interior banner image

New in August: James Sie, David Levithan, Casey McKittrick, and Kim van Alkemade

New in August: James Sie, David Levithan, Casey McKittrick, and Kim van Alkemade

Author: Edit Team

August 6, 2015

New month, new books! A new month is upon us, and so are a slew of new and noteworthy LGBT books.

This month, St. Martin’s Press is releasing The Still Life Las Vegas, a lyrical bildungsroman set in contemporary Las Vegas.

From the publisher:

When Walter Stahl was five-years-old, his mother drove away in the family’s blue Volvo and never came back. Now seventeen, living in the dregs of Las Vegas, taking care of his ailing father and marking time in a dead-end job along the Strip, Walter’s life so far has been defined by her absence. He doesn’t remember what she looks like; he’s never so much as seen a photograph but, still, he looks for her among the groups of tourists he runs into every day, allowing himself the dim hope that she might still be out there, somewhere.

But when Walter meets Chrysto and Acacia, a brother and sister working as living statues at the Venetian Hotel, his world cracks wide open. With them he discovers a Las Vegas he never knew existed and, as feelings for Chrysto develop, a side of himself he never knew he had. At the same time, clues behind his mother’s disappearance finally start to reveal themselves, and Walter is confronted with not only the truth about himself, but also that of his family history.

Threading through this coming-of-age story are beautiful, heart-wrenching graphic illustration, which reveal the journey of Walter’s mother Emily: how she left everything to chase a vision of Liberace across the country; and how Walter’s father Owen went searching for her amongst the gondolas of the Venetian Hotel.

In James Sie’s debut novel, Still Life Las Vegas, the magical collides with the mundane; memory, sexual awakening and familial ties all lead to a place where everything is illuminated, and nothing is real.

Author Kim van Alkemade’s debut novel Orphan #8 (William Morrow) is a harrowing journey into the troubled life of an early twentieth century lesbian:

n 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City’s Lower Eastside. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns fifteen, she runs away to Colorado hoping to find the brother she lost and discovers a family she never knew she had.

Though Rachel believes she’s shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan’s Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Solomon. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing. But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveal to Rachel the complexities of her own nature. She realizes that a person’s fate—to be one who inflicts harm or one who heals—is not always set in stone.

In Murder on Faux Pas Island (A Pancetta Bruleé Mystery) (Lethe Press), author Casey McKittrick weaves a comedic mystery romp set in the haute bourgeoisie world of 1930s New Orleans:

The year is 1935 but this is an America where cross-dressing goes almost unremarked, often unnoticed, and gay relationships are mundane; gay marriage, a quotidian fact of life. Famed chef and female impersonator Pancetta Brulee of New Orleans has been hired to cater a gay engagement party for two prominent grooms at the infamous Faux Pas Island and the Robicheaux estate. Both family and island have a terrible past, and most Cajuns and Creoles avoid the place like the plague. Pancetta attends the weekend engagement party, only to be faced with the gory murder. The family enlists her and her gorgeous yet restless ex, who happens to be on the island as a groundskeeper. The two embark on a strenuous search for the truth of a tragic Saturday night. Among the suspects are a disillusioned fiancé, a Hollywood starlet sister-in-law, an old family friend and admirer of the deceased, a godmother and Countess of Romania, a disapproving mother and father, and a spurned lover of the dead man who has long been a rival for his father’s affections. Murder on Faux Pas Island unfolds as a yarn with campy humor and a hint of romance.

This month, Knopf is releasing  Another Day, a new novel from bestselling author David Levithan:

In this enthralling companion to his New York Times bestseller Every Day, David Levithan mystery mystery mystery (co-author  of Will Grayson, Will Grayson with John Green) tells Rhiannon’s side of the story as she seeks to discover the truth about love and how it can change you.

Every day is the same for Rhiannon. She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin, even established guidelines by which to live: Don’t be too needy. Avoid upsetting him. Never get your hopes up.

Until the morning everything changes. Justin seems to see her, to want to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day—a perfect day Justin doesn’t remember the next morning. Confused, depressed, and desperate for another day as great as that one, Rhiannon starts questioning everything. Then, one day, a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with, the one who made her feel like a real person . . . wasn’t Justin at all.

This month also sees the release of new nonfiction titles from Ryan Berg, Emanuel Levy, and Kevin Jennings.

As always, if we missed an author or book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us.

   

Fiction

Nonfiction
 9781137516015

 LGBT Studies

Romance

Erotica

Speculative Fiction/Horror

Mystery/Thriller

Bio/Memoir

 

Poetry

Related posts:

Keeping Up with the Gays of DC and Marvel : New York Comic Con
'The Future of Another Timeline' by Annalee Newitz
A Poem by C. Russell Price
Edit Team photo

About: Edit Team

Subscribe to our newsletter