18 Books You Can't Miss This May
Here are radiant new titles to pick up now, including an incandescent work of historical fiction from Anthony Doerr, witty cultural criticism and a stirring romance set in the Alaskan wilderness.
7 of 18
Ruby
By Cynthia Bond
354 pages;
Hogarth
Oprah's Book Club 2.0's 4th SelectionThough 53-year-old Cynthia Bond has been teaching writing to homeless and at-risk youth for more than 15 years, she'd never published a book herself. Now, with her novel
Ruby, Bond proves to be a powerful literary force, a writer whose unflinching yet lyrical prose is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's. Ruby Bell—"the kind of pretty it hurt to look at"—is Bond's operatic heroine, a tragic character inspired by the author's own experiences and by the East Texas murder of an aunt at the hands of the local sheriff and deputies. Whether Ephram, who's loved Ruby his entire life, can save her is at the heart of the story, which raises the question, Can hope triumph over pain? Ultimately, says Bond, she learned about overcoming adversity in the course of writing the novel. "Through love," she says, "humans can heal from anything."
— Leigh Haber
Published 04/28/2014