My Most- Anticipated Contemporary Fiction of 2024
My Most- Anticipated Contemporary Fiction of 2024
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Contemporary fiction stands as a vibrant and diverse genre that reflects the ever-changing landscape of the modern world. Set in the present day or recent past, contemporary fiction explores the complexities of contemporary society, delving into the intricacies of human relationships, societal issues, and the fast-paced nature of modern life. Unlike genres rooted in historical settings or fantastical realms, contemporary fiction captures the essence of the here and now, offering readers narratives that resonate with the challenges, joys, and conflicts of contemporary existence. Authors within this genre often grapple with themes such as technology, cultural shifts, and the evolving dynamics of interpersonal relationships, providing readers with a mirror to their own experiences.
One of the strengths of contemporary fiction lies in its ability to be both timely and timeless. By addressing current social issues, cultural phenomena, and technological advancements, these novels offer readers a lens through which they can navigate the complexities of the world they inhabit. Furthermore, contemporary fiction often serves as a platform for diverse voices and perspectives, allowing authors to engage with the multifaceted realities of the present and contribute to ongoing conversations about identity, diversity, and the human experience in the 21st century. As a genre, contemporary fiction remains dynamic and relevant, continuously evolving to reflect the ever-shifting tapestry of modern life.
Below I am sharing some of my most-anticipated books in this genre coming out in 2024.
January 2024 Releases:
Just Happy To Be Here by Naomi Kanakia
In this YA standalone perfect for fans of Tobly McSmith and Meredith Russo, the first out trans girl at an all-girls school must choose between keeping her head down or blazing a trail.
Tara just wants to be treated like any other girl at Ainsley Academy.
That is, judged on her merits—not on her transness. But there’s no road map for being the first trans girl at an all-girls school. And when she tries to join the Sibyls, an old-fashioned Ainsley sisterhood complete with code names and special privileges, she’s thrust into the center of a larger argument about what girlhood means and whether the club should exist at all.
Being the figurehead of a movement isn’t something Tara’s interested in. She’d rather read old speeches and hang out with the Sibyls who are on her side—especially Felicity, a new friend she thinks could turn into something more. Then the club’s sponsor, a famous alumna, attacks her in the media and turns the selection process into a spectacle.
Tara’s always found comfort in the power of other peoples’ words. But when it comes time to fight for herself, will she be able to find her own voice?
Aednan by Linnea Axelsson
The winner of Sweden’s most prestigious literary award makes her American debut with an epic, multigenerational novel-in-verse about two Sámi families and their quest to stay together across a century of migration, violence, and colonial trauma.
In Northern Sámi, the word Ædnan means the land, the earth, and my mother. These are all crucial forces within the lives of the Indigenous families that animate this groundbreaking book: an astonishing verse novel that chronicles a hundred years of change: a book that will one day stand alongside Halldór Laxness’s Independent People and Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter as an essential Scandinavian epic.
The tale begins in the 1910s, as Ristin and her family migrate their herd of reindeer to summer grounds. Along the way, forced to separate due to the newly formed border between Sweden and Norway, Ristin loses one of her sons in the aftermath of an accident, a grief that will ripple across the rest of the book. In the wake of this tragedy, Ristin struggles to manage what’s left of her family and her community.
In the 1970s, Lise, as part of a new generation of Sámi grappling with questions of identity and inheritance, reflects on her traumatic childhood, when she was forced to leave her parents and was placed in a Nomad School to be stripped of the language of her ancestors. Finally, in the 2010s we meet Lise’s daughter, Sandra, an embodiment of Indigenous resilience, an activist fighting for reparations in a highly publicized land rights trial, in a time when the Sámi language is all but lost.
Weaving together the voices of half a dozen characters, from elders to young people unsure of their heritage, Axelsson has created a moving family saga around the consequences of colonial settlement. Ædnan is a powerful reminder of how durable language can be, even when it is borrowed, especially when it has to hold what no longer remains. “I was the weight / in the stone you brought / back from the coast // to place on / my grave,” one character says to another from beyond the grave. “And I flew above / the boat calling / to you all: // There will be rain / there will be rain.”
No Reservations by Sheryl Lister
Four friends, three struggling relationships, and one final wish: find your happiness. Both heartwarming and heart-wrenching, Sheryl Lister invites readers to take a trip of a lifetime with her new women’s fiction novel that reminds us all to live without regrets.
Joy, Diane, Rochelle, and Yvette have been friends their entire lives. But adulthood isn’t all they imagined it would be. Joy has been dreaming of opening a spa and retreat for years, but she put it on hold for her husband's dream. Now she's tired of waiting, whether her husband agrees or not. Diane hasn't let go of her dream of being a mother through years of infertility struggles, but her husband doesn’t seem to have the same issues. Rochelle has struggled with self-esteem after an abusive marriage left her a single mother, and her friends' struggling marriages don't exactly encourage her to try again. Then a new man walks into her life and threatens to overturn everything she's thought about herself and her convictions.
