"As a bookseller, I will recommend Road to Reckoning not only to the numerous "True Grit/Sisters Brothers" fans, but also to anyone looking for an exciting, adventurous novel with a lot of heart and character depth." ~Pete

One does not travel the path to vengeance alone

Twelve -year -old Thomas Walker has never left New York City. His father, a traveling salesman hoping to earn money by selling Samuel Colt's recent invention, the "Improved Revolving Gun," takes young Thomas with him on the road. But even the world's first true revolver cannot save them from danger, and what starts as an adventure soon turns into a nightmare.

Thomas soon finds himself alone, and must rely on his own wits, courage, and determination, as well as a wooden replica of the Colt revolver, to protect himself. Luckily, an encounter with a surly ex-ranger, Henry Stands, leads to an improbable partnership, and the two set out in perilous pursuit of vengeance. That is, if they can escape the thieves who lurk around each trail, river, and road--and who have already stolen so much from Thomas.

In the spirit of The Sisters Brothers and True Grit, this spare, elegant, and emotionally resonant story conveys, through a boy's eyes, a beautiful father-son story, as well as the fascinating history of how the birth of the revolver changed the course of violence in America. Road to Reckoning offers a window into the history of the American West and the heart of a boy yearning for love.

The author offers the history of the guns in this book in these blog entries:
The Gun. The Legend.
The Air Rifle.

Pete says:
"I was a big fan of Sisters Brothers, a neo-western novel that came out a few years back, but westerns or neo-westerns and the like seem few and far between these days. I am happy to report that there is another such novel on the horizon, that being Robert Lautner's Road to Reckoning, which debuts early 2014.
 
It is difficult, however, to classify this novel as a western when our narrator, Thomas Walker, admits that he and his father didn't even make it that far west before being set upon by a gang of thieving, murderous sidewinders. But it is 1837, and one didn't need to travel that far from the east coast cities to find rugged country with little or no law for protection.
 
Thomas is helping his father locate customers for a new Colt revolver that promises to revolutionize the use of the handgun. Sales are brisk until they come across some very bad men. Shots are fired and Thomas is left to fend for himself. He has no choice but to gather himself as best he can and head back home to New York.
As luck would have it there is one other man heading east, a past-his-prime former Ranger named Henry Stands who wants nothing to do with a twelve-year old boy nipping at his heals. But what can he do, the kid won't stop following him, his one and only talent.
 
At this point the story shares more similarities with the classic western novel (not to mention two fine film adaptations) True Grit.  But whereas True Grit's Mattie Ross is as fierce and determined as they come, our Thomas Walker is home-schooled and timid and 'seemingly' no match for the harsh wilderness and the roughnecks who roam there. I've written seemingly because even the meek can muster strength when need be. True, Thomas was armed. But his gun -- unlike the ones aiming at him -- was just a toy. Watch out anyway, sidewinders.
 
As a bookseller, I will recommend Road to Reckoning not only to the numerous True Grit/Sisters Brothers fans, but also to anyone looking for an exciting, adventurous novel with a lot of heart and character depth. Sober or not, Henry Stands is someone you'd want to have your back when the bullets start flying. As for the kid, he's got about a week to become a man or die in the forest. I wouldn't count him out."

TC Tidbit: Top 10 Valentine's Day Books For Kids

Check out the list HERE.

TC Tidbits: 10 Recent Nonfiction Books To Read for Black History Month

Check out the list HERE.

"This is truly a remarkable debut of a very talented new voice in fiction." ~Jackie

An absentee father, a former dissident from communist-era Prague, needles his adult daughter for details about her newly commissioned play when he fears it will cast him in an unflattering light. An actor, imprisoned during the Red Scare for playing up his communist leanings to get a part with a leftist film director, is shamed by his act when he reunites with his precocious young son. An Israeli soldier, forced to defend a settlement filled with American religious families, still pines for a chance to discover the United States for himself. A young Israeli journalist, left unemployed after America s most recent economic crash, questions her life path when she begins dating a middle-aged widower still in mourning for his wife. And in the book's final story, a tour de force spanning three continents and three generations of women, a young American and her Israeli husband are forced to reconsider their marriage after the death of her dissident art-collecting grandmother.

Again and again, Molly Antopol's deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.

