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Homeland Elegies: A Novel
by Ayad Akhtar
Ayad Akhtar's Homeland Elegies is a deeply personal, genre-blending work—part family drama, part social essay—that explores identity and hope in an America ravaged by debt and political turmoil in the years following 9/11. Spanning from an American heartland town to Afghanistan, the novel tells the epic story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home, sparing no one in its attempt to make sense of a nation's unhealed wounds.
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The Family Chao: A Novel
by Lan Samantha Chang
The residents of Haven, Wisconsin, have dined on the Fine Chao Restaurant’s delicious Americanized Chinese food for thirty-five years, happy to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. But when brash, charismatic, and tyrannical patriarch Leo Chao is found dead―presumed murdered―his sons discover that they’ve drawn the exacting gaze of the entire town. The ensuing trial brings to light potential motives for all three brothers: Dagou, the restaurant’s reckless head chef; Ming, financially successful but personally tortured; and the youngest, gentle but lost college student James.
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We Ride Upon Sticks: A Novel
by Quan Barry
The 1989 Danvers Falcons are on an unaccountable winning streak. Quan Barry weaves together the individual and collective journeys of this enchanted team as they storm their way to the state championship. Helmed by good-girl captain Abby Putnam (a descendant of the infamous Salem accuser Ann Putnam) and her co-captain Jen Fiorenza, whose bleached blond "Claw" sees and knows all, the DHS Falcons prove to be as wily and original as their North of Boston ancestors, flaunting society's stale notions of femininity in order to find their glorious true selves through the crucible of team sport.
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Still True
by Maggie Ginsberg
In small-town Anthem, Wisconsin, Lib Hanson is comfortable in her unconventional marriage to Jack—until Matt Marlow, the adult son she abandoned decades earlier, arrives and threatens to expose the secrets of her past. Meanwhile, Jack befriends the struggling new family in town, the Taylors, unaware of the drinking Claire hides and the growing attraction between her and Matt. When the converging secrets of Lib, Matt, Jack, and the Taylors lead to a catastrophic evening, their carefully crafted lives unravel, forcing them to determine the true cost of honesty and love.
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Wherever the Wind Takes Us: A Novel
by Kelly Harms
Divorced and disheartened, Becca Larkin's new life begins when she decides to sail her live-aboard boat from Maine to Miami with her daughter, Liv. Though the journey is daunting, Becca takes a chance on herself and on Grant Murphy, a captivating and younger Irish sailing coach who helps her see a future worth navigating toward. A sparkling novel about mothers, daughters, change, and escape, the story follows Becca as she learns that the most important journeys can't be charted on any map.
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Shoulder Season
by Christina Clancy
In 1981, after the death of her parents, nineteen-year-old small-town church organist Sherri Taylor leaves her home in Wisconsin to become a Playboy Bunny at the unlikely Lake Geneva Resort. Living in the protected "bunny hutch," Sherri finds financial independence, love, and sisterhood amid the glamor and excess of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. However, a romantic triangle and a tragedy that summer will haunt her for the next forty years, forcing her to confront who she lost and gained in the fleeting, intoxicating experience of her youth.
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Familiaris
by David Wroblewski
After John Sawtelle's imagination gets him into trouble in spring 1919, he and his new wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and three dogs, seek a fresh start and a life of meaning in the treacherous Wisconsin north woods. The remote location proves to be more perilous and otherworldly than they realize, forcing them to rely on ingenuity and new friends—human, animal, and spectral—to realize their dreams. Familiaris is a hilarious, heartbreaking, and enchanting journey that spans from an automobile factory to an epic firestorm and a WWII dog program, ultimately exploring the vexing nature of families and the species-long bond between humans and their dogs.
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Blood Over Bright Haven: A Novel
by M. L. Wang
For twenty years, orphan Sciona has relentlessly pursued the impossible: becoming the first woman admitted to the High Magistry. Achieving the rank of highmage, however, only brings new challenges, starting with her unhelpful, taciturn assistant, Thomil. Unknown to Sciona and her peers, Thomil is a nomadic hunter who survived a perilous crossing ten years ago and now seeks to understand the magic that decimated his tribe. Through their fractious partnership, the mage and the outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if the pursuit of this truth doesn't get them killed first.
