Christopher Barzak got me with this one (from his site):
This past spring, I was passed a debut novel from an editor at Delacorte Press, asking if I’d read it. It’s called The Broken Teaglass, by Emily Arsenault. It’s an interesting novel, set in a dictionary company, with a mystery hidden in the files of word citations, buried there for others to find by a Mysterious Someone. It was totally my kind of mystery, words and putting together a story like pieces of a puzzle, and so I enthusiastically blurbed the book, like this:
“Charming and witty are not the usual adjectives used to describe a mystery novel, but in the case of Emily Arsenault’s debut, all expectations and definitions must be relinquished. Not since A. S. Byatt’s Possession have I come across such a fascinating secret history as the one hidden within the pages of The Broken Teaglass and the ones we all carry inside us.”
For all you teen librarians out there, PW makes it sound very friendly for that age group as well:
"In Arsenault's quirky, arresting debut, two young lexicographers find clues to an old murder case hidden in the files at their dictionary company. Billy, the narrator, is a 'strapping' recent grad with a football player's physique, a penchant for philosophy and a painful chapter in his past that he hasn't quite closed. Mona is a girls' college grad with an ambivalent relationship to her stepfather's wealth and a habit of falling for older, wiser men. The two are drawn together by tantalizing clues left — they assume by a former employee — in the company's citation files. As Billy and Mona spend more and more time hunched over the mysterious 'cits' from a book called The Broken Teaglass, they realize the murder may involve colleagues and acquaintances who are still roaming around the office, and Billy struggles to overcome the challenges of entering the adult world and leaving his old life behind. The result is an absorbing, offbeat mystery — meets — coming-of-age novel that's as sweet as it is suspenseful."
It's totally on my holiday wish list!
October 24
2009
05:37 AM
Oh, this sounds great! Thanks for sharing, Colleen; I'm adding this to my reading list now.