Culpeper County Library271 Southgate Shopping Center, Culpeper, Virginia 22701 | 540-825-8691https://www.cclva.org |
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Fiction A to Z October 2026 |
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The Strangers
by Naomi Alderman
From the bestselling author of The Power comes a part memoir, part speculative novel, following a writer wrestling with grief even as a new species is discovered, forcing humans to reconsider what it means to share our planet. They came from nowhere, and now they are everywhere. A few months after her mother dies, the novelist Naomi Alderman sets up a wildlife camera in the back garden of her parents' home. It captures the first image of a strange new animal. Low to the ground, about the size of a badger, flat face, long, trunk-like nose. Suddenly these mimmoths are as common as foxes or dogs. And no one knows where they've come from. As Alderman negotiates the territory of grief--a place with its own logic and rhythms--the mimmoths spread. From the UK east and west, to the United States, to Russia, to India. They seem harmless, but oddly intelligent. They cannot be captured, they will not take food from humans, they have their own purposes. Alderman cannot shake the feeling that she has a particular connection to the creatures. Or is she just succumbing to 'mimmoth psychosis'? As the impact of the mimmoths increases, she is pulled into the cross currents of conspiracy theories and global power struggles. Have her deeply personal forms of mourning lent recent events a surreal air, or is our reality changing drastically and irrevocably?
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| Under Story by Chloe BenjaminAfter a terrible loss and then a divorce, grieving Wisconsin scientist Laurel Salter takes a job washing dishes at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. When a surreal light suddenly appears near the research base, it becomes known as the Arc and draws in more scientists, including Laurel’s ex, Eli. Believing the light is evidence of Eli’s theory of a second universe where time moves backward, Laurel tries to talk him into entering the Arc. For fans of: GMA Book Club books; Scott Alexander Howard’s The Other Valley. |
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| Dèy by Edwidge DanticatAfter gunfire rings out in a Miami mall, Haitian American real estate agent Magnolia, who’d been shopping for her nine-year-old daughter’s birthday gift, shelters in place at the Oasis restaurant. Surviving the traumatic event, she goes home and doesn’t share with anyone that she was there when the shooting happened. But as everyday life goes on, she struggles, questioning her relationships while examining the past and the present. Try this next: Francesca Momplaisir's The Garden of Broken Things. |
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Mazywood
by Tananarive Due
When Johnny--a filmmaker and grandson of the famous Black actress Mazelle Washington--brings his family to Mazywood, the secluded California mountain lodge left behind by his grandmother, he expects a quiet retreat. Instead, he uncovers a legacy of rage, secrets, and terror that has haunted his family for generations. Set primarily in the present day, with haunting flashbacks to Hollywood's Golden Age, Mazywood explores three generations while following Johnny as he pieces together the true story of his grandmother. As a young Black actress whose career spanned from the 1920s to the 1940s, Mazelle brushed shoulders with giants like Lena Horne, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel. But beneath her public appearance, she carried a secret she had kept and nurtured since she was a child, when a dark wish came true and changed the course of her life forever. Now, fifty years after Mazelle's death, Johnny finds himself confronting the truth she buried--and the consequences she left behind. For a monster lurks outside Mazywood, hidden for generations, and Johnny brought his family to its hunting grounds.
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| When Lemons Give You Life by Anna JohnstonPretending to have dementia while living in a care home, retired chef Griff Barlow grieves for his beloved late partner. Preparing to end it all, he breaks into the nursing home kitchen to bake one last lemon tart, but sharing it ends up changing his life. Meanwhile, his much younger sister navigates life changes and deals with her sadness that she and Griff are estranged. For fans of: the author's previous novel, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife; Marianne Cronin's Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love. |
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| Sunrise by Téa ObrehtIn 2024, after the small plane her boyfriend was piloting crashes, Nina ends up alone in the Wyoming mountains, where she stumbles upon Sunrise, an abandoned town. In 2003, Coll is putting the finishing touches on Sunrise’s annual historical reenactment when a newcomer upsets things. In 1902, gunslinger Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise after years away. This buzzy novel is the lyrical latest from the author of The Tiger's Wife. Try this next: Elif Shafak's There Are Rivers in the Sky. |
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| The Birthing Tree by Amanda PetersUnder a tree sacred to Mi'kmaq women, Aliet Paul’s mother died giving birth to her. Since her father wasn’t named, Aliet grows up in 1960s and ‘70s Nova Scotia with her Mi'kmaq grandmother Kiju, learning about her midwifery work. But when Aliet is 17, a disturbing event sends her away. After Kiju’s death in the 1990s, Aliet quits her nursing job in the city to return home and reckon with the past. For fans of: Mona Susan Power’s A Council of Dolls. |
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| You'll Love It Here by Natalie SueAfter her estranged dad dies, Mona talks back to a client and is put on leave from her marketing job. Then her elderly landlady lands in the hospital, leading Mona to make a sketchy deal with the woman's niece: Mona will become the temporary super of the building and secretly prep the place for sale. But getting to know her quirky neighbors and the handsome guy at the neighborhood deli has her questioning her priorities. For fans of: engaging stories with heart that explore community and found family. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Culpeper County Library271 Southgate Shopping Center, Culpeper, Virginia 22701 | 540-825-8691https://www.cclva.org |
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