ODDITY
A Tea Pot that never empties, an Ice Pick that freezes what it touches, an Ember that burns without end—Clover Elkin lives in a land of marvels at the edge of the eleven Unified States. She dreams of a life of buck-skinned adventure, collecting wondrous oddities as her dead mother did before her, but her ever-practical doctor father tells her to “see to the body before you.”
Across the border is French Louisiana, rival to her young country and the source of escalating tensions that threaten more than her peaceful mountain home. When her father is killed defending her from lawless men, his last words send her on a quest to protect the most necessary oddity, one that could help start a war . . . or end it.
On her journey, Clover encounters a talking Rooster, a grinning medicine-show performer, and a secret-stealing Hat, all while being pursued by the men who shot her father and by hand-stitched vermin whose mistress is the most feared person in all these dangerous borderlands.
Clever, brave, and determined, Clover Elkin is a an unforgettable heroine in a land that is a looking glass version of nineteenth century America in all its wonders and terrors, heroism and treachery.
cinnamon and gunpowder
The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by a beautiful yet ruthless pirate. He will be spared, Mad Hannah Mabbot tells him, as long as he can conjure an exquisite meal every Sunday from the ship's meager supplies. While Wedgwood attempts to satisfy his captor with feats such as tea-smoked eel and pineapple-banana cider, he realizes that Mabbot herself is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. But there is a method to Mabbot's madness, and as the Flying Rose races across the ocean, Wedgwood learns to rely on the bizarre crew members he once feared: a formidable giant who loves to knit; a pair of stoic martial arts masters, sworn to defend their captain; and the ship's deaf cabin boy, who becomes the son he never had.
An anarchic tale of love and appetite, Eli Brown's Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a wildly original feat of the imagination, deep and startling as the sea itself.
THE GREAT DAYS
Told through the eyes and experience of Brother August, The Great Days is a disturbing tale of megalomania and submission that takes place as a spiritual community in the sparse Arizona desert prepares for the great days, a period of enlightenment, to arrive. When Papa, the cult leader, takes a ten-year-old girl, Melody, as his fifth and final wife, some followers resist. But a supreme being cannot accept doubt from his disciples, and resisters are redirected into compliance.
As Papa's chief aid and spiritual interpreter, Brother August's loyalty to Papa's vision is taken for granted. But August's love for Melody and her mother jolts him from the intoxicating spell of Papa's power, and soon, August's awakening edges this fragile cult to a ferocious breaking point.