Den of Geek's Best Books of 2019 - Den of Geek US

Den of Geek's Best Books of 2019 - Den of Geek US
Brooklyn's biggest stories over the past decade, according to Brooklynites - Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The Results Are In: See Who Won SNHU's 5th Annual Fall Fiction Contest - Southern New Hampshire University

Posted: 30 Dec 2019 12:05 PM PST

To cover and consume popular culture in this era of #PeakContent is to constantly be making choices. This means it is more important now than ever to reflect on the ways in which "best of" lists, just like pop culture itself, are subjective—shaped by a group of people with specific identities, interests, and storytelling sensibilities.

Therefore, in presenting our list of the Best Books of 2019 to you, we note that these stories are not just what may have felt Important in a year when we are more desperate than ever to understand the seemingly increasingly destructive forces at work in the world, but also what meant the most to us personally.

Here are 20 books, in no particular order, that broke through the #PeakContent cacophony to mean something to our Den of Geek contributors this year...

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

A time travel novel that soundly rejects the Great Man Theory of history, The Future of Another Timeline is uninterested in telling the same old story about a singular white dude traveling through time to heroically and simply fix something. In Annalee Newitz's second novel, making positive change in the timeline is mostly conducted by women and people of color, must be done collectively, and is a heck of a lot of work.

Told in alternating perspectives, The Future of Another Timeline follows middle-aged, time-traveling academic Tess and 17-year-old Beth, a high school student exploring the punk scene in 1992 California. Both characters are deeply informed by their interpersonal contexts. For Tess, that means the support of the Daughters of Harriet, a group of women and non-binary folks fighting to stop a group of time-traveling misogynists known as the Comstockers from securing a timeline in which women have no rights over their own bodies. For Beth, this means her high school friend-group, which represents an escape from her abusive home until they start seeking violent "solutions" to the abusive men in their communities.

Wonderfully nerdy and refreshingly radical, The Future of Another Timeline is the angry feminist time travel novel 2019 both needs and deserves, a speculative fiction experience that feels all too real in its depiction of how fragile women's rights can be while also representing the kind of collective action organizing that stands the best chance at saving us all.

"We deeply need hope right now because we're in a very precarious, self-destructive historical moment," Newitz told Den of Geek this year regarding the hopepunk movement. "I think of hopepunk as narrative therapy for historical trauma—it's a way to ease pain, to tell stories about the healing process as well as what has hurt us." The Future of Another Timeline is a story about what has hurt us and what can heal us.

- Kayti Burt

Read The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

An assassin and a dragon-rider need to save the world from a dragon horde in this doorstopper. The Priory of the Orange Tree's scenes more remarkably quick compared to the intimidating length of the book, with the author demonstrating a keen understanding of cliffhangers, dramatic timing, and creating characters who care about each other and their world.

Ead Duryan has been assigned to protect Queen Sabran of Inys, but also has to wrestle with the way Inys twisted a true story into an oppressive religion while hiding her true mission and her attraction to the queen. On the other side of the world, the dragon-rider Tané finds that her path to becoming a great warrior isn't as straightforward as she had hoped, and that her choices will have global ramifications. Side characters, especially the grieving and miserable alchemist Niclays Roos, stuck with me long after I finished reading the book.

High fantasy is a hard sell for me lately. Monarchy, destined heroes, elves and dwarves—It doesn't feel comfortable, it just feels old. I picked up Priory on the promise of dragons, though, hoping for something new to be done with the quintessential fantasy creature. Samantha Shannon delivered with fantasy that both embraces and improves on tropes. The world is a loosely changed version of our own, with fantasy cultures drawn from and paralleling real ones. It offers beautiful imagery and lush characterization. Explanations for how the magic of the world works and how it's connected to that world's history are smoothly threaded into the plot. The book also doesn't lose sight of wonder, with enough cinematic fight scenes and detailed description of clothing for any HBO adaptation.

- Megan Crouse

Read The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

The Cover for Sal and Gabi Break the Universe

Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

If you don't regularly read middle grade fiction, you may recognize Carlos Hernandez's name from his beautiful and well-received short story collection The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria, which came out a few years ago (or from his entertaining Twitter account). If you do read middle grade fiction, especially if you've been following the really excellent middle grade fantasy from the Read Riordan imprint, you've probably already met two of my very favorite characters of 2019... Sal and Gabi were breakaway leads in my fiction reading, and they're welcome to break my universe any time (especially since they're promising to fix it in May 2020).

Here's the conceit: middle school magician Sal has this uncanny ability to accidentally breach the multiverse. Sometimes this means he can do some pretty nifty tricks (which he passes off as illusions), like putting a dead chicken in a bully's locker. But it becomes a big problem when he keeps accidentally bringing back his Mami, who died several years ago. His father has remarried, and Sal loves his American Stepmom, but he misses his mother.

Sal is also a Type 1 diabetic, and when his ability to breach the multiverse makes him forget to regulate his blood sugar, he ends up in the hospital—something he's unfortunately used to. Initially, Gabi doesn't know about any of this, but she's the student council president, future journalist type who's not about to let any mystery lie without figuring it out. Because her baby brother is also in the hospital, fighting for his life, her story and Sal's become intertwined, and while multiverse hopping hijinks ensue, so does a story with so much heart that it's hard to put down.

I can't wait to spend more time with these characters as their adventures continue.

