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Fiction A to Z August 2025 |
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| What Kind of Paradise by Janelle BrownTeenage Jane lives isolated from the outside world in a remote cabin with her beloved father, an enigmatic genius. After discovering disturbing information about him, she flees, finding herself in Silicon Valley in the 1990s. This twisty coming-of-age novel offers intriguing looks at extremism, technology, and humanity. Read-alikes: What Mother Won't Tell Me by Ivar Leon Menger; Godshot by Chelsea Jean Bieker. |
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| The Catch by Yrsa Daley-WardAfter their mother's belongings were found near the Thames River in 1995, young twins Clara and Dempsey were adopted by different families. Now 30, successful author Clara meets a woman who looks exactly as their mom did in the 1990s. While Clara thinks somehow this woman is their mom, administrative clerk Dempsey doesn't, leading to tension between the estranged sisters in this thought-provoking debut novel by a poet and memoirist. Read-alike: August Blue by Deborah Levy. |
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| Kakigori Summer by Emily ItamiThree sisters -- ambitious London finance expert Rei; single mom Kiki, who works at a care home; and young pop star Ai -- reunite at their Japanese childhood home after Ai is caught up in a scandal. Over the summer, they support each other and navigate memories of their troubled mother and their early years, where being half-British and half-Japanese made them outsiders. For fans of: Emily Giffin's The Summer Pact. |
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| The Homemade God by Rachel JoyceNot long after their larger-than-life 76-year-old artist father suddenly marries a 27-year-old they've never met, the four Kemp siblings learn he has drowned in an Italian lake he'd swam in for decades. Descending on the vacation villa during a sweltering heatwave, they meet their enigmatic stepmother, question their dad's mysterious death, hunt for his unfinished masterpiece, and confront long-hidden familial wounds. Read-alike: Lynn Steger Strong's Flight. |
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Fever beach : a novel
by Carl Hiaasen
"The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he'd take him there after finishing an errand." Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads-in pure Hiaasen-style-into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Figgo, it turns out, is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021 he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate war leader. Figgo's already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. Viva Morales is a newly transplanted Floridian, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by herex-husband, now working at the Mink Foundation, a supposedly philanthropical organization, and renting a room in Figgo's apartment because there's no place else she can afford. Twilly Spree has an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment, and way too many inherited millions of dollars. He's living alone a year after his dog died, two years after he sank a city councilman's party barge, and three years after his divorce. Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery-involving dark money and darker motives-they are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasen's most outrageous characters: Claude and Eletra Mink-billionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and asecret right-wing agenda-and Congressman Clure Boyette-who dreams of being Florida's (and maybe America's) most important politician. The only things standing in his way are his love for hookers and young girls, and his total lack of intelligence. We meet Noel Kristianson-a Scandinavian agnostic injured when Figgo thinks he's aJewish threat to humanity and runs him over with his car; Jonus Onus-Figgo's partner in white power idiocy; and many, many more. Hiaasen ties them all together and delivers them totheir appropriate fates, in his wildest and most entertaining novel to date"
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| These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLeanAfter their billionaire patriarch's death, the Storms come together at their New England island. There, they are introduced to Jack, their father's right-hand man and daughter Alice's recent one-night-stand, who says they must all complete individual tasks or no one inherits anything. Bestselling historical romance author Sarah MacLean delivers a fun contemporary family novel that will please fans of HBO's Succession. |
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| The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila MottleyIn the Florida Panhandle, young mothers support each other amid upheavals while others judge and put obstacles in their paths. Three of them narrate: de facto leader Simone, a 20-year-old mother of twins who's pregnant again; newcomer Adela, a champion teen swimmer from Indiana who's been sent to live with her grandmother; and determined Emory, who brings her infant to high school with her. Read-alikes: Sarai Johnson's Grown Women; Brit Bennett's The Mothers. |
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How to seal your own fate : a novel
by Kristen Perrin
"Kristen Perrin is back with the second novel in her Castle Knoll series. Annie Adams is caught in a new web of murder that spans decades, returning us to the idyllic English village that holds layers of secrets"
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| Ordinary Love by Marie RutkoskiShortly after leaving her abusive husband, affluent Emily reconnects with her high school best friend (and first love), Gennifer, now a famous Olympian with a questionable reputation. Will their respective baggage keep them from a second chance at happiness? Try this next: Perris, California by Rachel Stark. |
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| Vera, or Faith by Gary ShteyngartHighly intelligent ten-year-old Vera loves words and lists. She also worries a lot, including about money, her Jewish dad and WASP stepmother divorcing, that they love her brother more, and how to find her Korean mom. This highly anticipated satirical latest from an acclaimed author explores a modern New York family in a politically troubled world. Read-alike: Alice Franklin's Life Hacks for a Little Alien; Eiren Caffall's All the Water in the World. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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