)

This autobiographical graphic novel by a psychotherapist is a good demonstration of the problems, shame and discrimination fat women face, but it's heavy-handed and not a well-realized story. Milner was a fat child who stole candy, ate compulsively at family barbecues and envied the "little Ginas," the "petite, delicate, real girlie-girls." Milner ran away, was raped, came home, went to college and finally found friends, even a lover. Her life gives us a sense of the worlds fat people may enter: dances where men who like fat women can meet them, and P.H.A.T., a group where women meet, eat and affirm themselves as beautiful and overweight. Unfortunately, only the main character comes across as real; everyone else feels like cutouts designed to prop up stages of Milner's evolution. Milner gets a degree in psychotherapy, but falls into phone sex. Then she meets a man who loves her and realizes that her friends from P.H.A.T. are headed for a life of wheelchairs and walkers. Wilshire's limpid-eyed charcoal sketches are sensitive and touching, and give a sophisticated sense of person and place. If anything saves the day, it's Wilshire's gorgeous art, not the message. (Sept.)

There are few things more heartbreaking than attending the wedding of the one person you truly love, an unfortunate lesson learned when Nagai attends his friend Saitoh's wedding. Despite supposedly not being gay, Nagai is in love with Saitoh, and after the reception he hits the bar and drinks himself half blind. There he meets Honda, a suave guest of the bride, and before long the two are steaming up a hotel room. Finding unexpected romance is one thing, but the next day Nagai learns that Saitoh's bride has run out on him, a turn of events that leads to more drunken male-on-male experimentation and sets up an uneasy romantic triangle. Also in the mix are a few superfluous females for window dressing, but the real focus is on what will or won't happen with the guys. None of it really matters since this is a typical entry into the yaoi/boy love genre. The characters are virtually indistinguishable from one another save for the color of their hair, and for a purported romantic comedy, the laughs are pretty much nonexistent. (Sept.)

In Watsuki's modern-day follow-up to his smash Ruroni Kenshin, we meet high school student Kazuhiko Muto, who dreams of rescuing a pretty schoolgirl from a hideous, tentacled beast. Is this vision just a product of his slumbering imagination? To his horror, Kazuhiko discovers that his dream is actually a terrifying reality and the creature that he battled is a "homunculus," one of a legion of man-eating monsters who hide among the general population in human guise until they can prey upon their victims. Luckily for Kazuhiko, the girl he rescued in his "dream" is a sorceress who seeks to wipe the homunculi from the face of the earth and has altered Kazuhiko's body with the power of alchemy and a talisman called the Kakugane, rendering him virtually unkillable, highly skilled in the fighting arts and empowered with the Buso Renkin, a mystical lance that can defeat the homunculi. Watsuki offers up strong artwork, clear storytelling, hyper-kinetic action, monsters, arcane weaponry and characters crying out their special moves, such as "Valkyrie Skirt!" and the titular "Buso Renkin!" This first volume is mostly setup, but Watsuki's fans will want to stay around for the ride. (Aug.)