- Alana Joli-Abbott

Read Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

At first glance, Leckie's newest book could not be more different than her Ancillary Justice series, not least of all because she's smoothly stepped from science fiction to fantasy. The Raven Tower is a standalone fantasy novel, and a slim one at that; instead of a whole universe, its action encompasses two cities across a strait, and one family within them. But it's how the story is told that cements this as Leckie's brand of unique invention: A sentient rock god narrates in second-person to a trans protagonist.

Like with Breq, the spaceship AI constrained to one body, Leckie has once again pulled off a cunning experiment in giving voices to the most unusual of genre characters. The passages in which the stone god details its centuries of existence, and evolving relationships with human petitioners and priests, are some of this year's most daring fantasy writing: slow and unhurried, filled with complex discussions of the power of language to change the very molecules of the world. Despite its brevity, The Raven Tower is wonderfully dense and thought-provoking.

What's more, the human side of things is so authentically lived-in, a fantasy retelling of Hamlet that nonetheless is full of twists. In the city of Vastai, the Raven's Lease, a human whose lifespan is entwined with that of the Raven god's Instrument (an actual bird), has disappeared without paying up. As soldier-turned-heir's-attendant Eolo investigates the truth, he and his master Mawat confront divine debt, issues of personhood, and the troubling disillusionment that the old ways and religions might be no more than cold comforts in an inexplicable world.

- Natalie Zutter

Read The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Normal People by Sally Rooney

From the jump, it's easy to understand why Sally Rooney's second novel, Normal People, has taken the literary world (and much of Book Twitter) by storm. It's a story of two teenagers, Connell and Marianne, growing up in vastly different circumstances West of Ireland. The book follows their magnetic pull on (or perhaps dire fascination with) one another as they grow up and make their way in the world.

At only 28, Rooney writes through her two protagonists to get at incisive commentary on that strange, fleeting feeling of obsessive youthful love, as well as class, family, what it means to "get out," and the many small ways people are awful to one another, while also loving one another rather tenderly. Considering how often love stories and the (young) women who tell them are diminished, it's also lovely to see Rooney discussed (mostly) with terms like "intellectual rigor."

Hulu is adapting Normal People as a limited series in 2020, so there's still time to read the book before the show starts. Reviewers talk of page turners, but Normal People is one that forces readers to cancel their plans and stay up until first light, ruining their ability to function for the next day, just to squeeze in a few more chapters, a few more lines of Rooney's entrancing prose. Much like the plot summary, the text might seem simple or even commonplace at first glance, but that is Rooney's great deception: she's working overtime to make sure you don't ever see her sweat. Normal People envelopes readers quietly, completely, and so steadily that you might not realize anything has happened until you come up for air hours later, or see the drip of a tear on the page.

- Delia Harrington

Read Normal People by Sally Rooney

The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

Elaborate YA fantasies are all the rage right now, and 2019 had several great ones. But Margaret Owen's debut novel The Merciful Crow is far and away the best of the lot, combining immersive storytelling, a diverse cast of characters, rich worldbuilding and a truly unique magical system into something that will stay with you long after you turn the last page. In short: Everyone in Sabor is divided into castes named after various birds and based on their particular Birthrights, or magical ability. The Crows, the lowest caste of undertakers and mercy-killers, perform magic using the teeth of the dead. It's…very grim and very cool.

The story is fast-paced and exciting, and for all that it deals with typical fantasy themes (a girl coming into her power, a kingdom on the brink of revolution), The Merciful Crow fearlessly tackles issues of racism, persecution and the difficulties that face any marginalized group that's mocked and looked down upon for being Other. Even better we see characters openly grapple with their own beliefs and question the things they've been taught to believe about others in a way that feels both compelling and natural. The book's sequel, The Faithless Hawk, is due out this summer, and if it's not already at the top of your most anticipated books for next year, it should be.

- Lacy Baugher

Read The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley's The Stars Are Legion was one of my favorite books in 2017, so when I heard her next endeavor was a space marine time travel story, I could hardly wait. The Light Brigade delivered. It's an exploration of the military industrial complex, the psychology of a soldier named Dietz, and a meticulously organized time travel story. The action scenes are vivid and grim, the dialogue energetic, the stakes clear. Hurley has a lot to say about the nature of war, of trauma, of the psychology of being thrown into unexpected battles every day. (The "light" of the title is a teleportation system that Dietz is experiencing as time jumps.)

This is a writer's book, with an impressive structure: scenes end at what could have been abrupt moments but instead become a tool to increase suspense throughout the novel. The author has posted images of the chart she used to keep the time jumps in order, and you can tell the process of outlining the book was a feat of not just writing but also a kind of engineering, resulting in a convoluted but utterly understandable sequence of out-of-order events. It's hard science fiction rooted in classics but utterly suitable for today.

- Megan Crouse

Read The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

In a future generations after humanity has fled an uninhabitable Earth, humans live on January, a tidally-locked planet with two declining cities living in the twilight in-between the two extreme climates of the world...

Bordering the blistering side of the planet, we have Xiosphant, an authoritarian city with a constructed diurnal cycle where "timefulness" is sacred. Bordering the frozen side of the planet, we have Argelo, a libertarian society ruled by nine family-affiliated gangs who keep the city locked in a cycle of violence. As the generation ship technology brought with humanity decades before begins to fail, decline feels inevitable for both examples of human society.