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A Very Inconvenient Scandal
by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Frankie Attleboro returns home to Cape Cod with thrilling news. She’s met the love of her life, and they’re getting married with a baby on the way. That’s the moment her father makes his own jaw-dropping announcement: at sixty, he’s getting married as well, to Frankie’s best friend, Ariel, who is also pregnant, and due soon. As Frankie and Ariel struggle to adjust to their new relationship, Ariel’s estranged mother, Carlotta, returns after a decade-long absence. She claims to be a changed woman—but is she really? And where has she been all these years? Frankie is suspicious, and as Carlotta’s unpredictable behavior intensifies, Frankie must untangle the threads of the past to protect Ariel’s future—and her own.
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A Forty Year Kiss: A Novel
by Nickolas Butler
Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing -- he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. But forty years is a long time. It's forty years of other relationships, forty years of building new lives, and forty years of long-held regrets, mistakes, and painful secrets. A brave and triumphant exploration of redemption and sunset triumph, A Forty Year Kiss is a once-in-a-lifetime love story, written with dazzling lyricism and remarkable clarity of spirit, from a celebrated author at the top of his game. It's a literary valentine that promises to be a love story for the ages.
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The City In Glass
by Nghi Vo
In Hugo Award-winner Nghi Vo's fantasy, the demon Vitrine has loved and shaped the dazzling city of Azril for generations—until the angels come, and the city falls. Left with only her grief and a book of the dead, Vitrine binds the destroying angel to the ruined city with a mad curse. Destined for eternal battle, they instead find themselves locked in a consuming fascination that forces them to unearth the city's past and shape its future. When war threatens all they've built, this epic love story of death, desire, and resurrection asks whether they can save the city from falling once more.
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Canary Girls: A Novel
by Jennifer Chiaverini
During WWI, as British men enlisted, thousands of women—the "munitionettes"—answered the call to work in dangerous arsenals. Among them are former housemaid April Tipton and Lucy Dempsey, the wife of an Olympic footballer. Working grueling, dangerous shifts filling shells in the Danger Building at Thornshire Arsenal, the women develop a lurid yellow skin hue that earns them the nickname "canary girls." Lucy's involvement in the arsenal ladies' football club, the Thornshire Canaries, attracts the attention of Helen Purcell, the boss's wife, who becomes an unlikely advocate for the workers' health. The football pitch becomes their escape as they persist through tragedy, determined to outlive the war.
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The Drifter
by Nicholas Petrie
Peter Ash came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls his "white static," the buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming in nature, sleeping under the stars. But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilization to help the man's widow with some home repairs. Under her dilapidated porch, he finds more than he bargained for: the largest, ugliest, meanest dog he's ever encountered... and a Samsonite suitcase stuffed with cash and explosives. As Ash begins to investigate this unexpected discovery, he finds himself at the center of a plot that is far larger than he could have imagined... and it may lead straight back to the world he thought he'd left for good.
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The Confessions of Young Nero
by Margaret George
In the treacherous court of the Roman Empire, young Nero's royal heritage makes him a target for betrayal and murder, teaching him it's "better to be cruel than dead." Though he dreams of artistic ideals, his survival depends on navigating a sea of vipers, the most lethal being his mother, Agrippina. A cold-blooded woman, Agrippina uses cunning and poison to secure her son the throne. The Confessions of Young Nero is an epic tale of a boy's ruthless ascension to emperor and his desperate quest to escape his mother's control, shaping him into the legendary ruler he was fated to become.
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The Jesus Cow: A Novel
by Michael Perry
Quiet Wisconsin bachelor Harley Jackson suddenly faces big drama: he's falling for a woman in a big red pickup, a predatory developer threatens his family farm, and he discovers a calf bearing the image of Jesus Christ in his barn. When the "miracle" calf goes viral, Harley's farm is instantly overrun by pilgrims, grifters, and the media. Going against his desire to avoid a "scene," Harley decides to cash in, partnering with a Hollywood agent to transform his farm into a spiritual theme park—think Lourdes with cheese curds. He gets the money and attention he needs to save his land and win the woman, but finds himself facing more trouble than he ever dreamed.
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