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Fiction A to Z October 2026 |
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| Under Story by Chloe BenjaminAfter a terrible loss and then a divorce, grieving Wisconsin scientist Laurel Salter takes a job washing dishes at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. When a surreal light suddenly appears near the research base, it becomes known as the Arc and draws in more scientists, including Laurel’s ex, Eli. Believing the light is evidence of Eli’s theory of a second universe where time moves backward, Laurel tries to talk him into entering the Arc. For fans of: GMA Book Club books; Scott Alexander Howard’s The Other Valley. |
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| Dèy by Edwidge DanticatAfter gunfire rings out in a Miami mall, Haitian American real estate agent Magnolia, who’d been shopping for her nine-year-old daughter’s birthday gift, shelters in place at the Oasis restaurant. Surviving the traumatic event, she goes home and doesn’t share with anyone that she was there when the shooting happened. But as everyday life goes on, she struggles, questioning her relationships while examining the past and the present. Try this next: Francesca Momplaisir's The Garden of Broken Things. |
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| When Lemons Give You Life by Anna JohnstonPretending to have dementia while living in a care home, retired chef Griff Barlow grieves for his beloved late partner. Preparing to end it all, he breaks into the nursing home kitchen to bake one last lemon tart, but sharing it ends up changing his life. Meanwhile, his much younger sister navigates life changes and deals with her sadness that she and Griff are estranged. For fans of: the author's previous novel, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife; Marianne Cronin's Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love. |
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| Unprecedented Times by Malavika KannanArriving at Stanford University in fall 2019 from suburban Florida, Rishi, a burnt-out youth climate activist, looks forward to having fun, reading, and writing fiction while making new friends and having her first relationship with a woman. Things don't go as planned and COVID forces her back home, where she leaves virtual college to join friends working at a Pennsylvania farm. Unprecedented Times "feels like pages ripped straight from your funniest friend's diary" (Booklist). |
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| Queen Mab by Emily McBrideWhen 23-year-old Mab, a literature doctoral student, gets pregnant, she and her new husband are surprised but pleased. After a difficult birth, Mab is at first drawn to daughter Maud, but as her husband goes back to his studies, she's left alone to care for a baby that she increasingly believes is a changeling, with her real daughter taken by fairies. Emotionally intense and unsettling, this "stark portrait of maternal depression and psychosis is unflinchingly presented" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| Sunrise by Téa ObrehtIn 2024, after the small plane her boyfriend was piloting crashes, Nina ends up alone in the Wyoming mountains, where she stumbles upon Sunrise, an abandoned town. In 2003, Coll is putting the finishing touches on Sunrise’s annual historical reenactment when a newcomer upsets things. In 1902, gunslinger Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise after years away. This buzzy novel is the lyrical latest from the author of The Tiger's Wife. Try this next: Elif Shafak's There Are Rivers in the Sky. |
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| First Summer by Ekin OklapAn unnamed teenage narrator is happy to meet Clara, who's just arrived in the neighborhood to spend the summer with her grandmother. In Clara, the narrator recognizes the loneliness she also feels, and the two soon become fast friends. They spend hours reading, swimming, and talking about their favorite science fiction book series (chapters of which are interspersed throughout), and their feelings for each other grow into something more. For fans of: quiet coming-of-age love stories with introspective characters. |
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| The Birthing Tree by Amanda PetersUnder a tree sacred to Mi'kmaq women, Aliet Paul’s mother died giving birth to her. Since her father wasn’t named, Aliet grows up in 1960s and ‘70s Nova Scotia with her Mi'kmaq grandmother Kiju, learning about her midwifery work. But when Aliet is 17, a disturbing event sends her away. After Kiju’s death in the 1990s, Aliet quits her nursing job in the city to return home and reckon with the past. For fans of: Mona Susan Power’s A Council of Dolls. |
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| You'll Love It Here by Natalie SueAfter her estranged dad dies, Mona talks back to a client and is put on leave from her marketing job. Then her elderly landlady lands in the hospital, leading Mona to make a sketchy deal with the woman's niece: Mona will become the temporary super of the building and secretly prep the place for sale. But getting to know her quirky neighbors and the handsome guy at the neighborhood deli has her questioning her priorities. For fans of: engaging stories with heart that explore community and found family. |
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| The Book of Chuck by LaToya WatkinsIn 1936 Texas, babbling baby Nannie predicts her father’s death that same day. Forty years later, the son Nannie abandoned, Chuck, dreams of making a happy family, but things don’t go as planned. At the new millennium, Chuck’s youngest child, teenage Baby, begins to have surprising visions of death and investigates her lineage. “This astonishes,” raves Publishers Weekly. For another layered family saga with Texas roots and supernatural elements, try Luis Jaramillo’s The Witches of El Paso. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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