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| Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieThis long-awaited latest by the author of Americanah centers on four African women in America. Nigerian travel writer Chiamaka isolates alone in the Maryland suburbs during COVID, pondering her exes. Meanwhile her Washington, D.C. lawyer best friend longs for marriage, her practical cousin starts an MBA program, and her beloved housekeeper is sexually assaulted by a powerful man. Read-alikes: Nikki May's This Motherless Land; Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi's Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions. |
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The Float Test
by Lynn Steger Strong
The Kenner siblings are at odds. Jenn is a harried mom struggling under the weight of family obligations. Fred is a novelist who can’t write, maybe because she’s lost faith in storytelling itself. Jude is a recovering corporate lawyer with her own story to tell, and a grudge against her former favorite sister, Fred. George, the baby, is estranged from his wife and harboring both a secret about his former employer and an ill-advised crush on one of his sisters’ friends. Gathered after a major loss, each sibling needs the others more than ever—if only they could trust each other. Over the course of a sweltering Florida summer, the Kenner siblings will revisit what it means to be a family.
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Optional Practical Training
by Shubha Sunder
Told as a series of conversations, Optional Practical Training follows Pavitra, a young Indian woman who came to the US for college from India, and graduates with a degree in physics. Her student visa grants her an extra twelve months in the country for work experience—a period known as Optional Practical Training—so she takes a position as a teacher at a private high school. What Pavitra really wants, though, is the time to finish a novel—to diverge from what’s expected of her. Navigating her year of OPT, she finds that each person she encounters expects something from her too.
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Big Chief
by Jon Hickey
Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe's Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack's reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack's estranged sister and Mitch's former love. The campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go--and what they will sacrifice--to win it all.
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| Loca by Alejandro HerediaIn this moving, character-driven debut novel that's perfect for book clubs, two 20-something best friends from the Dominican Republic adapt to late 1990s New York. Shy science nerd Sal finds love at a gay club, while beleaguered Charo navigates motherhood, work, family obligations, and a troubled relationship. Read-alike: Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly. |
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| Twist by Colum McCannIn 2019, off the west coast of Africa, Irish writer Anthony Fennell plans a longform article about the people who mend underwater fiber optic cables to keep the internet going. But there's danger ahead for Fennell, his fellow Irishman captain, and the captain's Black actor girlfriend, who's in England for a job. This lyrical latest by Colum McCann is "another astounding novel from a fiction master" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghyOn a remote island between Australia and Antarctica, widowed dad Dominic and his three kids live in an old lighthouse and try to keep a United Nations seed vault safe. During a powerful storm caused by climate change, a mysterious woman washes ashore, changing all of their lives in this suspenseful tale. Read-alikes: Jessie Greengrass' The High House; Eiren Caffall's All the Water in the World. |
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The Family Recipe
by Carolyn Huynh
Duc Tran, the eccentric founder of the Vietnamese sandwich chain Duc’s Sandwiches, has decided to retire. No one has heard from his wife, Evelyn, in two decades. She abandoned the family without a trace, and clearly doesn’t want anything to do with Duc, the business, or their kids. But the money has to go to someone. With the help of the shady family lawyer, Duc informs his five estranged children that to receive their inheritance, his four daughters must revitalize run-down shops in old-school Little Saigon locations across America: Houston, San Jose, New Orleans, and Philadelphia—within a year. But if the first-born (and only) son, Jude, gets married first, everything will go to him.
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| The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson WalkerPresented as a doctor's case study notes and as letters written by the subject to her young son, this thought-provoking, slow-burn novel focuses on single Brooklyn mom Jane, who'd previously had a strong memory but now suffers from amnesia and hallucinations. Her psychiatrist, who has his own troubles, looks for answers in this "haunting and sublime" (Booklist) tale. |
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