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Staff Picks 2020: General Fiction
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The lost future of Pepperharrow
by Natasha Pulley
Wes's Pick:
A sequel to The Watchmaker of Filigree Street finds Thaniel’s unexpected posting to the British legation in politically charged 1888 Tokyo complicated by ghostly sightings, Mori’s sudden disappearance, and bizarre activities at a frozen labor camp.
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The cactus league : A Novel
by Emily Nemens
Jessica's Pick:
Beginning spring training in the unforgiving Arizona desert, a star outfielder navigates the secrets of the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, criminals and fans who watch his every move, in a story told in the style of a sportscaster’s narrative.
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Leave the world behind : a novel
by Rumaan Alam
Jessica's Pick:
Sheltering in a New York beach house with a couple that has taken refuge during a massive blackout, a family struggles for information about the power failure while wondering if the cut-off property is actually safe.
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What are you going through
by Sigrid Nunez
Jessica's Pick:
A woman who is content to listen to the people she encounters talk about themselves is asked by one to do something extraordinary, in a novel by the New York Times-best-selling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend.
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The institute : a novel
by Stephen King
Lisa's Pick:
Published to coincide with the release of It: Chapter Two, a supernatural thriller finds an abducted youth imprisoned in an inescapable institute, where teens with psychic abilities are subjected to torturous manipulation.
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Ninth house
by Leigh Bardugo
Lisa's Pick and Jeff's Pick:
Surviving a horrific multiple homicide, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks is unexpectedly offered a full scholarship to Yale, where her mysterious benefactors task her with monitoring the university’s secret societies.
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Take a hint, Dani Brown : a novel
by Talia Hibbert
Lisa's Pick:
A young woman who agrees to fake-date her friend after a video of him “rescuing” her from their office building goes viral.
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The gilded hour
by Sara Donati
Lisa's Pick:
Haunted by childhood losses in spite of successful medical careers in 1883 New York City, surgeon Anna Savard and her obstetrician cousin, Sophie, consider taking in a child and helping a desperate woman who would escape a dangerous man.
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The lady's guide to celestial mechanics
by Olivia Waite
Lisa's Pick:
In 1816 London, widow Catherine St. Day hires Lucy Muchelney to translate a French astronomy text and thus finish her husband's scientific legacy, and they unexpectedly find themselves falling in love.
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Nothing to see here
by Kevin Wilson
Lisa's Pick:
Agreeing to help her former college roommate care for two stepchildren who possess the ability to spontaneously combust when agitated, Lillian endeavors to keep her young charges cool in the face of an astonishing revelation.
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NOS4A2 : a novel
by Joe Hill
Vickie's Pick:
When Charles Talent Manx, an unstoppable monster who transforms children into his own terrifying likeness, kidnaps her son, Victoria McQueen, the only person to ever escape his unmitigated evil, must engage in a life-and-death battle of wills to get her son back.
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The mirror & the light
by Hilary Mantel
Deanna's Pick:
A tale inspired by the final years of Thomas Cromwell describes how after the execution of Anne Boleyn and childbed death of Queen Jane, the former blacksmith’s son orchestrates a desperate plot to fortify England and save his own life.
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Plain bad heroines : a novel
by Emily M. Danforth
Deanna's Pick:
A highly anticipated adult debut from the award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post follows the release of a best-selling book about an early 20th-century New England boarding school where gender-diverse students died under suspicious circumstances..
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The glass hotel
by Emily St. John Mandel
Deanna's Pick and Jessica's Pick:
The award-winning author of Station Eleven presents a tale of crisis and survival in the hidden landscapes of homeless campgrounds, luxury hotels, private clubs and federal prisons, where a massive Ponzi scheme is tied to a woman’s disappearance at sea.
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Luster
by Raven Leilani
Laura's Pick and Jessica's Pick:
"Sharp, comic, disruptive, tender, Raven Leilani's debut novel, Luster, sees a young black woman fall into art and someone else's open marriage"
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Weather : a novel
by Jenny Offill
Laura's Pick and Jessica's Pick:
Hired by her famous podcaster mentor to answer letters from increasingly polarized fans, a librarian who has acquired her education from a lifetime spent reading struggles between the limits of her knowledge and growing crises in the outside world.
