Abby Geni’s The Lightkeepers (Counterpoint Press), Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (Knopf), and Jung Yun’s Shelter (Picador) were today named the finalists in the fiction category of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award.
The nonfiction category included Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl, a memoir about her life as a botanist, as well as Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond and Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips.
Books are nominated by Barnes & Noble booksellers, and the finalists and winners are chosen by a committee of six distinguished writers.
In The Lightkeepers, according to the B&N announcement, “a young woman finds herself surrounded by an unreliable cast of characters on a remote archipelago–and caught in a murder mystery. Abby Geni’s sense of place and haunting narrative voice reminded us of Eowyn Ivey’s bestselling Discover pick The Snow Child and 2014 Discover Award Winner (Fiction), All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld.”
The Lightkeepers was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s 2016 First Novel Prize, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, and was praised by Francine Prose in the New York Times Book Review.
Homegoing “follows two branches of a family—one in America and the other in Africa–over 300 years, and the writing is so assured that it’s hard to believe this is a debut. This heartbreaking, beautiful book reminded us of Toni Morrison’s exquisite novels and an earlier Discover pick, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis.”
Gyasi’s debut novel won the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard First Book Prize, was named Debut Novel of the Year by NPR, and was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s 2016 First Novel Prize. It was named a New York Times 2016 Notable Book, one of Oprah’s 10 Favorite Books of 2016, and one of Time‘s Top 10 Novels of 2016.
Regarding Shelter, B&N said, “Our jaws dropped as we read the shocking opening, and we couldn’t stop turning pages as a young father is forced to face his past – and his parents – in order to save his family’s future. This is a must-read for anyone who compulsively read Celeste Ng’s bestseller Everything I Never Told You.”
Shelter was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s 2016 First Novel Prize, named one of the most anticipated books of the year by The Millions, and was the #1 Most Buzzed About Book of the Year in Buzz Feed. It received positive reviews in the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, and Library Journal (starred review).
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