Apovian, Director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston University Medical Center, describes herself as "an obesity medicine physician." As one of the world's leading research-ers on obesity and weight loss she is privy to "the most up-to-the-minute scientific findings on what makes people fat." According to Apovian, many diets fail because they lead to muscle wasting (aka sarcopenia, or Shrinking Muscle Syndrome) which lowers metabolism. Her "hybrid" plan of two diet strategies promotes lean muscle for efficiently burning calories. Apovian calls her first strategy the "1-Day Power Up": no solid foods one day per week; instead, dieters feast on smoothies packed with pro-tein, fiber, and nutrients. Taking a break from consuming solid foods, she explains, is a time-tested method to jumpstarts fat burning and weight loss in preparation for her plan's second phase, the "Six-Day Fuel Up." Simple yet enticing recipes for healthy, protein-rich meals are included, along with a brisk workout routine of 21 minutes four times a week. While the diet is sensible (whole grains, veg-gies, fruits, etc.) readers may be particularly drawn to Apovian's impressive medical track record and the allure of a weight loss method free of calorie-counting and deprivation. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

Burton's posthumously published sequel to 2010's Nights of the Red Moon suggests that Beauregard "Bo" Handel, the 63-year-old sheriff of fictional Caddo County in East Texas would have become a well-loved series character had the author not died in 2011. Bo investigates the Aryan League, a local white supremacist group founded by renowned language professor Afton Spencer. Afton is erudite, but his group includes violent, criminal members who may be responsible both for the murder of a local contractor and D-Day veteran and a shooting that left Bo's African-American deputy, Toby Parsons, in a coma. Bo receives help from FBI contacts, who have a mole—notorious "Dixie Mafia" member Jasper Sparks—inside the League, but he also encounters obstruction from an uncooperative ATF agent, interfering politicians, and a grandstanding community leader. Burton's strong sense of local color never becomes regional caricature, preserving the suspense and credibility of this sadly final out-ing for Bo. (July)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

Hilderbrand's latest (after Summerland) is the perfect beach read—down to its Nantucket setting. The Carmichaels and Grahams arrive on the island for the wedding of golden girl Jenna Carmichael to eth-ical banker Stuart Graham. Jenna's mother Beth, before dying seven years ago, prepared a wedding notebook, a guide that approaches sanctity to Jenna, her cynical older sister, Margot, and Douglas, the still-grieving and unhappily re-married Carmichael patriarch. While the notebook gives solace to these three, it also threatens to break apart Douglas's second marriage. As for the groom, his parents Ann and Jim divorced two decades earlier only to happily remarry, but his mother can't resist tempting fate. She invites Helen, the woman her husband left her for back then, to the wedding, and her behav-ior threatens everyone's happiness. The narrative unfolds through Margot, Doug, and Ann's perspec-tives and is aided by entries from Beth's notebook and "outtakes" from family and friends that read like unusually personal wedding video confessionals. The author's straightforward style pulls the reader into the minds of her characters, and all the secrets and sorrows that create the universal messi-ness of major family events. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management. (June 25)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

Despite the chill promised of the title, this collection of short stories from Mexican writer Enrigue ex-udes a warmth that fluctuates throughout and culminates in a scorching final installment. However, the temperature of the plot and language follows a converse trajectory to the subjects' interiority: the ice is simply below the surface, freezing over the characters' hearts and minds. Enrigue's protagonists coolly observe their fellow man, as well as their own place in society, their careers, and roles they've found themselves in, with a detached sense of superiority and emotional distance. In "Gula, or: The Invoca-tion", a doubtful father reluctantly writes a story which sacrifices his pet cat in order to save his fami-ly; in "Outrage" a mentally unhinged garbage collector goes on a crime spree; and in "The Extinction of Dalmation", we find Tuone Udina, the intellectually- and hearing-challenged last living speaker of the Dalmatian language in a remote corner of Croatia. Udina, the subject of a study by a heartless ar-cheology professor, is also the most unexpected and poignant story in the collection. Throughout, En-rigue imaginatively explores identity, isolation in contemporary society, and the breakdown of com-munication. (May)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

The latest from National Book Award finalist Caletti (for Honey, Baby, Sweetheart) is an all-in-one-sitting affair. Dani Keller, saddled with an abusive husband and bland suburban neighborhood, leaves her ugly marriage and pretty house. Her exit route is an affair with sympathetic neighbor Ian, which leads to a new life on a houseboat on Seattle's Lake Union. Now married to Ian, the promise of her new life is locked in: a new neighborhood with color and vibrancy, a software company for her hus-band to run, and a sailboat named The New View. One fine morning, Dani wakes up and Ian is gone. From here, Caletti constructs a whodunit with all its attendant police interviews and clue-chasing. Has someone hurt or killed Ian? Did he do this himself? Was it a frantic flight to a new country or a new identity? The author expertly shifts focus from the nitty-gritty of how to find the guy towards a greater investment in probing the psychology of human relationships. Caletti solves the mystery in the end, but more riveting and of greater depth is her second conclusion, that you bring your same self wherev-er you go. (May)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

