1 of 25
by Jonathan Starke
A battered boxer springs his young daughter from an orphanage and they hitchhike to Las Vegas, seeking a better life, in the gritty You've Got Something Coming by Jonathan Starke.
Wisconsin. Winter. A 41-year-old washed-up boxer named Trucks sneaks into the children's home where social services placed his deaf daughter, Claudia. He has $30 in his pocket, and big dreams of steady work and a stable life for himself and his child.
Trucks and Claudia cling tightly to each other as they flag down their ... [ Read More » ]
2 of 25
by Liv Constantine
Liv Constantine's fast-paced The Wife Stalker begins with Piper having recently relocated from San Diego, Calif., to seaside Westport, Conn., reinventing herself in the process. She's changed her name from Pamela and bought a wellness center in town.
Joanna is hoping to enter a new phase in her life, too. She's been patiently taking care of the kids and maintaining the household while waiting for the man she loves, Leo, to come out the other side of his depression. After going to a wellness center, ... [ Read More » ]
3 of 25
by Brit Bennett
Like The Mothers, Brit Bennett's second novel, The Vanishing Half, is deeply emotional and compelling, with evocative prose and deep characterization.
Spanning 30 years and two generations, The Vanishing Half follows twin sisters Desiree and Stella as they run away from home in the 1950s and follow dramatically different paths in life. Their hometown of Mallard, La., is intentionally populated exclusively by light-skinned black people, and Stella disappears from Desiree's life ... [ Read More » ]
4 of 25
by Lori Foster
With more than 100 titles to her credit, Lori Foster delivers another feel-good contemporary story that will resonate with readers who admire strong female protagonists, sensual romance and a love of animals.
In The Somerset Girls, two sisters run an animal rescue farm inherited from their grandparents in rural Kentucky. Autumn and Ember Somerset share a bloodline and a converted duplex house, and both maintain day jobs. That's where the similarities end, however. Autumn, 32, is a decorator and designer--the ... [ Read More » ]
5 of 25
by Jia Lynn Yang
One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle over American Immigration, 1924-1965 began as an attempt by New York Times journalist and second-generation American Jia Lynn Yang to understand the law that allowed her parents to come to the United States from China and Taiwan, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The result is a gripping account of 40 years of Congressional wrangling over immigration law in the United States.
Yang successfully argues that the idea of the United States ... [ Read More » ]
6 of 25
by Alison Wearing
Readers of Canadian author Alison Wearing's touching Moments of Glad Grace will understand her conflict long before the author herself does. As she embarks on a trip to Dublin with her father in pursuit of genealogical records, she envisions precious adventures with Joe, her 80-year-old father who's struggling through the first debilitating signs of Parkinson's. Desperate to learn why their ancestors left Ireland for Canada centuries ago, Joe insists instead on lugging tombstone-sized tomes and microfilm ... [ Read More » ]
7 of 25
by Carlos Busqued, trans. by Samuel Rutter
Questions about why serial killers do what they do evoke answers as varied as the new mysteries they generate. Carlos Busqued, Argentine radio producer, engineer and professor at the University of Córdoba, had the opportunity to spend more than 90 hours with imprisoned serial murderer Ricardo Melogno. In Magnetized, Busqued compiles the transcripts of their conversations along with details of the crimes and Melogno's troubling history.
Busqued recorded interviews with Melogno in 2014 ... [ Read More » ]
8 of 25
by Dean Atta
In his 2019 Stonewall Award-winning verse novel, The Black Flamingo, Dean Atta (I Am Nobody's Nigger, for adults) skillfully chronicles the life of Michael, a gay, British-born Cypriot-Jamaican teen.
It is clear from the beginning that this is a not an average coming-of-age story--it's more a "coming-into-one's-own" story, with Michael declaring, "finally, I am the fairy finding my own magic." Michael's clear voice establishes him as a reliable narrator who generously guides readers through his most ... [ Read More » ]
9 of 25
by E. Lockhart
Told in overlapping timelines--with multiple scene do-overs--this thought-provoking YA novel plays with the idea of parallel universes as a teenager grapples with love, understanding and forgiveness. Plus a bunch of unruly dogs.
