Spot-Lit for October 2014

Every month our fiction buyer scours the new fiction landscape and presents here a curated list of some of the most anticipated new releases based on advance review praise, publisher enthusiasm, library- and lit-crowd blogs, and other sources (some well below the radar).

Here are a few highlights from this month’s installment:

Garth Stein, past Everett Reads author of The Art of Racing in the Rain, has a new novel out, A Sudden Light – a Puget Sound-set, coming of age ghost story.

It Won’t Always Be This Great, Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman’s first novel, came out in September so this is cheating a bit (it just sounds too good to not highlight) – but take a look at the other stellar debuts too.

The Zone of Interest, Martin Amis’s new holocaust novel is being called brilliant, audacious, and haunting, and it’s stirring up controversy in France and Germany.

Among returning favorites you’ll find new books from Jane Smiley, Marilynne Robinson and Debbie Macomber, and from crime fiction stars John Grisham and John Sandford.

Additionally in the mystery genre, Felix Francis really hits his stride in Damage, the latest in his continuation of his father’s horse-racing series.

Click the titles below and then the Full Display button to read summaries or reviews or to place titles on hold.

General Fiction / Literary Fiction

The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis

A Sudden Light by Garth Stein

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

The Human Body by Paolo Giordano

First Fiction

The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink

Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

It Won’t Always Be This Great by Peter Mehlman