We follow two main characters through the story: Sophie, a working class student studying at Xiosphant's university who is exiled into the night after taking the fall for the upper-class object of her affections Bianca. Rather than dying a lonely death, Sophie is saved by the crocodile-like telepathic aliens native to January. Elsewhere, we follow Mouth, a jaded smuggler from an otherwise extinct nomadic people known as the Citizens.

An exploration of working towards radical change in the face of climate catastrophe, personal and collective trauma, and interpersonal complications, The City in the Middle of the Night is a classically science fiction novel tapping into the most anxiety-inducing of contemporary struggles, and somehow finding a measure of hope there. "I can't do this thing anymore, where we live in a tiny space and pretend it's the whole world," Sophie tells Bianca in the novel. "People always have brand new reasons for doing the same thing over and over. I need to see something new."

- Kayti Burt

Read The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

Cover for The Five: Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

If you know the names Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly it is likely only due to the reason for their deaths. These five women are the canonical victims of the infamous Jack the Ripper, and are generally only considered remarkable because of the fact that they died violently at the hands of a serial killer no one ever managed to catch.

Author Hallie Rubenhold's book changes all of that. In the world of Ripper lore, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed By Jack the Ripper feels revelatory, in that it focuses on life, rather than death. It tells the real story of each of The Five, who they were, where they came from, and the tragic reasons that led them to a life on the streets of Victorian London. And it gives them their voices back, possibly for the first time since their deaths.

Meticulously researched, this book brings to life a group of women who have too long been silenced, or worse, reimagined in a way that suits history best. The majority of these women weren't prostitutes, as the contemporary papers positioned them and history likes to remember them. They were women who struggled and scraped, who suffered repeated hardships and abandonments, who struggled with poverty and alcohol addiction, and who deserved better than deaths that left them forever in the shadow of a monster. Read this, and remember them.

- Lacy Baugher

Read The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

The Grace Year by Kelly Liggett

In a year where Margaret Atwood herself wrote a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, it's probably not that much of a shock that some of 2019's most affecting stories have to do with female rage and empowerment. The Grace Year is a technically a YA novel, but it packs an outsize punch, reckoning with a dystopian future that nowadays feels far too much like it could in some way become reality.

In the world of Garner County, young women are banished on their sixteenth birthday, condemned to spend their "grace year" on an isolated island to purge themselves of the dangerous and manipulative magic men believe they possess. The bones of Kim Liggett's story are familiar ones, particularly the harmful culture these girls are born into and the cruel things they're willing to do to one another in the name of maintaining it, but its story is ultimately one that points a way toward a future where change is possible. It's not often you finish a story like this and genuinely feel hopeful, and yet, The Grace Year accomplishes this feat – all without giving anyone what you might call a happy ending.

- Lacy Baugher

Read The Grace Year by Kelly Liggett

Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles

The Beatles' film Let It Be appears to be a documentary on the breakup of a band. The album they recorded after it, Abbey Road, has always been touted as the album they made to go out on a high note. Kenneth Womack's Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and The End of the Beatles, says that's not the case. They were recording what they thought was just their next album when they happened to break up. The band was especially excited about playing with new musical toys.

As should be evident by the name, the book starts with the sound board. The only eight track recording console at EMI. It was bright and shiny and new, and only a privileged few engineers were allowed to tinker with it, and they had to wear lab coats. The band was far away from the caper-chasing characters they played in A Hard Day's Night and Help! but they were still fab enough to abscond with the apparatus and produce their flawless farewell to studio albums.

Almost the entire book is set in the studio. We learn about a car crash John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and their respective children survive from how it impacts the sessions. Paul McCartney's marriage happens barely out of reach of the soundproof panels and the Bed-In for Peace is placed far away from the mics. Even the breakup itself is captured as the same kind of ambient noise McCartney recorded on George Harrison's Moog synthesizer for the segues between songs. Like the surround sound created for Ringo Starr's only credited drum solo, the music is front and center.

Womack is a thorough researcher and interviewer who casts new light on old Beatles mythology. Several stories which are well-known to fans are challenged and a few more obscure bits are uncovered. The read itself is fun.

- Tony Sokol

Read Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles

Last Ones Left Alive by Sarah Davis-Goff

Modern Irish literary greatness is alive and well, and anyone who reads Last Ones Left Alive can see why. Sarah Davis-Goff's spare post-apocalyptic tale follows Orpen on a largely solitary journey from her home on a remote island, away from the vicious, otherworldly creatures called the Skrake. The novel flashes back to Orpen's childhood alone on the island, with her Ma and Ma's wife, Maeve, as Orpen trained to survive against the unseen enemy while trying to decode what happened to the world, and fending off her own loneliness. In Orpen's present tense, she makes the difficult decision to search the mainland for help, accompanied by her dog, some chickens, and pulling a wheel barrow.

To say more would spoil it, and certainly part of the book's power is in the way it slowly reveals the truths of the Skrake, Orpen's upbringing, and what led her to go on the road. Beyond that, it's a story of self-reliance with feminism baked in, rather than discussed or layered on top. Orpen's instincts keep her safe and she is largely a solitary creature, so the novel has a desolate, almost animalistic quality to it that captures the Wild Atlantic Way and the feral nature of civilization gone to hell. Davis-Goff evokes the setting - both physical and emotional - so intensely that it feels like Orpen walks around with you even when you put the book down. It's a book that knows exactly what it set out to do, creates that world, and then cuts the reader off from it once the task at hand is finished, with the kind of efficiency Maeve taught Orpen to keep her alive.