And Yvette, well, Yvette has terminal cancer.
Yvette passes away with one final wish: for the other three to take the girls' trip to Jamaica they had been putting off for years. She even left them the tickets. But, as marriages crumble, businesses are upended, and love blooms, the trip can't seem to come soon enough. Joy, Diane, and Rochelle must lean on each other more than ever and try to live by what Yvette left them: a chance to live without reservation.
Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao
When a fashion writer dives headfirst into the cutthroat Silicon Valley tech world, her future threatens to unravel in this addictive novel by Kyla Zhao, author of The Fraud Squad.
On paper, Zoe Zeng has made it in New York’s fashion world. After a string of unpaid internships, she’s now a fashion columnist at Chic, lives in a quaint apartment in Manhattan, and gets invited to exclusive industry events.
But life in New York City isn’t as chic as Zoe imagined. Her editor wants her to censor her opinions to please the big brands; she shares her “quaint” (read: small) apartment with three roommates who never let her store kimchi in the fridge; and how is she supposed to afford the designer clothes expected for those parties on her meager salary?
Then one day, Zoe receives a job offer at FitPick, an app startup based in Silicon Valley. The tech salary and office perks are sweet, but moving across the country and switching to a totally new industry? Not so much. However, with her current career at a dead end, Zoe accepts the offer and swaps high fashion for high tech, haute couture for HTML. But she soon realizes that in an industry claiming to change the world for the better, not everyone’s intentions are pure. With an eight-figure investment on the line, Zoe must find a way to revamp FitPick's image despite Silicon Valley’s elitism and her icy colleagues. Or the company’s future will go up in smoke—and hers with it.
The Magic All Around by Jennifer Moorman
The Russell family members all seem to have . . . gifts. Eldest sister Penelope naturally infuses strength or joy or love—whatever the wearer requires—into the fabric of the dresses she designs as a seamstress. Her younger sister, Lilith, is never without whatever she needs—despite the free-spirited and nomadic life she lives with her daughter. There’s always a person nearby who just happens to have an apartment available to rent, or a part-time job open, or a car to borrow just when they need it. And Lilith’s adult daughter, Mattie, always seems to trigger the perfect song to mysteriously start playing—whether from a radio in another room that was turned off or from a friend’s phone in their pocket. And at the heart of the family is their old Victorian home that sometimes seems to have a personality in and of itself.
When independent, artistic Mattie Russell finds herself back in the family home after her mother’s unexpected death, she has no intention of sticking around the small town, even though she has no future destination in mind. She’s used to living in a new city every couple of years with Lilith as her sole companion, and she’s especially hesitant to entangle herself in the Russell family secrets about their special giftings.
But during the reading of the will, the family is shocked to learn Lilith included a testamentary trust that requires Mattie to stay in Ivy Ridge long enough to complete a series of seemingly absurd tasks in order to claim her inheritance. While completing the tasks, Mattie discovers that her mother had a well-thought-out plan for her daughter that would lead Mattie to finding her birth father, teach her how to choose her own path, learn to keep her heart open for love, and discover that staying still long enough to sow seeds can produce a stunning garden and vibrant life.
Light of the Fire by Sarahlyn Bruck
In this heartrending story about healing from past mistakes, two estranged friends face the twenty-year-old accident that forced them apart—and the consequences of the secret that still haunts them.
Twenty years ago, an out-of-control prank ended in an accident that destroyed the high school gym and threatened the futures of star athletes Beth and Ally. They move on with their lives carrying their secret while someone else is blamed, but the years reveal that no one truly comes out unscathed.
Now, both women are at a crossroads: Beth returns to her hometown after a concussion ends her professional soccer career, and a surprise pregnancy disrupts Ally’s idyllic family. The only thing either of them are sure of is their desire to mend their estranged relationship.
But the old friends aren’t just battling new problems when their former classmate Jordan begins to investigate the crime for which his father was convicted. As their secret comes back around to threaten their futures once more, Beth and Ally will have to decide whether to run away from the truth again or face it once and for all.
Belonging by Jill Fordyce
Jenny is thirteen when an epic dust storm rolls into her central California town in December 1977. Bedridden after contracting a life-threatening illness in the storm and suffering a shocking loss, Jenny realizes she will never be cared for by the mother who both neglects and terrifies her or the father who allows it. She relies on her cousin, Heather, who has the loving home Jenny longs for; her beloved great-uncle, Gino, the last link between generations; her best friend, Henry, a free spirit with whom she shares an inexplicable bond; and earnest baseball star, Billy, who becomes her first love. Inspired by a painting titled “Belonging” she found in Uncle Gino’s antique store, Jenny has a picture of the home and family she hopes to create someday—one completely different than her own childhood. After a stunning turn of events in their lives, Jenny and Henry leave for college in LA together in the summer of 1982—Jenny fleeing a broken heart, and Henry running from something he can’t reveal, even to his best friend.
