|
Fiction A to Z September 2017
|
|
|
|
| Stay with Me by Ayobami AdebayoDespite cultural pressures for her husband to take a second wife, Yejide knows that Akin would never do so. Until, after four years of failing to conceive a child, he does. Mimicking Nigeria's unstable political system, their marriage falters. Under the intense pressure to provide a child, both husband and wife keep secrets from the other in their efforts to save their relationship. Told in alternating chapters from both characters' perspectives, and taking place in the late 1980s and 2008, this is an "emotionally powerful first novel" (Library Journal) that captures both the agony of infertility and the turmoil of life in Nigeria. |
|
|
Someone You Love Is Gone
by Gurjinder Basran
Canadian. Simran is unable to move on. Grappling with the growing estrangement of her sister and daughter as well as the disintegration of her marriage, she wonders how her life has come to this. As the life she has carefully constructed unravels, she is forced to confront one of her most painful childhood memories--her parents sending her younger brother away from home. Woven throughout are memories of Simran's mother as a young woman in 1960s India. Her world had seemed beautiful and full of hope then. But when an unexpected event occurs, the results will have repercussions for generations to come. As the ghosts from the past clamour for attention, the only way to put them to rest may be for Simran to dig deeper into her family history and close the circle that was left open when her family was torn apart.
|
|
| The Heart's Invisible Furies by John BoyneIn 1945, Cyril Avery was born to an unmarried teenager (the book opens with a dramatic scene in a rural Irish church that sets this up with relish) and adopted by a wealthy if rather eccentric Dublin couple. As readers, we visit Cyril every seven years, as he grows and comes to terms with his homosexuality in a violently repressive Ireland, flees his home country, and falls in love. With richly drawn characters, plausibly life-altering choices, and an absorbing, often humorous writing style, The Heart's Invisible Furies may well appeal to fans of John Irving's work (it is, in fact, dedicated to him). |
|
|
Florence in Ecstasy
by Jessie Chaffee
A young American woman arrives in Florence from Boston, knowing no one and speaking little Italian. But Hannah is isolated in a more profound way, estranged from her own identity after a bout with starvation that has left her life and body in ruins. She is determined to recover in Florence, a city saturated with beauty, vitality, and food, as well as a dangerous history of sainthood for women who starved themselves for God. Hannah joins a local rowing club, where Francesca, a welcoming but predatory Milanese, and Luca, a seemingly steady Florentine with whom she becomes involved, draw her into Florence’s vibrant present.Both sides pull Hannah in: challenging her, defeating her, lifting her up. And when a figure from her past life in Boston reappears, threatening the delicate balance of her present, Hannah’s feverish personal excavation becomes caught up with the long history of women’s contention with body and spirit, desire and death.
|
|
|
The Café by the Sea : A Novel
by Jenny Colgan
Years ago, Flora fled the quiet Scottish island where she grew up -- and she hasn't looked back. What would she have done on Mure? It's a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious... and hopelessly in love with her boss. But when fate brings Flora back to the island, she's suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers -- all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework -- and her father. Yet even amid the chaos of their reunion, Flora discovers a passion for cooking -- and find herself restoring dusty little pink-fronted shop on the harbour: a café by the sea.
|
|
| Class Mom by Laurie GelmanJen Dixon has three kids -- two in college (born back when Jen was an INXS groupie) and one in kindergarten (with Baby Daddy #3, who's also Husband #1). She's older (make that wiser) than the rest of the parents in his class, and her style of communication (and humor) don't always go over very well. Snarky and sarcastic but never mean-spirited, Jen and her experiences as class mom will ring true to anyone with a kid in school, and her real-life confessions will appeal to fans of Maria Semple's Today Will Be Different or Bunmi Laditan's Confessions of a Domestic Failure. |
|
|
Before We Sleep : A Novel
by Jeffrey Lent
Katey Snow, seventeen, slips the pickup into neutral and rolls silently out of the driveway of her Vermont home, her parents, Oliver and Ruth, still asleep. She isn't so much running away as on a journey of discovery. She carries with her a packet of letters addressed to her mother from an old army buddy of her father's. She has only recently been told that Oliver, who she adores more than anyone, isn't her biological father. She hopes the letter's sender will have answers to her many questions, and Katey's journey may rearrange the Snows' story.
|
|
|
Augustown : A Novel
by Kei Miller
11 April 1982: a smell is coming down John Golding Road right alongside the boy-child, something attached to him, like a spirit but not quite. Ma Taffy is growing worried. She knows that something is going to happen. Something terrible is going to pour out into the world. But if she can hold it off for just a little bit longer, she will. So she asks a question that surprises herself even as she asks it, "Kaia, I ever tell you bout the flying preacherman?" Set in the backlands of Jamaica, Augustown is a magical and haunting novel of one woman’s struggle to rise above the brutal vicissitudes of history, race, class, collective memory, violence, and myth.