- Delia Harrington

Read Last Ones Left Alive by Sarah Davis-Goff

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Set in an alternate universe where the United States elected a female divorcee Democrat from Texas to the presidency in 2016, Red, White, and Royal Blue follows the secret, enemies-to-lovers romance between first son Alex Claremont-Diaz and Prince of England Henry. In the process, author Casey McQuiston invites us to spend time in a world that is, as described in her author's note, "still believably fucked up, just a little better, a little more optimistic."

The result is an intensely cathartic reading experience that prioritizes comfort over grit, hope over pessimism, and empathy over bitterness, while also depicting tough subjects such as mental illness and civic exhaustation. In a year when to stay actively engaged in the news cycle often felt like a neverending battle, Red, White, and Royal Blue offered a brand of escapism that is all too rare in the mainstream: queer, filled with male characters who do their own emotional labor, and unapologetically millennial. The world needs more stories like this one, as well as the cultural space for more people to find guiltless pleasure in their enjoyment.

- Kayti Burt

Read Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis

Confession #1: I picked up this book on NetGalley because it has a gorgeous cover. Confession #2: My NetGalley copy expired when I was 80 pages from the end. Confession #3: I went out and purchased the book the same day my NetGalley copy expired, because I had to finish it.

The Good Luck Girls is Davis' debut novel, and it packs an incredible punch. Set in an alternate world—possibly a future dystopia on a different planet, but there are fantasy elements that make it hard to place entirely—where people with shadows have more rights than those who don't, the book centers on five young women fleeing life in a brothel.

Dustblood, or shadowless, girls are frequently sold by poor families into "welcome houses," given the promise of a better life: regular meals, fancy clothes, luxury. The condition, of course, is that they have no rights over their own bodies, and they are never allowed to leave, branded with a magical tattoo that reveals their identities, and glows and burns if they try to cover it.

When Clementine accidentally kills a violent brag, she, her sister, and their friends make a daring escape, turning to a life of banditry in an effort to reach the legendary Lady Ghost, who can offer them a different future—if she's real. The result is a twisted Weird Western that feels like the Wild West, while twisting its tropes and delivering a story about victims taking back their own destinies and carving a new path toward a better future.

- Alana Joli-Abbott

Read The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

There are two phrases from this year that my friends and I shout at one another whenever we're in the same room. One flesh, one end (from Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth) is a fun little rallying cry, but it is this piece of poetry from Martine's debut novel that makes me tear up every time I utter it: "Released, I am a spear in the hands of the sun."

While I have always enjoyed space opera well enough, considering how many stories fit within the subgenre, this is the first book where I found myself delighting in all of the trappings. Martine dives deep into this byzantine far-future universe, clearly so excited about every detail that you cannot help but be equally enthusiastic… even when you rationally know that you should not be so captivated by colonialism.

But that's the point. Teixcalaanli civilization, with its alien-yet-logical naming conventions and obsession with its own epic poetry, is so addictively interesting that readers are automatically as emotionally invested as diplomat Mahit Dzmare. After an upbringing on the empire's fringes in independent Lsel Station, Mahit finally gets to visit Teixcalaan's famed city-planet capital, only to be thrust into a political thriller full of mysterious deaths, sex-as-diplomacy, and an emperor with an unusual agenda. Not to mention, Mahit has her own cultural capital that she must keep from getting assimilated into the empire like everything else in the universe.

Read A Memory Called Empire knowing as little as possible, aside from the fact that you will meet a bevy of damn competent women and find yourself murmuring about spears released in no time. The fact that Teixcalaan is a culture obsessed with repeating the patterns of its epic stories in contemporary life is so endearingly geeky and very relatable to our present moment.

- Natalie Zutter

Read A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Cover for You Look Like a Thing and I Love You by Janelle Shane

You Look Like A Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works

Janelle Shane became internet-famous through her blog AI Weirdness and its social media offshoots. Her wacky computer-generated lists have been making me laugh for years, so I was quick to jump on her first paper book of artificial intelligence and humor. Half of the appeal are the lists of computer-generated things: the title comes from a list of comically nonsensical and occasionally sweet pickup lines. There are plenty of lists like these in the book, providing a break in the science for some high-quality random humor. The networks she trains don't know what words they should be putting together, so they surprise in a way that a human could never quite do.

The other half of the appeal is the science. Shane outlines what in our daily lives counts as artificial intelligence and what doesn't, why asking "what the program was thinking" is a nonsensical question, and how artificial intelligence (specifically, certain kinds of machine learning) actually works. Ideas are explained with precision, clarity, and ease. The science is also funny without being twee. This was both one of the most informative and most fun books I read all year. To be one would be nice; to be both is astonishing.

