Fiction A to Z
March 2026

Recent Releases
Cover of I Could Be Famous: Stories by Sydney Rende
I Could Be Famous: Stories
by Sydney Rende

For fans of Homesick for Another World and HBO's Girls, a magnetic debut story collection following ten ambitious women and one male superstar as they pursue their desires--however deluded--for more.
Cover of Upward Bound by Woody Brown
Upward Bound
by Woody Brown

Upward Bound is not a place anyone dreams of spending their days. The dreary adult daycare center for Los Angeles's disabled community is, for many of its clients and staff, a place of last resort. This includes Carlos, a young aide who lost his mother as a boy and now works there alongside his beloved sister Delia; Jorge, the gentle nonverbal giant whom Carlos seeks to befriend (and prevent from escaping); Tom, a beautiful young man with cerebral palsy, who pines for Ann, the summer lifeguard at the center's pool who feels out of her depth; then there's Mike, Upward Bound's director who came to L.A. to pursue an acting career but now channels his passion into staging an impressive holiday show starring the center's sorely underestimated clients. Framing these interlocking narratives - and connecting them in surprising, shattering ways - is the riveting and sometimes ironic testimony of Walter, a recent community college graduate who, after a family tragedy, must return to the company of his disabled peers.
Cover of This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum
This Story Might Save Your Life
by Tiffany Crum

Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with a different against-all-odds survival story, gleefully finding the weird, life-affirming humor in near-death experiences. Since their first episode on Joy's experience with severe narcolepsy, they've been the best friends everyone wants to befriend - and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy's husband Xander, they've built a lucrative empire. The problem is, their next survival story may be their own. When Benny arrives at Joy and Xander's one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the couple's disappearance is the incomplete, previously-unseen first draft of Joy's memoir. Benny is desperate to find them, even when the police soon zero in on him as their prime suspect. Millions of devoted listeners think they know the real Benny and Joy. But as the hours tick by, and the odds seem increasingly stacked against Joy and Xander being found alive, not even the most devoted fans could guess the secrets their favorite famous BFFs have hidden from the world - and from each other.
Cover of A Far-Flung Life by M. L. Stedman
A Far-Flung Life
by M. L. Stedman

Remote Western Australia, 1958: here, for generations, the MacBrides have lived on a vast sheep station, Meredith Downs. It is a million acres, an ocean of arid land. On an ordinary day, on a lonely road, under the unending blue sky, patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds the lives of the entire MacBride family are shattered. And then, tragedy revisits when a twist of consequences claims the life of one sibling, and leads another to give up everything for the sake of an innocent child. Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide--forcing him to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.
Cover of So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder
So Old, So Young
by Grant Ginder

Over the course of 20 years, six college friends find jobs, partners, and challenges as they move in and out of each other's lives. Organized around five get-togethers, the first on New Year's Eve in 2007 New York and the last at a funeral, this character-driven latest from Grant Ginder (The People We Hate at the Wedding) explores change, friendship, and growing older. Read-alikes: Steven Rowley's The Celebrants; Angela Flournoy's The Wilderness.
Cover of This Is Not about Us by Allegra Goodman
This Is Not about Us
by Allegra Goodman

This "unsparingly frank, wryly funny" (Kirkus Reviews) linked story collection is narrated by three generations of the Rubenstein family as they navigate 74-year-old Jeanne's death, a feud between her older sisters over apple cake, and various other gatherings for holidays, divorces, a bat mitzvah, and more. Read-alikes: The Family Izquierdo by Ruben Degollado; Underburn by Bill Gaythwaite.
Cover of This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page
This Book Made Me Think of You
by Libby Page

When her new husband Joe dies of cancer, grief-stricken London book editor Tilly learns from their local bookseller that Joe has arranged for her to receive a book -- along with a note -- every month for a year. As the weeks pass, Tilly becomes friends with struggling bookstore owner Alfie and tries new things with Joe's literary encouragement in this charming read. For fans of: Mikki Brammer's The Collected Regrets of Clover.
Cover of Lake Effect by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
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.Years later, Clara, now a successful food stylist in New York City, has never been able to move past the long-ago scandal. Drawn back home by the pull of a family wedding and wrestling with her own demons, she makes a pivotal decision that turns her life upside down.
Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Downey, California 90242
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