We hope you've had some wonderful summer escapes by now – we all deserve some magic this season! Today, we're highlighting five beautiful, inventive books we think could make your next long weekend or cottage getaway even better. Best yet – three 49th Shelf members will take home a book of their choosing by entering for a chance to win until August 14, 2020.
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Like Rum-Drunk Angels, by Tyler Enfield (Goose Lane Editions)
"Tyler Enfield opens a treasure chest of familiar Western tropes, turns them upside down and inside out, and makes them dance. Funny, absurd, wildly inventive, and then — just as you’re least prepared for it — deeply moving. Magic." —Iain Weir, author of Will Starling
"Like Rum-Drunk Angels wrings a variation on the American Western which is entirely unique — saucy, funny, warm, tender, unbridled. It’s a breakneck gallop of a book, as fine a novel as I have read in a long time." —Wayne Johnston, author of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
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Keepers of the Faith, by Shaukat Ajmeri (Mawenzi House)
"Shaukat Ajmeri's soaring debut illuminates in exacting, elegant language how over time even the sustaining powers of faith can corrode the human spirit. Ultimately a profound meditation on family, love and the cost of accepting fate, this memorable novel will linger long in the reader's mind." —Arif Anwar, author of The Storm
"Ajmeri's Keepers of the Faith is a breathtaking and brave story about the tyranny of religion, a community at odds with itself and the bonds of love that endure despite oppression. This book is complex, beautiful, and essential reading for our times." —Farzana Doctor, author of Seven
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The Wild Heavens, by Sarah Louise Butler (Douglas & McIntyre)
"The Wild Heavens is wonderfully crafted—each page is a catch of the breath, each chapter a crush of unfolding magic. This novel is why we read. I wanted to begin again as soon as I finished the last line."—Richard Van Camp, author of The Lesser Blessed
"With a rare combination of intelligence, passion, and grace, Sarah Louise Butler immerses readers in a mountain wilderness fully alive in every vivid, meticulously rendered detail. The Wild Heavens offers a profound meditation on absence, transformation, connection, and love. The story of Sandy’s quest makes for a beautiful debut and a touching tribute to life’s most elusive mysteries." —Angie Abdou, author of The Bone Cage
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Even that Wildest Hope, by Seyward Goodhand (Invisible Publishing)
"Read any sentence in this collection and you will know that Seyward Goodhand is a rare and original talent. Her lush and uncanny prose is like a funhouse mirror that reveals as much as it distorts. These are beautiful stories and a terrific debut. —David Bezmozgis, author of Immigrant City
"10 complex, determinedly fabulous stories [that] impress for sheer quirky inventiveness." —Quill & Quire
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Different Beasts, by J.R. McConvey (Goose Lane Editions)
"Different Beasts made me fall in love with the craft of short stories all over again. This collection took me to places — some uncomfortable, others heartbreaking — that I wasn't expecting to go. This is the work of a writer of beastly talent, vision, and guts." —Brian Francis, author of Natural Order
"Affecting, dynamic, inventive, and inexhaustibly various — J.R. McConvey's debut is a menagerie of remarkable beasts." —Steven Heighton, author of The Dead Are More Visible
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