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Fiction A to Z December 2021 |
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For your convenience, beginning in January we will be consolidating our newsletters into one, all-encompassing newsletter. Suggestions from each individual genre will now be included in the new newsletter format on a rotating basis. The separate newsletters for these genres are now discontinued. |
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| Five Tuesdays in Winter: Stories by Lily KingWhat it is: a short story collection from a novelist the Chicago Tribune describes as "wildly talented." These short stories explore strength, grief, violence -- but at the edges of it all, a longing for love. Unlikely pairings appear throughout, from college students who offer unexpected refuge to a teen house sitter, to complex mother-daughter relationships laced with a bitter bite and a youthful nanny's obsession with Jane Eyre.
What to read next: Readers captivated by the yearning, bittersweet elements of King's short stories will find similarly moving, character-driven fare in the debut collection Objects of Desire by Clare Sestanovich. |
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| Harsh Times by Mario Vargas LlosaThe setup: 1950s Guatemala is a powder keg of big business and political turmoil, which the CIA leverages to cement US interests. A 1954 coup ousts President Arbenz; his successor, Castillo Armas, is assassinated after only three years in power. But it is Armas' lover, Marta, who drives much of the story -- first as his advisor...then as his betrayer.
Read it for: a riveting exploration of the shadowlands where political history and fiction meet, when -- decades later -- a writer (implied to be a stand-in for Vargas Llosa himself) interviews Marta on her role in events.
Critical acclaim: "History here gets a compelling human face through an artist’s dramatic brilliance" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| O Beautiful by Jung YunStarring: forty-ish Elinor, a former model and would-be journalist whose Korean mother abandoned the family when Elinor was just a pre-teen.
What happens: Elinor's former lover (and writing mentor) sends her back to her hometown of Avery, North Dakota, to cover a story on the town's explosive oil boom and its aftereffects. As Elinor investigates, she must confront the town's sharp divides of race, class, and gender -- and her own unresolved identity issues.
What's the buzz? "Yun successfully takes on a host of hot button subjects, drilling through them with her protagonist’s laser-eyed focus" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| This Time Next Year by Sophie CousensWhat happens: New Year babies Minnie and Quinn (with Quinn in the lead) are born just minutes apart in London, on January 1, 1990. While Quinn seems born under a lucky star, Minnie's misfortunes multiply...especially on her birthday. After decades of near-misses, their 30th birthdays finally see them brought together.
Why you might like it: This rom-com read delivers a likeable blend of destiny, mischance, and zany humor in the vein of Bridget Jones' Diary. Perfect seasonal reading to kick off 2022! |
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| Fifty Words for Rain by Asha LemmieWhat it's about: Born in the aftermath of WWII as the illegitimate child of a Japanese noblewoman and a Black American GI, at age eight Nori Kamiza is left with her strict Japanese grandparents. She is locked away for years, beaten regularly, and subjected to bleach baths as they try to erase her biracial identity. Nori eventually escapes and finds refuge with her half-brother, Akira. However, her fate is far from a pat happily ever-after.
Read it for: a sweeping and heartwrenching coming-of-age story set against the tides of war and a family's struggle with the particular (often cruel) norms of their time and place. |
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| His Only Wife by Peace Adzo MedieStarring: young Ghanaian Afi Tekple, who escapes poverty with an arranged marriage to wealthy Eli, who does not attend his own wedding and prioritizes his business (and his mistress) over Afi.
What happens: Making full use of her new family's connections, Afi learns new skills and gains confidence -- and soon wants to be the only woman in her husband's life.
Reviewers say: "an emotional rollercoaster" (Booklist). |
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| My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth RussellWhere it starts: Fifteen-year-old Vanessa, struggling with the loss of her best friend, finds herself drawn into an illicit affair with her English teacher at a Maine boarding school.
Where it goes: Seventeen years later, a younger student is raising allegations of sexual misconduct by the same professor. A dual narrative emerges, in which an adult Vanessa must confront her past and reframe its reality in a post-#MeToo society.
Have a taste: "Because even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else's mouth the word turns ugly and absolute...It swallows me and all the times I wanted it, begged for it." |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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