|
|
| Rebellion by Molly PattersonStraddling several generations and two continents, this sweeping, sprawling debut tells the stories of several strong women who rebel against cultural expectations. In 1890, Addie becomes a missionary in China, while her sister Louisa moves to Ohio and avidly reads her letters...until they stop arriving in the midst of the Boxer Rebellion. In the 1950s, Louisa's daughter Hazel fights for her independence when she is prematurely widowed, a struggle that begins again when she moves into a nursing home in 1999. And in present-day China, college graduate Juanlan falls into an affair while trying to figure out what to do with her life. "Addictive reading," says Kirkus Reviews. |
|
|
Young Jane Young
by Gabrielle Zevin
Aviva Grossman is a bright, ambitious congressional intern with a promising political future ahead of her until she makes the mistake of having an affair with her married boss. and writing what she thinks is an anonymous blog about it. When the affair dramatically comes to light, it’s not the popular congressman who takes the fall, it’s Aviva. Slut-shamed and hounded by the media, she becomes a late-night talk show punchline. Determined to rebuild her life, Aviva changes her name, to a small town in Maine, starts her own wedding planning business, and decides to continue a surprise pregnancy. But when “Jane” decides to run for public office, that long-ago mistake, an inescapable scarlet A, trails her via the Internet, threatening to derail her life yet again. It’s only a matter of time until her daughter finds out who her mother once was and is forced to reconcile that person with the one she thinks she knows.
|
|
Focus on: Fathers & Fatherhood
|
|
| War Dances by Sherman AlexieComposed of short stories and poetry, this collection isn't really all about fatherhood, but the bits that are prove to be powerful. Following one poem, National Book Award-winning author Sherman Alexie outlines all the lies he has just told about his father; a Native American narrator is forced to recall his father's death as he faces his own mortality. Read it for the poetry, read it for the Native American perspective, read it because you're already a fan. You're not likely to be disappointed. |
|
| Perfume River by Robert Olen ButlerThis painful, often thought-provoking novel is about war and its effects on family -- in this case, the Vietnam War and the North Florida family of veteran Robert Quinlan. Though the war is nearly 50 years in the past, its hold is strong on the Quinlans: while Robert enlisted, his younger brother Jimmy fled to Canada, where he's been living ever since, out of touch with his family. Their now-elderly father's shattered hip brings them together for the first time in decades. Robert himself hasn't come to terms with his own actions during the war, which continues to affect him every day. |
|
| The Precious One by Marisa de los SantosTaisy Cleary has long been estranged from her father, a demanding college professor, ever since he abandoned his family for a new one decades ago. So when he calls from his deathbed, asking her to visit (and ghostwrite his memoirs), she is surprised -- but agrees. Both Taisy (age 35) and her half-sister Willow (16) have pretty strong preconceptions of each other (and view each other as rivals for their father's attention), and the novel is as much about their burgeoning relationship as it is about their father. Character-driven and moving, The Precious One features authentic, well-developed characters. |
|
| Winter Street by Elin HilderbrandWinter Street was bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand's first Christmas novel, but there are now four of the holiday-oriented series set in Nantucket (the latest, Winter Solstice, will be published this October). This one begins with a family reunion at Kelley Quinn's inn, which is upset by the personal dramas of his four adult children and his wife's infidelity -- with Santa, no less (or, OK, the guy who's played him for years at the inn). Dramatic but heartwarming nevertheless, this family-oriented tale is a good one to save for the run-up to Christmas. |
|
| China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin KwanCrazy Rich Asians introduced readers to the over-the-top lifestyle of unimaginably wealthy Chinese expats. In China Rich Girlfriend, an impending wedding brings together the disparate (and in some cases, unknown) elements of the bride's and groom's families. Specifically, future-mother-in-law Eleanor shows up with bride Rachel's heretofore unknown birth father. But that's only one of many high-drama sub-plots; there are makeovers, potential betrayals, and gossip galore. And it's hard to ignore the top-notch dialogue and detailed depictions of lavish spending. If you've read and enjoyed both, pick up the 3rd, Rich People Problems, which was published earlier this year. |
|
| Two by Two by Nicholas SparksNicholas Sparks is known as an author whose work will tug at your heartstrings, but his stories tend to be built around (successful) romantic relationships. That's not the case here. Not only does Two by Two center on the love of a father for his child, but the relationship between the parents seems to be falling apart. So be warned when you open this one -- you may be reaching for a hanky, but this tearjerker is different than the romantic ones Sparks is known for. |
|
|
|
|
|