Kin
by Tayari Jones

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother's death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.

Brawler: Stories
by Lauren Groff

Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region-from New England to Florida to California-these nine stories reflect and expand upon a shared theme: the ceaseless battle between humans' dark and light angels.

Good People
by Patmeena Sabit

After fleeing the horrors of war in Afghanistan, the Sharaf family resettles as refugees in Northern Virginia. After many years of hard work, the father has become a millionaire. Now they live in the most exclusive neighborhood, their growing family attending the most prestigious schools. And Zorah, the eldest daughter, is the apple of her father’s eye. When Zorah dies after her car veers off the road, it initially seems like a tragic accident—a rainy night, an inexperienced young driver. But stories start to emerge of Zorah as a daughter who disgraced her family, who cavorted with boys. There is talk that the Sharafs’ perfect teenage daughter was far from perfect. The media seizes on the story, dragging the family into the court of public opinion. Was Zorah’s death a tragic accident, or did she die by the hands of her own family in an “honor killing?”

Saoirse
by Charleen Hurtubise

In Michigan, Sarah's childhood was defined by fear and silence. As a teenager, she saw a chance to escape and took it. Now, in 1999, she is an artist living on the rugged coast of Donegal, Ireland, where she is known as Saoirse (pronounced Sear-sha)—a name that sounds like the sea and means freedom in the language of her adopted country. And free is precisely how she is finally beginning to feel. Her partner and two beloved daughters are regular subjects of her paintings, and together they have made the safe home she always longed for. But Saoirse's secrets haunt her. No one must learn of the identity she has stolen in order to survive; they cannot know of the dangers that she crossed an ocean to escape. When her artwork wins unexpected acclaim at a Dublin exhibition, the spotlight of fame threatens to unravel the careful lies that hold her world together.

The Disappearing Act
by Maria Stepanova

The writer M has lived in the city of B ever since her homeland declared war on a neighboring state. While in exile, she is unable to write and suffers from loneliness, shame, and despair. But then M is invited to give a reading at a literary festival in a nearby country, and after a series of missed connections and mishaps, including losing her phone, she finds herself all alone in the wrong coastal town. She feels a flicker of liberation—the possibility of starting over—but memories of childhood, books, films and tarot cards pull her back, the last fragments of a vanishing world. Then she meets a troupe of circus performers who invite her to join them... In this brief interlude, severed from reality, it seems as if M may finally escape from herself, from her past, from her nationality.

Our Numbered Bones
by Katya Balen

From an award-winning children's novelist, an adult debut about a grieving author who heads to rural England for a writer's retreat, only to stumble upon an incredible historical find. While walking the wetlands one day, Anna stumbles upon an unusual scene. A woman's body is unearthed from the mud, remarkably preserved over thousands of years. And Anna feels like she knows her face. Soon, a team of archaeologists arrive, and Anna begins to frequent the dig site, growing obsessed with the discovery. As past and present collide, she comes to realize that the body holds the key to reconciling her grief and finding catharsis.

Lake Effect
by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

It's 1977 and an air of restlessness has settled on the residents of Cambridge Road in Rochester, New York, a place long fueled by the booming fortunes of Kodak and Xerox and, for some, the mores of the Catholic church. When Nina Larkin is given a copy of The Joy of Sex by her newly divorced friend, she can no longer dismiss the nearly nonexistent intimacy of her marriage. Just as her oldest child, Clara, is falling in love for the first time, Nina finds herself longing for the forbidden: a midlife awakening. An intoxicating fling with a prominent neighbor brings Nina a freedom she never thought possible--but also risks the reputations of both families and unravels Clara's world, just as she stands on the threshold of adulthood.

I Hope You Find What You're Looking for
by Bsrat Mezghebe

The year is 1991. Eritrea is on the verge of liberation from Ethiopian rule and in Washington, D.C.'s tight-knit Eritrean community, change is in the air. Thirteen-year-old Lydia and her family are grappling with what peace after decades of war might mean for their future, just as they welcome Berekhet--a distant cousin newly arrived from Ethiopia to attend medical school in the States. Elsa's path from Eritrea to D.C. was paved with courage and loss, and figures from her past on the front lines of battle begin to resurface. A loving ode to an immigrant community on the cusp of a new age, I Hope You Find What You're Looking For boldly asks: How does our past define our present? And what stories must we let go of to be truly free?

Evil Genius
by Claire Oshetsky

In 1974 San Francisco, nineteen-year-old Celia Dent lives a quiet life working at the phone company and trying to be a good wife to her controlling husband. But when a coworker is murdered during a secret affair, Celia becomes obsessed with thoughts of passion, danger, and what it might mean to live—and die—for love. As her fantasies begin to blur with reality, Celia starts skipping work, visiting a gun range, and imagining a life free from her husband's control—until one night, her dangerous thoughts push her toward a deadly confrontation. Exhilarating, surreal, and bitingly clever, Evil Genius is a comic noir exploring obsession and desire—and what happens when a sweetly seditious young woman dares to imagine a better life.

Our next discussion
Tuesday, April 121, 6:30 pm
Library Meeting Room on Lower Level
If you're a regular reader of contemporary and historical fiction, consider joining our Fiction Book Club! The club usually meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 6:30, but we do recommend confirming details on our events calendar in case of changes. Copies of our next book are on reserve at the Circulation Desk. We hope to see you there!

Tartufo
by Kira Jane Buxton

After narrowly defeating a popular donkey in the mayoral election, Delizia Miccuci faces the decline of the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino, but when local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza discovers a colossal truffle with mysterious potential, the villagers are thrust into an uncertain future.