Tag: fiction

The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

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“A few students who were being trained to analyze crime scenes, pore over witness testimony, and track serial killers. What trouble could we possibly get into?”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Naturals

Cassandra Hobbes, known as Cassie, has been a natural at reading people for as long as she can remember. Growing up, her mother noticed her natural skills and started training her. Now Cassie is 17 and her mother has been missing for five years. Five years ago, Cassie walked into her mother’s dressing room at the theater where she was performing and stumbled upon a bloody and destroyed crime scene. Sadly her mother was never found. Cassie has spent the last five years living with her father’s family, feeling like she doesn’t completely fit in.

While at work one day, she is approached by a young man who leaves behind a card from someone at the FBI. Cassie eventually calls the number and learns that the FBI has started a classified program that uses talented natural teenagers to crack cold cases. Cassie was flagged in the system and they would like her to join. When Cassie arrives at her new home, the teens she meet have gifts as unique as her own. One can read emotions, one can detect lies, one is a walking encyclopedia, while the last is a profiler just like Cassie. As her training progresses and Cassie gets to know the other teens, she realizes that there is something off about everyone involved in the program: they all have secrets they want to stay hidden. The two agents in charge of the program are assigned to an active case involving a killer who isn’t afraid of danger. Cassie and the others are not allowed to help on active cases, but the Naturals soon find themselves drawn to help. Their curiosity quickly turns necessary as the killer escalates and the team must use all of their skills to survive.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes wrote my favorite young adult series, The Inheritance Games. When I discovered The Naturals series, I knew that this was right up my alley. This is a fast-paced and fun read (feels weird to say that about a book with murderers, but there you go!). Watching the characters’ relationships grow was intriguing as they all have complicated backstories and their own reasons for wanting to keep secrets. Cassie’s new life couldn’t be more different than her old one, but she feels more seen and understood amongst her fellow naturals. The suspense was built naturally, while the twist completely sucked me in. My only issue was the romance subplot. This author is a fan of love triangles, but the romance here seemed forced and didn’t add much to the story. All in all, I still gave this read five stars!

Naturals series

  1. The Naturals (2013)
  2. Killer Instinct (2014)
  3. All In (2015)
  4. Bad Blood (2016)

Twelve – A Naturals Novella

June’s Celebrity Book Club Picks

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Bestsellers Club is a service that automatically places you on hold for authors, celebrity picks, nonfiction picks, and fiction picks. Choose any author, celebrity pick, fiction pick, and/or nonfiction pick and The Library will put the latest title on hold for you automatically. Select as many as you want! Still have questions? Click here for a list of FAQs.

It’s a new month which means that Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon have picked new books for their book clubs! Reminder that if you join Bestsellers Club, you can choose to have their selections automatically put on hold for you.

Jenna Bush Hager has selected A Family Matter by Claire Lynch for her June pick.

Curious what A Family Matter is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

1982. Dawn is a young mother, still adjusting to life with her husband, when Hazel lights up her world like a torch in the dark. Theirs is the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly life is more complicated, and more joyful, than Dawn ever expected. But she has responsibilities and commitments. She has a daughter.

2022. Heron has just received news from his doctor that turns everything upside down. He’s an older man, stuck in the habits of a quiet existence. Telling Maggie, his only child—the person around whom his life has revolved—seems impossible. Heron can’t tell her about his diagnosis, just as he can’t reveal all the other secrets he’s been keeping from her for so many years.

A Family Matter is a heartbreaking and hopeful exploration of love and loss, intimacy and injustice, custody and care, and whether it is possible to heal from the wounds of the past in the changed world of today. – Scribner

Reese Witherspoon has selected The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King for her June pick.

Curious what The Phoenix Pencil Company is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

In this dazzling debut novel, a hidden and nearly forgotten magic—of Reforging pencils, bringing the memories they contain back to life—holds the power to transform a young woman’s relationship with her grandmother, and to mend long-lost connections across time and space.

Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer, journaling the details of her ordinary life and coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-proclaimed recluse, she’s always struggled to make friends and, as a college freshman, finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. They are now in their nineties, and Monica worries about them constantly—especially her grandmother, Yun, who survived two wars in China before coming to the States, and whose memory has begun to fade.

