This week, MacAdam/Cage editor David Adams talks about his favorite pick for fall. An excerpt from Our Lady of Pain is available for one week at our Book Club.

What is the book you are most excited by this season, and how did it come to your attention?
Our Lady of Pain, by Elena Forbes (978-1-59692-316-4).

My boss, David Poindexter, brought Elena’s first book, Die With Me, back from the London Book Fair last year. He was really excited about it, and asked me to give it a read to see if I agreed. The first chapter—written from the perspective of the story’s villain—convinced me that this was a book we had to do. The voice had just the right blend of the banal and the vicious, and the details of the setting and the crime were so imaginative and compelling that I knew the whole thing was going to hold together. It was clear we had the start of a promising series on our hands.

So we signed Elena up for a two-book deal, and published Die With Me to starred reviews and great bookseller response. Elena was already at work on the sequel, which she delivered to her UK publisher right on time. (We really ask a lot of these mystery writers.) I started Our Lady of Pain hoping that it was going to be as good as the first book, and was delighted to find that it was even better. The crime this time is the ritualistic murder of a young art dealer in London’s Holland Park; the lead investigator, Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia, begins the case with one set of assumptions about the young woman, but gradually discovers that she was not nearly as proper as the superficial details of her life would lead one to believe.

Like all good mysteries, the plot is full of twists and turns, and once you start the book you feel that wonderful compulsion to finish. Elena’s greatest strength as writer, though, may be her ability to capture the fascinating nuances of human relationships. The members of the Barnes Murder Squad are full-bodied, credible characters, and the subtle dynamics of the relationship between Mark Tartaglia and his partner, Samantha Donovan, are particularly compelling. In that sense I see Elena as part of a great tradition of writers—Ruth Rendell, Donna Leon, Lynda La Plante, Tana French—who have brought a more sophisticated understanding of human relationships, and especially male-female relationships, to the police procedural.

What can you tell us about the author?
Elena lives in London with her husband and two children. She worked in portfolio management for a number of international investment groups before becoming a full-time writer. Her first book, Die With Me, was shortlisted for the 2008 John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award. She likes opera and Italy—Mark Tartaglia was inspired by a well-known Italian bass baritone.

Who will enjoy this book?
Fans of the TV show Prime Suspect. Readers of Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Ian Rankin, P. D. James, etc. Mystery readers who like their plots to come with some real psychological depth. People looking to get in on the ground floor of a series with a great deal of potential.

What can you tell us about the excerpt published online?
The first two chapters of Our Lady of Pain are a great example of what distinguishes Elena in the very crowded field of crime writers. The book opens with a brief glimpse of our victim going for a jog in a snowy Holland Park—it is a descriptive, atmospheric beginning, and the moment of tension at the end is well done, if somewhat familiar. What is more unique, and really compelling, I think, is where we go from there—to Tartaglia’s sister’s house, where our main character is trapped in a rather probing discussion with a woman who has very obviously been invited to the family’s regular Sunday lunch as a potential romantic interest for the longtime bachelor Tartaglia. Their conversation and the family dynamics of the scene are awkward and all-too-real, and Tartaglia, polite as he may be, is visibly relieved to get the call that a young woman’s frozen body has been found in the park.

This week, Candlewick President and Publisher Karen Lotz and Editorial Director and Associate Publisher Liz Bicknell talk about their favorite picks for fall. Gorgeous full-color excerpts of Our White House and Sword are available for download for one week.

“Our White House: Looking in, Looking Out, created by 108 renowned authors and illustrators and the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, is one of the most exceptional projects I’ve ever been involved in,” said Karen Lotz, President and Publisher of Candlewick Press. “A treasury of personal essays, nonfiction, short stories, poetry, humor, primary source materials, and an extraordinary range of illustration, it is an entirely fresh and engaging presentation that serves as a gateway for looking at two hundred years of American history with new eyes. The subtitle of the book captures its essence; it is designed to explore the dwelling at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue through multiple perspectives, including the views of those who built it, of those who have lived and made history there, and of those who keep its integrity as the center of our democracy by electing the leaders who will serve in it every four years.”