- Megan Crouse

Read You Look Like A Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

I had never read any of Winterson's work, but her modern, queer retelling—not just of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but of the entire process around writing the first science fiction novel—makes clear just how lacking all other Frankenstein adaptations are in innovation and relatability. Most concern the doctor and his creature locked in a cat-and-mouse game of wits and horror, yet still so predictable that they all blur together whether period piece or futuristic cyborg story or police procedural. Yet Winterson's take is so radically different from its forebears that you find yourself not guessing how the story will turn out, despite the fact that she lays out the narrative beats in the beginning and follows them—with the occasional detour to a sex robot convention or London's waterlogged underground tunnels.

read more: 16 Best Fall Reads

Because Winterson knows that the heart of the story is in Mary's life, pockmarked by so much loss, and in her frankly incredible writing process. Instead of the two Frankensteins, the interweaving duo in this book is writer Mary Shelley and Ry Shelley, a trans doctor who finds himself falling for the charismatic, otherworldly transhumanist Victor Stein. Winterson lays out the blueprints for the story by first visiting Mary, her husband Percy, the insufferable Lord Byron, her bimbo stepsister Claire, and the awkward Doctor Polidari at that life-changing rainy weekend writing retreat on Lake Geneva—which, honestly, has all the makings of a Mary Shelley biopic right there. Then, once you know enough about the characters, Winterson leaps ahead 200 years to the familiar strangers of Ry, Victor, and sex robot designer Ron Lord and his perky creation Claire.

Frankissstein is a creepy, sexy, soggy, surprisingly hilarious demonstration of how time is just a circle and history repeats itself. Except this time with cryogenically frozen millionaires and filthy-mouthed pleasure bots.

- Natalie Zutter

Read Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

Protect the Prince by Jennifer Estep

I may have raved a little bit last year about Jennifer Estep's series launcher Kill the Queen. Estep has written in a number of genres over her career, but Kill the Queen showed me that epic fantasy is her true home; it went delightfully above my expectations, creating Evie, a compelling protagonist who's both a reluctant hero and a natural one: she takes risks for others without thought and only truly fears her own destiny, because for years she's been convinced that she's not worth claiming a loftier mantle. There's also a gladiator troupe, shapeshifting magic that creates a whole new mold for what those powers can look like, and some excellent romantic tension and humor.

Estep's sequel, Protect the Prince, raises the stakes, thrusting Evie deeper into the intrigue between kingdoms as she hopes to forge a lasting peace, while also driving a wedge between her and her love interest, a bastard prince who—like Evie—has been told his whole life he'll never amount to much. Evie must manage the nobles of her own kingdom, prevent war with other nations, and fight against the constant sabotage of power-hungry Mortan king, whose spies have been plaguing Evie's life even longer than she realized, and who are continuing to try to kill her.

Even as Evie sets her own plans into action, playing the long game against her enemies, the story leaves room for romance and friendship, and for Evie to find a way to become the Winter Queen everyone expects her to be. The trilogy wraps in March, 2020, with Crush the King, and you can bet I've already got that on preorder.

- Alana Joli-Abbott

Read Protect the Prince by Jennifer Estep

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

The book lays it out for you right away: Evvie (her name rhymes with Chevy) was leaving her husband when she got the call that he had died. That emotional quagmire is where NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, plants her witty and warm romantic comedy of a novel. Evvie rents out a room in her house in Maine to Dean, a former Major League Baseball pitcher hiding out from the world after he left the game when he woke up one day with a bad case of the yips and simply couldn't throw anymore.

Grounded in the complicated reality of grief, the book has so much to say about platonic mixed-gender best friends, single parenting, re-learning how to relate to parents as an adult, and life in a small town. There's so much room in the world for smartly written adult romance, and Holmes knows how to bring the heat when she wants to. Yes, it's a romance, but there are no short cuts, easy answers, or guarantees of a perfect happy ending. Evvie and Dean test one another emotionally in ways that feel organic to their characters, rather than plot-driven, and their victories are earned on the page. Charming, hopeful, and with great emotional depth, reading Evvie Drake Starts Over means getting all the joy of a romcom without having to sacrifice on quality or consent.

- Delia Harrington

Read Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Cover for Giraffes on Horseback Salad book

Giraffes on Horseback Salad by Josh Frank & Tim Heidecker

The Marx Brothers were at the peak of their popularity when Salvador Dalí presented then with a screenplay called "The Surrealist Woman." It was only a few pages and they turned it down for not being funny enough, but it still carries mythical significance in both the art world and cinema history. Josh Frank's graphic novel Giraffes on Horseback Salad fleshes out the sparse notes to present the how the film would have looked on the screen.

Giraffes on Horseback Salad is a love story. But the world hangs in the loss of balance. The book includes a preface which tells the story of the artists relationships with each other and placing the film them in a historic context. It would have been made after A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races, which were produced by Irving Thalberg, who died before this would have been up for consideration and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer declared it too expensive and too surreal.
There are quite a few surprises.

The biggest is Harpo speaks. Not only does he speak but people hang on to his every word. Gone are the curly locks and tattered overcoat. Here Harpo's Jimmy is an important man who wears impressive suits and has an A-list significant other who ultimately pales in significance to the lady of surrealism. The illustrations by Spanish surrealistic artist Manuela Pertega, capture what could have been possible to put on the screens. The surrealistic jokes added by comedian Tim Heidecker may explain why Groucho passed on the work, but you can see the magic such a film may have conjured. Even the name of the book's publisher, Quirk, feeds into the skewered reality.

- Tony Sokol

Read Giraffes on Horseback Salad by Josh Frank and Tim Heidecker

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Brooklyn's biggest stories over the past decade, according to Brooklynites - Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Posted: 30 Dec 2019 09:07 AM PST

The Downtown Brooklyn skyline. Photo: Paul Frangipane/Brooklyn Eagle

It's been an incredible decade in Brooklyn. The borough has turned into an internationally-recognized destination, and luxury residences are sprouting up like mushrooms — bringing in a flood of new residents and the pain of gentrification that comes along with it. Brooklyn has experienced explosive growth in innovative startups, and technology companies are flocking to the "Tech Triangle."