Though Yun rarely speaks of her past, Monica is determined to find the long-lost cousin she was separated from years ago. One day, the very program Monica is helping to build connects her to a young woman, whose gift of a single pencil holds a surprising clue. Monica’s discovery of a hidden family history is exquisitely braided with Yun’s own memories as she writes of her years in Shanghai, working at the Phoenix Pencil Company. As WWII rages outside their door, Yun and her cousin, Meng, learn of a special power the women in their family possess: the ability to Reforge a pencil’s words. But when the government uncovers their secret, they are forced into a life of espionage, betraying other people’s stories to survive.

Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting, emotional magic of The Midnight Library, Allison King’s stunning debut novel asks: who owns and inherits our stories? The answers and secrets that surface on the page may have the unerasable power to reconnect a family and restore a legacy. – William Morrow

This title is also available in large print.

Join Bestsellers Club to have Oprah, Jenna, and Reese’s adult selections automatically put on hold for you!

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

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The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka is a slow-paced, meditative but short book about what happens when a routine is thrown off course for a woman experiencing dementia.

In the first half of the book, Alice takes comfort in her daily lap swimming. The other swimmers around her keep an eye on Alice as they follow their own routines. Through simple vignettes of the swimmers, readers get a sense of the community, culture and norms of this secluded, underground swimming pool. One day, a crack appears at the bottom of the pool. As the crack changes and grows, the swimmers become increasingly alarmed, except Alice who continues in her routine. Finally, the crack causes the pool to shut down and the swimmers disperse, most never to cross paths again.

The second half of the book focuses solely on Alice and how her dementia gets rapidly worse without the daily lap swimming. She is moved into a nursing home. Her memories of her childhood and early parenthood become as real to her as the present. Alice’s daughter is ready to form a bond just as her health declines.

This is not the book for readers looking for a compelling, character-driven story. It does, however, provoke a range of emotions, from regret to reconciliation, and yes, even moments of humor. I would recommend The Swimmers to anyone who is looking for a short read that never falls short on metaphor, imagery and beautiful prose.

The Swimmers is available from the Davenport Public Library in regular print and large print as of this writing.

A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston

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“Sometimes, a book can change your life. It’s hard to explain that to someone who doesn’t read, or who has never felt their heart bend so strongly toward a story that it might just snap in two. Some books are a comfort, some a reprieve, others a vacation, a lesson, a heartbreak.”
― Ashley Poston, A Novel Love Story

Eileen Merriweather loves romance. As a professor of literature at a local college, she spends the school year teaching courses on history’s greatest romance writers. When her own relationship falls apart and her best friend suggests they both join a book club, Eileen is skeptical at first. She doesn’t want to be reminded of what she’s lost. However after their first meeting, Eileen is smitten. The Super Smutty Book Club members quickly become her friends. One week every year, the club members book a cabin in the Hudson Valley in New York where they read smutty books and celebrate the romance series that they all initially bounded over – the Quixotic Falls series. This year, Eileen is beyond ready for a break. When the club members start dropping out of the trip, she gets worried. When her best friend Pru is the last to drop out, Eileen decides she is going to take the trip alone.

Her trip to the Hudson Valley starts easily, but quickly devolves. Her car starts making weird noises shortly after she starts the trip and eventually completely breaks down in the middle of a thunderstorm in a small town. Eileen takes refuge in a bookstore much to the chagrin of the grumpy, yet sexy, owner. This quaint town seems very familiar to her. As it turns out, Eileen has landed in Eloraton, the town of her favorite book series, Quixotic Falls. It is everything she ever imagined, from the sweet honey taffy, the burnt burgers at the local bar, and the grumpy possum that lives in the cafe.

The longer Eileen stays, the more the town seems off. Nothing has changed in years, nothing has moved on, and the town is trapped. Ever since the author died suddenly in a tragic car accident before finishing the fifth and final book, Eloraton and its residents have been left in a limbo. Eileen quickly decides that she was brought to Eloraton to help it move on, to help the town and its residents find the endings that the author was never able to finish. She’ll do anything to give these characters the endings they deserve.

