The Psychology of Suspense: New Novels

Christopher J. Yates was born and raised in Kent and studied law at Oxford University before working as a puzzle editor in London. Black Chalk (Picador) is his debut novel. In the intimidating surroundings of Oxford University a group of six friends begin to play a game -- an elaborate variant on truth or dare, in which the loser of each round has to perform an embarrassing challenge. The eventual winner stands to walk away with a sizable prize, staked to them by a mysterious campus organization known as the Game Society. But the game quickly assumes a life of its own: the stakes grow higher and the dares more personal, more humiliating, finally devolving into a vicious struggle with tragic results. Now, years later, one player, who believed he had fled the Game long ago, discovers that it is far from over.

Maggie Mitchell has published short fiction in a number of literary magazines, including the New Ohio Review, American Literary Review, and Green Mountains Review. Pretty Is A Novel (Henry Holt and Co.) is her first book. The summer precocious Lois and pretty Carly May were twelve years old, they were kidnapped, driven across the country, and held in a cabin in the woods for two months by a charismatic stranger. Nearly twenty years later, Lois has become a professor, teaching British literature at a small college in upstate New York, and Carly May is an actress in Los Angeles, drinking too much and struggling to revive her career. When a movie with a shockingly familiar plot draws the two women together once more, they must face the public exposure of their secret history and confront the dark longings and unspeakable truths that haunt them still.

Nina de Gramont is a novelist and short story writer. Her first book, the short story collection Of Cats and Men, won a Discovery Award from the New England Booksellers Association and was a Booksense selection. Her novel Gossip of the Starlings was also a Booksense pick. Gramont has also written three novels for teens – The Boy I Love, Meet Me at the River, and Every Little Thing in the World, which was an ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults. Another novel for teens is forthcoming, under the pseudonym Marina Gessner. The Distance From Me to You is a Junior Library Guild selection. Gramount’s essays and short stories have appeared in a variety of magazines including Seventeen, Redbook, and the Harvard Review. Her second novel for adults, The Last September (Algonquin), is set in the desolate autumn beauty of Cape Cod, and combines murder mystery and coming-of-age.

Nina Revoyr is the author of four previous novels, including The Age of Dreaming, which was nominated for the LA Times Book Prize; Southland, a Los Angeles Times bestseller and "Best Book" of 2003; and Wingshooters, which won an Indie Booksellers' Choice Award and was selected by O, The Oprah magazine as one of "10 Titles to Pick Up Now." Lost Canyon (Akashic) is her latest novel. Four people on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada find more adventure than they ever imagined. They are drawn to the mountains for reasons as diverse as their own lives. When the hikers start up a pristine mountain trail that hasn’t been traveled in years, all they have to guide them is a hand-drawn map of a remote, mysterious place called Lost Canyon. At first, the route past high alpine lakes and under towering, snowcapped peaks offers all the freedom and exhilaration they’d hoped for. But when they stumble onto someone who doesn’t want to be found, the group finds itself faced with a series of dangerous conflicts, moral dilemmas, confrontations with nature, and an all-out struggle for survival.