May 2018 list by Bonnie Bradford
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All the Ever Afters
by Danielle Teller
We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we? As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story—that nothing is what it seems, that beauty is not always desirable, and that love can take on many guises.
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Alternative Remedies for Loss
by Joanna Cantor
A slyly funny coming-of-age novel about a young woman fumbling her way into the mysteries of loss and the travails of adulthood as she tries to make sense of a vanished mother's legacy.
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The Book of Essie
by Meghan MacLean Weir
Esther Ann Hicks—Essie—is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality TV phenomenon. She's grown up in the spotlight, both idolized and despised for her family's fire-and-brimstone brand of faith. Who can Essie trust with the truth about her family? And how much is she willing to sacrifice to win her own freedom?
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The Bookshop of Yesterdays
by Amy Meyerson
Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric uncle Billy’s bookstore, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But on Miranda’s 12th birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda’s life. Sixteen years later she receives unexpected news: Billy has left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy, and one final scavenger hunt.
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The Ensemble
by Aja Gabel
Jana. Brit. Daniel. Henry. They would never have been friends if they hadn't needed each other. They would never have found each other except for the art which drew them together. They would never have become family without their love for music and each other. They are forever tied to each other—by the secrets they carry, and by choosing each other over and over again.
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The Glitch
by Elisabeth Cohen
The story of a high-profile, TED-talking, power-posing Silicon Valley CEO and mother of two who has it all under control, until a woman claiming to be a younger version of herself appears, causing a major glitch in her over-scheduled, over-staffed, over-worked life. Introducing one of the most memorable and singular characters in recent fiction, The Glitch is original, brainy, and laugh-out-loud funny. A story of work, marriage, and motherhood for our times.
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Harry's Trees
by Jon Cohen
When Harry Crane's wife dies suddenly, he is unable to cope. Making his way to the remote woods, he is determined to lose himself. But fate intervenes in the form of a little girl. Oriana and her mother are struggling to pick up the pieces from their own tragedy, and Oriana has begun roaming the forest searching for answers. Now her magical, willful mind has decided Harry is the key to righting her upside down world.
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Lost Empress
by Sergio de la Pava
Lost Empress is a shockingly hilarious novel that tackles both America's most popular sport and its criminal justice system. Nina Gill was instrumental in building her father's NFL team. So it's a shock when she only inherits the Paterson Pork, an indoor football franchise. Nina vows to take on the NFL and make the Paterson Pork pigskin kings of America. Meanwhile, Nuno DeAngeles—a lethal criminal mastermind—has gotten himself thrown into Rikers to commit perhaps the most audacious crime of all time. Football and crime are about to go offside.
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The Lost Family
by Jenna Blum
In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha’s to savor its menu and to admire its head chef, Peter Rashkin. Though a sought after bachelor, Peter, a survivor of Auschwitz, has resigned himself to a solitary life. Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming model, appears at the restaurant. Peter soon proposes, believing a new family will allow him to let go of the horror of the past. But the indelible sadness of those memories will overshadow Peter, June, and their daughter, transforming them in shocking, heartbreaking, and unexpected ways.
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The Mercy Seat
by Elizabeth H. Winthrop
On the eve of his execution, eighteen-year-old Willie Jones sits in his cell in New Iberia awaiting his end. Across the state, a truck carries the executioner’s chair closer. On a nearby highway, Willie’s father Frank lugs a gravestone on the back of his fading, old mule. In his office the DA who prosecuted Willie reckons with his sentencing. As various members of the township consider and reflect on what Willie’s execution means, an intricately layered and complex portrait of a Jim Crow era Southern community emerges.
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The Optimist's Guide to Letting Go
by Amy E. Reichert
Gina Zoberski wants to make it through one day without her fastidious mother, Lorraine, cataloguing all her faults, and her sullen teenage daughter, May, snubbing her. Too bad there’s no chance of that. Her relentlessly sunny disposition annoys them both, no matter how hard she tries. But when Lorraine suffers a sudden stroke, Gina stumbles upon a family secret Lorraine's kept hidden for forty years. And this optimist might find that piecing together the truth is the push she needs to let go...
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A Place for Us
by Fatima Farheen Mirza
A Place for Us is an astonishingly tender-hearted novel of identity and belonging, and a portrait of an American family today. As an Indian wedding gathers a family back together, parents Rafiq and Layla must reckon with the choices their children have made. There is Hadia: their eldest, whose marriage is a match of love and not tradition. Huda, who is determined to follow in her sister’s footsteps. And their estranged son, Amar, who returns to the family fold for the first time in years.
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Rough Animals
by Rae DelBianco
Ever since their father's untimely death, Wyatt Smith and his twin sister, Lucy, have scraped by alone on their family's isolated ranch in Box Elder County, Utah. Until one morning when, just after spotting one of their bulls lying dead in the field, Wyatt is hit in the arm by gunfire that takes out four more cattle. Realizing the loss of cattle will mean the certain loss of the ranch, Wyatt must go after the fever-eyed, fearsome girl shooter, and somehow find restitution for what's been lost.
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Shadow Child
by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
A haunting and suspenseful literary tale set in 1970s New York City and World War II-era Japan, about three strong women, the dangerous ties of family and identity, and the long shadow our histories can cast. Volcanos, tsunamis, abandonment, racism, and war form the urgent, unforgettable backdrop of this intimate and deeply moving story of motherhood, sisterhood, and second chances.
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They Come in All Colors
by Malcolm Hansen
The Secret Life of Bees meets Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle in this bold novel, set between the deep South and New York City during the 1960s and early 70s, following a biracial teenage boy whose new life in a big city is disrupted by childhood memories of the summer when racial tensions in his hometown reached a tipping point.
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Things I Never Told You
by Beth K. Vogt
It’s been ten years since Payton Thatcher’s twin sister died, leaving the entire family to cope in whatever ways they could. Now Payton believes she is doing just fine― as long as she manages to hold her memories and her family at arm’s length. But with her sister Jillian’s engagement, the family hope that a wedding might be just the occasion to heal the resentment and jealousy that divides them. As old wounds are reopened, the family must decide if they will pull together or be driven further apart.
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Tomb of the Unknown Racist
by Blanche McCrary Boyd
Ellen’s brother was a celebrated novelist who, a decade earlier, saw his work adopted by racists and fell under the sway of white supremacy. Ellen thought him long dead, but when his estranged daughter turns up on the news claiming he might be responsible for kidnapping her mixed-race children, Ellen tries to help her newfound niece. This book is a descent into the dark abyss of the simmering race war in this country.
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Trouble the Water
by Jacqueline Friedland
When her middle class family amasses an unthinkable amount of debt, Abigail Milton’s parents send her to America to live off the charity of their old friend, Douglas Elling. Arriving in Charleston, Abigail discovers that the man her parents raved about is a disagreeable widower who wants little to do with her. Then she overhears her benefactor planning the escape of a local slave―and suddenly, everything she thought she knew about Douglas Elling is turned on its head.
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