The summer after her junior year at a boarding school, Adelaide attempts to recover from an unexpected breakup with her boyfriend ("I am an egg yolk of misery inside a membrane, and the name of the membrane is Mikey broke up with me"), come to terms with her younger brother's ... [ Read More » ]
10 of 25
by Laura Hankin
A down-on-her-luck musician finds dark secrets lurking beneath the polished exteriors of glamorous New York City moms in this pointedly funny satire-thriller from Laura Hankin (The Summertime Girls).
Twenty-eight-year-old Claire Martin's band has finally hit the big time with a chart-topping single but, unfortunately, they dumped her first. Her savings account depleted, she takes a job as a playgroup musician, seeing endless refrains of "If You're Happy and You Know It" as less demeaning than ... [ Read More » ]
11 of 25
by Tash Skilton
Writing together as Tash Skilton, Sarvenaz Tash (Virtually Yours) and Sarah Skilton (Fame Adjacent) run an update on You've Got Mail in this romantic comedy of errors.
Love is "a smokescreen for future heartbreak," according to New Yorker Miles, currently couch-surfing after his girlfriend left him. Unfortunately, love is his job. Miles ghostwrites chat messages on dating sites for clients too busy to keep up with their own profiles. After an on-the-job meltdown, his boss tells him to succeed ... [ Read More » ]
12 of 25
by Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly is most famous for creating Detective Harry Bosch, but the author's newspaperman Jack McEvoy, introduced in 2003's The Poet, is no less arresting. When McEvoy chases a story, he's just as relentless as Bosch on a case. In Fair Warning, McEvoy's first appearance after 2009's The Scarecrow, he identifies the chilling link between the deaths of four women.
McEvoy now works at FairWarning, a real-life consumer watchdog news site. A chance encounter with a woman who ends up murdered plunges ... [ Read More » ]
13 of 25
by Lee Martin
When a jilted fiancé becomes a murderer, the repercussions in a small Illinois town ripple beyond the tragedy, in Yours, Jean, Lee Martin's fifth novel, based on a true crime near his hometown. The first day of school dawns bright that September 1952, and Jean De Belle's new job as the Lawrenceville High School librarian marks a fresh start after her breakup with Charlie Camplain. But Charlie shows up at the school, and when Jean again refuses him, he shoots her.
Martin (The Bright Forever ... [ Read More » ]
14 of 25
by Mia Mercado
In Weird but Normal, Mia Mercado, who has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times and Bustle, is hilariously forthcoming about the trials of her life as a millennial woman--workplace sexism, online dating disillusionment, depression, unruly body hair, identity crises and all. "The feeling of not feeling normal" is one Mercado knows well and has come to believe is nothing short of ordinary.
In 33 thematically organized essays, Mercado employs a wry and conversational tone to detail her ... [ Read More » ]
15 of 25
by Nathacha Appanah, trans. by Geoffrey Strachan
Tropic of Violence by Nathacha Appanah (The Last Brother), translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan, offers readers a spellbinding immersion into the inner lives of slum dwellers, many of them lost, abandoned immigrant youth. Appanah humanizes their ordeals and gives them a haunting voice in the form of Moise, a boy with one dark eye and one green eye, the mark of the djinn.
The novel is set in Mayotte, a French island between Madagascar and the coast of Mozambique. Nestled in a sparkling ... [ Read More » ]
16 of 25
by Nancy Wayson Dinan
Set against the true events of Memorial Day weekend 2015 in central Texas, Things You Would Know if You Grew Up Around Here explores empathy, history, local lore, fantastical happenings and simple humanity. Amid catastrophic flooding, Nancy Wayson Dinan's protagonist offers a compelling balance between the weird and the ordinary. Eighteen-year-old Boyd has always been unusually perceptive. Her best friend Isaac is the only one who never asked anything of her, in the unspoken way that people ... [ Read More » ]
17 of 25
by Catherine Jinks
Catherine Jinks's Shepherd takes place over several days in 1840 New South Wales, and the gritty cat-and-mouse thriller evokes emotions that linger. Tom Clay was 12 years old when he was nabbed for poaching and shipped to Australia to serve his sentence working for Mr. Barrett. Tom is reliable despite his age, and Barrett sends him to a remote shepherds' hut to help guard the flock.
