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 Under the RadarMarch 2026 |
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A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing
by Alice Evelyn Yang
A devastating yet hopeful family saga set during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Cultural Revolution, and the present day that explores the effects of intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism, and the inescapability of fate through the prism of Chinese and Japanese folklore--Provided by publisher.
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Burn Down Master's House
by Clay Cane
Inspired by true, long-buried stories of enslaved people who dared to fight back, a searing portrayal of resistance for readers of Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett, from Clay Cane, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Grift. INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY BESTSELLER As turmoil simmers within a divided nation, smoke from another blaze begins to rise. Sparked by individual acts of resistance among those enslaved across the American South, their seemingly disparate rebellions fuel a singular inferno of justice, connecting them in ways quiet at times, explosive at others. As these flames rise, so will they. Luke, quick-witted and literate, and Henri, a man with a strong and defiant spirit, forge an unbreakable bond at a Virginia plantation called Magnolia Row. Both seek escape from unimaginable cruelty. And sure as the fires of hell, Luke and Henri will leave their mark, sparking resistance among the lives they touch... One is Josephine, a young, sharp, and observant girl who wields silence as her greatest weapon. A witness to Luke and Henri's resilience, she listens, watches, waits for the moment to make her move. Then there is Charity Butler, her husband a formerly enslaved man who proved his ferocity as a young boy standing alongside Josephine. At his encouragement, Charity fights for her freedom in court and wins - only to battle a deeply unjust system designed to destroy the life they've built. And finally, there is Nathaniel, who ruthlessly exploits other Black people and mirrors the cruelty of the white men who, like him, are enslavers. A perversion of the system of slavery, his fragile and contradictory rule will become a catalyst of its own. Inspired by the true stories of the profoundly courageous men and women who dared to fight back, Burn Down Master's House is a singular tour de force of a novel--breathtaking in scope, compassion, and a timeliness that speaks powerfully to our present era.
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Eating Ashes
by Brenda Navarro
SOON TO BE A MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY DIEGO LUNAAn arrestingly beautiful, award-winning novel about separation, migration, and love left behind.
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Every Happiness
by Reena Shah
Every Happiness is a dazzling debut that explores the ties that bind two women across decades and continents despite rivalry, class difference, and the conflicting needs of family and self.
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Just Watch Me
by Lior Torenberg
Fleabag meets Big Swiss in this bold debut about a charismatic misfit who livestreams her life for seven days and nights to raise money to save her comatose sister--a poignant and darkly funny exploration of grief, forgiveness, and redemption. Dell Danvers is barely keeping it together. She's behind on rent for her studio apartment (formerly a walk-in closet), she's being plagued by perpetual stomach pain, and her younger sister, Daisy, is in a coma at a hospital that wants to pull the plug. Freshly unemployed and subsisting on selling plants to trust fund kids, Dell impulsively starts a 24-hour livestream under the username mademoiselle
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Missing Sam
by Thrity Umrigar
A tense and twisty story of a woman who goes missing on a morning run and her wife's determination to both find her and clear her own name--from the bestselling author of Honor. One night after a party, old grievances surface between married couple Aliya and Sam and the night ends badly with a heated argument. Sam goes for a run early the next morning to clear her head--and doesn't come back. Aliya reports her wife missing, but as a gay, Muslim daughter of immigrants, she can't escape the scrutiny and suspicion of those around her. Scared and furious and feeling isolated as strangers and acquaintances alike doubt her innocence, Aliya makes one wrong choice after another. She must fight to prove her innocence in the public eye even as she is torn between her fear that Sam is dead and her desire to find and save her wife. But is safety ever truly possible for them? A provocative examination of suburban mores, Missing Sam captures the terror manifested in today's political climate, and the real dangers, both physical and psychological, of being brown and queer in America.