Brooklyn Bridge Park has almost reached completion and has become a tourist magnet. Black Lives Matter and the president's Muslim Ban triggered protests throughout the borough. The three-year battle to save the 156-year-old Long Island College Hospital, known as LICH, failed after Bill de Blasio dropped his support after his election as mayor.

The former Long Island College Hospital, known as LICH. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle

A massive repair plan for the BQE, which has been falling down in slow motion throughout the past decade, sparked a groundswell of community activism that may transform the future of transportation across the city.

In short, this decade has been epic. We asked some of Brooklyn's leaders, creatives and amazingly interesting people to give us their take on the top story of the decade in Brooklyn. Here's what they said.

Tech growth

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams told the Brooklyn Eagle that one of the biggest stories of the past decade was and continues to be the explosive growth of the tech sector. Since 2008, there has been a 356 percent increase in tech startups in Brooklyn — a growth rate second only to Silicon Valley.

"We are becoming the innovation capital of the East Coast thanks in part to the unprecedented investments my administration has made in STEAM education for schools throughout the borough, and I expect that growth to continue into the new decade," Adams said.

High school students competing in the Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) games at NYU Tandon in Downtown Brooklyn. Eagle photo by Mary Frost — High school students competed in the Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) games at NYU Tandon in Downtown Brooklyn. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle

Two displays of solidarity

Cecilia Clark, president and CEO of Brooklyn Community Foundation, told the Eagle that "two moments stand out in particular — one a natural disaster and the other a man-made crisis — but both were met with an incredible response from our communities. First, the outpouring of support to Superstorm Sandy in 2012, when thousands of Brooklynites volunteered and raised money through our Brooklyn Recovery Fund to support our neighbors in desperate need."

Her second pick for top story is President Donald Trump's first Muslim Ban, "which triggered massive protests at JFK and surrounding airports calling out blatant injustice, and marked the beginning of a widespread movement for immigrant rights and the creation of the Foundation's Immigrant Rights Fund, which has deployed $1.3 million and buoyed our communities in the face of the rescinding of DACA and TPS, increased detentions and deportations, family separation, and more."

Eagle photos by Mary Frost — Bodega workers protested President Trump's Muslim Ban in 2017 at Brooklyn Borough Hall. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn the 'brand'

Lara Birnback, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, says her choice of the decade is "the idea of Brooklyn as a brand — not a location. As with many things in life, this one has brought both positives and negatives. But it's a top story for me since it touches so much of the work of community-based organizations, including the BHA. Real estate development, livable neighborhoods, transportation issues, politics and a lot more. There's no way my mother-in-law, a Flatbush native, could have ever anticipated that "Brooklyn" would be used by people all over the world to signify 'hip and cool.'"

Superstorm Sandy

Josh Vogel, a board member of the Cobble Hill Association and founder of NYC Urbanism, says the story of the decade was Superstorm Sandy. "Red Hook and other parts of Brooklyn were underwater and have still not completely recovered. It was a wake up call for residents and our elected officials. And what's most concerning is that going into 2020, the borough that is almost entirely surrounded by water is just as vulnerable as it was in 2012."

Expansion of parks

Karen Auster, CEO of Auster Agency, an experiential marketing agency, told the Eagle that over the past decade, "The greatest news coming out of Brooklyn has been the development and expansion of the park system, waterfront and waterways, impacting residents and visitors in the best possible way. It has truly moved people — literally, connecting people to nature and one another. The Brooklyn Bridge waterfront — and the addition of Domino Park — has added an incredible, inspired dimension to Brooklyn living and playing. Due to these infrastructure improvements, Brooklyn has become a destination for living and working — and 'the Brooklyn way' of life has become a recognizable and distinct brand globally."

Kids are splish-splashing in Domino Park's fountain. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan — Kids are splish-splashing in Domino Park's fountain. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

The (fake) ghost in the library

Comedian Lauren Maul's favorite news story from Brooklyn from the past 10 years involves ghosts. "There was a really great ghost story in the news a few years ago about a little girl who got lost in The Brooklyn Public Library in the 1970s and WAS NEVER SEEN AGAIN. The library made a short documentary about it and everything… and the best part was that it was all made up in an elaborate attempt to inspire people to do their research instead of believing what they see on the internet. Libraries are the best!"

The tourism boom

Nick Likourentzos, managing partner at Park Plaza Restaurant in Brooklyn Heights told the Eagle, "Brooklyn Bridge Park and the boom in tourism in Brooklyn over the last ten years" is Brooklyn's story of the decade.

A visitor strikes a pose on the Brooklyn Bridge on a December dawn. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

Beloved businesses shutting down

Brooklyn Community Pride Center's CEO Floyd Rumohr says the story of the decade in Brooklyn was that long-time beloved businesses like Excelsior and Langston's closed their doors, "indicative of a broader trend of fewer and fewer queer spaces. Those that remain cater to white affluent Manhattanites, leaving many Brooklynites without spaces to socialize and play."

Barclays Center

The unofficial "Mayor of Coney Island," Dick Zigun, founder of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow," said his pick for the top story of the decade was "when Marty Markowitz approved Barclays Center and Ford Amphitheater."