Returning home years later, a devastating family secret is revealed, and the life Jenny so carefully created collides with the one she left behind. Spanning three decades, BELONGING is about first love and heartbreak, friendship and secrets, family and forgiveness, hometowns and coming of age, and memory and music. The heart of the story is Jenny’s struggle to undo the binds of a childhood that have deeply affected her life, the painful path to love endured by children raised in alcoholic families, and the grim reality of believing you must hide a part of yourself in order to belong.
February 2024 Releases:
Mayluna: A Novel by Kelley McNeil
In the 1990s, Carter Wills was the lead singer of the English alt-rock band Mayluna, securing his place among music legends. His tortured-heart lyrics struck a chord. And so did his secret connection to a woman whose love changed all their lives. Who was she?
Evie Waters’s two grown children discover an iconic photo in an old magazine of a “mystery girl” with Carter: their mother. It all started in a wistful time and place for Evie, her twenty-fifth summer. A young columnist forging her career. Backstage euphoria. A long-shot interview. And an almost cosmic connection with an enigmatic musician on the rise.
What happened between them is a hidden story no one, not even Evie’s family, knows. Until now. Worlds apart, Carter and Evie finally reveal the story―joyful, regretful, and unforgettable. It was a time when the stars aligned for a love so profound the whole world felt it. It was as if it would last forever.
Aftershock by Zhang Ling
A catastrophic disaster in China triggers a mother’s heartbreaking choice and a daughter’s reconciliation with the past in this engrossing novel by the author of A Single Swallow and Where Waters Meet. Perfect for fans of Amy Tan, Lisa See, and Min Jin Lee.
In the summer of 1976, an earthquake swallows up the city of Tangshan, China. Among the hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for survival is a mother who makes an agonizing decision that irrevocably changes her life and the lives of her children. In that devastating split second, her seven-year-old daughter, Xiaodeng, is separated from her brother and the mother she loves and trusts. All Xiaodeng remembers of the fateful morning is betrayal.
Thirty years later, Xiaodeng is an acclaimed writer living in Canada with a caring husband and daughter. However, her newfound fame and success do little to cover the deep wounds that disrupt her life, time and again, and edge her toward a breaking point. Xiaodeng realizes the only path toward healing is to return to Tangshan, find her mother, and get closure.
Plastic by Scott Guild
For fans of Interior Chinatown and American War, a surreal, hilarious, and sneakily profound debut novel that casts our current climate of gun violence and environmental destruction in a surprising new mold.
Erin is a plastic girl living in a plastic world. Every day she eats a breakfast of boiled chicken, then conveys her articulated body to Tablet Town, where she sells other figurines Smartbodies: wearable tech that allows full, physical immersion in a virtual world, a refuge from real life’s brutal wars, oppressive governmental monitoring, and omnipresent eco-terrorist insurgency. If you cut her, she will not bleed—but she and her fellow figurines can still be cracked or blown apart by gunfire or bombs, or crumble away from nuclear fallout. Erin, who’s lost her father, sister, and the love of her life, certainly knows plenty about death.
An attack at her place of work brings Erin another too-intimate experience, but it also brings her Jacob: a blind figurine whom she comforts in the aftermath, and with whom she feels an almost instant connection. For the first time in years, Erin begins to experience hope—hope that until now she’s only gleaned from watching her favorite TV show, the surrealist retro sitcom “Nuclear Family.” Exploring the wild wonders of the virtual reality landscape together, it seems that possibly, slowly, Erin and Jacob may have a chance at healing from their trauma. But then secrets from Erin’s family’s past begin to invade her carefully constructed reality, and cracks in the facade she’s constructed around her life threaten to reveal everything vulnerable beneath.
Both a crypto-comedic dystopian fantasy and a deadly serious dissection of our own farcical pre-apocalypse, Scott Guild’s debut novel is an achingly beautiful, disarmingly welcoming, and fabulously inventive look at the hollow core of modern American society—and a guide to how we might reanimate all its broken plastic pieces.
The Memory of Lavender and Sage by Aimie K. Runyan
Food critic Tempèsta Luddington has always felt like the odd person out in her family, ever since she lost her beloved mother at the tender age of thirteen. When her workaholic father passes fifteen years later, Tempèsta is not surprised that the majority of the considerable family money will pass to her dutiful younger brother, Wal. Still, she is left a modest remembrance from her mother, and for the first time Tempèsta has a world of choices before her.
Lost in grief and hoping to reconnect with her memories and her mother’s past, she uses the money to buy a ramshackle manor house in Sainte-Colombe, a small village in Provence, where her mother had grown up. But she is greeted with more questions than answers. Her welcome, especially by the town’s stodgy mayor, is cold at best, and she finds herself wondering if the entire experiment was a mistake.
Yet she stays, stubbornly sticking it out, slowly learning that her mother’s legacy was more than just a nest egg. Through her mother and the village, Tempèsta learns the value of community and friendship, the importance of self-confidence, and the power of love and trust. What’s more, she sees for herself that there is magic and beauty in the everyday—even something as simple as a sprig of lavender and sage.