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A room called Earth
by Madeleine Ryan
Laura's Pick:
Attending a party under the full moon in Melbourne, a young woman on the autism spectrum makes magical, extraordinary connections with the people she encounters, including a man with whom she pursues a rare intimate encounter. Original. A first novel.
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Gods of jade and shadow
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Jeff's Pick:
A dark fairy tale inspired by folklore is set against the Jazz age in Mexico’s underworld, where a young dreamer is sent by the Mayan God of Death on a life-changing journey. By the award-winning author of Signal to Noise.
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The Southern book club's guide to slaying vampires
by Grady Hendrix
Jeff's Pick:
When her hectic but predictable life is upended by a vicious attack by an elderly local, Patricia unexpectedly bonds with a well-read neighbor who her senile mother-in-law claims to have known herself when she was a girl.
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Mongrels
by Stephen Graham Jones
Jeff's Pick:
Enduring a hardscrabble, marginalized existence with his impoverished family outside of a society that does not understand or want him, a young boy travels in the night to escape legal harassment while his family watches diligently to see if he will display the same differences that have shaped their unusual lives.
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Migrations
by Charlotte McConaghy
Becky's Pick and Jessica's Pick:
A woman who has dedicated her life to protecting the environment convinces a fishing captain and his salty crew to follow the world's last flock of Arctic terns on a migration of dark revelations. A first novel.
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The cold millions : a novel
by Jess Walter
Becky's Pick:
Enduring the corruption of their union employment, two young day laborers are respectively drawn to a feminist activist and a vaudeville singer whose experiences reflect an unjust world on the brink of upheaval.
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The end of the day
by Bill Clegg
Becky's Pick:
The New York Times best-selling author of Did You Ever Have a Family delivers a novel about the bonds and breaking points of friendship, the corrosiveness of secrets, the heartbeat of longing and the redemption of forgiveness.
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The things they carried
by Tim O'Brien
Emily's Pick:
This depicts the men of Alpha Company. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have.
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The office of historical corrections : a novella and stories
by Danielle Evans
Eileen's Pick and Jessica's Pick:
The award-winning author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self examines race, grief and apology in a history-inspired anthology that complements the title novella with the stories, “Boys Go to Jupiter” and “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain.”
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Daddy : stories
by Emma Cline
Eileen's Pick and Jessica's Pick:
An anthology of 10 stories by the award-winning author of The Girls includes three original entries and follows a theme of how fateful choices and other disturbances reveal the perversity and violence beneath the surface of everyday life.
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The vanishing half
by Brit Bennett
Donna's Pick and Jessica's Pick:
Separated by their embrace of different racial identities, two mixed-race identical twins reevaluate their choices as one raises a black daughter in their southern hometown while the other passes for white with a husband who is unaware of her heritage.
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The evening and the morning
by Ken Follett
Donna's Pick:
A prequel to the best-selling The Pillars of the Earth follows the experiences of a young boatbuilder, a scholarly monk and a Norman noblewoman against a backdrop of the Viking attacks at the end of the 10th century in England. Maps.
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Sex and vanity : a novel
by Kevin Kwan
Donna's Pick and Jessica's Pick:
When George, the man with whom she had brief fling several years earlier, unexpectedly appears in East Hampton, newly engaged Lucie Churchill is drawn to him again and spins a web of deceit in an attempt to block him from her life – and her heart.
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My dark Vanessa : a novel
by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Donna's Pick:
Asked to help defend an older high-school English teacher with whom she had an affair at age 15, Vanessa struggles to choose between her romantic teen illusions and harrowing adult perceptions. 250,000 first printing. A first novel.
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Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon
Glynis's Pick:
Audiobook: In 1945, a former combat nurse, back from the war and on her honeymoon, touches a boulder in an ancient Scottish ruin and is instantly transported to a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in 1743.
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