Arts and culture

Katy Clark, president of Brooklyn Academy of Music, said the top story of the decade was the growth of arts and culture in Brooklyn. "BAM opens the BAM Fisher (2012), the Weeksville Heritage Center becomes a member of the city's Cultural Institutions Group, and this year marks the highest level of funding for arts and culture by the city across all five boroughs."

Development

Karen Johnson, owner of Olympia Wine Bar in DUMBO, said the story of the decade was development. "For example, Downtown Brooklyn rezoned as an office area becomes residential. Now you have so many residents in that one little area, hyper-tall towers and no way to support that. That's not just Downtown Brooklyn, that's all neighborhoods in Brooklyn, such as Sunset Park."

The Results Are In: See Who Won SNHU's 5th Annual Fall Fiction Contest - Southern New Hampshire University

Posted: 04 Dec 2019 12:00 AM PST

The upper left corner of an old fashioned typewriter with a blank sheet of paper loaded and clipped in place.

Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) received more than 500 short story submissions to its 5th annual Fall Fiction Contest. While there were many strong contenders this year, only five could be recognized.

First, an initial review board considered each story to identify 50 semi-finalists. Angelina Oberdan, a judge and adjunct faculty at SNHU, said an engaging first few paragraphs was critical to make the cut. Additionally, she read quite a few well-written stories that spent too much time in the conclusion. "The narrative should be complete, but it doesn't need to be tied with a bow," Oberdan said.

With criteria such as originality, thought process, character arc and grammatical correctness in mind, the semi-finalist judges identified the top stories. Their scores ended up being so close; it was up to the public to pick a winner.

The public voted, and the results are in:

The top three will receive $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 scholarships, respectively, for SNHU's online or on-campus degree programs.

All five finalists had their stories published in The Penmen Review and will also receive a writing-themed prize package including copies of "Save the Cat! Writes A Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You'll Ever Need" by Jessica Brody and "2019: The Best American Short Stories."

First Place Goes to Full-Time Writer, Dad

Ben Jackson noticed there aren't too many older protagonists in fiction, let alone love stories about older couples. As his grandparents approached 90, he decided to address this gap in a writing workshop class at SNHU.

Ben Jackson and the text Ben Jackson "It's not often we see stories of men grieving a natural death of a spouse, and I wanted to see if I could create a moment to live in that space," Jackson said.

In a review by Courtney McDermott, a semi-finalist judge and adjunct faculty at SNHU, it's clear that Jackson created an authentic story. "Ben Jackson evokes nostalgia and Americana to write this bittersweet love story," she said. "Any baseball fan – and especially any Red Sox fan – will appreciate his love for the sport and the memories it creates."

Jackson recently returned to SNHU to finish his BA in Creative Writing & English after taking five years off to focus on his daughter, Emma, and her health.

Now that Jackson's reached a point where he can make a living doing what he loves most – writing, he returned to school to help him advance. He has found the critiques his instructors and classmates offer to be the most valuable, and going to school online allows him to work full-time while also serving as Emma's caretaker.

"SNHU fits into my life and is making (me) a better writer," he said.

Supported by Family, 19-Year-Old Places Second

E.M. Francisco and her father love all things horror, but often find the characters of the genre improbable. Taking matters into her own hands, "The Thing in My Closet" emerged from her frustrations.

E.M. Francisco and the text E.M. Francisco "I wanted to tell a horror story with a main character that sort of encapsulated everything we wanted a horror protagonist to do," Francisco said. "... Humans are pretty adaptive creatures, and it only makes sense that, eventually, after repeated exposures, a person would grow used to the freaky comings and goings."

Calling her story "fun, spooky and endearing," Christopher Sullivan, a semi-finalist judge and adjunct faculty at SNHU, appreciated this perspective. "Francisco's protagonist is believable, the setting is eerie, and the dramatic action is palpable," he said.

Though Francisco was surprised to learn her story took home second in the Fall Fiction Contest, her parents had been confident she'd place. After all, this isn't the first time she's achieved something big. She began college when she was just 16-years-old, having graduated from high school early.

"As an early high school graduate who wasn't ready to leave home, this online BA (in Creative Writing & English) program was everything I needed and more," she said. Not only could Francisco complete the degree she wanted from home, but she could do so without any student debt.

Now, at 19-years-old, she's one of the youngest writers to place in the Fall Fiction Contest. With her eyes set on becoming a manuscript editor for a publishing house, she's also considering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing.

MFA Student Places Third with 'Otherworldly' Story

Destiny Rinder said she was ecstatic when she learned her story, "The Houses on the Sea," placed third in the Fall Fiction Contest. Though she's been writing since she was in elementary school, she only recently became serious about her passion.

Destiny Rinder and the text Destiny Rinder. The story behind "The Houses on the Sea" came to Rinder from a picture prompt. "Once I thought of the concept, it took me a couple of tries to find the best characters for the story," she said. Settling on a 6-year-old's account of the day her mother disappeared, "The Houses on the Sea" is her first published short story.

McDermott particularly liked the mystery it offered. "I was drawn to the otherworldly nature of "The Houses on the Sea" and Rinder's ability to craft a seaside setting," she said. "Part of the appeal of the story is in not knowing if the houses truly exist or not."

With a year to go until Rinder earns her MFA in Creative Writing at SNHU, she is thinking about how she can use the different elements of her classes to become a novelist and filmmaker. This term, she's learning about the publishing ecosystem and how to write query letters.