After Camus by Jay Neugeboren
A troubled marriage-and love story-set against the background of the AIDS pandemic, and the American wars in Vietnam and Iraq lie at the heart of After Camus. Saul Davidoff and Tolle Riordan, who meet during a protest against the Vietnam War, marry, live through the Plague Years of the AIDS epidemic, raise a family ... and burn out. Camus is a hero to both of them: Tolle, a young dancer and choreographer, has a liaison with him in Paris shortly before his death; Saul, inspired by Camus's The Plague, becomes an infectious disease (and AIDS) doctor ... and Camus becomes a ghostly presence central to our story. Hoping to repair their marriage, Tolle and Saul return to a village in the South of France where they lived when they were first in love, and where Camus lived when recovering from a siege of tuberculosis. The novel draws a vivid portrait of a marriage that spans a series of historical events: from the Vietnam war through the AIDs epidemic and Gulf War, to the Iraq War and the advent of the right wing Le Pen movement in France. After Camus is both a fictional meditation on recent history and a compelling tale of how various forms of love and friendship do and do not survive in times of social and political upheaval. In this novel of enchantments, internationally acclaimed author Jay Neugeboren is at the peak of his powers as a master storyteller.
March 2024 Releases:
Blank by Zibby Owens
Pippa Jones is a fortyish former literary sensation who fears she will be a one-hit wonder. After the follow-up book she was almost done writing, Podlusters, had to be tossed (it ended up sharing a plot and title with superstar author Ella Rankin’s summer blockbuster!), she couldn’t write a thing. Months of staring at a blank page made her confidence vanish like a one-night stand. When she finds out that she has only five days left to finish (or rather, start) or repay an advance she’s already spent, Pippa has a brilliantly original idea. Okay, fine, her twelve-year-old son came up with it as a joke, but Pippa and her teenage daughter approved.
Pippa’s not only going to make a bold statement, but she’ll change the book world while she’s at it! Can she pull it off? At this point, she doesn’t have a choice.
When Pippa’s publisher gets intimately involved, it unlocks a series of plot twists she never saw coming. From the courtyards of posh Beverly Hills hotels and Malibu mega-mansions to Brentwood and Santa Monica bookstores, Pippa races against time―in her used Volvo―and discovers more about her career, marriage, family, friends, and herself than she ever could have dreamed up.
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez
1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten―certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by progeny of film producers, C-Suite executives, and international art-dealers, most of whom float through life knowing that their futures are secured, Raquel feels herself an outsider. Students of color, like Raquel, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.
But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita’s story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.
Moving back and forth through time and told from the perspectives of both women, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, is a propulsive, witty examination of power, love, and art, daring to ask who gets to be remembered and who is left behind in the rarefied world of the elite.
The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy
The bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil mines the subtle horrors of 1950s America in a gripping novel about a woman under pressure―from the living and the dead.
The first day of autumn brought the fever, and with the fever came the voices.
Missouri, 1955. Loretta Davenport has led an isolated life as a young mother and a wife to Pete, an ambitious assistant professor at a Bible college. They’re the picture of domestic tranquility―until a local girl is murdered and Loretta begins receiving messages from beyond. Pete dismisses them as delusions of a fevered female imagination. Loretta knows they’re real―and frightening.
Defying Pete’s demands, Loretta finds an encouraging supporter in parapsychologist Dr. Curtis Hansen. He sees a woman with a rare gift, more blessing than curse. With Dr. Hansen’s help, Loretta’s life opens up to an empowering new purpose. But for Pete, the God-fearing image he’s worked so hard to cultivate is under threat. No longer in control of his dutiful wife, he sees the Devil at work.
As Loretta’s powers grow stronger and the pleading spirits beckon, Pete is determined to deliver his wife from evil. To solve the mysteries of the dead, Loretta must first save herself.
Between You and Us by Kendra Broekhuis
When a grieving woman unexpectedly steps into a different version of her life, she must choose between the husband she loves and the daughter she lost in this brave, gripping novel.
Two possible lives to live. One impossible choice to make.
When Leona Warlon heads across the city to meet her husband, David, for a rare dinner out, she hopes they can share a moment of relief after their year of loss. But Leona quickly realizes this is no ordinary date night. She hasn’t just stepped into an upscale ristorante; she’s stepped into a different version of her life. One in which her marriage is no longer tender, in which her days are pressured by her powerful in-laws, and in which her precious baby girl lived.
Now Leona must weigh the bitter and sweet of both trajectories, facing an unimaginable choice: Stay in a world where tragedy hasn’t struck but where the meaningful life she built with David is gone? Or return to a reality that’s filled with struggle and sorrow but also deep and enduring love?
Pride and Joy By Louisa Onomé
Black Cake meets Death at a Funeral in this heartwarming and hilarious novel about three generations of a Nigerian Canadian family grappling with their matriarch’s sudden passing while their auntie insists that her sister is coming back—from an author with a “razor-sharp, smart, and tender” (Nafiza Azad, author of The Wild Ones) voice.
