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| Men Like Ours by Bindu BansinathThe Sharma family's friend Matthew Pillai charms everyone in their Indian American neighborhood in New Jersey, so his odd death sets tongues wagging. At the center of the story is newly widowed Anita Sharma, who immigrated as part of an unhappy arranged marriage, and her teen daughter Leila, whom Matthew spent a lot of time with.
Try this next: Shobha Rao's Indian Country. |
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| Good Joy, Bad Joy by Mikki BrammerAt 89, widowed Joy Bridport lives alone, though she has daily check-ins with her longtime best friend Hazel to make sure they are both still kicking. When cancer leaves adventurous Hazel with just months to live, it makes Joy question her own sedate life, leading to risk-taking, rule-breaking, and petty crime in this moving and heart-warming story about friendship, grief, and second chances.
Read-alikes: Hillary Yablon's Sylvia's Second Act; Marianne Cronin's Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love. |
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| Bumblebee Season by Eileen GarvinJake, who's paralyzed below his waist, can't gather all the honey from his dozens of hives alone. With locals uninterested, he takes on Flaco, an undocumented teen fleeing violence. In Oregon studying bumblebees, neurodivergent doctoral student Abigail and her research team members also agree to help with the harvest. Then, after a local politician causes trouble, they all band together in this sweet tale. Though Bumblebee Season continues Jake's story from The Music of Bees, it works well as a standalone. |
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Villa Coco
by Andrew Sean Greer
An aspiring archivist takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man, complicating his future plans considerably. And when Coco loses someone close to her, he becomes an unwitting accomplice in the acceleration of Coco's final plan: to locate the love of her life and be reunited before it's too late.
For fans of One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle.
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Palaces of the Crow
by Ray Nayler
Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist, has befriended a local flock of crows in her shtetl. Czeslaw is an underage Polish soldier who deserts the Red Army and runs into the freezing Lithuanian woods. Kezia is a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization. As the war goes on, the crows warn them of danger and help them hide from the human threats of the forest.
For fans of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
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Land
by Maggie O'Farrell
On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tom and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Land is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away.
For fans of North Woods by Daniel Mason.
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| Livonia Chow Mein by Abigail Savitch-LewCovering Brooklyn's Brownsville area, 23-year-old reporter Sadie Chin connects with community organizer Lina Rodriguez Armstrong. Back in 1978, Lina ran a small school in her apartment, but an arsonist burned down her tenement. Locals blame Mr. Wong, owner of a restaurant in one of the buildings, leading Sadie to investigate the 40-year-old fire. Covering four generations of Wongs, this compelling debut novel looks at race and gentrification.
For fans of: Richard Price's Lazarus Man. |
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A Fortune of Sand
by Ruta Sepetys
Marjorie Lennox is the youngest daughter of a powerful Detroit dynasty--a family rich in money and poor in charm. Marjorie has spent her life overlooked by her controlling father and self-absorbed siblings. But when she secretly applies to an elite arts program backed by a mysterious patron, she grabs the chance to finally step out of her family's shadow. The building is grand. The talent is extraordinary. And something is deeply wrong.
For fans of The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis.
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| The Left and the Lucky by Willy VlautinKind-hearted Oregon house painter Eddie Wilkens tries to help others, like his three employees, one of whom struggles with addiction and isn't close to reliable. But his biggest impact may be on Russell, the neglected eight-year-old neighbor boy who's bullied by his violent teenage brother. Eddie and Russell develop a father-son dynamic, which helps them both in this authentic, heartfelt novel about grief, found family, and dealing with tough times.
Try this next: Mary Lawson's A Town Called Solace. |
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| Seek Immediate Shelter by Vincent YuResidents of a small town populated by mostly Asian Americans, all receive a cell phone alert that they should seek immediate shelter as a missile is inbound. This leads to a multitude of reactions: some people run, some try to protect others, and others share feelings they normally hide.
For fans of Flashlight by Susan Choi.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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