Friday, October 13, 2017

New Books

Intriguing new books from around the literary world. One novel, one novella, one poetry collection and two short story anthologies. And check out the dynamic cover art.

Proud to say that my latest short story (Night in Tunisia) debuts in the last book on this list -- Blood Business: Crime Stories From This World And Beyond.  Join several of the contributors at the Blood Business launch, November 10, 7:00 p.m. at the Tattered Cover, Denver Colfax store.

As Chuy the Cholo says, "Oye, read to succeed."



Street People: A Novella
Michael Nava
Kórima Press - October

[from the publisher]
Ben Manso drifts through life, working as a rent boy, until a casual encounter with an eight-year-old street kid named Bobby at a convenience store changes everything. When Ben sees Bobby again, the boy is with a man who claims to be Bobby’s father, but Ben suspects the man is a pedophile and the boy his captive. A third encounter draws Ben deeper into Bobby’s drama and forces him to face his own haunted past. After Ben’s well-intentioned plan to rescue Bobby puts the boy in even greater danger, Ben is forced to make a life-changing choice.

Street People is the story of lives at the margin, about the throw-away people we see without seeing, and the real meaning of family.








Michael Nava is the author of an acclaimed series of seven novels featuring gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios which won six Lambda Literary Awards.  In 2000, he was awarded the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in LGBT literature.  The New York Times review of the last Rios novel called him “one of our best.”  The City of Palaces was a finalist for the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for best gay novel and was awarded the 2014 International Latino Literary Award for best novel. Lay Your Sleeping Head, a reimagining of the first Henry Rios novel published 30 years ago, was published in 2016 by Kórima Press.





University of Arizona Press
October

 [from the publisher]
Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut uses both humor and sincerity to capture moments in time with a sense of compassion for the hard choices we must make to survive. Vértiz's poetry shows how history, oppression, and resistance don't just refer to big events or movements; they play out in our everyday lives, in the intimate spaces of family, sex, and neighborhood. Vértiz's poems ask us to see Los Angeles—and all cities like it—as they have always been: an America of code-switching and reinvention, of lyric and fight.













Vickie Vértiz earned her MFA from the University of California, Riverside. A Macondo and VONA fellow, she is a Los Angeles–based poet writer and social justice advocate who teaches creative writing to adults and young people across the country.










Havana Libre
Robert Arellano
Akashic Books - December

[from the publisher]
In this explosive follow-up to Havana Lunar, Dr. Mano Rodriguez takes an undercover assignment to the most dangerous city in Latin America: Miami.

During the summer of 1997, a series of bombings terrorize Havana hotels. The targets are tourists, and the terrorists are exiles seeking to cripple Cuban tourism and kill the Revolution. After Mano finds himself helpless to save one of the victims, his nemesis Colonel Emilio Pérez of the National Revolutionary Police recruits him into Havana’s top-secret Wasp Network of spies for a job that only he can perform—but for reasons he never would have believed or expected.





Robert Arellano is the award-winning author of six novels including Curse the Names, Fast Eddie, King of the Bees, and Don Dimaio of La Plata. His nonfiction title Friki: Rock and Rebellion in the Cuban Revolution, will be released in 2018. He lives in Oregon. His latest novel, Havana Libre, is the standalone sequel to his Edgar-nominated Havana Lunar.



Short Story Collections

 
Gary Phillips, editor
Three Rooms Press - October

[from the publisher]
Noir meets diverse voices and transforms the genre into an over-the-top, transcendental psychedelic thriller ride of pulpy goodness in The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir The collection is curated by editor and award-winning crime novelist and activist Gary Phillips, and includes stories by Walter Mosley, Robert Silverberg, Nisi Shawl, Kate Flora, Christopher ChambersDésirée Zamorano and more!