Joy Okafor is overwhelmed. Recently divorced, a life coach whose phone won’t stop ringing, and ever the dutiful Nigerian daughter, Joy has planned every aspect of her mother’s seventieth birthday weekend on her own.
As the Okafors slowly begin to arrive, Mama Mary goes to take a nap. But when the grandkids go to wake her, they find that she isn’t sleeping after all. Refusing to believe that her sister is gone-gone, Auntie Nancy declares that she has had a premonition that Mama Mary will rise again like Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.
Desperate to believe that they’re about to witness a miracle, the family overhauls their birthday plans to welcome the Nigerian Canadian community, effectively spreading the word that Mama Mary is coming back. But skeptical Joy is struggling with the loss of her mother and not allowing herself to mourn just yet while going through the motions of planning a funeral that her aunt refuses to allow.
Filled with humor and flawed, deeply relatable characters that leap off the page, Pride and Joy will draw you in as the Okafors prepare for a miracle while coming apart at the seams, praying that they haven’t actually lost Mama Mary for good, and grappling with what losing her truly means for each of them.
Fervor by Toby Lloyd
Hannah and Eric Rosenthal are devout Jews living in North London with their three children and Eric's father Yosef, a Holocaust survivor. Both intellectually gifted and deeply unconventional, the Rosenthals believe in the literal truth of the Old Testament and in the presence of God (and evil) in daily life. As Hannah prepares to publish a sensationalist account of Yosef's years in war-torn Europe—unearthing a terrible secret from his time in the camps—Elsie, her perfect daughter, starts to come undone. And then, in the wake of Yosef’s death, she disappears. When she returns, just as mysteriously as she left, she is altered in disturbing ways.
Witnessing the complete transformation of her daughter, Hannah begins to suspect that Elsie has delved too deep into the labyrinths of Jewish mysticism and gotten lost among shadows. But for Elsie's brother Tovyah, a brilliant but reclusive student struggling to find his place at Oxford, the truth is much simpler: his sister is the product of a dysfunctional family, obsessed with empty rituals, traditions, and unbridled ambition. But who is right? Is religion the cure for the disease or the disease itself? And how can they stop the darkness from engulfing Elsie completely?
Alive with both the bristling energy of a great campus novel and the unsettling, ever-shifting ground of a great horror tale, Fervor is at its heart a family story—where personal allegiances compete with obligations to history and to mysterious forces that offer both consolation and devastation.
The Waves Take You Home by María Alejandra Barrios Vélez
In this heartfelt story about how the places we run from hold the answers to our deepest challenges, the death of her grandmother brings a young woman home, where she must face the past in order to become the heir of not just the family restaurant, but her own destiny.
Violeta Sanoguera had always done what she was told. She left the man she loved in Colombia in pursuit of a better life for herself and because her mother and grandmother didn’t approve of him. Chasing dreams of education and art in New York City, and with a new love, twenty-eight-year-old Violeta establishes a new life for herself, on her terms. But when her grandmother suddenly dies, everything changes.
After years of being on her own in NYC, Violeta finds herself on a plane back to Colombia, accompanied at all times by the ghost of her grandmother who is sending her messages and signs, to find she is the heir of the failing family restaurant, the very one Abuela told her to run from in the first place. The journey leads her to rediscover her home, her grandmother, and even the flame of an old love.
Half-Lives by Lynn Schmeidler
A playful debut short story collection imagining women's lives in a world free of social limitations.
Amid heightened restrictions about what women can and cannot do with their bodies, Lynn Schmeidler's debut short story collection, Half-Lives, is a humane, absurd, and timely collection of narratives centering on women's bodies and psyches. Playful and experimental, these sixteen stories explore girlhood, sexuality, motherhood, identity, and aging in a world where structures of societal norms, narrative, gender, and sometimes even physics do not apply. The protagonists grapple with the roles they choose and with those that are thrust upon them as they navigate their ever-evolving emotional lives. A woman lists her vagina on Airbnb, Sleeping Beauty is a yoga teacher who lies in state on the dais of her mother's studio, and a museum intern writes a confession of her affair in the form of a hijacked museum audio guide.
Half-Lives is the 2023 Rising Writer Prize winner, selected by Matt Bell.
April 2024 Releases:
The Lies Among Us by Sarah Beth Durst
After her mother dies, Hannah doesn’t know how to exist without her. Literally. In fact, Hannah’s not even certain that she does exist. No one seems to see or hear her, and she finds herself utterly alone. Grief-stricken and confused, her sense of self slowly slipping away, Hannah sets out to find new purpose in life―and answers about who (and what) she really is.
Hannah’s only remaining family is her older sister, Leah. Yet even Leah doesn’t seem to notice her. And while Hannah can see and hear her sister, she also sees beautiful and terrible things that don’t―or shouldn’t―exist. She learns there’s much more to this world than meets the eye and struggles to make sense of it all.
