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Leave Your Mess at Home
by Tolani Akinola
The Longe siblings are really botching their parents' American Dream. Sola Longe, eldest daughter, estranged from the family, is secretly back home in Chicago for the first time in a decade. She's a newly single and recently disgraced influencer trying to quietly put her life back together again. The other three Longe siblings aren't doing much better. Anjola is in love with her best friend, who just got engaged to someone else; Karen, a college junior and the baby of the family, is grappling with her sexuality and self-image; and Ola, the golden child with a baby of his own on the way, is questioning his marriage and how to raise a Black son in America. Sola's unexpected return sets them on a crash course towards each other, and when the four siblings find themselves together again at their Nigerian immigrant parents' Thanksgiving table, a decade's worth of secrets and a lifetime of resentments explode to the fore. In the wreckage of their fateful reunion, each Longe is forced to reckon with the past, take stock of what really matters, and find a way back to each other. Big-hearted, hilarious, and wise, Leave Your Mess At Home is a poignant exploration of forgiveness, unconditional love, and becoming who you want to be, asking the question: what do we owe to our families, and what do we owe to ourselves?
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The Photonic Effect
by Mike Chen
A starship captain and her crew face conspiracies and betrayals as they clash with various factions of a galactic civil war in a thrilling space adventure by New York Times bestselling author Mike Chen. The starship Horizon's crew spent ten years trapped across the expanse of space. Now they're finally home--only it's not the home they knew. The Cluster, once a peaceful coalition of planets, has fractured in the wake of civil war. Captain Demora Kim wants nothing more than to protect her surviving crew. It's what she owes them after years of instability and terror. But in times of war, no one is allowed neutrality. After an attack on a mining station leaves thousands dead, Demi's efforts become almost impossible. Every ship is needed on the frontline. Thrust deeper into a conflict she barely understands, Demi considers a bold choice--one that might keep her promises but tip the galaxy further into chaos.
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Ghost Town
by Tom Perrotta
Jimmy Perrini lives in 1970s suburban New Jersey, a few miles from Manhattan, but a world apart. At the end of eighth grade, after tragedy strikes, Jimmy finds himself lost in a fog of grief that alienates him from friends and family, drifting instead into troubling friendships with two older teenagers: one a notorious local burnout with a fast car, an endless supply of weed, and a shaky grasp of reality; the other a smart, eccentric girl, whom Jimmy finds himself drawn to as they become entranced by her Ouija board, which may just offer the only salve to their grief. As a fateful public drama unfolds, Jimmy is torn between the occult beyond and the cold realities of the place he has called home. Narrated by a much older Jimmy, a literary-turned-commercial novelist, Ghost Town reveals how the past haunts the present--the way our ghosts are always with us, even when we think we've left them behind.
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Morsel
by Carter Keane
Lou did what the children of parents with backbreaking, poorly paying jobs are supposed to do: pulled up her bootstraps, went to college, and got an office gig with coworkers who won't stop talking about their multilevel marketing scheme disguised as self-betterment. When Lou accepts a property appraisal assignment in the rural hills of Ohio, she knows it's her last chance to save her job and keep making rent. But she quickly finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere with a sabotaged truck, her dog, and someone--or something--stalking her through the ancient Appalachian woods. If she can't escape the woods in time, she'll see firsthand that her job isn't the only thing that wants to eat her alive. Morsel is The Blair Witch Project meets The Ritual, with a generous helping of The Menu.
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| All Booked Up by Melody CarlsonHaving lost her husband to cancer a year earlier, 61-year-old Riva Owen deals with grief and tries to pay her mortgage. She doesn't want to leave the old Victorian that's been in her family for generations, so after praying, she takes in four women boarders. This leads to new friends and experiences, as well as drama and romantic rivalries in this fun and moving Christian novel about single older women.
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| The Fortune Flip by Lauren Kung JessenSeeking reassurance from a fortune teller, unlucky data analyst Hazel Yen has a run-in (literally) with Logan Wells, a perpetually lucky carpenter with whom she shares a kiss -- and a winning lottery ticket. When they cash in their winnings, their fortunes flip. As they work together to change Logan's (now bad) luck, they find themselves learning more about themselves -- and each other. For fans of: One & Only by Maurene Goo.
