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Hotlists 2008

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Booklists

Lists of books, many of which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ). Additional titles of interest may be included on the lists. Titles are generally listed alphabetically by author.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .

Overbooked is the winner of the 2008 Louis Shores - Greenwood Publishing Award: to recognize excellence in book reviewing and other media for libraries. The award recipient is selected for significant achievement related to a reviewing process that helps librarians make selection decisions.

Booklists and Suggested Reading

Magic Booklist

 

Page Modified: August 19, 2008

Novels about Magic & Magicians

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Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

• The Hummingbird Wizard
  Author: Blevins, Meredith
  Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765307693 Date: 2003
  PW Kirkus LJ
  Driving full-steam-ahead with her life after the unexpected death of her husband, Annie Szabo was not planning on veering off course again. Sexy, witty, and original, Blevins paints a portrait of a vibrant family, led by two women who refuse to let a little homicide ruin their enjoyment of life.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts | Woo Woo Mystery Stars | All Stars
  Updated 8.13.03
• The Man from Beyond
  Author: Brownstein, Gabriel
  Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393051528 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arrives in New York on a spiritualist crusade, defending the powers of the mysterious medium Margery. His good friend Harry Houdini is a skeptic, and when Doyle claims Margery's powers are superior to Houdini's, the magician goes on the attack.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Elementary Stars | Magic & Magicians | Spiritualist Stars
  Updated 8.15.05
• Hocus
  Author: Burke, Jan
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster List Price: $22 ISBN: 0684803445 Date: 1997
  Booklist
  In this thunderously paced heart-stopper by the author of Remember Me, Irene, intrepid sleuth/reporter Irene Kelly's skills are put to the ultimate test when her detective husband Frank is taken hostage.
  
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
  Author: Clarke, Susanna
  Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 29.95 ISBN: 1582344167 Date: 2004
  Booklist Kirkus PW
  Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that it leaves readers longing for more.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 7.12.04
• Practical Magic
  Author: Hoffman, Alice
  Publisher: Putnam $ 22.95 ISBN: 0399140557
  Date: 1995
  Booklist PW
  From the bestselling author of Blue Diary comes a novel that reveals what happens when magic competes with real love. At the heart of this work are Gillian and Sally Owens, whose conjuring spinster aunts raised them not with square meals and curfews but with magic spells and respect for the powers of nature.
  Updated 7.6.04
• Now You See It: Toby Peters
  Author: Kaminsky, Stuart M.
  Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 25 ISBN: 0786714239 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Illusion gets more deadly than reality on Toby Peter's 24th outing.
  Updated 10.4.04
• Now You See It . . .
  Author: Matheson, Richard
  Publisher: Tor $ 19.95 ISBN: 0312857136 Date: 1994
  PW
  Maximillian Delacorte was once the world's greatest stage magician. Now a recluse, suffering from a mysterious disease, he lures his family and associates to his lonely estate for an afternoon of magic, madness, and revenge. Bodies appear and disappear without warning, severed heads speak words of hate, and nothing is ever quite what it appears. As grisly tricks lead to ever more surprising twists, not even the Great Delacorte can tell where illusion ends--and murder begins.
  Updated 8.2.04
• The Magician's Wife
  Author: Moore, Brian
  Publisher: Dutton Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525944001 Date: 1998
  PW LJ Booklist Kirkus
  From the bestselling author of The Statement comes an ambitious novel of action, suspense, and twisted complexity. Summoned to the country estate of Napoleon III, the famed illusionist Henri Lambert and his wife, Emmeline, are drawn into an elaborate plot to further the French imperialist drive into North Africa and subdue the rebellious Arab tribes threatening jihad.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Historical Fiction Stars
• Shell Game: A Mallory Novel
  Author: O'Connell, Carol
  Publisher: Putnam List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399144951 Date: 1999
  Booklist PW Library Journal
  The recreation of a legendary magic trick goes horribly awry on live television - a terrible accident, everyone agrees. But two people know otherwise. One is an aged magician in a private hospital and the other is streetwise Kathy Mallory, now a New York City policewoman.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• The Gift
  O'Leary, Patrick
  Publisher: Tor List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0312864027 Date: 1997
  PW
  Patrick O'Leary's first novel, Door Number Three, was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. His second novel is fantasy with all the wit and charm of the first. It is the story of a boy and a king and their quest to confront the Usher of the Night and rid their land of old near-forgotten magic perverted by long misuse.
  
  
• The Magician's Assistant
  Patchett, Ann
  Publisher: Harcourt Brace List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0151002630 Date: 1997
  PW Kirkus
  Welcome to the magic show, where love defies logic, family are people you've never met, and commitments last more than a lifetime. What is to become of a magician's assistant without her magician? She begins a journey of a lifetime as she finds newfound strength and may at last find the kind of love she's always been denied.
  
• Circle of Five
  Author: Riccio, Dolores Stewart
  Publisher: Kensington $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 0758203004 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Now that her children are grown, her lout of an ex-husband is gone, and her herbal remedy business has taken off, Cass Shipton is free to enjoy the simple comforts of her grown-up life. But Cass's idyllic, small-town life changes after she bumps carts at the local supermarket with a stranger in a green cap.
  Updated 3.13.03
• The Perfect Play
  Author: Wener, Louise
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060585471 Date: 2004
  LJ
  A young woman risks everything in search of her deadbeat professional poker playing father in this novel of high stakes, lost love and poker. Shuffling a hand that includes an overprotective boyfriend, twin magician stepbrothers and a Las Vegas con man, Audrey is propelled to a play a final game of poker that will change her life forever.
  Suggested Reading: Take a Gamble
  Updated 4.20.04

 

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