When Hannah sees Leah taking the same dangerous path that consumed their own mother―where lies supplant reality―she’s desperate to get through to her. But facing difficult truths is harder than it looks…
Begin Again by Helly Acton
Have you ever wanted to change the past and discover the result of choices not taken? Now, in this brilliantly fun novel of what-ifs, missed chances, and new beginnings, Frankie McKenzie discovers what starting over might bring…
Despite living firmly in her comfort zone, Frankie McKenzie feels unsettled. She can’t help feeling something’s missing. Is it a home to call her own? Travel? A more rewarding job? A relationship? Before she can work it out, she dies in a freak kebab-related accident after what she sees as yet another dud of a first date.
But life isn’t over for Frankie. Instead, she is miraculously offered a second chance: Frankie can revisit key moments from her past to see if different choices will lead her to the fulfilling life she’s always dreamt of.
And there are so many opportunities! Should she decide to languidly lounge by warm Mexican waters with sexy Raphael? Or say yes to the proposal of earnestly reliable university-sweetheart Toby? Perhaps a worry-free gilded cage with Callum is the solution! Or what about that high-powered media career she thought that she wanted?
Soon, Frankie will see what her life would have been if only she’d caught that one-way flight, accepted the marriage proposal, or attended the intimidating job interview. Will she finally find her Mr. Right? Or discover she already had? Which way should she turn? And over and over she asks herself the question…
What would she change if she could begin again?
Habitations by Sheila Sundar
A young academic moves from India to the United States, where she navigates first love, a green card marriage, single motherhood, and more in this “delightful novel, written with immediacy, warmth, and wry humor” (Ha Jin, National Book Award-winning author of Waiting).
Vega Gopalan is adrift. Still reeling from the death of her sister years earlier, she leaves South India to attend graduate school at Columbia University. In New York, Vega straddles many different worlds, eventually moving in and out of a series of relationships that take her through the striving world of academia, the intellectual isolation of the immigrant suburbs, and, ultimately, the loneliness of single motherhood. But it is the birth of Vega’s daughter that forces the novel’s central question: What does it mean to make a home?
Written with dry humor and searing insight, Habitations is an intimate story of identity, immigration, expectation and desire, and of love lost and found. But it is also a universal story of womanhood, and the ways in which women are forced to navigate multiple loyalties: to family, to community, and to themselves.
A profound meditation on the many meanings of home and on the ways love and kinship can be found, even in the most unfamiliar of places, Habitations introduces Sheila Sundar as an electrifying new voice in literary fiction.
One Last Word by Suzanne Park
Acclaimed author Suzanne Park returns with a charming and compelling novel about an aspiring tech entrepreneur who goes on a rollercoaster journey of self-discovery after her app, which sends messages to loved ones after you pass, accidentally sends her final words to all the important people in her life—including the venture capital mentor she’s crushing on.
Sara Chae is the founder of the app One Last Word, which allows you to send a message to whomever you want after you pass. Safeguards are in place so the app will only send out when you’re definitely, absolutely, 100% dead, but when another Sara Chae dies and the obituary triggers the prototype to auto-send messages that Sara uploads on one drunken night—to her emotionally charged mother, to a former best friend who ghosted her, and to her unrequited high school crush Harry—she has to deal with all the havoc that ensues and reopen old wounds from the past.
She applies for a venture capital mentorship and is accepted to the program, only to find out that the mentor she’s assigned is none other than her former crush and VC superstar Harry Shim, and her life goes from uncertain to chaotic overnight.
Empowering and laugh-out-loud funny, One Last Word is a remarkably relatable story about a woman in tech who learns to speak up and fight for what she wants in life and love, perfect for fans of Annabel Monaghan, Alisha Rai, and Jenny Han.
Christa Comes Out of Her Shell by Abbi Waxman
After a tumultuous childhood, Christa Liddle has hidden away, both figuratively and literally. Happily studying sea snails in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Christa finds her tranquil existence thrown into chaos when her once-famous father—long thought dead after a plane crash—turns out to be alive, well, and ready to make amends. The world goes wild, fascinated by this real-life saga, pinning Christa and her family under the spotlight. As if that weren’t enough, her reunion with an old childhood friend reveals an intense physical attraction neither was expecting and both want to act on . . . if they can just keep a lid on it. When her father’s story starts to develop cracks, Christa fears she will lose herself, her potential relationship, and—most importantly—any chance of making it back to her snails before they forget her completely.
Sweetness in the Skin by Ishi Robinson
SWEETNESS IN THE SKIN follows teenaged Pumkin Patterson, who lives in a tiny two-room house in Kingston, Jamaica, with her grandmother (who wants to improve the family’s social standing), her beloved Aunt Sophie (who dreams of a new life in Paris for her and Pumkin), and her mother Paulette (who can barely remember her daughter exists). Pumkin’s escape is food—while baking, she can forget the chaos at home and dream of an exciting future.