In the tradition of satirical works of Swift and Twain, with nods to the likes of William S. Burroughs and Philip K. Dick, these tales contain vigilante First Ladies, Supreme Court judges who can clone themselves, gear-popping robots of doom, and races of ancient lizard people revealing their true master plan–all mashed up in the blender of fake news bots, climate change hoaxes, and outlandish spins of bizarro conspiracy theories. 



In an era where the outlandish and fantastic has permeated our media 24/7, where mind-bending conspiracy theories shape our views, The Obama Inheritance writers riff on the numerous fictions spun about the 44th president of the U.S. Contributors spin deliberately outlandish and fantastic twists on many of the dozens of screwball, bizarro conspiracy theories floated about the president during his years in office and turn them on their heads. 



South Central native Gary Phillips (editor) draws on his experiences from anti-police abuse community organizing, activism in the anti-apartheid movement, union rep, state director of a political action committee, to delivering dog cages in writing his tales of chicanery and malfeasance. He has written various novels, novellas, comics, short stories, radio plays and a script now and then. He has edited or co-edited several anthologies, and must keep writing to forestall his appointment at the crossroads. Phillips is president of the Private Eye Writers of America.

Désirée Zamorano (contributor and La Bloga friend) delights in the exploration of contemporary issues of injustice and inequity in her writing. A Pushcart prize nominee and award-winning short story writer, her novel Human Cargo, featuring private investigator Inez Leon, was Latinidad’s mystery pick of the year. She is also the author of the acclaimed literary novel The Amado Women.



Blood Business: Crime Stories From This World And Beyond
Edited by Mario Acevedo and Joshua Viola
Hex Publishing - November

[from the publisher]

Two books, one anthology.
The grift. The scam. The double-cross. Blackmail and burglary; murder and larceny. Blood Business tracks the underbelly of human nature through the muck of our lesser angels in twenty-seven crime stories set in this world...and beyond.

Mario Acevedo is the author of the bestselling Felix Gomez detective-vampire series, which includes Rescue From Planet Pleasure from WordFire Press. His debut novel, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, was chosen by Barnes & Noble as one of the best Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the Decade and was a finalist for a Colorado Book Award. He contributed two stories for the award-winning horror anthology, Nightmares Unhinged, by Hex Publishers. His novel, Good Money Gone, co-authored with Richard Kilborn, won a best novel 2014 International Latino Book Award. Mario lives and writes in Denver, Colorado
Joshua Viola is an author, artist, and former video game developer (Pirates of the Caribbean, Smurfs, TARGET: Terror). In addition to creating a transmedia franchise around The Bane of Yoto, honored with more than a dozen awards, he is the author of Blackstar, a tie-in novel based on the discography of Celldweller. His debut horror anthology, Nightmares Unhinged, was a Denver Post and Amazon bestseller and named one of the Best Books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews. His second anthology, Cyber World (co-edited by Jason Heller), was an Independent Publisher Book Awards winner and Colorado Book Award finalist and named one of the Best Books of 2016 by Barnes & Noble. His short fiction has appeared in The Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Found anthology (RMFW Press), D.O.A. III – Extreme Horror Collection (Blood Bound Books), and The Literary Hatchet (PearTree Press). He lives in Denver, Colorado, where he is chief editor and owner of Hex Publishers   


___________________________________

Later. 


Manuel Ramos is the author of several novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction books and articles. His collection of short stories, The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories, was a finalist for the 2016 Colorado Book Award. My Bad: A Mile High Noir was published by Arte Público Press in 2016 and was a finalist for the Shamus Award in the Original Paperback category sponsored by the Private Eye Writers of America.


2 comments:

james b chester said...

Is this a new Michael Nava? I will have to look for it since it's new to me in any case. I're read and love all seven Henry Rios novels. I may look for Lay Your Sleeping Head as well, though I'm not so sure. I like them as they were, without being re-imagined.

Manuel Ramos said...

Yes, Street People is a new novella from Nava. Michael's novels are always excellent so I expect Lay Your Sleeping Head is also a fine book but I haven't read it yet.