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The Pass
by Katriona Chapman
In this keenly observed character study, up-and-coming London chef Claudia struggles to balance the weight of ambition with her personal life.
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Last Night in Brooklyn
by Xochitl Gonzalez
At twenty-six, Alicia Canales Forten feels smothered by her future. She's in a long-distance relationship, living at home with her mother's beliefs, saving up for her wedding to a future doctor. But after Alicia ventures out one night in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, she finds herself lured by the siren song of youth and possibility that the striving crowd of creatives holds, and moves in. No one embodies this milieu more than La Garza, a larger-than-life, up-and-coming fashion designer whose epic house parties fuel neighborhood lore. La Garza's life, observed by Alicia from her apartment across the street, seems to hold the allure and fearlessness Alicia has never dared to imagine for herself. But when Alicia's wealthy banker cousin moves to the neighborhood, she finds herself increasingly drawn into both his and La Garza's precarious lives. Against the backdrop of a potentially life-changing presidential election and a looming once-in-a-generation fiscal crisis, Last Night in Brooklyn explores the dark compromise of the American Dream for people of color living, unknowingly, in the twilight of a cultural moment. It is a story about everything money can buy--and the destruction of what it can't.
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The Island Club
by Nicola Harrison
1956: On idyllic Balboa Island, just off the California coast, life seems peaceful and welcoming. But when the lives of three women begin to unravel in shockingly different ways, an unlikely friendship--and the game of tennis--may be the only thing that can save them. Milly Kinkaid's plan to fix her crumbling marriage seems to be falling apart before it even begins. She believed that moving her young family from Hollywood to Balboa Island might entice her increasingly distant husband to come home earlier after work. Instead, he's barely coming home at all. Society matriarch Sylvia Johnson and her husband have been pillars of their community for decades, and have just recently begun a new business venture: The Island Club, a place for members to swim, play tennis and dine in style. But when she learns that he has been risking their financial security and putting their family's future in grave danger, she's not only poised to lose the club, but the entire community she holds dear. Meanwhile, standoffish loner Adele Lambert's entire world is on the brink of being destroyed if the dark secrets of her past and her hidden identity is revealed. Twenty years ago, she ran from a shameful scandal and left behind the only thing she ever loved. Now, terrified that the anonymity she's spent decades guarding will be exposed, but desperate to stay afloat, she risks everything to return to the game that brought her to her knees all those years before. Set against the sun-drenched beaches of Balboa Island, with its prim and proper 1950s facade, The Island Club is a story of love, loneliness and the lies we tell ourselves--and what can be gained when the truth is finally revealed.
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We Burned So Bright
by Tj Klune
We Burned So Bright follows an elder gay couple on an end-of-the-world road-trip. The road stretched out before them. No other cars, just the headlights on the blacktop. Above, the cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky....Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good long life. Together they've experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world. Now, the world is ending for real. A rogue black hole is coming for Earth and in a month everything and everyone they've ever known will be gone. Suddenly, after 40 years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They're in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it's all over. On the road they meet those who refuse to believe death is coming and those who rush to meet it. But there are also people living their final days as best they know how--impromptu weddings, bright burning bonfires, shared meals, and new friends. And as the black hole draws near, among ball lightning and under a cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky, Don and Rodney will look back on their lives and ask if their best was good enough. Is it enough to burn bright if nothing comes from the ashes?
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Mad Mabel
by Sally Hepworth
Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: eighty-one years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea--or a cutting remark. She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and the whispers start flying. Because Elsie hasn't always been Elsie. Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller--Australia's youngest convicted murderer. But was she really mad, or just misunderstood? Either way, she's kept her secret buried for decades. Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road (armed with stickers, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries); Joan, who appears to have it in for Elsie; and a healthy dose of public interest--the cops are sniffing around, and the media is circling like seagulls at a picnic. So Mabel does what she's always done best--she takes matters into her own hands. Is she a cantankerous old lady with a shady past? A cold-blooded killer with arthritis? Or just someone who's finally ready to tell her side of the story? Sharp, surprising, and wickedly funny, this is the unforgettable story of a woman who's spent a lifetime being underestimated--and is about to prove everyone wrong. Again.