When Sophie seizes the opportunity to move to France for work, she promises to send for her niece in one year’s time. All Pumkin has to do is pass her French entrance exam so she can attend school there. But when Pumkin’s grandmother dies, she’s left alone with her volatile mother, and as soon as her estranged father turns up—as lazy and conniving as ever—the household’s fortunes take a turn for the worse.
Will Pumkin’s friends, her neighbors, and her talent for baking such delicacies as sweet potato pudding, coconut drops, and chocolate cakes help her escape? And will leaving home help her find the freedom she so craves? SWEETNESS IN THE SKIN beautifully immerses the reader in Pumpkin’s psychological and physical journey while probing what it means to be true to oneself.
Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin
Nationally bestselling author of The Music of Bees Eileen Garvin returns with a moving story of hope, healing, and unexpected friendship set amidst the wild natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest.
Frankie O’Neill and Anne Ryan would seem to have nothing in common. Frankie is a lonely ornithologist struggling to salvage her dissertation on the spotted owl following a rift with her advisor. Anne is an Irish musician far from home and family, raising her five-year-old, Aiden, who refuses to speak.
At Beauty Bay, a community of summer homes nestled on the shores of June Lake, in the remote foothills of Mount Adams, it’s off-season with most houses shuttered for the fall. But Frankie, adrift, returns to the rundown caretaker’s cottage that has been in the hardworking O'Neill family for generations—a beloved place and a constant reminder of the family she has lost. And Anne, in the wake of a tragedy that has disrupted her career and silenced her music, has fled to the neighboring house, a showy summer home owned by her husband's wealthy family.
When Frankie finds an injured baby crow in the forest, little does she realize that the charming bird will bring all three lost souls—Frankie, Anne, and Aiden—together on a journey toward hope, healing, and rediscovering joy. Crow Talk is an achingly beautiful story of love, grief, friendship, and the healing power of nature in the darkest of times.
Colton Gentry's Third Act by Jeff Zentner
A heart-warming read set in a honeysuckle-scented Southern backdrop, COLTON GENTRY’S THIRD ACT is a love song to the ache of a first love, the joys of discovering that in life there is always another chance, some damn good southern cooking, and an endearing mess of an old dog.
The novel follows the stages of Colton’s life, starting with his senior year of high school when an injury ruins his chances of playing football, to his time coming up with his best friend Duane as hungry musicians in Nashville, and eventually moving into the present when he’s dealing with the aftermath of his public breakdown. After the implosion of his life and marriage and left with few choices or funds, Colton retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown. He’s resigned himself to has-been-dom, until a chance encounter gives him a second shot at life: a job working in the kitchen with Luann, his first love, who has undergone her own reinvention and opened a wildly successful restaurant that is putting his hometown on the map. Luann never forgot the day Colton broke her heart but despite her initial hesitation, she hires him as a sous chef. From catching footballs and strumming guitars, Colton’s latest evolution involves learning how to sharpen knives, julienning carrots, and perfecting his Hot Chicken recipe. And in the close quarters of the kitchen, as the heat starts to simmer between Colton and Luann, they begin to wonder whether their relationship can also have another act.
COLTON GENTRY’S THIRD ACT is a story of coming home, undoing past heartbreaks, and navigating grief, and is a reminder that there are next acts in life, no matter how unlikely they may seem.
May 2024 (or later) Releases:
A Wedding In Lake Como by Jennifer Probst
A destination wedding in Italy’s Lake Como brings three best friends back together to face the secrets of the past in this romantic novel from New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst.
Best friends Ava, Madison, and Chelsea made a pact to reunite for each other’s weddings when their careers sent them in different directions. But after one of them makes a choice that tears the group apart, an upcoming wedding might be their last chance to heal old wounds.
Ava is about to marry the man she loves in a lavish ceremony on the shores of Lake Como, but she’s haunted by the mistakes she’s made.
Madison’s made a name for herself as an influencer in the fashion world but is threatened by a scandal impacting everything she holds dear.
And Chelsea has the perfect family she always craved, but her professional dreams have fallen by the wayside.
As they return to Italy’s gorgeous coast, the three women revisit their life-changing first trip to Lake Como during college, and Madison comes face-to-face with the college sweetheart who was at the heart of one of the most pivotal times of her life.
Oye by Melissa Mogollon
A coming-of-age comedy. A telenovela-worthy drama. A moving family saga. All in a phone call you won’t want to hang up on…
A young woman reckons with her rowdy, unpredictable family and the revelation of their long-buried history in this wildly inventive debut.
Luciana is the baby of her large Colombian American family. And despite usually being relegated to the sidelines, she now finds herself the voice of reason in the middle of their unexpected crisis. Her older sister, Mari, is away at college and reduced to a mere listening ear on the other end of their many phone calls, so when South Florida residents are ordered to evacuate before a hurricane, it’s up to Luciana to deal with her eccentric grandmother, Abue, who’s refusing to leave. But the storm isn’t the only danger. Abue, normally glamorous and full of life, is given a crushing medical diagnosis. While she’d prefer to ignore it and focus on upholding her reputation and her looks instead, the news sets Abue on her own personal journey, with Luciana reluctantly along for the ride.
