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Timothy Schaffert

Author of five novels: The Swan Gondola, The Coffins of Little Hope, Devils in the Sugar Shop, The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God, and The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters. Director of the (downtown) omaha lit fest. Contributing editor, Fairy Tale Review. Assistant Professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln creative writing program.

"The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God" is part of the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers program, and was the 2007 Omaha Reads one-book-one-city selection. "Devils in the Sugar Shop" was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Book Sense pick.

Genres: Historical, Literary Fiction

Novels

   The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters (2002)
   The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God (2005)
   Devils in the Sugar Shop (2007)
   The Coffins of Little Hope (2011)
   The Swan Gondola (2014)
   The Perfume Thief (2021)
   The Titanic Survivors Book Club (2024)

Books containing stories by Timothy Schaffert

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (2010)
(New Fairy Tales , book 1)
edited by
Kate Bernheimer

Timothy Schaffert recommends

The Bookbinder's Secret (2025)
A D Bell
"You'll want to read The Bookbinder's Secret one sitting; every chapter stirs up new intrigue, sending Lillian - a book lover with a past-looking for trouble in delightfully unlikely places: bookstores, the libraries of collectors, and the workshops of bookbinders where secrets are tucked away under end papers and false covers. This is a novel so vivid, so spirited, and full of twists and a little romance, that you fall under its spell in its first pages."

The Only Sound is the Wind (2024)
Pascha Sotolongo
"These stories-these bewitching portraits of a melancholy dystopia-are spellbinding. . . . With this rich collection, Sotolongo joins the ranks of Margaret Atwood and Cristina Rivera Garza, and other masters of illusion."

Weird Black Girls (2024)
Elwin Cotman
"Elwin Cotman's fiction is genius. Weird Black Girls is full of wry, fantastical twists that are always surprising, always illuminating. I'm enraptured by his writing, his every paragraph rich in wisdom and wit, his stories somehow rough and refined both, a brilliant mix of perversity and common sense, of the sacred and the profane."

Plastic (2024)
Scott Guild
"Plastic is a marvel, gimlet-eyed and utterly charming all at once. It's one of those rare novels that has both big ideas and a big heart. I'm tantalized by its sci-fi grooviness but also moved by the dolls' interiority, their assessment of their own humanity."

The War Begins in Paris (2023)
Theodore Wheeler
"This vivid novel takes on one of my favorite subjects: journalists in the war zone. Here we have 'radio traitors' among them, everybody wound tight, with questions of truth and trust all caught up in threat and propaganda. With fascinating parallels to our own cultural moment, The War Begins in Paris is a captivating and vibrant - and utterly present - portrait of chaos."

Lighthouse Burning (2023)
(Harlan Winter, book 1)
Jordan Farmer
"A fascinating exploration of character, with a story that captivates with suspense and heart, The Poison Flood is a book about the influence of music, the power of art, and the complexities of luck. Irresistible and original."

Alchemy of a Blackbird (2023)
Claire McMillan
"Alchemy of a Blackbird is enigmatic, inventive, and rich with love and longing, art and magic. A story told in the captivating voices of artists and their patrons, the novel explores fascinating lives in a state of profound upheaval, making for irresistible drama as the characters travel the world in search of beauty and peace."

The Gulf (2023)
Rachel Cochran
"Such a moody and atmospheric novel, full of plot twists, confrontations, untold truths. All the ghosts in The Gulf, real and imagined, become a sign of life in this dying town. Lou, irascible but honest, is an utterly unique character, her reality shaped by the mysteries of the past. I loved this gothic place and its duplicitous people - tensions are stirring from the start, and they never let up."

The Lioness of Boston (2023)
Emily Franklin
"The Lioness of Boston shows the deft touch of Edith Wharton and the delightful pomp of The Gilded Age--it's a book both elegant and entertaining, one to savor line by line even as it carries us forward on the spirit and audacity of the narrator. Emily Franklin has rendered Isabella Stewart Gardner a classic literary heroine, one who emerges from heartbreak and defiance to shape her own life and the culture of an entire city."

Flight Risk (2021)
Joy Castro
"Completely captivating. Part Patricia Highsmith, part Mexican Gothic, part Daphne du Maurier, Joy Castro’s Flight Risk is my favorite kind of story: one in which an outsider, dodging and weaving among insiders, stirs up tension, intrigue, and suspicion. With raw energy and sharp storytelling, Flight Risk is a novel about light and shadow, and I found myself craving its every twist."

The Hive (2021)
Melissa Scholes Young
"I love books about sisters, and I love The Hive, which has all the eccentricity and yearning of some of my favorite sister stories, like We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and Sisters By a River by Barbara Comyns. From the very first chapter, The Hive is a deft, delightfully weird, and often comical family saga."

The Guncle (2021)
(Guncle, book 1)
Steven Rowley
"Delightful, sharp, and very funny, The Guncle is the cocktail equivalent of the fourth sip of your martini while you sit poolside at sunset. I loved lingering in this world (and loved reading the dialogue out loud). A novel as much about family and friendship as it is about style and sass, it’s a divine mix of Terms of Endearment and The Birdcage."

Marriage of a Thousand Lies (2017)
SJ Sindu
"I love Lucky, the unforgettable narrator of Marriage of a Thousand Lies. She has taken a place among my favorite misfits in literature, a young woman longing for love and tradition and celebration and family even as she defies expectations and navigates her own paths. I'm especially captivated by the novel's honesty and tenderness--SJ Sindu is an intuitive writer with great insights into the complications of love and friendship."

Wilberforce (2015)
H S Cross
"In this riveting and playful novel by H. S. Cross, mental warfare rules among friends and enemies at a boarding school, making for delicious complications and twisted loyalties."

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