A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston is a standalone novel, but there are characters from some of her other standalone titles that make appearances in this book. While the romance between the two main characters happened a little too quickly for me (complete strangers to falling in love in less than five days!), the plot was intriguing enough and was something that I hadn’t read before, so I kept with it! This cozy warm read had me rooting for all of the characters to get their happy ending.

This title is also available in large print.

Books about Divorce

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Books about divorces are trending right now. Whether it is a nonfiction memoir or an autofictional novel, the representation of divorce in these books is varied. Below you will find a list of nonfiction and fiction books about divorce published recently that are all owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

Nonfiction

This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by Lyz Lenz

Studies show that nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women—women who are tired, fed up, exhausted, and unhappy. We’ve all seen how the media portrays divorcées: sad, lonely, drowning their sorrows in a bottle of wine. Lyz Lenz is one such woman whose life fell apart after she reached a breaking point in her twelve-year marriage. But she refused to take part in that tired narrative and decided to flip the script on divorce.

In this exuberant and unapologetic book, Lenz makes an argument for the advantages of getting divorced, framing it as a practical and effective solution for women to take back the power they are owed. Weaving reportage with sociological research and literature with popular culture along with personal stories of coming together and breaking up, Lenz creates a kaleidoscopic and poignant portrait of American marriage today. She argues that the mechanisms of American power, justice, love, and gender equality remain deeply flawed, and that marriage, like any other cultural institution, is due for a reckoning. A raucous argument for acceptance, solidarity, and collective female refusal, This American Ex-Wife takes readers on a riveting ride—while pointing us all toward a life that is a little more free. – Crown

The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward by Melinda French Gates

Transitions are moments in which we step out of our familiar surroundings and into a new landscape—a space that, for many people, is shadowed by confusion, fear, and indecision. The Next Day accompanies readers as they cross that space, offering guidance on how to make the most of the time between an ending and a new beginning and how to move forward into the next day when the ground beneath you is shifting.

In this book, Melinda will reflect, for the first time in print, on some of the most significant transitions in her own life, including becoming a parent, the death of a dear friend, and her departure from the Gates Foundation. The stories she tells illuminate universal lessons about loosening the bonds of perfectionism, helping friends navigate times of crisis, embracing uncertainty, and more.

Each one of us, no matter who we are or where we are in life, is headed toward transitions of our own. With her signature warmth and grace, Melinda candidly shares stories of times when she was in need of wisdom and shines a path through the open space stretching out before us all. – Flatiron Books

No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce by Haley Mlotek

An intimate and candid account of one of the most romantic and revolutionary of relationships: divorce

Divorce was everything for Haley Mlotek. As a child, she listened to her twice-divorced grandmother tell stories about her “husbands.” As a pre-teen, she answered the phones for her mother’s mediation and marriage counseling practice and typed out the paperwork for couples in the process of leaving each other. She grew up with the sense that divorce was an outcome to both resist and desire, an ordeal that promised something better on the other side of something bad. But when she herself went on to marry—and then divorce—the man she had been with for twelve years, suddenly, she had to reconsider her generation’s inherited understanding of the institution.

Deftly combining her personal story with wry, searching social and literary exploration, No Fault is a deeply felt and radiant account of 21st century divorce—the remarkably common and seemingly singular experience, and what it reveals about our society and our desires for family, love, and friendship. Mlotek asks profound questions about what divorce should be, who it is for, and why the institution of marriage maintains its power, all while charting a poignant and cathartic journey away from her own marriage towards an unknown future.

Brilliant, funny, and unflinchingly honest, No Fault is a kaleidoscopic look at marriage, secrets, ambitions, and what it means to love and live with uncertainty, betrayal, and hope. – Viking

Fiction

All Fours by Miranda July

A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive. – Riverhead Books

Liars by Sarah Manguso

A nuclear family can destroy a woman artist. I’d always known that. But I’d never suspected how easily I’d fall into one anyway.

When Jane, an aspiring writer, meets filmmaker John Bridges, they both want the same things: to be in love, to live a successful, creative life, and to be happy. When they marry, Jane believes she has found everything she was looking for, including—a few years later—all the attendant joys and labors of motherhood. But it’s not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John’s ambitions, whims, and ego; in short, she becomes a wife.

