| All this could be yours by Jami AttenbergWhat happens: After tyrannical patriarch Victor Tuchman is felled by a heart attack, family members dutifully gather at his deathbed.
Why you might like it: Unfolding over the course of only one day, you the reader are privy to the innermost thoughts of the characters, who are inscrutable to each other.
For fans of: contemporary, complex family dramas. |
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| The house of brides by Jane CockramWhat it is: a Daphne du Maurier-inspired story of a disgraced Australian social media influencer who flees to a British estate with links to her own family's mysterious history.
Why you might like it: The slow-burning suspense, atmospheric setting, and unveiling of family secrets will all appeal to fans of Gothic fiction.
What to read next: Ruth Ware's The Turn of the Key. Already read it? Try a Rebecca homage like Lisa Gabriele's The Winters. |
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| Tuesday Mooney talks to ghosts by Kate RacculiaStarring: an eclectic cast of characters, all sent on an inventive treasure hunt across Boston by an unconventional billionaire's final request.
For fans of: literary and pop culture references; ghost stories; inheritance drama; loners; bankers who used to be theater kids; Edgar Allan Poe; cape-wearing gentlemen; scavenger hunts; camp, whimsy, and eccentricity. And, of course, Ellen Raskin's classic kids' book The Westing Game.
Read this next: Ernest Cline's nostalgic, sci-fi scavenger hunt, Ready Player One. |
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| Frankissstein: A love story by Jeanette WintersonWhat it is: a retelling of the creation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, featuring Mary as a narrator, as well as a modern-day tale in which a trans doctor falls for a professor working to chain AI to a fusion of body parts.
Why you might like it: Ever questioned what makes us human? If so, this one's for you.
Reviewers say: "slick and funny, often delightfully obscene" (The Washington Post); "beguiling, disturbing, and full of wonders" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Gun island: A novel
by Amitav Ghosh
Bundook. Gun. A common word, but one which turns Deen Datta's world upside down. A dealer of rare books, Deen is used to a quiet life spent indoors, but as his once-solid beliefs begin to shift, he is forced to set out on an extraordinary journey; one that takes him from India to Los Angeles and Venice via a tangled route through the memories and experiences of those he meets along the way. There is Piya, a fellow Bengali-American who sets his journey in motion; Tipu, an entrepreneurial young man who opens Deen's eyes to the realities of growing up in today's world; Rafi, with his desperate attempt to help someone in need; and Cinta, an old friend who provides the missing link in the story they are all a part of. It is a journey which will upend everything he thought he knew about himself, about the Bengali legends of his childhood and about the world around him.
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Girl
by Edna O'Brien
Northeast Nigeria. When a group of schoolgirls are abducted by Boko Haram, they are suffer incarceration, horror, and hunger. A hair-raising escape into the manifold terrors of the forest leads, not so much to freedom as to a descent into the labyrinthine bureaucracy and hostility awaiting a victim who returns home with a child blighted by enemy blood. Throughout her ordeal the narrator survives through her unflinching faith in the redemption of the human heart.
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Walking on the ceiling
by Aysegül Savas
After her mother's death, Nunu moves from Istanbul to a small apartment in Paris. One day outside of a bookstore, she meets M., an older British writer whose novels about Istanbul Nunu has always admired. They find themselves walking the streets of Paris and talking late into the night. What follows is an unusual friendship of eccentric correspondence and long walks around the city. M. is working on a new novel set in Turkey and Nunu tells him about her family, hoping to impress and inspire him. She recounts the idyllic landscapes of her past, mythical family meals, and her elaborate childhood games. As she does so, she also begins to confront her mother's silence and anger, her father's death, and the growing unrest in Istanbul. Their intimacy deepens, so does Nunu's fear of revealing too much to M. and of giving too much of herself and her Istanbul away. Most of all, she fears that she will have to face her own guilt about her mother and the narratives she's told to protect herself from her memories.
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The golden hour: A novel
by Beatriz Williams
The Bahamas, 1941. Newly-widowed Leonora "Lulu" Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the Governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines. But as she infiltrates the Duke and Duchess's social circle, and the powerful cabal that controls the islands' political and financial affairs, she uncovers evidence that beneath the glister of Wallis and Edward's marriage lies an ugly-and even treasonous-reality. In fact, Windsor-era Nassau seethes with spies, financial swindles, and racial tension, and in the middle of it all stands Benedict Thorpe: a scientist of tremendous charm and murky national loyalties. Inevitably, the willful and wounded Lulu falls in love. Then Nassau's wealthiest man is murdered in one of the most notorious cases of the century, and the resulting coverup reeks of royal privilege. Benedict Thorpe disappears without a trace, and Lulu embarks on a journey to London and beyond to unpick Thorpe's complicated family history: a fateful love affair, a wartime tragedy, and a mother from whom all joy is stolen.
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| Inside the O'Briens by Lisa GenovaStarring: 44-year-old Joe O'Brien, a cop with a recent diagnosis of Huntington's disease, his wife, and their four children, who must decide whether or not to be tested for this incurable hereditary condition.
What happens: As Joe's health worsens, youngest daughter Katie is, at 21, just starting her adult life, and she isn't sure she wants to know what her future holds. How the O'Briens cope is both heart-wrenching and riveting. |
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| How are you going to save yourself by J.M. HolmesWhat it is: the interconnected stories of four friends coming of age in working-class Rhode Island and recognizing the restrictions placed on black men in America.
Narrated by: Gio, Dub, Rye, and Rolls, each with their own advantages, flaws, and struggles, who get out of Pawtucket, or don't, on their own or with the help of the women in their lives.
Reviewers say: "by turns comedic, bawdy, heartbreaking, and grisly (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| Daughters of the Bride by Susan MalleryStarring: Maggie Watson, who's getting married after nearly 25 years as a widow, and her three very different daughters, who all want the best for her.
Why you might like it: Delving into all four women's lives and relationships offers an in-depth picture of the problems they face and the dynamics in their relationships.
For fans of: appealing characters getting a second chance at love, family bonds, and, of course, weddings! |
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| There there by Tommy OrangeWhat it is: the award-winning debut of Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange, comprised of vignettes in the lives of 12 different characters as they prepare for the upcoming Big Oakland Powwow in Oakland, California.
Why you might like it: With characters whose motivations run the gamut, this is a wide-ranging, multifaceted portrait of a complex and sometimes only tangentially connected community -- that of urban Native Americans.
Reviewers say: "a new kind of American epic" (The New York Times); "white-hot" (The Washington Post); "kaleidoscopic" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren WeisbergerWhat it is: a gossipy, irreverent tale of image-consultant-to-the-stars Emily Charlton, who teams up with a friend and former lawyer to help an A-list model whose recent DUI arrest may have been a set-up.
Why you might like it: Looking for a snarky read that pokes fun at celebrity culture while also celebrating female friendship? This second Devil Wears Prada spin-off (after Revenge Wears Prada) won't disappoint. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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