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Fiction A to Z - November 2025 |
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| The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih AlameddineMoving back and forth in time while covering COVID-19, Lebanon’s civil war (1975-1990), and more, this funny, moving examination of family and fortitude centers on Raja, a gay philosophy teacher and writer who lives with his elderly mother in Beirut. A National Book Award finalist, this accomplished novel will please fans of Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness. |
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Bog Queen
by Anna North
National Bestseller In the gorgeous new novel by the New York Times bestselling author of Outlawed, a strangely well-preserved Iron Age body turns up in an English bog, and the American forensic anthropologist on the case is thrust into an absorbing, complex mystery (People magazine).
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| We Love You, Bunny by Mona AwadSamantha Mackey returns to the New England campus where she first met the Bunnies, the wealthy, strangely symbiotic fellow MFA students she based her bestselling first novel on. But unhappy with how Sam has portrayed them, the women kidnap Sam to tell their own stories, covering events before, during, and after those depicted in the witty, creepy, and satirical 2019 book Bunny. |
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The Oasis
by Anne Buist & Graeme Simsion
Trainee psychiatrist Doctor Hannah Wright is thrown into the deep end of the outpatient clinic at Menzies Hospital. While Hannah comes under pressure to seek therapy herself to confront a traumatic past, her patients' health issues range from OCD to ice addiction, childhood abuse to the mental impact of aging, and from bad parenting to bad genes.
Menzies Mental Health (2)
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| The Book of Guilt by Catherine ChidgeyIn the alternate world rendered here, World War II ended in 1943 with a peace treaty. Now it's 1979, and 13-year-old triplet boys are the only children left in a regimented English orphanage. Nearby, a 13-year-old girl grows up with parents but isn't allowed outside. Narrated by one of the boys, the girl, and a governmental official, this is a slow-burn, thought-provoking story that book clubs will appreciate.
For another dystopian literary tale focused on children, try Ali Smith's Gliff. |
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The Devil Is a Southpaw
by Brandon Hobson
Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented Cherokee artist, ever since they were locked up together in a dangerous juvenile detention center in the late 1980s. Until Matthew escaped, that is. A novel within a novel, we read here Milton's dark, sometimes comic, and possibly unreliable account of the story of their childhood even as, years later, he remains jealous of Matthew's extraordinary abilities and unlikely success. Milton reveals secrets about their friendship, their families, and their nightmarish, surreal, experience of imprisonment. In revisiting the past, he explores the echoing traumas of incarceration and pride.
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| The Phoebe Variations by Jane HamiltonThis character-driven coming-of-age novel finds an elderly Phoebe flashing back to the pivotal summer of 1976. Wrapping up high school and preparing for college, she is pushed by her adoptive mother to meet her birth mother. Unexpected revelations from that visit lead Phoebe to run away, moving into a friend's house where she thinks she won't be noticed among his 13 siblings.
For fans of: leisurely paced stories exploring family relationships, teenage friendship, and self-discovery. |
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Workhorse
by Caroline Palmer
'Working Girl' meets 'The Devil Wears Prada' and 'Yellowface' in this wickedly funny debut novel following a scheming social climber. 'Workhorse' is set against the glamor and privilege of media and high society in New York City at its height and is about the outrageous sacrifices women must make for the sake of success.
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| Vianne by Joanne HarrisSet six years prior to the events in the bestselling Chocolat, this charming prequel finds a pregnant Vianne, who has recently scattered her mother's ashes in New York, working in a bistro in in Marseille, France, and discovering the magic of chocolate. But she has secrets and choices to make in this sweet blend of literary fiction and magical realism. |
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Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way
by Elaine Feeney
When Claire O’Connor leaves London to care for her dying father, she leaves everything behind. She constructs a routine, spending days at work and evenings on the internet, inspired by influencers as she fixes up the house, but memories of the place, both her own and those of her ancestors, can’t be tidied away. As old secrets come to light, Claire must confront the ways that the past creates the future - and in finding her own way, learn to face herself.
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| A Guardian and a Thief by Megha MajumdarIn a near-future Kolkata, India, climate change causes flooding and famine. Ma, her elderly father, and her young daughter have precious visas to join Ma’s scientist husband in Michigan. But a desperate resident of the shelter where Ma works follows her, convinced she’s skimming resources, and steals the documents. For seven days, Ma looks for the thief in this moving story that’s a National Book Award finalist.
