Name: Sweet Lamb of Heaven
ISBN: 9780393354188

Lydia Millet

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction:

Sweet Lamb of Heaven

Daryl Houston

This book had a strong start, slumped a little in the middle, and ended strong. When it began to slump for me was when some of the details of the antagonist's main ambition seemed a little off kilter -- which registered for me as poorly researched and written and implausible in a world that for the most part hewed pretty close to reality -- but boy did my interest in quibbling with the book's realism fade as I got into the last few chapters. The book is at its best when Millet delves into the philosophical and the lyrical, and there's sufficient delving of this sort to make the more procedural bits worthwhile. It's a short book that, apart from a several-dozen-page slump around the middle, I found really gripping.

Leafling

D D D 

Blending domestic thriller and psychological horror, this compelling page-turner follows a mother fleeing her estranged husband.