FANTASY
Acacia, Book One: The War with the Mein
By David Anthony Durham. Doubleday, $26.95.
In 2001, Durham taught fiction at Colorado College. His first three mainstream novels have won a variety of awards, and, in 2003, he taught at the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation's Writer's Week, working with other African-American writers to hone their nearly completed novels.
With Acacia, the beginning of an epic trilogy, Durham joins an elite group of black voices in fantasy and science fiction, including Octavia Butler, Steven Barnes and Samuel Delaney.
King Leodan, ruler of the Known World, is assassinated and the Mein, a race exiled for generations, takes power. But their leader rules with the same ruthlessness that caused the previous government's downfall, and Leodan's four children eventually unite to try to take back their legacy. The question is whether they will be able to change the world.
Final word: Readers are bound to make comparisons to George R.R. Martin's Ice and Fire saga and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. While Durham's villains sometimes sink to stereotype, his protagonists, the king's four children, are original and empathetic characters.
- Mark Graham
MYSTERY
Raven Black
By Ann Cleeves. St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95.
This U.S. debut from British writer Cleeves won the Crime Writer's Association's top prize in Britain last year, and deserves the same in the U.S. this year, too. The first of a new series featuring a pensive young detective on the Shetland Islands, it's a must-read for British mystery fans.
The Shetlands, known in America mainly for ponies and puppies, provide a dark and forbidding setting as Cleeves explores the impact of violent death on this narrow society. Her careful, evocative portrait will send a chill through your summer day and take you to a world ordinarily inaccessible to most of us.
When a teenage girl is murdered, islanders lock their doors and hold their children close. The main suspect - a loner who was also a suspect in the disappearance of a child years before - is a familiar but frightening bogeyman in a world where everyone knows everyone else and lives have been intertwined for generations.
Inspector Jimmy Perez, the foreign-looking descendent of a castaway Spanish sailor, is a native of nearby Fair Isle who treads lightly on Shetland. His quiet, oblique investigation discovers past wrongs Shetland would rather forget.
Final word: Don't miss this standout first of a promised "Shetland Quartet," both for its setting and top-notch storytelling.
- Jane Dickinson
CHILDREN
Pictures from Our Vacation
By Lynne Rae Perkins. Greenwillow Books, $16.99, ages 5-8
Newbery Medal winner Perkins perfectly captures the mindset of a camera-clicking young girl on a two-day drive with her family to her grandparents' old farm, and her disappointments along the way.
From the back seat she imagines the perfect motel - with aquarium walls and waterfall showers - only to find a drained pool at their stop. When her family finally arrives at the farm, their fun is delayed by rain and a circuitous drive to a lake. And if that wasn't bad enough, now they have to go to their great aunt's memorial service.
It doesn't seem as if the vacation could get any worse, and then suddenly - surrounded by family - the trip is so amazing she doesn't take a single picture.
Final word: Kids will relate to the agonizingly slow start to this vacation and the unforgettable memories born out of family reunions.
- Jennifer Miller
Mark Graham Jane Dickinson Jennifer Miller
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