From Imposter Syndrome to Taking Fourth Place

Clover Autrey has been writing for a long time. She's experimented with different types of writing and honed her skills, yet she continues to struggle with imposter syndrome. "Sometimes, I feel like what I've written is truly worthwhile, but more often than not, I feel like I'm going to be called out as an amateur or fraud," she said.

Clover Autrey and the text Clover Autrey. So, when Autrey discovered her story was a finalist in the Fall Fiction Contest, she felt validated as a writer.

While writing "Forgotten Promise," she wanted to focus on creating emotion. "I find for me that pulling out emotion in short pieces with limited time to develop characters is not an easy thing to do," she said.

Based on judge feedback, it's apparent her attempt was successful. Noting Autrey's combination of visuals and details, Sullivan found the story to be gripping. "It has an almost cinematic feel to it," he said.

In just a few months, Autrey will complete her BA in English Language & Literature. "Without SNHU's online program in this degree, I would not have had the courage to return to college," she said. While working full-time as an administrative assistant, completing coursework on her schedule was her only option. Now, her sight is on teaching high school English.

History Student's First Story Earns Her Fifth Place

When Dotty Weaver walks her dog along the beach near her house, she discovers many unusual items in the dunes. One morning, she found an empty purse that left her crafting a story about its owner.

Dotty Weaver and the text Dotty Weaver. Following a dog owner happening upon a crime scene, "The Dunes of Dawn" was the first short story Weaver ever wrote. Having just completed a creative writing elective for her BA in History program, she decided to enter the Fall Fiction Contest.

"I was surprised and delighted to be selected as a finalist in the contest," Weaver said. "It was a wonderful thrill to see my work alongside other wonderful works of fiction."

The judges enjoyed the pacing of her mystery, and the suspense and satisfaction it brings in such a short amount of time.

While Weaver's primary goal is to teach U.S. history at a collegiate level, her early writing success is also inspiring her to write historical fiction.

Semi-Finalist Panel

Courtney McDermott holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College and an MFA from the University of Notre Dame. Her debut collection of short stories, "How They Spend Their Sundays," was nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award and The Story Prize. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous journals, and she has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. McDermott has been teaching at SNHU since 2014, and she lives in Greater Boston with her husband and son.

Marcella Prokop lives on a hemp farm and hard cider orchard in Minnesota with her husband, son and two dogs. She teaches creative writing online for SNHU and literature at Augustana University in South Dakota, writing poetry and nonfiction when she has time. Her work has been published online or in print in journals, including Ploughshares, Pank, the Brooklyn Review and the Coal Hill Review, among others.

Christopher Sullivan, MFA, has worked as an adjunct instructor at SNHU since 2011 and has served as a member of The Penmen Review editorial board since 2012. Sullivan teaches numerous creative writing, screenwriting and English composition courses at SNHU, and he encourages his students to be fearless (and keep an open mind) as they study and sharpen their respective craft. In his spare time, Sullivan enjoys writing, reading and spending time with his beautiful family. He is also an avid Boston sports fan.

Emily Winters is a novelist and essayist from the Midwest. She studied creative writing and English at SNHU and has an MFA in Fiction from the university's Mountainview Low-Residency MFA program. Her writing has appeared in various magazines and online publications such as Assignment Magazine Online, The Everygirl and Business New Hampshire Magazine. In her spare time, Winters teaches creative writing and dance, travels incessantly, hikes at high altitudes (not in the Midwest) and mediates playtime between her rambunctious puppy and tired old cat. She lives in the Ann Arbor area with her husband.

Initial Review Panel

Joe Cote is a content writer on SNHU's marketing team after spending more than a decade as a newspaper reporter and editor in New Hampshire. He earned a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication. A one-time poetry major, Cote remains an avid reader of all things fantasy.

Crystal Curry is the author of two prizewinning poetry books, "But I Have Realized It" and "Our Chrome Arms of Gymnasium." She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in Creative Writing and an Ed.M. in Human Resource Development. Curry has been an adjunct professor of creative writing and English at SNHU since 2012. She lives in the Bronx, New York, with her family.

Jennifer Loring's short fiction has been published widely both online and in print, appearing alongside Graham Masterton, Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Massie, Ramsey Campbell, Kealan Patrick Burke, Steve Rasnic Tem and Clive Barker. She holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction with a concentration in Horror Fiction, is currently working toward her Ph.D. in Creative Writing, and teaches online at SNHU. Loring lives with her husband in Philadelphia, where they are owned by a turtle and two basset hounds.

Angelina Oberdan is a writer and instructor, hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina. She received an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) and an MA in English from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Oberdan's work has appeared in many journals, including Cold Mountain Review, Louisiana Literature, Mobius, Italian Americana, Southern Indiana Review and Yemassee, among others. She co-edited a collection of essays by and about Daniela Gioseffi, "Pioneering Italian American Culture: Escaping La Vita Della Cucina," published by Bordighera Press. When Oberdan isn't writing or teaching, she's hiking with her three dogs.

Cyndle Plaisted Rials lives in Maine between the mountains and the ocean. In addition to teaching creative writing courses at SNHU, she operates a small business designing and creating fiber art and accessories. Plaisted Rials earned her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and her poems have appeared in such places as Hunger Mountain, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and Be Wilder: A Word Portland Anthology, among others. She is currently at work on her first novel.

Rebecca LeBoeuf '18 is a staff writer at Southern New Hampshire University. Connect with her on LinkedIn.