Five Fiction Books to Look For in 2016
Alyssa Capel ‘17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
A new year means new releases! From sequels to series ends to standalone novels, here are five books to look out for in 2016:
1.The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
Stiefvater’s series The Raven Cycle will come to a close April 26 with the highly anticipated fourth novel, The Raven King. Her previous Shiver trilogy and novel The Scorpio Races have placed her on bestseller lists. The young adult series The Raven Cycle follows a group of teens who come together after Blue Sargent, a psychic’s daughter, learns that she is fated to cause one of their deaths. Gansey, the boy whose demise she will bring about, is on a quest with three fellow Aglionby school “Raven Boys” to find a king from an ancient legend who will grant him a wish. Despite knowing she should stay away from Gansey, Blue tries to help the Raven Boys while trying not to let herself get closer to the very person she is most dangerous to.
2.Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
Sequel to the action-packed YA fantasy heist novel Six of Crows, the second installment in the companion series to Bardugo’s bestselling Grisha trilogy is set to be released September 22. In Six of Crows, a gang of young convicts and misfits embark on the mission of a lifetime that’s sure to make them rich and comfortable forever. Unfortunately, the man they are tasked with rescuing has dangerous knowledge that could change their world, and they aren’t the only ones who have been sent to find him. Crooked Kingdom will pick up after the conclusion of the daring heist and showdown with a rival gang in which one of the misfits was kidnapped.
3.The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
A sweeping historical novel that uses opera to frame its story of a woman who rises to fame in Paris as a singer, The Queen of the Night will be released February 2. Lilliet Berne, an orphan on the American frontier, comes to Europe and finds herself falling into a variety of roles. She navigates a bright and bustling world populated with historical figures who become suspect when she realizes that one of them has revealed a secret from her past.
4.Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings by Stephen O’Connor
O’Connor seeks to give a voice to a historical figure who has remained virtually without one: Sally Hemings. With an abstract structure that includes Thomas Jefferson viewing a film about his life and he and Sally Hemings meeting on the New York subway, this April 5 fiction release explores the dynamics of Hemings and Jefferson’s relationship differently than a conventional biography could. While many books have focused on Jefferson’s life, this time Hemings’s side of the story takes the spotlight in a critical approach to the man who was a notorious slave owner yet wrote that “all men are created equal.”
5.Why We Came to the City by Kristopher Jansma
This modern story chronicles the lives of five young professionals making their way in New York City. When a tragedy strikes one of the friends, they all find themselves dealing with the aftershock. Set to be released February 16, the novel deals with themes including coming of age, friendship, loss, and love. Jansma’s acclaimed previous novel about a struggling writer, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, was touted by The Village Voice as “F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Wes Anderson.”