Nova Jacobs Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Nova Jacobs
Author Nova Jacobs is a recipient of the Nicholl Fellowship from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. has an MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

She came from a family that at one time or another has been labeled as being weird. Her parents were aggressively uninterested in fitting in. She spent much of her childhood roughing it while in the woods of Flagstaff and generally feeling separate from all of her classmates, during a time before weird was cool. The Severys are not her family, however all the flavors of otherness and eccentricity are certainly there.

The idea of a murder mystery set within the mathematical realm was accumulating in her mind for quite a while. She originally moved to Los Angeles for the film culture, however, found herself being simultaneously being fascinated by the worlds of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech.

It was an entire buzzing universe of mental rigor and creativity that was completely separated from Hollywood, despite being right over the hill in Pasadena. Nova also loved the idea of a tale set in Los Angeles where the entertainment industry doesn’t even warrant a mention.

She admits that this equation is a “MacGuffin” and could have been any other treasure that Hazel was trying to find. Since it was mathematical, though, there are discussions of mathematical culture and math that pervade throughout the book. This was a motivating angle for her, and she wondered how somebody’s numerical talents, or lack thereof, would shape how they will move through life? And how would this unifying religion of mathematics affect every member of this family?

“The Last Equation of Isaac Severy” was nominated for a 2019 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America and name a Best Mystery by The Wall Street Journal in the year 2018. It was a Book of the Month selection and was included in the Chicago Review of Books’ “Most Anticipated Fiction Books of 2018. The novel got starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly, as well as a rave review from the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Nova’s debut novel, called “The Last Equation of Isaac Severy”, was released in the year 2018 and is from the mystery genre. The novel was published by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster.

“The Last Equation of Isaac Severy” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2018. Hazel Severy, the owner of one struggling bookstore in Seattle, gets a letter from her adoptive grandpa, the mathematician Isaac Severy, just days after he died in what is believed to be a suicide. In this confounding letter, he alludes to a secretive organization that is trying to get their hands on his last bombshell equation, and he tasks Hazel with getting it safely to a trusted colleague. To do so, she has to figure out where the equation has been hidden.

While she is in Los Angeles for his funeral, Hazel finds out that she is not the only person hunting for his life’s work, and that the equation’s implications have some rather disastrous consequences for the members of the extended Severy family. They are a group of dysfunctional geniuses now unmoored by their patriarch’s sudden death.

While the agents of one enigmatic company shadow a theoretical physicist and Isaac’s favorite son and one long-lost cousin makes their mysterious return to LA, the equation slips further out of Hazel’s reach. She has to unravel some confusing clues that is hidden in one of her favorite novels. It brings her ever closer to his mathematical treasure. Her efforts start to fall short, she has to enlist help from those that have some questionable motives.

Fans found this to be a creative and fast paced story and is a fun, witty, and clever novel. Hazel is a character that readers enjoyed a lot by the end of the novel, as she finally begins taking control of her life and she has some great personal growth. Secrets, family drama, and mystery, as well as some clues for the character help to pull the reader in and some just had to keep on reading it. In the novel, Nova Jacobs shows that she is a great writer and the plot is a lot of fun. There is even some great commentary about life and society, and this is just one masterfully crafted read.

Fans of the novel appreciated how Nova was able to make math accessible and fun to the average reader. She also turned it into a high-stakes clue hunt with the ability to destroy or save the future, depending on who cracks the code first. What previously appeared to be three unrelated and disjointed perspectives get entwined to the point that the story would suffer and the impact would be lost without just one of the perspectives.

“Dead Mountain” is the first non-fiction book and was released in the year 2013. February of 1959, one group made up of nine experienced hikers (two women, seven men) out in the Russian Ural Mountains all died under mysterious circumstances while on the elevation called Dead Mountain.

There are some spooky aspects of the incident. This includes signs they cut open and left their tent without the proper shoes or clothes, unexplained violent injuries, one odd last photo taken by one of the nine hikers, and the elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes. This has led to speculation for decades on what actually happened to them.

The book uses the hikers’ journals and pictures, dozens of interviews, some rarely seen government documents, and the author going back over the hikers’ fateful journey during the Russian winter.

This book is a fascinating portrait of these young hikers during the Soviet era, and is a skillful interweaving of the investigators’ efforts, the hikers narrative, and the investigations by the author. Readers were compelled by the story being told and the amount of information and research supplied by the writers is extraordinary. Readers felt like they were out hiking along with all of these young people, making the reader feel a strong connection to the story.