14 new books to spice up your fall
Shannon St. Hilaire’s new book, “The Hanford Necklace,” takes us back to the World War II era, when 50,000 people moved to a Washington town that didn’t exist to build a weapon they couldn’t name.
St. Hilaire, a native of the Tri-Cities, says that for a long time she couldn’t imagine writing a book set in her hometown. But then she got the idea for a family saga about the massive nuclear site. The result is a novel described in by Kirkus Reviews as “historically riveting, narratively addictive, and truly disturbing.”
“The Hanford Necklace,” due out Oct. 6, is among a rich crop of fall releases that should hold special appeal for readers in the Inland Northwest. Among them are books by Spokane writer Samuel Ligon, Portland novelists Patrick deWitt and Peter Rock, speculative fiction master Emily St. John Mandel, bestselling sensation Bonnie Garmus and fiction writer and essayist Pam Houston.
Here are 14 books to put on your list:
Fiction
“Makeshift” by Peter Rock. In this post-apocalyptic tale, three sisters – Ari, Heiko, and CeCe – learn to fend for themselves, fishing and foraging in the shallow waters of their protected cove and entertaining themselves with half-remembered songs and tales from the time before. The author of 11 previous books of fiction, Rock is a native of Salt Lake City who now lives in Portland and teaches at Reed College. His novel “My Abandonment” was adapted into the 2018 movie “Leave No Trace.” (Aug. 25, Soft Skull/Penguin Random House)
“Before You Were Anne” by Emiko Jean. A page-turner told in three interwoven voices, “Before You Were Anne” plays out across an isolated Idaho town, Tokyo’s shadowed underworld and years of carefully constructed lies. Jean, who lives in Vancouver, Washington, brings back Detective Chelsey Calhoun for her second appearance in a dark story line that feels all too timely and real. A mother is dead, and now Calhoun must find the woman’s teenage daughter Naomi before she becomes the next victim. (Sept. 1, Simon & Schuster)
“Miller Cane: A True and Exact History” by Samuel Ligon. Spokane-area readers may be familiar with this story. Ligon, an English professor at Eastern Washington University, took a page out of Dickens and serialized an early version in the Inlander and on public radio. His novel introduces Miller Cane, a con man earning a tidy living off the victims of mass shootings when he is forced to take a road trip with his 8-year-old daughter to protect her from his ex-wife’s ex-lover. Cane, a former history teacher, takes the girl on a checkered tour of historical sites in the American West as they evade danger. All the while, this professional liar struggles to say something true to the child he grows to love. (Sept. 15, Slant Books)
“Exit Party” by Emily St. John Mandel. Best known for her prescient pandemic novel “Station Eleven,” Mandel writes thought-provoking and thrilling speculative fiction, sometimes set in the evergreen forests of the Pacific Northwest and other times in space colonies. Her new novel opens in a near-future Los Angeles, soon after the collapse of the United States, as her protagonist unravels a mystery in a time of cataclysmic change. (Sept. 17, Knopf)
“Dodge City” by Patrick deWitt. An apolitical 23-year-old from Concrete, Washington, is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion – and his removal from the draft deferment list. With just a single suitcase, he sets off on a road trip to Canada stopping in Washington, Montana, and elsewhere to say goodbye to members of his family. Author Jonathan Lethem describes “Dodge City” as a “perfect novel” that balances on the “knife’s edge of hilarity and tenderness.” (Sept. 29, Ecco)
“The Hanford Necklace” by Shannon St. Hilaire. This dual-timeline saga is set in the Tri-Cities, which boomed in the 1940s as thousands arrived to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project. In a 2013 story arc, Saige O’Toole is living with her Granny Rosamond, desperate for a cure for mysterious ailments and chafing at life in a place she calls a “wasteland of brown barren flatness.” But Rosamond carries frightening secrets about a town on the Columbia River that has become the most contaminated place in the Western Hemisphere. (Oct. 6, She Writes Press)
“Fair Ones: A Double Novel” by Lydia Millet. This new work from the best-selling Arizona author of “A Children’s Bible” follows two women in their 40s who are reeling from the sudden and baffling death of their friend Claire. “This is a story that’s honest, warm, and utterly realistic for anyone who’s enjoyed the bonds of a close, confiding friendship,” says a review at Shelf Awareness. (Oct. 6, W.W. Norton)
“Peck & Peck” by Bonnie Garmus. At 64, Garmus became a global sensation after her debut novel, “Lessons in Chemistry,” took off as a major bestseller and an Apple TV series. Now the former Seattle writer has published her second novel, a story about a young man hired to join the “most dysfunctional poetry journal in the world,” a secretive enterprise whose editors believe poetry holds the key to humanity’s survival. (Oct. 13, Scribner)
“The Hollow” by Michael Connelly. Retired detective Harry Bosch returns, delving into the darkest chapter of his past in the new thriller from the prolific best-selling author. When Bosch was 11, his mother was murdered and he became a ward of the state, housed in a notorious orphanage where abuse was rampant. Decades after the home’s closure, a lawsuit has resulted in a multibillion-dollar settlement for former residents. But when Bosch’s half-brother, “Lincoln Lawyer” Mickey Haller, brings the news that Harry is entitled to $400,000, Bosch says he doesn’t want the money. He wants justice. On Oct. 28, Connelly travels to Spokane to join The Spokesman-Review’s Northwest Passages Book Club. (Oct. 27, Little, Brown and Company)
Nonfiction
“Wild Work: Adventures of Women Field Biologists” edited by Susan B. Adams and Sophie A.H. Osborn. This inspiring and entertaining anthology tells the often-untold stories of dozens of female scientists and their encounters with wolves, condors, bats, bears, and other wild animals. Osborn and Adams, both wildlife biologists, hope to inspire other women to find their place in science and the outdoors. (Sept. 1, Skipstone/Mountaineer Books)
“Rules to Live By” by Jimmy Chin. A professional mountaineer and photographer, Chin is the Academy Award–winning director behind “Free Solo,” the edge-of-your-seat chronicle of climber Alex Honnold’s unprecedented ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. In “Rules to Live By,” Chin shares life lessons in conversations with 10 extraordinary people, including Honnold, actress Annette Bening, gymnast Simone Biles, cellist Alex Honnold and photojournalist Lynsey Addario. Chin lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. (Sept. 29, Celadon Books)
“Northerners: Alaskans Yesterday and Today” by Michael Engelhard. In his new book, Engelhard profiles some of the artists, activists, naturalists, and adventurers who give the 49th State its unique character. His subjects include a bear-dog trainer, a grifter, smokejumpers, and Denali shuttle-bus drivers. Engelhard is a writer and wilderness guide who has been drawn to the Far North since he was a teenager. (Oct. 1, Corax Books)
“Animals Taught Me Everything” by Pam Houston. The author of “Cowboys are My Weakness,” Houston lives on a ranch in the rugged mountains of Colorado where she writes with love and humor about her life with horses, dogs, sheep and mini-donkeys. In her new book of essays, Houston waxes lyrical about creatures wild and domestic, and the lessons she has learned from them at home in the West and in her travels around the world, from Africa to Iceland. From close observation of animals she has learned how to play, how to listen, how to forgive, and “how to make a good day out of a sad day.” (Oct. 13, Torrey House Press)
“Sasquatch Country: Death, Myth, and Truth in the New American Wildernes