As Jane’s career flourishes, their marriage starts to falter. Throughout the upheavals of family life, Jane tries to hold it all together. That is, until John leaves her.

Liars is a tour de force of wit and rage, telling the blistering story of a marriage as it burns to the ground, and of a woman rising inexorably from its ashes. – Hogarth

Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn

The world has stopped. But Rachel is just getting started…

It’s spring of 2020 and Rachel Bloomstein—mother of three, recent divorcée, and Brooklynite—is stuck inside. But her newly awakened sexual desire and lust for a new life refuse to be contained. Leaning on her best friend Lulu to show her the ropes, Rachel dips a toe in the online dating world, leading to park dates with younger men, flirtations with beautiful women, and actual, in-person sex. None of them, individually, are perfect . . . hence her rotation.

But what if one person could perfectly cater to all her emotional needs?
Driven by this possibility, Rachel creates Frankie, the AI chatbot she programs with all the good parts of dating in middle age . . . and some of the bad. But as Rachel plays with her fantasy to her heart’s content, she begins to realize she can’t reprogram her ex-husband, her children, her friends, or the roster of paramours that’s grown unwieldy. Perhaps real life has more in store for Rachel than she could ever program for herself. – G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Crush by Ada Calhoun

When a husband asks his wife to consider what might be missing from their marriage, what follows surprises them both—sex, heartbreak and heart rekindling, and a rediscovered sense of all that is possible

She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husband” and “wife” force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose.

Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes. Destined to become a classic novel of marriage, and tackling the big questions being asked about partnership in postpandemic relationships, Crush is a sharp, funny, seductive, and revelatory novel about holding on to everything it’s possible to love—friends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the world’s good books, and most of all one’s own deep sense of purpose. – Viking

Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su

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In Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su, 23-year-old Vi has dropped out of college and is working a dead-end job as a front desk attendant at a hotel. She was dumped by her boyfriend six months ago and just can’t seem to get over it.

Things start to change when she finds, and takes home, a gelatinous blob she finds next to a garbage can. From Vi’s couch, this blob starts to absorb bits of cereal and junk food. It develops beady black eyes. Then blinking eyelids. It turns out it is a living, maybe alien creature. It starts to obey Vi’s commands to move, stay and grow an arm. From there, Vi continues to play sorcerer and develops it into a good-looking, if socially clueless, boyfriend named Bob.

Sounds like a change for the better, right? You’d be wrong. Instead of growing together to be an on-the-town couple, Vi holds the Bob hostage, limiting who and when he interacts with any other living creature. But by now, Bob has developed a curiosity about the world and the people in it. He breaks out of Vi’s apartment and complicates her life significantly.

Readers may find Vi’s embodiment of ennui frustrating. She gets in her own way on almost every desire to be social with her coworkers or (human) romantic interests, re-enroll in college, or look for any type of more fulfilling job. Vi likes the idea of a boyfriend but puts no effort into being in a couple with Bob beyond her apartment walls. Even the perfect boyfriend she has developed from a blob outgrows her in a matter of weeks.

Supporting characters from co-workers to parents fill in some other gaps about Vi and why she is the way she is. If you are up to suspending your belief in reality, the story will make you reflect on loving and letting go and what it means to be a young adult in the 2020s.

Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow

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“Stories aren’t for shocking, in my opinion. They’re for chewing on longer than you would a meal. That’s not to say things you tell about don’t come as a surprise, and sometimes the things you tell about suck. But it’s what you do with what sucks that makes it worth listening to, or not.”
― Kenneth M. Cadow, Gather

Ian Gray knows the woods in rural Vermont better than he knows the town. He lives on land that has been in his family for generations. Ian spent his younger years walking through the woods with his grandfather, learning anything and everything about the nature around him. Growing up with his grandparents and his parents in the same house afforded Ian the privilege to learn from many adults, but then the troubles started.

