All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews

Publisher: Faber & Faber 
Publication date: June 5th 2014
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9780571305285


Synopsis

A funny, serious and heart felt new novel about the biggest question of all.

Yolanda is conflicted. Her sister Elf has battled depression for her whole adult life, and is in a psychiatric ward under permanent observation after attempting suicide - again.

Yolanda has always looked up to Elf as her talented and beautiful older sister. She loves her with a fierce passion and wants to believe in the possibility of a future together, one in which Elf gets better. But it's looking unlikely and Yolanda has to decide; if the person you love is tired of living, is it kinder just to let them go?

All My Puny Sorrows (a line from a Coleridge poem) is written out of Miriam Toews's personal experience and is, in some ways, a grown-up version of A Complicated Kindness, the novel that catapulted Toews to her bestselling status in Canada. This story allows Toews's beguiling narrative voice - her easy, snappy, darkly comic intimacy - to sing through.

Copper Magic, by Julia Mary Gibson

Publisher: Starscape
Publication date: July 1st 2014
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9780765332110


Synopsis

Debut author Julia Mary Gibson explores turn-of-the-century Native American culture, ecology, and conservation, in her historical fiction novel, Copper Magic.

The year is 1906, and on the shores of Lake Michigan twelve-year-old Violet Blake unearths an ancient talisman—a copper hand. Violet’s touch warms the copper hand and it begins to reveal glimpses of another time. Violet is certain that the copper hand is magic—and if anyone is in need of its powers, it’s Violet. Her mother and adored baby brother are gone, perhaps never to return. Her heartbroken father can’t seem to sustain the failing farm on the outskirts of Pigeon Harbor, on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Surely the magic of the copper hand can make things right for Violet and restore her fractured family. Violet makes a wish. But her ignorant carelessness unleashes formidable powers—and her attempts to control them jeopardizes not only herself, but the entire town of Pigeon Harbor.

In Copper Magic, land and waters are alive with memories, intentions, and impulses. Magic alters Violet and brings her gifts—but not always the kind she thinks she needs. First-time author Julia Mary Gibson brings Violet and her community to life in this impressive and assured debut.

Coin Heist, by Elisa Ludwig

Publisher: Adaptive Studios
Publication date: June 10th 2014
Pages: 225
ASIN: B00JAGN4JO


Synopsis

The last place you’d expect to find a team of criminals is at a prestigious Philadelphia prep school. But on a class trip to the U.S. Mint—which prints a million new coins every 30 minutes—an overlooked security flaw becomes far too tempting for a small group of students to ignore. United by dire circumstances, these unlikely allies—the slacker, the nerd, the athlete, and the “perfect” student—band together to attempt the impossible: rob the U.S. Mint. This diverse crew is forced to confront their true beliefs about each other and themselves as they do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

COIN HEIST is a dynamic young adult caper told from the revolving perspectives of four teens, each with their own motive for committing a crime that could change all of their lives for the better—that is, if they can pull it off.

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith

Publisher: Vintage Classics 
Publication date: 1948 
Pages: 408
ISBN: 0099460874


Synopsis

'This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met' J. K. Rowling.

‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink’ is the first line of this timeless, witty and enchanting novel about growing up. Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fadingly glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from a financially crippling writer’s block. However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time…