 

Get to know Molly Antopol HERE. 

 

Jackie says:

"These eight stories taught me a lot about parts of the world I had heard of but didn't know much about.  The characters that Antopol conjures up are sharp, vital, and very "real".  Though much of what they go through is foreign literally and figuratively, I was able to find a connection with all of these people, which is pretty impressive when you understand that these are only 25 page stories.  Antopol slyly slides us into the fray immediately, and really doesn't let you go.  I felt like I could only read one story a day because I needed to process what all went on in the story I'd just finished.  This is truly a remarkable debut of a very talented new voice in fiction."

“I don't believe in ghosts. At least that’s what I kept telling myself as I read The Winter People. I also don't need to sleep with the lights on. I told myself that, too. But I was whistling past a graveyard—or, in this case—past a Vermont landscape that is authentic and recognizable and still altogether chilling. The Winter People is terrifying—everything you could want in a classic ghost story.” —Chris Bohjalian, author of "The Light in the Ruins"

 The New York Times bestselling author of Promise Not to Tell returns with a simmering literary thriller about ghostly secrets, dark choices, and the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters . . . sometimes too unbreakable.

West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara's fate, she discovers that she's not the only person who's desperately looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.

Save The Date!!!

Jennifer McMahon will be at our Colfax Avenue store on Wednesday, Feb 26, 2014 at 7:30 pm.

The event is free and open to the public.

TC Tidbit: Author Dora Levy Mossanen's Has Some Bedside Advice About Books

See what she has to say HERE.

Fresh Fiction For Your Enjoyment

From the celebrated author of The Curfew (“A spare masterwork of dystopian fiction” —The New York Times Book Review), Jesse Ball’s Silence Once Begun is an astonishing novel of unjust conviction, lost love, and a journalist’s obsession.

Over the course of several months, eight people vanish from their homes in the same Japanese town, a single playing card found on each door. Known as the “Narito Disappearances,” the crime has authorities baffled—until a confession appears on the police’s doorstep, signed by Oda Sotatsu, a thread salesman. Sotatsu is arrested, jailed, and interrogated—but he refuses to speak. Even as his parents, brother, and sister come to visit him, even as his execution looms, and even as a young woman named Jito Joo enters his cell, he maintains his vow of silence. Our narrator, a journalist named Jesse Ball, is grappling with mysteries of his own when he becomes fascinated by the case. Why did Sotatsu confess? Why won’t he speak? Who is Jito Joo? As Ball interviews Sotatsu’s family, friends, and jailers, he uncovers a complex story of heartbreak, deceit, honor, and chance.

Wildly inventive and emotionally powerful, Silence Once Begun is a devastating portrayal of a justice system compromised, and evidence that Jesse Ball is a voraciously gifted novelist working at the height of his powers.

Gaby Mortimer is the woman who has it all. But everything changes when she finds a body on the common near her home. She's shaken and haunted by the image of the lifeless young woman, and frightened that the killer, still at large, could strike again.

Before long, the police have a lead. The evidence points to a very clear suspect. One Gaby never saw coming . . .

Full of twists and turns, this is a dark and suspenseful psychological thriller that will make you second-guess everything. Because you can never be too sure about anything, especially when it comes to murder.

 A major literary debut, an epic tale of love, failure, and unexpected faith set in New York, Amsterdam, and Las Vegas

The modern-day Jonah at the center of Joshua Max Feldman’s brilliantly conceived retelling of the book of Jonah is a young Manhattan lawyer named Jonah Jacobstein. He’s a lucky man: healthy and handsome, with two beautiful women ready to spend the rest of their lives with him and an enormously successful career that gets more promising by the minute. He’s celebrating a deal that will surely make him partner when a bizarre, unexpected biblical vision at a party changes everything. Hard as he tries to forget what he saw, this disturbing sign is only the first of many Jonah will witness, and before long his life is unrecognizable. Though this perhaps divine intervention will be responsible for more than one irreversible loss in Jonah’s life, it will also cross his path with that of Judith Bulbrook, an intense, breathtakingly intelligent woman who’s no stranger to loss herself. As this funny and bold novel moves to Amsterdam and then Las Vegas, Feldman examines the way we live now while asking an age-old question: How do you know if you’re chosen?