While outside one day cracking nuts, Ian is startled by the bark of a large dog that has walked into his yard and is standing right by him. Ian isn’t supposed to have a dog, but since this one has showed up, he figures he may as well keep him. The issue is his mom. Ian names the dog Gather and stows him in the back shed, hoping to keep him hidden for as long as possible. Ian is glad Gather has come into his life since he has to help his mom defeat her opioid addiction and find a job. He also had to quit the basketball team because getting to school on a timely basis is proving hard. The house is in disrepair, not a lot of money is coming in, plus his grandpa died, his grandma moved away, and his dad left too. Ian won’t let his mom down though. He makes friends, finds a job, spends time outdoors, and is able to put his skills fixing things to use by finding more work helping his neighbors.

Right when it seems like he has everything worked out, it all splinters apart. Tragedy rocks Ian, leaving him and Gather with only one choice: to go on the run. Desperate to escape a future that would separate them from each other and would force Ian to lose his land and the house forever, Ian and Gather take to the woods. Their new isolation has Ian wondering who cares for him. What will their futures look like? Even if someone actually helped him, would he be able to return his home and land?

This emotional and hopeful story had me on the edge of my seat. The chapters are short, but I took my time to absorb all the tragedy and confusion Ian goes through every day. He is forced to grow up too quickly, but he is incredibly resourceful and capable when it comes to finding ways to survive. This book taught me about how resilient one can be in the face of unimaginable hardships. I recommend you read this book, but be sure to go in with an understanding and careful heart. This story will pull at your heartstrings the whole read.

“You want my voice, but you want my voice to be out there using somebody else’s rules, somebody else’s voice. Otherwise, they ignore me. Isn’t that what you call censorship or oppression or whatever? Don’t you see how screwed up that is?”
― Kenneth M. Cadow, Gather

Online Reading Challenge – April Wrap-Up

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Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a coming of age, or bildungsroman, novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I went into this book not knowing much about it, other than it was a coming of age book, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and one of the New York Times 10 best books of the year. When I was selecting books for the Online Reading Challenge, I wanted to pick books that were outside the norm of what I would normally read and this sure fit that mold. The Topeka School won many accolades and awards, but I can honestly say that I would not have picked this book up on my own had it not been for the Online Reading Challenge.

Set in the American Midwest, this family drama begins in the 1990s with Adam Gordon, a senior at Topeka High School, the class of 1997. His parents both work at a psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kansas that attracts patients from all over the world. His mother Jane is a famous author, while his father Jonathan is known for his ability to get lost young boys to open up. Jane’s book angers some members of the public who take out their outrage on Jane and her family by harassing them. Outside of school, Adam is a debater, who people expect to win a national championship. Despite his status on the debate team, Adam is one of the cool kids. He and his friends are told by their parents to be friendly to Darren Eberheart, a loner who also happens to be a patient of Adam’s father. Darren is awkward and his entrance into their social circle ends in a catastrophe.

While the summary I laid out above seems pretty straight-forward, the formatting of this book is anything but. The Topeka School shifts between time periods, perspectives, and narrators, which turned confusing. While I enjoyed the multiple perspectives, the jump in timelines made it difficult to know just where we were at in the story. The plot did end up making sense towards the end, but honestly I was so turned around in the middle that at parts I contemplated giving up. This book covers heavy topics: toxic masculinity, marital transgressions, abuse, public speech, and struggle for identity. Lerner isn’t afraid to pile on more and more topics within the changing timelines, but honestly the writing was so dense that I had trouble picking through to find the bones of the story. The characters are complex, somewhat dysfunctional, and written with an introspective feel. To me, this book was a complex web of stories, characters, and topics presented with dense language that I had trouble paying attention to for long periods of time. My main tip for reading this book: read small pieces at a time. Doing so made this book easier for me, even though it took me much longer to read it! All in all, I’m glad I read it, but it’s a 3 of 5 stars.

Next month, we will be reading a graphic novel!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Readalikes for Three Days in June

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If you’re anxiously waiting to read Anne Tyler’s newest novel, Three Days in June, I have gathered a list of readalikes to tide you over. This literary fiction tackles the challenges of love, the complexities of human relationships, and the ups and downs of marriage and family. Curious what Three Days in June is about? Check out the description below and then move on to our recommended readalikes.

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers. – Knopf

As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

2024 Books

After Annie by Anna Quindlen

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie’s children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life.

Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie, ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody’s fool, a voice in their heads that is funny and sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is about hope, and about the unexpected power of adversity to change us in profound and indelible ways. – Random House

This title is available in large print and CD audiobook.

I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman

A modern and classic story of family, with I’ll Come to You, beloved author Rebecca Kauffman explores overlapping narratives involving a couple whose struggle to become pregnant has both softened and hardened them, a woman whose husband of forty years has left her for reasons he’s unwilling to share and the man who is now disastrously attempting to woo her, a couple in denial about a looming health crisis, and their son who is fumbling toward middle age and can’t stop lying. Ultimately, these storylines crescendo and converge into a dramatic and harrowing turn of events. With heart, wit, and courage, and through pain, these characters traverse territory that both challenges and defines the bonds of family.

Sweeping yet compact, I’ll Come to You investigates themes of intimacy, memory, loss, grief, and reconciliation, and the wonder, terror, frustration, fear, and magic of brushing up against the unknowable—both around us and within us. – Counterpoint

Rental House by Weike Wang

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together? – Riverhead Books

This title is also available in large print.

The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope building has this privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B T-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend, Ruby, and her partner, Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant.

During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect. As Darla’s and Theo’s families and friends come together to search for her, with Ruby and Katsumi stepping in to broker peace, past and present collide with startling consequences.

Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times—while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely. – Hogarth

Same as it ever was by Claire Lombardo

After a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, Julia resides on the placid plateau of her mid-50s. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she believes she has a firm handle on things.

She’s unprepared, though, for a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which place her on the kind of razor’s edge that she knows all too well.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, exploring maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving into the core of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end—Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and is, without doubt, among the finest novelists of her generation. – Vintage

This title is also available in large print.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It’s one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves. – Harper Perennial

This title is also available in large print.

Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner

It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.

As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. Yet for all that threatens their sibling bond, Amy and Ollie cannot escape or deny the inextricable sister knot that binds them.

Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. If anything is true it’s what Amy learns on her road to self-acceptance: No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister. – Grove Press

2025 Books

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby’s high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that’s exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what’s happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family’s history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future. – Ballantine Books

This title is also available in large print.

Homeseeking by Karissa Chen

Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back.

Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.

Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York, and sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting in the crucible of their lives. Throughout, Haiwen holds his memories close while Suchi forces herself to look only forward, neither losing sight of the home they hold in their hearts. – G.P. Putnam’s Sons

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: about love, and what it actually means to be family. – Pamela Dorman Books

This title is also available in large print and Playaway audiobook.

The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson

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The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson is the story of Mari Hawthorn, a ghostwriter hired to write a tell-all memoir that could make or break her career. Her last book contract didn’t end well so when she’s contacted about ghostwriting for Anke Berben, a famous model and fashion/style icon whose fame began in the 1960s, Mari must tread carefully. Anke was associated with three members of the rock band, The Midnight Ramblers. She had romances with all three members, Mal, Dante, and Jack, grabbing headlines and stirring controversies for years. The men were famous on stage and off, weaving tangled webs of relationships, betrayals, and secrets. The biggest mystery: the death of Mal in 1969. Mal was the band’s lead singer and Anke’s husband at the time of his death. He was found floating in a swimming pool with massive quantities of drugs and alcohol in his system.

Coming up on the 50th anniversary of Mal’s death, Anke’s memoir has the possibility to clear up all the rumors. Did he kill himself or was he murdered? Did Anke have something to do with his death or was it someone else in the band? Everyone in the band has kept silent for decades. As Anke’s ghostwriter, Mari needs to convince her to share stories that will make her memoir what people expect. In addition to writing Anke’s story, Mari is determined to find the truth about Mal’s death. After suffering a setback while writing Anke’s memoir, Mari decides to work her way into the world of the band. Their charm and fame enchant Mari, luring her into a false sense of security where she is tempted to compromise herself.

The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers is described as perfect for fans of Daisy Jones & The Six, Almost Famous, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. This doesn’t quite lift to that level for me, but I still enjoyed the stories told by the band members and their entourage. I felt like this book was missing something, but I can’t put my finger on it. I had difficulty connecting to the characters at their current ages, but the stories and flashes to the past hooked me in. It’s not for me, but I know many others who would enjoy this.