Changing Light
by Nora Gallagher
ISBN-10: 0375424512
ISBN 13: 9780375424519
Pantheon
$22.00 Hardcover
February 2007


What's It About?

In the summer of 1945 in rural New Mexico, Eleanor stumbles upon a man lying ill, and begins to nurse him without knowing who he is: Leo Kavan, a scientist who has gone AWOL from the Los Alamos project--and who is in a state of crisis about the atomic bomb.
Who's Talking About It?
“At last, a novel about something. Nora Gallagher captures with dazzling beauty the lives of a woman and a man caught in the grip of history and our country's shadowed past. I held my breath reading it.”--Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“Changing Light is a remarkable love story, told against the backdrop of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the final innocent days of the world before the atom bomb. Nora Gallagher has effortlessly moved into the world of fiction, bringing her understanding of the spiritual life to her characters, and revealing the importance of faith, not just in religion, but between people, and among the inner workings of science and art.”--Hannah Tinti, author of Animal Crackers

“An incredibly beautiful story with echoes of [Michael] Ondaatje and [Ian] McEwan. Haunting and unforgettable, this is a smashing fiction debut from one of our most thoughtful writers.”--Martha Sherrill, author of The Ruins of California
Why Did She Write It?
“One day I was walking on a piece of land I owned near the Rio Grande not far from Santa Fe. As I looked across the river, I suddenly realized that across the river, and on the other side of a mesa was the city of Los Alamos. And at once I wondered what would have happened had one of the physicists working on the 'gadget,' as they called it, decided to jump ship. So, the idea for the novel came to me all at once.”
Where Will I See It?
National media attention, including radio and print features; national review attention; nine-city author tour; tie-in to the author's lecture schedule; and national advertising, including The New York Times Book Review.



Lost City Radio
by Daniel Alarcón
ISBN-10: 0060594799
ISBN 13: 9780060594794
HarperCollins
$24.95 Hardcover
February 2007


What's It About?

Norma, the voice of consolation to a nameless, timeless South American people broken by violence, is forever changed when a young boy from the jungle village--a community renamed as the number 1797 after the war--enters her radio studio and provides a connection to her husband, who disappeared years before.
Who's Talking About It?
“Alarcón makes increasingly strong connections between city and jungle, the army and the rebels, and Norma and Victor, sending a powerful message about how war has a way of implicating everybody. Alarcón has mapped a whole nation and given its war-torn history real depth--an impressive feat.”--Kirkus Review, starred review

“Lost City Radio is a gripping and tense political fable, sharply rooted in a world we have come to recognize. With echoes of [George] Orwell and [Aldous] Huxley, and with images of astonishing originality, Daniel Alarcón creates a universe both menacing and tender, filled with characters imagined with skill and nuance.”--Colm Toibin, author of The Master
Where Will I See It?
National media campaign, national radio interviews, print features and reviews, multi-city author tour, online promotion, and a reading group guide available online.
From Lost City Radio:
Of course he'd heard Norma's voice before. In 1797, the owner of the village's canteen had a good radio, with an antenna long enough to get a signal from the coast, and so, each Sunday, the women and the children and the remaining men crowded in to listen. It was what they did instead of church. They gathered an hour before to eat and drink and gossip. Potatoes, mushy overripe fruit, and thin silver portraits of their missing, simple drawings that an itinerant artist had done years before. They hung these on the walls, rows of creased and smudged faces Victor didn't recognize, whose mute presence made the village seem even smaller. Then, at eight o'clock, there was a hush, and static, and that unmistakable voice through the tinny speakers: Norma, to listen and heal them; Norma, mother to them all.




B-Mother
by Maureen O'Brien
ISBN: 0151013985
ISBN 13: 9780151013982
Harcourt Books
$24.00 Hardcover
February 2007


What's It About?
At 16, Hillary finds herself pregnant and a shame to her family. With few choices available to her, she gives her baby boy up for adoption, and endures the next 18 years anticipating the day her natural-born son can legally contact her.
Who's Talking About It?
“O'Brien...has given us a first novel keenly and beautifully aware of the New England setting, with its eccentricities and isolation, and full of memorable, well-developed characters, even the most peripheral.... The particular circumstances of this type of 'semi-open adoption' are rarely explored so thoroughly from the birth mother's perspective, and O'Brien expertly steers clear of any cliché or stereotype. Hillary's story may resonate powerfully with older YAs.”--Library Journal

“This first novel...vividly conveys the enormous cost of being forced to make such a painful decision at such a young age.”--Booklist
Who's Gonna Buy It?
Mothers--especially those who have been on either side of adoption--will appreciate the wide range of emotions found in B-Mother. Expect older teens to also gravitate toward Hillary's story.
How Can I Promote It?
While celebrities have recently made adoption quite the fad, most people see adoption as a serious, life-changing event. Display B-Mother alongside titles that explore the adoption process, including domestic and international adoption, legal considerations, and open versus closed adoptions.





The Mathematics of Love
by Emma Darwin
ISBN-10: 0061140260
ISBN-13: 9780061140266
William Morrow
$24.95 Hardcover
January 2007


What's It About?
An English country manor where two unlikely souls divided by time are united by tragedy, memory, and love. Teenager Anna Ware discovers a bundle of letters written in 1819 by a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, and as she unravels his mysteries, she creates a heartbreaking secret of her own.
Who's Talking About It?
“Darwin will be an author to watch.”--Library Journal

"Emma Darwin's prose is golden and convincing. The book is an addictive, engaging foray into historical fiction."--Express

"This is that rare thing, a book that works on every conceivable level...An uncommonly good read.... A real achievement."--The London Times

"A novel rapturous with the joys of history.... Anna's story is told in a wonderfully convincing, brittle, adolescent voice."--The Australian

“Emma Darwin, happily, seems able to immerse herself in 19th Century England.... Both eerie and intriguing.”--Australian Financial Review

The Mathematics of Love is a January Book Sense pick.
How Can I Promote It?
Yes, as in Charles Darwin. Emma Darwin is the great-great-granddaughter of the world-famous scientist and his wife, Emma Wedgewood. Get customers' attention by displaying The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin alongside The Mathematics of Love for a literary family affair.
From The Mathematics of Love:
Time and again, as I sat shivering with fever by the fire, or gazed over barren fields or down muddy lanes, or saw the same dull, good-natured faces sitting about some dinner table, or ranked in Church with their scrubbed and fidgeting children about them, my memories of Spain came before my mind. It was not the Spain of dusty olive groves that I saw, where bare mountains rear up in air that trembles with the weight of its own heat, nor the Spain of black monks and gold-encrusted toreadors and ladies tossing flowers. No, it was not Wellington's Spain at all. Rather I thought of the small, comfortable smells and noises of my life in San Sebastian after the War: the tarry, salty scent of ships and wharves, the chatter of the girls as they washed and dressed and compared the night's takings, the cry of a water-carrier in the street, a hundred church bells tolling high and low for the Mass, a whining beggar, the squawk of seagulls and the flap of clean, wet washing in the sea wind.