Fiction Realism

Where the Air Is Clear, Carlos Fuentes' first novel, is an unsparing portrayal of Mexico City's upper class. Departing from a traditional linear narrative, Fuentes overlays Mexican myths onto contemporary settings, showing that even the rich and powerful must succumb to the indomitable spirit of Mexico, which undermines all institutions and shapes all destinies.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Fangirl, comes a hilarious, heart-wrenching take on love, marriage, and magic phones. Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it's been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still...

As the novel opens, Artemio Cruz, the all-powerful newspaper magnate and land baron, lies confined to his bed and, in dreamlike flashes, recalls the pivotal episodes of his life. Carlos Fuentes manipulates the ensuing kaleidoscope of images with dazzling inventiveness, layering memory upon memory, from Cruz’s heroic campaigns during the Mexican Revolution, through his relentless climb from poverty to wealth, to his uneasy death. Perhaps Fuentes’ masterpiece, The Death of Artemio Cruz is a haunting voyage into the soul of modern Mexico.

Le jour où sa femme disparaît inexplicablement, la vie de Toru Okada bascule – et emporte avec elle les repères du monde. C'est dans une réalité qui s'enfuit sous d'excentriques mirages que le jeune homme s'éveille un matin. Un théâtre d'ombres débutant par de mystérieux coups de téléphone, et où se croisent peu à peu des êtres déroutants, inclassables, aux confins d'un univers guidé par le chant d'un oiseau à ressort.

When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family’s possibly magical pastelería, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown, in Anna-Marie McLemore's The Mirror Season....

Evelyn Thorne thought her summer would be boring. Then she discovered a book hidden away for almost 60 years, and everything changed. Instead of rainy days and dusty books, Evelyn finds herself caught up in a whirlwind of hidden secrets, talking gadgets, and a mystery waiting for her to solve. Why does the book react to her? Why are strange things happening around the castle? And what does any of it have to do with her family? With new friends (and one grumpy robot), a crumbling Scottish castle, and a very big secret, Evelyn is about to discover she’s more extraordinary than she ever imagined.

When ballet dancer Clara Campbell arrives in New Orleans, lonely and homesick, she is immediately captivated by the story of Windisle Plantation and the tragic tale that is said to have transpired beyond its gate. Legend has it that it is abandoned by all living souls, but to Clara’s great surprise, it is not a ghost she hears through the stone wall surrounding the property, but a flesh and blood man: a scarred stranger with a pain deeper and darker than the churning waters of the Mississippi river that flows beside his self-imposed prison.

From the author of the Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated novel The Incident Report comes a hypnotic novel following Heinrich Schlögel from Germany to Canada, where he sets out on a solo hike into the interior of Baffin Island. His journey quickly becomes surreal, full of strange encounters, inexplicable visions, and the shifting of time. After returning back to civilization, Heinrich discovers inexplicably that many years have passed.

Lorsque le jeune étudiant Fumiya découvre cette rumeur, il quitte Tokyo pour partir en quête de l'ouvrage qu'il recherche depuis des années. À son arrivée, il tombe sur Makino, la patronne rayonnante de la librairie, Waku, le propriétaire un tantinet agressif, et Sugawa, le libraire taciturne au nœud papillon. Mais ce que Fumiya ne sait pas encore, c'est que lorsque vous y entrez, les problèmes, les maux du quotidien, les petits tracas ou les difficultés semblent disparaître comme par magie.

From two-time National Book Award finalist Eliot Schrefer comes an original penguin-tastic adventure inspired by the beloved classic Mr. Popper's Penguins. It's been years and years since the Popper family lived in Stillwater, but the town is still riding high on its former penguin residents...

One morning, Hazel Brown awakes in a badly decorated hotel room to find that she’s written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire. In her bemusement the hotel becomes every cheap room she ever stayed in during her youthful perambulations in 1980s Paris. This is the legend of a she-dandy’s life. Part magical realism, part feminist ars poetica, part history of tailoring, part bibliophilic anthem, part love affair with nineteenth-century painting, The Baudelaire Fractal is poet and art writer Lisa Robertson’s first novel.

Si bien somos capaces de contemplar sin espanto viajes interplanetarios y clonaciones de seres vivos, tal vez nos falte, en cambio, el valor suficiente para sumergirnos en la más íntimo de nuestro ser. Los textos que se reúnen en este libro nos recuerdan que en cada uno de nosotros vive un guerrero de la luz, alguien capaz de escuchar el silencio de su corazón, de aceptar las derrotas sin dejarse abatir por ellas y de alimentar la esperanza en medio del cansancio y el desaliento.

One war. One world. One woman. It all comes down to that. It always has. Genevieve Beaufont just never knew she'd decide the fate of the planet. Somethings are better left as a secret until the very end.

Dark gods and witch girls, name a more iconic duo. Jake works at the newest, and technically oldest, excavation site in America. As a janitor. Not quite an archeology major’s wet dream. But then, an ancient pillar awakens, and Jake switches lives with a doppelganger in another world. This world’s Jake happens to be a top prospect at the magical Aether Academy…and a servant of a dark god who expects repayment for his boon. If he’s going to live long enough to find a way home, Jake will need a little help.

BETRAYAL. PASSION. MAGIC. And...WIGS! From the sparkling imagination of gifted entertainer Keke Palmer and her iconic alter ego, Lady Miss Jacqueline, comes a hilarious modern fairy tale about a wilting violet, a clash of personalities, and a multitude of hair.

A father who is trying to rescue his lost wife. Their child, desperately searching the wild forests and dangerous mountains of the Scottish Highlands, not knowing what’s out there. An abandoned cottage in the remote wilderness, filled with thousands of confusing, terrifying handwritten notes. And a dark, looming voice who threatens to destroy everything. Perfect for fans of Pine and The Loney, Fray announces an electrifying new voice in literary fiction.

Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops...

Daryl spends his days working at the hospital as a caring orderly, but he spends his nights listening to his gorgeous neighbor Jessica get intimate with her husband through the paper-thin walls of his apartment. It's not so bad until he gets a mysterious package containing an old wooden carving that gives him some very vivid, very personal dreams...dreams where he's not only with Jessica, but where he is Jessica! Daryl takes care of all the patients at St. Mary's, a special hospital where most of the city's saddest cases end up, but he's especially caring towards one patient.

There is bad luck in New Felicity. The people of the small coastal village have taken in Milagros, an eleven-year-old Venezuelan refugee, just as Trinidad's government has begun cracking down on undocumented migrants—and now an American journalist has come to town asking questions. New Felicity's superstitious fishermen fear the worst, certain they've brought bad luck on the village by killing a local witch who had herself murdered two villagers the year before.

Amanda Leduc's brilliant new novel, woven with fairy tales of her own devising and replete with both catastrophe and magic, is a vision of what happens when we ignore the natural world and the darker parts of our own natures. Heather is sleeping peacefully after the birth of her twin daughters...