The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club brings to life a historical moment, just after WWI, when both everything and nothing had changed for women in England—plus a summer’s worth of fresh seaside descriptions and romantic entanglements.
National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree and award-winning author of short story collection Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty has already made a big impact, and we’re very much looking forward to the release of his debut novel, Fire Exit. In it, a man named Charles Lamosway lives just outside Penobscot Reservation, and watches from across a river as his daughter grows up with another family, longing to tell her the truth about her parentage.
Long Island revisits Eilis Lacey more than 20 years after the events of Colm Toíbín’s 2009 novel, Brooklyn, which introduced readers to this self-possessed, elusive young woman.
In an era of retellings, Percival Everett’s James stands out for staying true to Mark Twain’s voice, tale-spinning talent and humor, while also accurately depicting what Twain failed to acknowledge: the reality of life for enslaved people.
John Vercher’s first novel, Three Fifths, a crime thriller about a young white-passing biracial man who gets implicated in a hate crime when his best friend returns from prison as a white supremacist, was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. His new effort, Devil Is Fine, sounds similarly riveting and thorny: In the wake of his son’s death, a biracial Black father inherits land that was once a plantation.
A Pulitzer Prize winner for her novel A Thousand Acres, author Jane Smiley crafts literary delights, from her moving historical Last Hundred Years trilogy to her wonderful, animal-led adventure, Perestroika in Paris. Lucky features Jodie Rattler, a folk musician from St. Louis who, through some blend of fate, chance and hard work, becomes a national star.
Following his acerbic satire of modern office life, Black Buck, the widely acclaimed National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree is back with This Great Hemisphere, a speculative novel. In a far-off future world where some people are literally more visible than others, an invisible woman named Candace searches for her older brother, who is wanted for murder.
It’s hard to think of another current author with Akwaeke Emezi’s genre-disrupting range. After following up their bestselling literary novel The Death of Vivek Oji with the gorgeous romance You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty, Emezi is pivoting again, this time in a darker direction. Following five friends over the course of one chaotic, devastating weekend, the thrilling Little Rot is sure to be a page turner, and we can’t wait.
The stunning, evocative cover of this historical novel is reason enough to add it to your TBR: a lone woman in red walks through winter wilderness, reflected in a frozen pond as a snow-white fox. Of course, readers of The Night Tiger would be eagerly awaiting Yangsze Choo’s next book even if the cover were a paper bag. This epic adventure set in Manchuria at the very end of the Qing Dynasty promises to bring together mystery and legend to vibrant effect.
Magical and multifaceted, Julia Alvarez’s meditation on creativity, culture and aging, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is a triumph.
Téa Obreht’s latest novel, The Morningside, soars in its depiction of an alternative world frighteningly similar to our own.
Xochitl Gonzalez is back with a campus novel entwining the stories of two women: an artist, Anita de Monte, who died mysteriously in 1985, and an art history student, Raquel, who is determined to uncover what happened to Anita and bring new attention to her art. Like she did in her bestselling, award-winning debut, Olga Dies Dreaming, Gonzalez turns a sharp, thoughtful eye to the costs of success, this time in the elitist, and often racist and sexist, worlds of art and academia.
If you’re looking for a bit of mystery, whimsical characters and a keen sense of place, Other Birds offers all these delights and more.
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