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The Old Fire
by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Vivid and intriguing...Evokes unresolved family history with subtle heat. --The New York Times From National Book Award-winning Elisa Shua Dusapin, a subtle yet powerful portrayal of family, secrets, and silence set against the backdrop of a crumbling house in the French countryside--perfect for readers of Katie Kitamura and Elena Ferrante. A bewitching meditation on tenderness and violence, intimacy and estrangement, The Old Fire will transport you to an ancient and wild place, immersing you in its temperatures and rainfalls, its grief and grace and sound and silence. You won't be the same when you leave it. --Tess Gunty, National Book Award-winning author of The Rabbit Hutch Through the window, I can see a light inside. Agathe leaves New York and returns to her home in the French countryside, after fifteen years away. She and her sister V ra have not seen each other in all those years, and they carry the weight of their own complicated lives. But now their father has died, and they must confront their childhood home on the outskirts of a country estate ravaged by a nearby fire before it is knocked down. They have nine days to empty it. As the pair clean and sift through a lifetime's worth of belongings, old memories, and resentments surface. Tender and tense, haunting and evocative, The Old Fire is Elisa Shua Dusapin's most personal and moving novel yet. An exploration of time and memory, of family and belonging, it is also a graceful and profound look at the unsaid and the unanswered, the secrets that remain, and whether you can ever really go home again. A touching, mysterious novel, imbued with the beauty and strangeness of a fairy tale. --Ayseg l Savas, author of The Anthropologists Dusapin has a rare and ferocious gift for pinning the quick, slippery, liveness of feeling to the page: Her talent is a thrill to behold. --Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
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On Sundays She Picked Flowers
by Yah Yah Scholfield
A ferociously talented writer. Scholfield writes with insight, beauty, and the wildness of real art. --Victor LaValle In this sinister and surreal Southern Gothic debut, a woman escapes into the uncanny woods of southern Georgia and must contend with ghosts, haints, and most dangerous of all, the truth about herself. When Judith Rice fled her childhood home, she thought she'd severed her abusive mother's hold on her. She didn't have a plan or destination, just a desperate need to escape. Drawn to the forests of southern Georgia, Jude finds shelter in a house as haunted by its violent history as she is by her own. Jude embraces the eccentricities of the dilapidated house, soothing its ghosts and haints, honoring its blood-soaked land. And over the next thirteen years, Jude blossoms from her bitter beginnings into a wisewoman, a healer. But her hard-won peace is threatened when an enigmatic woman shows up on her doorstep. The woman is beautiful but unsettling, captivating but uncanny. Ensnared by her desire for this stranger, Jude is caught off guard by brutal urges suddenly simmering beneath her skin. As the woman stirs up memories of her escape years ago, Jude must confront the calls of violence rooted in her bloodline. Haunting and thought-provoking, On Sunday She Picked Flowers explores retribution, family trauma, and the power of building oneself back up after breaking down. One of the most visceral, intense, brutal, and yet honest, works of horror I have read in a long time. --P. Dj l Clark Scholfield tells a story that's as haunting as it is cathartic, as beautiful as it is devastating. --Arts Atlanta
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Rebel English Academy
by Mohammed Hanif
Unnervingly funny and subversive . . . this account of life under authoritarian siege is fiercely local and incontestably universal, harrowing and mutinously entertaining: a sure-fire Booker contender.--The GuardianFrom the brilliant Booker-longlisted Mohammed Hanif comes a lively, rich novel about the power of language, friendship, and protest in the face of political turmoilWhen Pakistan's first elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is hanged, the people of OK Town refuse to believe he is dead and fight to bring him back.In the heart of the city, Sir Baghi is surprised by a knock at the door of the Rebel English Academy, his tuition center offering affordable English lessons. An unexpected visitor, Sabiha, seeks refuge at the Academy--her husband has just died in a house fire, and she is suspected of killing him, although she insists she only ran away from a burning building. Baghi encourages Sabiha to write, and a lifetime of secrets begin to unspool on the page.Meanwhile Captain Gul, a disgraced intelligence officer, has been banished to OK Town, where he aims to squash the protesters wanting to bring Bhutto back from the dead. But his duties and romantic desires begin to overlap, and his already dubious power is threatened.In Rebel English Academy, Pakistan is struggling under martial law after the execution of its former leader. Mohammed Hanif has constructed a vibrant cast of interconnected characters who face this changing landscape with violence, passion, and sharp humor. Wry, searing, and deeply relevant, Rebel English Academy is a triumphant new novel about political power, religion, education, sexuality, and perpetual dissent.
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Saraswati
by Gurnaik Johal
As a holy river miraculously returns, seven lives change course in this masterpiece debut by a rising literary star. Inventive and polyphonic. Johal's novel explores a wide range of ideas and locations.--The New York Times Book Review Centuries ago, the myths say, the holy river Saraswati flowed through what is now Northern India. But when Satnam arrives in his ancestral village for his grandmother's funeral, he is astonished to find water in the long-dry well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious scheme to unearth the lost river and build a gleaming new city on its banks, and Satnam--adrift from his job, girlfriend, and flat back in London--soon finds himself swept up in this ferment of Hindu nationalist pride. As the river alters Satnam's course, so it reveals buried ties to six distant relatives scattered across the globe - from an ambitious writer with her eye on legacy to a Kenyan archaeologist to a Bollywood stunt double - who are brought together in a rapidly changing India. Brimming with love, lust, violence and loss, Gurnaik Johal's magisterial novel deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories, our lands and each other.
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