The year is 1870. The backdrops are the Franco-Prussian War and the nascent Westernization of Japan. These worlds are linked by a piece of paper used to wrap a handmade Japanese ceramic bowl exported to France; the wrapping is actually... Read More

In London, at the turning of the nineteenth century to the twentieth, Bethia Rayborn, happily engaged to her childhood sweetheart, dreams of their life together as she designs and creates costumes for productions at the Royal Court... Read More

It can be an odd thing when reading fiction to encounter a likable story about unlikable people, and more peculiar still to come across a collection that consists almost entirely of such pieces. This cycle of twelve interrelated stories... Read More

In the future, all things are possible. In this novel, set in the waning days of the twenty-first century, cars really do resemble those piloted by George Jetson, water is strictly rationed (no surprise there), and computer technology... Read More

In its own riveting way, this novel vibrates with the urgency of an old-fashioned Alfred Hitchcock movie. Suspense builds with Hitchcock-like undercurrents, although the plot at times unfurls with the heavy-handed intensity of a National... Read More

In a fable-like telling greed evil magic and true love interweave in this visionary short fantasy tale by an Iranian-born poet and translator. Readers are transported to an idyllic village in “a land far away” learning initially... Read More

“So this is war.” This nascent realization is uttered more than once by characters in this historical novel. Readers are privy to the woes and grief of ordinary folk as they are thrust into the maelstrom of a most difficult... Read More

Though the coyotes that so magically appear and disappear to the startled residents of this small community near Albuquerque, looming like silent totems, are not quite trespassers, a few locals bluster in letters to the newspaper that... Read More