Take a look at these notable new releases
compiled by Sally Brewster
The Book of Luke by Lovell Holder
Following the car accident that ended his football career and left his body scarred, 22-year-old Luke Griffin joins the cast of “Endeavor,” a new competition-based reality show that pits tabloid darlings against one another in tasks of endurance and problem-solving. At first, he thrives, effortlessly forming friendships and even a romantic relationship he thinks will last a lifetime. But soon a series of betrayals leads to irreversible tragedy, changing the course of his and his fellow contestants’ lives forever. Ten years later, Luke’s world looks very different: He is now a father of two and the stay-at-home husband to America’s only openly gay senator. When his husband’s serial cheating is exposed, Luke impulsively joins the cast of a new season of “Endeavor” in a desperate bid to earn some fast cash. Back on set, he is confronted with everything he tried to leave in the past: bitter rivalries, shattered friendships and crushing guilt. Holder, a filmmaker, is a Charlotte native; The Book of Luke is his debut novel.
Dog Show poems by Billy Collins
Billy Collins’ Dog Show celebrates the joy of our canine best friends, honoring the love we feel for the animals who play such vital roles in our lives. In 25 poems, Collins distills the many ways dogs warm our hearts, from the happiness we experience as we watch a dog run unencumbered by our burdens, to the silliness of cradling a dog in our arms as we step on the scale together. Turning his inimitable eye and ear to the complexities of dog behavior, Collins ponders all that these winning creatures give us and what we learn from them about ourselves.
Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end. There is also the matter of the family curse: “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace …” which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof. When Eniiyi falls in love with the handsome boy she saves from drowning, she can no longer run from her family’s history. She seeks answers in older, darker spiritual corners of Lagos, demanding solutions. Is she destined to live out the habitual story of love and heartbreak? Or can she break the pattern once and for all?
Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
“Every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives, and the one who writes. Though everything written must have passed through their minds, or mind, they are not the same.”
Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents, Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadic, sometimes isolated but also thrilling and beautiful. From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel year that spawned Cat’s Eye to the Orwellian 1980s Berlin, where she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. In pages bursting with bohemian gatherings, her magical life with the wildly charismatic writer Graeme Gibson and major political turning points, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood actors and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel. SP
Sally Brewster is the proprietor of Park Road Books, 4139 Park Rd.