“We believe this is the most exceptional roster of authors in any fundraising collection of its kind. Their dedication to the book has been profound, with all contributing not only their writing and artwork, but also significant original research, and, most importantly, their personal thoughts and philosophies on our democracy: why it works, and how it could work even better. All agree on one important principle: the engagement of young people in learning about history and participating in the political process is vital to our collective future.”

“Swords: An Artist’s Devotion is a 96-page, full-color celebration of swordsmanship,” said Liz Bicknell, Editorial Director and Associate Publisher of Candlewick Press.

“Agent Rosemary Stimola sent me three sample spreads of the chapter “Kings” back in July 2005 and I immediately took them home to my two sons, Rowan and Corin, who at the time were 14 and 11 and big into things medieval. Rowan said reverently, ‘Mom, you have to get this book!’ and that pretty much convinced me there was going to be a market.”

“Ben Boos is an incredible artist, as you can see from the sample, and his detailed illustrations took two years to complete, a true ‘artist’s devotion.’ Before this book, he worked as an illustrator on the Diablo computer game franchise. I think we’ve successfully lured him away, though, as we are signed up for another book, which Ben is working on now.”

Codependence and the Power of Detachment: How to Set Boundaries and Make Your Life Your Own by Karen Casey.

A generation ago, when codependence was first talked about and defined, a lot of people who were living with or relating to alcoholics or addicts realized that they needed support in figuring out what was going wrong in their lives and how to regain some sanity. So, the people who read the initial books were people who had problems in their lives “caused” by their situation. Now we realize a bit more--a lot more of us are affected in one way or another through our family of birth, our colleagues, etc.--by alcoholism or addiction. And, whether or not we’re addicted or relating to an addict, almost all of us get caught up in the drama of family life or everyday situations in which we’re not clear about who we are and what we think. In short, this book is for anyone who ever was tempted to live her or his life by someone else’s rules or values, or who tried to control the outcome of a situation by changing someone else’s mind or controlling them. -- Publisher Jan Johnson of Red Wheel/Weiser Books/Conari Press

Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos by Bucky Sinister.

Bucky Sinister is a veteran spoken word artist who has published several books of poetry and short stories, as well as a seasoned stand-up comic. His poetry evolved as his drinking waned, and he has this amazing ability to pepper the cold, sad truth with hilarity. Honestly, I think this book will appeal not just to those in recovery. It was written for people who are thinking about starting a twelve-step program but are afraid of the church basements and Higher Power jargon. But it also reads really well and helps anyone who needs to learn to draw boundaries with their addictions—I think there is an element of that in all of us. Even if you aren’t in a program, or should be, the clever writing and wit of the author shines. -- Editor Amber Guetebier of Red Wheel/Weiser Books/Conari Press

Dali-Roo’s troubles began in the last year of the drought that spanned the millennium and sucked the green from the countryside.

So begins our short story offering of the week, “Aibo or Love at First Sight” by Eleanor Bluestein, winner of the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction.

Because of the drought, Dali-Roo trades farm work for factory work, riding off on his motorbike each morning to the Sony plant and leaving his ox to stand idly on the cracked earth of his front yard.

As if this forced life change wasn’t bad enough, Dali-Roo goes on to make the awful discovery that he’s a thief. “[P]owerless even though he understood he was gambling his family’s future, even though he believed that a thief in this life returns as a worm in the next.”

This collection of stories, Tea & Other Ayama Na Tales (BkMk Press, 978-1-886157-64-4), takes place in a small country in South East Asia. Like many small countries of the day, it struggles with peace after war and returning to the old versus embracing the new. What is different is that this particular country does not physically exist. Yet Bluestein’s canny storytelling, her perfectly imagined dialogue, her vibrant characters, both native and foreign, create a place familiar, intimate, and utterly believable. Tea & Other Ayama Na Tales is a wry and thoughtful reckoning of the human condition.

Eleanor Bluestein’s work appears in the GSU Review (Georgia State University) and other magazines. She lives in La Jolla, California, with her husband. For thirteen years, she co-edited a magazine called Crawl Out Your Window featuring the work of local writers and photographers. Tea & Other Ayama Na Tales is her first book.