Few events are as tragic as the loss of a child, especially when the circumstances are unclear. In Leavitt's story of 1950's suburbia, discord strikes when divorced working mother Ava Lark moves in. Although the neighborhood closes ranks against Ava, her 12-year old son Lewis finds two friends: Jimmy and Rose, siblings marginally more acceptable because their father is dead. When Jimmy dis-appears, a neighborhood gripped by the paranoia of the era mobilizes to search for Jimmy, but there are those who suspect Ava since Jimmy frequented her home. Already yearning for his father, Lewis withdraws into himself as Jimmy fails to materialize, and abandonment is complete when Rose and her mother move away. An eight-year temporal leap finds Lewis working at a hospital in a different state and Rose teaching elementary school, though neither remain in contact. Leavitt (Pictures of You), known for her ability to plumb the depths of human emotions, reveals the far-reaching effects of Jim-my's disappearance on the entire character of the neighborhood. Her real strength lies in her portrayal of grief's many manifestations in those most closely affected: Lewis, Rose, and the two mothers. Leavitt demonstrates through Lewis and Rose that without closure, the grief remains dormant yet re-tains its power. (May)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

In this sophisticated thriller, Faust (Sea of Bones) introduces readers to narrator Thomas Jackstraw, a mercenary killer on assignment in Latin America training would-be soldiers. Before long, operatives of the fledgling American Patriotic Party—an alternative to the traditional Democratic and Republican parties—offer Jackstraw both fortune and asylum to fake the assassination of its sexed-up female vice presidential candidate, Rachel Leah Valentine, unleashing a tangled plot that takes readers on a whirl-wind adventure spanning Third World jungles, seedy Chicago hotel rooms, and the storm-whipped Rocky Mountains. Jackstraw, a West Point expellee who comes from a long line of distinguished mili-tary men, realizes he's been set up after the staged shooting in a crowded Latin American public square backfires and the aging APP presidential candidate takes a fatal bullet. Jackstraw retreats to the United States and becomes the most wanted man in America while quietly plotting revenge on his double-crossers. Complicating matters is his steamy relationship with Valentine and an ambitious re-porter's quest to clear Jackstraw's name with a career-defining story. Snappy, realistic dialogue and Jackstraw's snark propel the narrative, and he emerges as a charismatic, though potentially polarizing, villain with traces of a conscience. Love him or hate him, Faust should give Jackstraw another starring role. (May)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

This massive novel traces the evolution of the City of Light over eight centuries, lacing together the fates of a handful of families in operatic style over the decades as class, religion, and commerce are buffeted by great historical forces. From the construction of Notre Dame and the Belle Epoque to the Nazi occupation, Rutherfurd (New York), a specialist in fictionalizing great sweeps of history through a single place, weaves the family ties of a bourgeois merchant clan, a minor aristocratic lineage, and a working-class family of patriots and criminals. Augmented by a credible cast of several dozen other characters, the author spins tales of multiple of emotions over many eras. Rutherfurd dispatches these rich historical periods with grace, bringing different epochs to life through the family sagas that cleave through the sweep of time, from an era of great cathedrals to the rise of the Eiffel Tower. Though his characters are too often pressed into service as talking history textbooks, he shows great authority as to what makes Paris exciting, lively, and timeless in its appeal. Agent: Rogers, Coleridge & White (U.K.). (May)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

Actress Graham's debut novel is set in 1995, a time when Caller-ID was a new feature, faxes were commonplace, and New York City's Times Square was still known for peep shows and unsavory characters. Following a predictable plot, Franny Banks, an aspiring actress living in pre-trendy Park Slope, Brooklyn, is desperate to break into theater but has only six months left on her self-imposed deadline to make that dream come true. With Franny's unruly hair, a body that doesn't quite fit the actress mold, and quirky personality—which too often feels forced—she doesn't see how she can compete with the petite and polished Penelope Scholtzky. Suddenly, Absolute, one of the biggest tal-ent agencies in the business, becomes interested in Franny and things take a turn for the better; she gets jobs and begins a relationship with up-and-coming actor James Franklin. But as Franny rises, she wonders if everything she's worked so hard for is really what she wants. Although much of the story centers on the ordinary realization that what you want isn't always what's right for you, Graham pro-vides an inside peek at the world of acting and the struggles of making it. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (May)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink

In the first English translation of their 1946 novella, husband and wife Casares and Ocampo send up the conventions of the detective novel. A vacationing doctor, who insists, "may nobody call me an un-reliable narrator," weasels his way into solving a murder at a seaside Argentinian resort. When a young woman, Mary, is found dead at the hotel, Dr. Huberman, presuming himself to be "the domi-nant intellect" on the scene, takes the lead in an investigation that at points turns on each of the book's characters. No one is immune from blame; anyone—including Mary's sister Emilia and Emilia's fian-cée—could plausibly be the killer. The sinuous mystery is further complicated by Huberman's narra-tion, which is colored by his arrogance and is far less reliable than he believes. Casares and Ocampo drolly mock the genre itself as Huberman claims "complicated crimes were the province of literature; reality was more banal." The pair's only collaboration turns out to be a witty and erudite take on the clichéd mystery. (May)

Reviewed on 05/24/2013 | Details & Permalink