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The Mountains We Call Home: The Book Woman's Legacy
by Kim Michele Richardson
In this standalone and companion novel to the The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek series, our heroine for the ages, legendary book woman, Cussy Lovett, returns home. A powerful testament of strength, survival, and the magic of the printed word, The Mountains We Call Home is wrapped into a vivid portrait of Kentucky life: examining incarceration and criminalization, exploring the effects on the poor and powerless, and tracing the societal consequences of fractured family bonds, along with nostalgic glimpses of a bustling, multifaceted Louisville, and heartwarming portraits of reading efforts in every facet of life. Meticulously researched and richly detailed with a new cast of absorbing and complex characters, this beautifully rendered, authentic Kentucky tale is gritty and heartbreaking and infused with hope, spirit, and courage known only to those with no way out.
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Mrs. Benedict Arnold
by Emma Parry
Peggy Shippen longs for the war she's living through to end. Though not always appreciated at home, she finds her curiosity is welcomed by a lively and influential circle of friends, including a glamorous rising star in the British army, Captain John Andr . When the war separates them, Peggy is devastated--both by his absence and the horrors of ongoing conflict--before finding consolation in a man whose heroics for the Patriots have captured the world's imagination: General Benedict Arnold. As she trades Loyalist balls for Patriot salons, entertaining the most prominent figures of early America, and navigating the country's lethal political currents, she conceives of an audacious scheme to achieve peace and her family's survival, unleashing what would become the most famous act of treason in history.When uncertainty and bloodshed are the only constants, Mrs. Benedict Arnold asks, how far will one woman go for safety?
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| The Survivor by Andrew ReidAfter being fired on his first day, Ben Cross boards a New York City subway and becomes the target of a killer who taunts him with secrets from Ben's past. As bodies fall, disgraced detective Kelly Hendricks races to stop the threat in this tense, fast-paced thriller packed with twists and claustrophobic suspense.
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| This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History by Beverly GagePulitzer Prize-winning historian Beverly Gage's engaging travelogue surveys 250 years of American history via visits to 13 places that have shaped the country, from Independence Hall to Disneyland and everything in between. Try this next: American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed by Isaac Fitzgerald.
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| London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden KeefeIn his richly detailed latest, award-winning journalist Patrick Radden Keefe (Say Nothing) chronicles the shocking death of 19-year-old Zac Brettler in 2019 London, revealing how Brettler's secret life posing as the son of a Russian oligarch spurred his involvement in the city's seedy underworld. For fans of: Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade by Walter Kirn. |
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| Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age by Ibram X. KendiNational Book Award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi's (Stamped from the Beginning) thought-provoking latest details the origins and evolution of the great replacement theory -- the far-right conspiracy that claims white European people are deliberately being replaced by non-white immigrants -- examining how leading politicians in the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and more openly propagate these views. Further reading: The Great White Hoax: Two Centuries of Selling Racism in America by Philip Kadish. |
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| 102 by Matthew CordellSick with a fever of 102, young George goes on a surreal, imaginary adventure in a miniature world. Meticulously cross-hatched ballpoint pen illustrations from Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell provide texture and atmosphere, as well as a wealth of details that reward close reading. For fans of: David Wiesner, Chris Van Allsburg, and Henry Cole. |
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| The Escape Game by Marissa MeyerDespite the fact that a contestant died on the fourth season of reality show The Escape Game, ruthless producers have greenlit a fifth season. Sierra joins the cast to solve high-stakes escape rooms...and find out who murdered her sister. Fans of puzzle-filled mysteries will devour this exhilarating thriller. |
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The Delta Codex
by Deva Fagan
Is there safety in silence? In the city of Danak-Tol, children known as Codexes are chosen to safeguard "echoes"—fragments of ancient knowledge too valuable to destroy but too dangerous to use. Forbidden to speak lest she accidentally release her echo, codex Delta lives a lonely life. Still, she knows she must obey the wardens’ strict rules to keep her home safe from the vicious beasts, heretical Scrappers, and toxic blood storms that lurk beyond the city walls. But when Delta breaks her vows to help a young girl escape a blood storm, she begins to have strange dreams, which lead her to question everything she knows to be true about herself and her city. To find answers, Delta must journey to the one place she most fears: the wasteland beyond the walls of Danak-Tol.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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