Book Clubs: Outstanding Debuts

"What a beautiful, fascinating book! This story of a resourceful seven-year-old growing up in an isolated home in Maine will leave you wondering what 'dysfunctional' actually means and will prove that there are many different shapes of love." --Natasha Hayden, Summer's Stories, Kendallville, IN

"At midlife, historian Ben Ohara renews his effort to write the paper that will secure his academic reputation, 'Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire.' However, he discovers himself exploring the events behind the many secrets in his family -- including his parents' internment during World War II and his brother's disappearance. Book groups will find this a rich book for discussion." --Sally Wizik Wills, Sister Wolf Books, Park Rapids, MN

"Hillary Jordan's assured first novel (recipient of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction) is set on a 1946 Mississippi farm, where Laura, a woman who once thought herself past the chance of marriage, finds herself living with her husband, two daughters, and a difficult father-in-law. The demands of the weather and the land, the life of the black sharecroppers, and the struggles of the returning soldiers, offer Jordan ample material to make her novel both complex and heartbreaking." --Leslie Reiner, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL