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Speak to Me of Home
by Jeanine Cummins
On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but she marries Peter Brennan Jr. anyway in a blaze of romantic optimism. She has no way of knowing how dramatically her life will change when she uproots her young family to start over in the American Midwest, unleashing a fleet of disappointments.
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| The Correspondent by Virginia EvansIn 2012 Maryland, we meet 73-year-old Sybil Van Antwerp, a mother, grandmother, and retired lawyer, who spends time each week writing to family, friends, and authors she admires. Detailing her past, present, future, and favorite books, this moving epistolary tale and accomplished debut covers nearly a decade of an intriguing life. For fans of: Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge; Beth Morrey's The Love Story of Missy Carmichael. |
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| The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla BarnesHelping her retired British parents at their ramshackle French country house, 40-something Miranda reports back to her sister that she has the “usual desire to kill" as she deals with their idiosyncrasies and plans for her mom's upcoming surgery. This witty, moving debut by an actor and playwright spotlights adult child-parent relationships, sibling rivalry, and marriage. Try this next: The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones.
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| Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. SmithWith a workaholic father and a mother who only shows up for annual road trips, the four Endicott kids grow extraordinarily close. Now adults and estranged from each other, they reunite at the behest of their Academy Award nominee sister in a small North Dakota town, where they're soon snowed in. Covering numerous years and locations, this moving character-driven novel is full of heart. Read-alike: Long After We Are Gone by Terah Shelton Harris. |
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The Satisfaction Cafe
by Kathy Wang
Joan Liang's life is a series of surprising developments: she never thought she would leave Taiwan (and for all places, California), nor did she expect her first marriage to implode - especially as quickly and spectacularly as it did. She definitely did not expect to fall in love with an older, wealthy American and become his fourth wife and mother to his youngest children. Through all this she asks herself the question familiar to so many of us: what are we living for? And are we ever truly satisfied?
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| The Names by Florence KnappCora Atkin is off to register her baby's name when nine-year-old Maia suggests they call the baby Bear instead of Gordon, which her father has insisted upon. Cora's pick? Julian. Tracing the results of each choice over 35 years, this thought-provoking novel and Read with Jenna selection presents a complex story about fate, family, and abuse. Read-alike: The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano by Donna Freitas. |
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| The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean VuongIn a dying Connecticut town, 19-year-old Hai, who struggles with addiction, is on a bridge ready to end it all when Grazina, an elderly Lithuanian widow with dementia, yells at him. Becoming her caretaker in a rundown house by the river, Hai gets work at a fast food place and finds a home there too. Both heartwarming and heartbreaking, Ocean Vuong's lyrical second novel is an Oprah Book Club pick. Try these next: Joe Wilkins' The Entire Sky; Julie Otsuka's The Swimmers. |
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Pictures of Him
by Clare Leslie Hall
Catherine lives an enviably normal life with her loving husband, Sam, and their two children. But many parts of her past are shrouded in mystery…and that’s the way she likes it. Keeping the past buried keeps her safe. When a former flame resurfaces, something inside of Catherine gives way, releasing a flood of trauma she had thought was buried long ago.
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Bitter Sweet
by Hattie Williams
When a young book publicist finds herself in an all-consuming workplace affair with her literary idol, she learns that the things you love most can sometimes be the very things that tear you apart in this intoxicating and moving debut novel.
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What a Time to Be Alive
by Jenny Mustard
Some people move to the big city hoping to find themselves, but young Sickan Hermansson isn't leaving it up to chance. Twenty-one, friendless, without money but not without hope, Sickan's arrival at Stockholm University represents a new start. Her lonely childhood in a small southern town has left her utterly unprepared for intimacy: for friends, for sex, for love even. But Sickan is determined to build a new version of herself from the ground up, to make up for lost time. To simply be normal.
Just as Sickan seems to be finding her first ever friends, in whose company she finally feels safe, she meets Abbe: beautiful, charming—and by some miracle he wants her too. Unlike Sickan, Abbe seems completely at ease in his own skin. A solid foundation then, on which to build a relationship? Maybe?
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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