Publishers are paying attention to the Turnrow 20. We've just added two new authors to our events calendar — Taylor M. Polites and Alex George — following fast on the heels of our new winter recommendation list. In fact, our next four visiting authors entertain a place on our latest list. It continues to be our great fortune to host some of today's finest writers.
If you come by after work on Leap Day, Wednesday (Feb. 29), we'll be hosting a kind of launch event for the new Turnrow 20 list. Our staff is excited to tell you a bit about each book and why we love them. Our special guest for the evening will be Taylor Polites, who will sign and talk about his novel The Rebel Wife, which happens to be one of our new T20 books and early customer favorite.
We were truly surprised by Polites' debut novel. Maybe something about the cover hinted that it would be a bit too frilly and fine, but this is certainly not your typical Civil War-era Southern novel. It features one of the most memorable and conflicted heroines-in-crises you're likely to read this year. When her scalawag husband succumbs to a mysterious illness, Augusta Branson finds herself torn between her restless, emancipated servants and the the old family friends who may be trying to usurp her vast estate. Imagine The Help a century earlier and you'll start to get an idea of this surprising debut. (Reserve your signed first edition here.)
But wait ... even before that, on Tuesday (Feb. 28), we host Patrick deWitt, a writer we've been looking forward to meeting ever since we read his novel The Sisters Brothers a year ago. Since then it has won a Governor General's Literary Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize. (Not to mention a space on the coveted Turnrow 20 winter list.) It's available in paperback now, and even more readers are finding this truly wonderful and engaging novel, a Western with a modern heart.
The story follows two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, as they set out from Oregon to find and murder a gold prospector in California. Eli, the more pensive of the two, begins to wonder why their boss, the Commodore, wants this man dead and suffers a crisis of conscience as they set out on their journey. Charlie, more likely to fly off the handle, remains determined to bag their prey. What happens when the brothers encounter their target is both unexpected and completely entertaining. This book yanked us in from page one and maintained its galloping pace to the end, offering plenty of sharp wit, memorable dialogue and complex characters. Order your signed hardbacks or paperbacks at the website, but we hope you'll come out and meet the author in person this Tuesday at 5:30.
We'll report back soon on our March Turnrow 20 events with Alex George on 3/15 and Amy Franklin-Willis on 3/19. In the meantime, here's a cool book trailer for The Sisters Brothers:
