BOOKS
Curious about what books will be released in the months ahead so you can pre-order or reserve them? Then
check some of the titles that intrigued us and explore more online at www.tropics-magazine.com
Vinegar Girl (Hogarth Shakespeare)
by Anne Tyler
‘You can’t get around Kate Battista as easily as all that’
Kate Battista is feeling stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric
scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work
– her pre-school charges adore her, but the adults don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner.
Dr Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge
of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young
lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr…
When Dr Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s
relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But
will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to win her round?
Anne Tyler’s retelling of The Taming of the Shrew asks whether a thoroughly modern, independent woman like Kate would ever sacrifice herself for a man. Its answer is as individual, off-beat
and funny as Kate herself.
Rich and Pretty: A Novel
by Rumaan Alam (Goodreads Author)
This irresistible debut, set in contemporary New York, provides a sharp, insightful look into
how the relationship between two best friends changes when they are no longer coming
of age but learning how to live adult lives.
As close as sisters for twenty years, Sarah and Lauren have been together through high
school and college, first jobs and first loves, the uncertainties of their twenties and the
realities of their thirties.
Sarah, the only child of a prominent intellectual and a socialite, works at a charity and
is methodically planning her wedding. Lauren—beautiful, independent, and unpredictable—is single and working in publishing, deflecting her parents’ worries and questions
about her life and future by trying not to think about it herself. Each woman envies—and
is horrified by—particular aspects of the other’s life, topics of conversation they avoid with
masterful linguistic pirouettes.
Once, Sarah and Lauren were inseparable; for a long a time now, they’ve been apart.
Can two women who rarely see one other, selectively share secrets, and lead different
lives still call themselves best friends? Is it their abiding connection—or just force of habit—
that keeps them together?
With impeccable style, biting humor, and a keen sense of detail, Rumaan Alam deftly
explores how the attachments we form in childhood shift as we adapt to our adult lives—
and how the bonds of friendship endure, even when our paths diverge.
My Lady Jane
by Cynthia Hand (Goodreads Author), Brodi Ashton (Goodreads Author), Jodi Meadows
(Goodreads Author)
For fans of The Princess Bride comes the comical, fantastical, romantical, (not) entirely true story of Lady
Jane Grey.
Lady Jane Grey, sixteen, is about to be married to a total stranger—and caught up in an insidious plot
to rob her cousin, King Edward, of his throne. But that’s the least of Jane’s problems. She’s about to become Queen of England. Like that could go wrong.
page 29 | Issue #59