Beyond Bestsellers - Fiction, Spring 2019

Great recent titles you may have missed, selected by our librarians.

April - June 2019 Issue

       

See also:

Adam, Claire. Golden Child.
In this novel set in Trinidad, a 13-year-old boy, one of a pair of twin brothers, goes missing not long after his family home is robbed.
 
Butler, Nickolas. Little Faith.
An older rural Wisconsin couple become uneasy as their adopted daughter joins a cult-like church, whose pastor plans to use their young grandson as a money-maker.

Carty-Williams, Candice. Queenie.
Queenie Jenkins, a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, navigates life and love between two cultures.

Castellani, Christopher.  Leading Men. 
This biographical novel, a mixture of fact and fiction, explores the relationship between playwright Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover, Frank Merlo.

Chaney, JoAnn.  As Long as We Both Shall Live. 
After a woman falls off a cliff while on vacation in Colorado, detectives suspect she was murdered, particularly after they learn that her husband was suspected of murdering his first wife.

Choo, Yangsze.  The Night Tiger. 
In British colonial Malaysia in the 1930’s, a dying doctor sends his young servant to find the finger he had amputated years before so his body will be whole in the afterlife.

Day, Kate Hope.  If, Then. 
Four neighbors, who live near a dormant volcano in a small town in Oregon, begin to have visions of what would have happened in their lives if they had made different decisions.

Englander, Nathan.  Kaddish.com. 
After his father dies, a Jewish man, who is unwilling to fulfill his religious duty to pray for him for the next year, finds an on-line service that he pays to do it for him. 

Faye, Lyndsay.  The Paragon Hotel. 
In this historical mystery set in 1921, a white woman escapes from New York City with a gunshot wound and a large pile of cash; ending up in Portland, Oregon, she is befriended by a train porter, and taken for refuge to an all-black hotel.

Fforde, Jasper.  Early Riser.
In this imaginative novel set in a future in which winters have become so severe that people hibernate through them, a Welsh man who has just joined the Winter Consul Service, which protects the sleepers from zombies, investigates a killer viral dream. 

Ghaffari, Rabeah.  To Keep the Sun Alive. 
This novel concerns a large extended Iranian family with different viewpoints and loyalties who find themselves caught up in turmoil and violence as the Iranian Revolution of 1979 begins.

Gray, Anissa.  The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls.
This novel, set in Michigan, is about the three grown daughters of a dysfunctional family, who are reunited after one is jailed with her husband on fraud charges, and the other two come to take care of their teenaged daughters and provide support.

Heller, Peter.  The River. 
Two young friends taking a leisurely canoe trip in Northern Ontario encounter drunk campers, an arguing married couple, and a growing forest fire.

Hustvedt, Siri.  Memories of the Future. 
A writer from Minnesota, who has given herself a year to write a novel, moves into a tiny apartment in a rundown building in New York City and keeps a diary about her increasingly bizarre experiences.

Kim, Un-Su.  The Plotters. 
In this political thriller set in Korea, a young orphan, adopted by a hit man and trained to be an assassin, begins to ask questions about the men who plan the killings he carries out.

Lalami, Laila.  The Other Americans. 
In this novel with nine narrators, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants returns to her parents’ home after her father is killed in a hit-and-run accident which might not have been accidental.

Leckie, Ann.  The Raven Tower. 
The kingdom of Iraden has been protected by a god known as the Raven for centuries, but his power is weakening; a usurper has taken the thrown, and set a plot in motion to gain the favor of younger, stronger gods in a bid to consolidate his power.

Li, Yiyun.  Where Reasons End. 
A novelist, whose 16-year-old son has killed himself, tries to cope with his death by creating her own version of him and recording their conversations.

Luiselli, Valeria.  Lost Children Archive. 
A pair of audio archivists, who met and married in New York City, drive to Arizona with their children to record Apache people and investigate the situation of migrant children crossing the border from Mexico.

Maren, Mesha.  Sugar Run. 
A woman who served a prison sentence for killing her girlfriend is released and goes in search of a friend’s brother, but is distracted when she meets another woman, an addict who lives in a motel.

McCracken, Elizabeth.  Bowlaway. 
In this unusual multigenerational story beginning in 1900, a woman is found unconscious at a New England cemetery with no idea where she came from. She later marries, has a family, and builds a candlepin bowling alley.

Obioma, Chigozie.  An Orchestra of Minorities. 
A poor Nigerian chicken farmer falls in love with an upper class woman; his guardian spirit pleads his case before the gods.

Owuor, Yvonne Adhiambo.  The Dragonfly Sea. 
On an island off the coast of Kenya, a woman descended from Chinese sailors makes friends with an old fisherman and later travels to China.

Oyeyemi, Helen.  Gingerbread. 
This is a complex fairy-tale-like story about three generations of women and a family gingerbread recipe that is part of their legacy.

Roupenian, Kristen.  You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories. 
This is a group of twelve insightful and unsettling short stories primarily about women, sex, and violence.

Ruffin, Maurice Carlos.  We Cast a Shadow. 
The narrator of this satirical novel, set in the near-future in an America that has become even more racist, is an African-American man who lands a job as an attorney at a powerful law firm and fears for the future of his biracial son.

Scharer, Whitney.  The Age of Light. 
This is a fictional look at the life of Vogue writer, photographer, and model Lee Miller, describing her life in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s with the surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray.

Serpell, Namwali.  The Old Drift. 
This is a story, told in a magical realist style, that begins in 1904 in Rhodesia (now Zambia), and brings together three families which continue to connect with each other over the course of more than a century.

Sudbanthad, Pitchaya.  Bangkok Wakes to Rain. 
This novel, set in Thailand, presents a variety of characters, stories, and time periods, all related to the history of the city of Bangkok.

Vijay, Madhuri.  The Far Field. 
A privileged young woman from urban Bangalore, India loses her job and moves to a rural area in Kashmir to find an old friend of her mother’s, but the sectarian violence of the region leads to misfortune.

Washington, Bryan.  Lot: Stories. 
This is a collection of short stories that take place in Houston, half of them concerning a teenaged boy, half Latino, and half African-American, whose family, one by one, desert him while he is trying to come to terms with his homosexuality.

Wilkinson, Lauren.  American Spy. 
An African-American FBI agent is recruited by the CIA in the 1980s and sent to the African country of Burkina Faso, where her relationship with the Marxist leader she is assigned to spy on begins to conflict with her mission.

Wilson, G. Willow.  The Bird King.
After Fatima, a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain, discovers that her dearest friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker, has a secret gift that puts him in danger, they search for safety outside the palace with the help of a clever jinn. 

Winters, Ben H.  Golden State. 
This quirky thriller is set in the near future in California, which has become an independent police state where telling a lie is a serious crime.