When Abue moves into Luciana’s bedroom, their complicated bond only intensifies. Luciana would rather be skating or sneaking out to meet girls, but Abue’s wild demands and unpredictable antics are a welcome distraction from Luciana’s misguided mother, absent sister, and uncertain future. Forced to step into the role of caretaker, translator, and keeper of the devastating secrets that Abue begins to share, Luciana suddenly finds herself center stage, facing down adulthood—and rising to the occasion.
As Luciana chronicles the events of her upended senior year over the phone, Oye feels like the most entertaining conversation you’ve ever eavesdropped on: a rollicking, heartfelt, and utterly unique novel by an author as original as she is insightful.
Wait by Gabriella Burnham
A young woman reunites with her teenage sister in their childhood home on Nantucket Island after their mother disappears—an alluring coming-of-age novel from the acclaimed author of It Is Wood, It Is Stone.
Elise is out dancing the night before her college graduation, when her younger sister Sophie calls to tell her their mom is nowhere to be found. Elise leaves on the next flight back to her childhood home, Nantucket Island, for the first time in nearly four years. When she arrives, she discovers the ways in which her whip-smart little sister has had to make do without her.
The sisters soon learn that their mother was stopped by police on her way home from work and deported to São Paulo, Brazil. Intent on bringing her mother back, Elise stays and secures the same job she had in high school: monitoring endangered birds that have laid eggs on a remote beach. Meanwhile, her best friend from college, Sheba—a gregarious socialite and heir to a famed children's toy company—reveals that she has inherited her grandfather’s summer mansion on Nantucket. What will Elise do when the new life she created in college collides with the life she left behind on the island? As Elise confronts the emotional and material realities that have fractured her family, she is confronted by a world in Brazil that her mother has had to leave behind, too.
Told with penetrating insight, humor, and unexpected tenderness, Wait is a story about an immigrant family swimming against the social currents that erode bonds: housing precarity, immigration systems, and inherited wealth. But it is also a story about love, wit, and sisterhood, and how Elise and Sophie cling to their relationship in the midst of cataclysmic change, all the while dreaming about a better future.
Swift River by Essie Chambers
A tender and irreverently funny debut novel about the complicated bond between mothers and daughters, the disappearance of a father, and the long-hidden history of a declining New England mill town.
“A powerful novel about how our family history shapes us. Swift River broke my heart, and then offered me hope.” —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere they go. But that’s not the only reason Diamond stands out: she’s teased relentlessly about her weight, and the fact that since Pop’s been gone, she is the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so that they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on.
But when Diamond receives a letter from a relative she’s never met, key elements of Pop’s life are uncovered, and she is introduced to two generations of African American Newberry women, spanning the 20th century and revealing a much larger picture of prejudice and abandonment, of love and devotion. As pieces of their shared past become clearer, Diamond gains a sense of her place in the world and in her family. But how will what she’s learned of the past change her future?
A story of first friendships, family secrets, and finding the courage to let go, Swift River is a sensational debut about how history shapes us that heralds the arrival of a major new literary talent.
The Grandest Garden by Gina Carroll
Bella Fontaine is on her own. Fresh out of college and with the winnings from her first international photography competition, she decides to leave Los Angeles to forge a new life in New York City. But will she be able to overcome the trauma of her childhood and her break from home to make it as a successful artist and professional photographer in a new city? Or will her secrets catch up with her ,and keep her from developing the relationships she needs to make her dreams come true?
Linh Ly is Doing Just Fine: A Novel by Thao Votang
Told with deadpan humor and brutal honesty, this debut novel follows Vietnamese-American Linh Ly’s unraveling as she reckons with the traumas of both her past and present, perfect for fans of Joan is Okay and Luster.
When 27-year-old Linh Ly’s recently-divorced mother begins dating a coworker, Linh is determined to make sure he is worthy of her mother. She’s seen the kind of men her mother ends up with—she grew up watching her unreliable and volatile alcoholic father as her mother worked two jobs to make ends meet. Linh is certain that her mother can’t do this on her own, but what begins as genuine worry quickly turns obsessive.
Following her mother and spying on her dates becomes part of Linh’s routine, especially after a university shooting at Linh’s work that leaves her feeling adrift—at least her mom’s dating life gives her something to focus on. Linh doesn’t exactly have a life of her own (dating or otherwise) and figures the best course of action is action—not how she handled the shooting: curl up in a ball and wait it out.
Linh is slowly forced to reconcile the image of her mother from her childhood with the woman she’s getting to know as an adult. Growing up Vietnamese in the middle of Texas with a broken household taught Linh a certain guarded way of living—one she never quite left behind.
Moving, insightful, and caustically funny all at once, Linh Ly is Doing Just Fine depicts a quarter-life crisis in deeply relatable prose.