Try these next: Susanna Kwan’s Awake in the Floating City; Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind. |
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The Women of Wild Hill
by Kirsten Miller
Five generations of Sadie's descendants called Wild Hill home, each generation more powerful than the last. Then, in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, the last of the Duncans, once prophesized to be the most powerful of their kind, abandoned their ancestral home. One of them, Brigid Laguerre, moved to California and turned her dark gift into fame and fortune. Her sister Phoebe settled on a ranch in Texas, where women visit in secret for her tonics and cures. Phoebe's daughter Sibyl has become a famous chef. Seemingly powerless, Sibyl has never been told of the Duncan bloodline. Now Brigid, Phoebe, and Sibyl have been brought to Wild Hill to discover their family legacy. The Old One, furious at the path mankind has taken, has chosen three powerful witches to turn the tide. The Duncans will fulfill their destinies--but only if they can set aside their grievances and come together as a family--
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| Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron RindoIn a small Wisconsin town, an unwed Amish woman dies giving birth to a son without naming his father. Raised by family members, the kind-hearted boy grows over eight feet tall and finds success in athletics, which takes him into the wider world. Narrated by his grandmother, a veterinarian, a bar owner, and a football coach, this moving story has “unforgettable characters…[and] is a must-read” (Kirkus Reviews).
For fans of: fantastical, lyrical coming-of-age novels. |
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Bad Bad Girl
by Gish Jen
'Bad Bad Girl' is a novel about a mother and a daughter forced to reckon with each other across decades of curiosity and ambition, elation and disappointment, intense intimacy and misunderstanding. Spanning continents and generations, this is a heartbreaking portrait of two fierce women locked in a complicated lifelong embrace.
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The Ex-Boyfriend's Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee
by Saki Kawashiro
Based on the author’s true heartbreak story that went viral, 'The Ex-Boyfriend's Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee' is a charming debut novel about a woman who gets over a breakup by cooking her ex’s favourite recipe, and encourages others to do the same.
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The Ten Year Affair
by Erin Somers
A sliding-doors novel about a chance meeting between two young parents, both happily married (just not to each other) that sparks a will-they-won't-they romance.
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Big Kiss, Bye-Bye
by Claire-Louise Bennett
'Big Kiss, Bye-Bye' explores the mystery of how people come into and go out of our lives, leaving us forever in their grasp. Uprooted by circumstance from city to deep countryside, a woman lives in temporary limbo, visited by memories of everyone she’s left behind, and in doing so, tries to divine the essence of intimacy. What does it mean to connect with another person? What impels us to touch someone, to be touched by them, to stay in touch? How do we let them go?
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Tis' the Season to be Merry
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Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop
by Mai Mochizuki
'Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop' is a charming and heartfelt novel that showcases the magic of Christmas as three lost souls confront their past and past struggles to find themselves - with a little help from an enchanted café run by cats.
The Full Moon Coffee Shop (2)
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The Christmas Stranger
by Richard Paul Evans
Three years after losing his family in a Christmas Eve accident, grief-stricken Paul Wanlass hasn't just given up on Christmas, he's given up on life. He can't imagine anything to keep him here--not his work as a computer repairman, not the residents in his Salt Lake City neighborhood, and certainly not the idea of connecting with someone new. When a stranger knocks on his door, claiming to be picking up a laptop, Paul allows him in--but discovers the man has a very different mission in mind. Paul wakes the next morning unsure if his encounter with the stranger really happened or was just a dream--but when the stranger shows up again, Paul challenges him to give him just one reason to live. The stranger agrees to the challenge but warns Paul not to expect a path he would have guessed or chosen--
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Close Knit
by Jenny Colgan
Follow Gertie MacIntyre from knitting circle to air stewardess in this glorious and romantic summer novel set in Scotland's windswept Northern isles, by beloved New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan.
Scottish Island of Mure (7)
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A Merry Little Lie
by Sarah Morgan
This Christmas, the Balfour family will have more secrets to unwrap than presents. Despite everyone’s best intentions, all the chaos and confusion could derail their normally happy holidays. Can they tell each other the truth in time to enjoy a perfect family Christmas?
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The Holiday Cottage
by Sarah Morgan
To the outside world, Imogen is a marketing dynamo. Her colleagues don't know that while her high-achieving professional image is real, the happy childhood stories she spins are as fake as her pretend enthusiasm for Christmas. Working 24/7 has always been her solution to surviving the festive season--until burnout leads to a catastrophic blunder--
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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