explores the effects of the 2008 economic
downturn on a small staff of human
resources managers at a research firm in
this witty novel. At the twilight of a successful career, 64-year-old Rosa Guerrero,
Ellery Consumer Research’s widowed HR
chief, is losing her edge. She experienced a
ministroke some years earlier and now has
had a second; at work, she’s endured a
major lieutenant’s embezzlement and
company cutbacks. Rosa is tough but
secretly a mother hen, so it’s sweet (but
never saccharine, because of Medoff’s wry
and ironic sensibility) when her most
trusted staffers nurture and cover for her to
keep her at the job that is her whole life.
At least one of the four underlings whose
stories are told along with Rosa’s has ulterior motives, but all will recognize their
weaknesses and become more fulfilled by
the end. The characters are well-drawn,
though the author gets stuck in their personal tangents, which occasionally drags
down the storytelling. Nevertheless, this
is a sharp and moving novel. (Jan.)
For fans of Sci-Fi and young adult
genres comes an imaginitive
series that will transport them to a
different world in a different time
C.R. NORRIS PRESENTS
WASP CHRONICLES the
Pages / 386
ISBN / 978-1478769682
Publisher / Outskirts Press
Pages / 380
ISBN / 978-1478785989
Publisher / Outskirts Press
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; Peach
Emma Glass. Bloomsbury, $18 (112p) ISBN 978-1-63557-130-1
Glass’s fierce and mesmerizing debut straddles the line between fable and novel as it chronicles the ffects of a sexual assault on a young woman by a depraved stranger named Lincoln. The book opens
with teenage Peach walking home after the attack, battered and bruised. The lingering smells, sounds, and
taste of the event are evoked in vivid detail: “charcoal
breath,” “burnt flesh,” “crack crackly crackling” blood.
Peach tells no one about what happened to her—neither
her boyfriend, Green, nor her oversexed parents—and instead stitches her wounds
up in the bath using a thread and sewing needle. In subsequent days, nightmares,
hallucinations, and fear creep in alongside the evocative scent of roasting sausage
and eerie sightings of Lincoln lurking in the woods near Peach’s school. Peach
relishes the comfort of Green’s generous embrace while trying to ignore the psychological, emotional, and physical changes roiling within her. These surprisingly
tender moments between Green and Peach offer respite from an otherwise challenging story as it leads up to its unforgettable twist ending. Making full use
of metaphor, alliteration, and wordplay, Glass’s remarkable prose stretches the
boundaries of storytelling throughout, adding depth and strange beauty to this
vital novel. (Jan.)