A boy among rough and violent men, Tom has been failed by most everyone in his life. Trained to silence by his father, ... [ Read More » ]
18 of 25
by Hye-Young Pyun, trans. by Sora Kim-Russell
Those who didn't know that Korean noir is a thing may have gotten their first taste while watching 2019's Oscar-winning Parasite. Readers jonesing for another Seoul-set chiller that works the theme of economic inequality would do well to start with Hye-Young Pyun's The Law of Lines.
As the novel begins, 27-year-old Se-oh Yun returns home to find that the house she shares with her elderly father has gone up in flames; he dies at the hospital from his injuries. According to a detective, the explosion ... [ Read More » ]
19 of 25
by Nick Lake
The 2020 Carnegie Medal-shortlisted Nowhere on Earth by Nick Lake (In Darkness) follows the otherworldly story of 16-year-old Emily Perez, her unusual little brother, Aidan, and rugged bush pilot Bob Simpson as they trek through the Alaskan wilderness in search of a remote satellite facility.
After a mysterious school fire derails her life, Emily runs away from home with her little brother in tow. Her bad luck turns worse when their plane crashes, leaving them hungry and freezing in the middle of ... [ Read More » ]
20 of 25
by Kelly Yang
In this noteworthy, immensely enjoyable novel, Kelly Yang (Front Desk) tackles some of the systemic inequalities that foster racism, misogyny and sexual assault. She convincingly brings to light the ways in which victims are often judged more harshly than their aggressors, but also provides a template for change.
As an 11th-grader in Shanghai, Claire insists she will support herself rather than rely on a husband. To ensure she gets into a good college, though, Claire's Chinese tutor provides answers ... [ Read More » ]
21 of 25
by Roseanne Montillo
In Atomic Women, Roseanne Montillo (The Wilderness of Ruin) pulls female scientists out of history's shadows to reveal the vital roles they played in inventing the atomic bomb. Her riveting YA narrative nonfiction gives her subjects long overdue credit for their groundbreaking work while addressing the lasting ramifications of their accomplishments.
It was long held that Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband, Pierre, "more because she had assisted [him] than because she deserved ... [ Read More » ]
22 of 25
by Marisa de los Santos
At 18, Ginny Beale loved her life: fiercely loyal friends, a budding first love, endless shimmering possibility. But that was before the fire that killed her best friend's father and left Ginny terrified that someone she loved was responsible. In her sixth novel for adults, I'd Give Anything, Marisa de los Santos, with her signature warmth and wisdom, explores the ripple effects of that night on Ginny's life.
Ginny's story begins with her teenage journal entries: earnest, hopeful, as effervescent ... [ Read More » ]
23 of 25
by Julia Rutland
The release of Foil Pack Dinners: 100 Delicious, Quick-Prep Recipes for the Grill and Oven by Julia Rutland (The Campfire Foodie Cookbook; On a Stick Cookbook) is perfectly timed for the many people who are rediscovering the pleasures of home cooking. As the introduction explains, cooking in foil is a simplified version of the classic French technique of cooking "en papillote." By creating a pouch out of foil, the food is allowed to cook in its own juices, making the final results moist and delicious. ... [ Read More » ]
24 of 25
by Steven Johnson
In Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power and History's First Global Manhunt, Steven Johnson (How We Got to Now) makes a compelling case that a single, brutal attack on an Indian treasure ship by 17th-century British pirate Henry Every played a critical role in shaping the global economy.
The story reads like a thriller. Henry Every leads a mutiny. He and his fellow mutineers turn pirate and sail the captured ship to the Gulf of Aden, where Indian ships carrying pilgrims to and from ... [ Read More » ]
25 of 25
by Emily Henry
With Beach Read, Emily Henry (Hello Girls) offers readers a fun, clever romance novel that tackles stereotypes and misconceptions about the genre head-on. When "women's fiction" author January Andrews's father dies suddenly, she discovers that he left her the keys to a beach house she didn't know he'd owned--that he'd shared with a mistress she hadn't known about either. Newly single, broke and no longer able to believe in the romance that grounds the stories she's always written, she moves into ... [ Read More » ]
