| The Divorcées by Rowan BeairdIn 1951, women from around the country spend six weeks at the Golden Yarrow divorce ranch in Reno, Nevada while waiting to end their marriages. At first, Lois Saunders doesn't mesh with the others, then lively, lovely Greer appears and takes her under her wing. If you like this slow burn debut's divorce ranch setting, try Julia Claiborne Johnson's Better Luck Next Time or Sofia Grant's Lies in White Dresses. |
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Someone Else's Shoes
by Jojo Moyes
Two women's lives intersect after a gym bag mix-up finds sensible Sam Kemp wearing red Louboutin slingbacks to important business meetings and glamorous Nisha Cantor left with flipflops just as her husband unexpectedly starts divorce proceedings and cuts her off. Try these other fun reads on for size: The Switch by Beth O'Leary or The Vibrant Years by Sonali Dev.
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| The Garden by Clare BeamsAfter several miscarriages, Irene Willard is pregnant again. Desperate for a child, she goes to a private Berkshires hospital where a husband-and-wife doctor duo specialize in helping people like her. She clashes with the wife, but also makes friends and finds a very strange garden. Readers who enjoy this intricately plotted Gothic novel set in 1948 New England can try The Mad Women's Ball by Victoria Mas. |
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The Twilight Garden: A Novel
by Sara Nisha Adams
Warring London neighbors Winston and Bernice share an empty patch of greenery lost to time, but when Winston receives photographs of the garden in bloom many years prior, they decide to lay down their arms to revitalize the garden and help revive the community spirit that's been languishing for so long.
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| James by Percival EverettIn this critically acclaimed retelling of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, readers get the viewpoint of Jim, an enslaved man in danger of being sold who escapes with young Huck on a raft down the Mississippi River while longing for his enslaved wife and child. Read-alikes: My Jim by Nancy Rawles; The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead; Wild and Distant Seas by Tara Karr Roberts. |
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The Trees: A Novel
by Percival Everett
After a series of brutal murders in a rural Mississippi town, investigators arrive and discover a large number of similar cases that all have roots in the past
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| Glorious Exploits by Ferdia LennonIn 412 BCE Sicily, best friends Lampo and Gelon use food and water to bribe captured Athenian invaders into reciting Greek poetry before casting the prisoners in productions of Greek tragedies. This lyrical, moving, and often surprisingly funny debut uses anachronistic language to present a creative story that examines friendship, art, and war. |
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Clear: A Novel
by Carys Davies
An impoverished 1840s Scottish minister tasked with evicting a hermit from his island home ends up forming an unlikely connection with the man as the pair navigate language, loss and the legacy of forced displacement.
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| Parasol Against the Axe by Helen OyeyemiThree women who used to be close friends gather in the mysterious city of Prague (which sometimes narrates) in a wondrously unconventional novel that includes a book that changes stories depending on who is reading it and when. If you enjoy this "metatextual masterpiece" (Publishers Weekly), try Julia Alvarez's The Cemetery of Untold Stories or Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. |
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The Great Divide: A Novel
by Cristina Henrâiquez
An epic novel about the construction of the Panama Canal casts light on the unsung people who lived, loved and labored there. Simultaneous large print.
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| The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev SahotaMiddle-aged Nayan Olak is up for union leader at the Chesterfield, England, company where he works, but a surprise opponent upends the race and things get ugly. At home, he forges a relationship with a new woman...who may have a secret connection to the tragic deaths of Nayan's mother and young son years ago. Read-alikes: The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar; Love Marriage by Monica Ali. |
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China Room
by Sunjeev Sahota
In 1929 rural Punjab, Mehar and her new sisters-in-law are locked at work in the family's“china room,” while trying to figure out which of three brothers is her new husband, setting off events that impact a descendent in 1999.
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| Worry by Alexandra TannerIn 2019, 28-year-old Jules Gold lets her younger sister Poppy temporarily move into her Brooklyn apartment. As the months go by, the two bitingly funny siblings-turned-roommates navigate their messy relationship and the absurdities of the modern world in this highly quotable first novel. Read-alikes: Day by Michael Cunningham; Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly; Grown Ups by Emma Jane Unsworth. |
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Greta & Valdin
by Rebecca K. Reilly
In Auckland, New Zealand, queer 20-something siblings Greta and Valdin navigate adulthood, explore their Russian and Māori family history, and long for love in this witty first novel that also includes a sojourn in Argentina when Valdin meets up with his ex. "Say hello to your new favorite fictional family" (Kirkus Reviews). For fans of: The Guncle by Steven Rowley; Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park.
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| Help Wanted by Adelle WaldmanThis darkly humorous, sharply observed novel follows a big box store's poorly paid workers as they take deliveries at 4 a.m., unpack goods, and concoct a plan to get their obnoxious boss promoted in order to create a management position for one of them. Read-alikes: Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher; Finna by Nino Cipri. |
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The New Couple in 5B
by Lisa Unger
A couple inherits an apartment with a spine-tingling past, in a thriller by the New York Times best-selling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six.
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| Women of Good Fortune by Sophie WanLulu's wedding will be a huge Shanghai society event -- but she doesn't actually want to get married, and her two best friends aren't happy with their lives either. So they hatch a plan to steal the red money envelopes at the wedding in order to procure the different futures they each want. Read-alikes: Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen; Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan. |
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The Social Graces
by Renâee Rosen
A tale spanning three decades and based on true events imagines the bitter rivalry between Gilded Age hostess Caroline Astor and family newcomer Alva Vanderbilt against a backdrop of the latter's rejection by the society that both would control. Original.
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| A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas WesterbekeIn 1885 Paris, nine-year-old Aubry Tourvel keeps a toy instead of sacrificing it, cursing her with immortality and the need to move locations every few days. Embarking on a (mostly) solo journey spanning centuries and continents, Aubry looks for healing, connection, and meaning. Read-alikes: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab; How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. |
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The Other Valley
by Scott Alexander Howard
Teenage Odile lives in a remote valley that's bordered by itself -- 20 years earlier on one side and 20 years later on the other -- and travel between them is rarely allowed. One day while in the woods with a friend, Odile sees something she shouldn't in this buzzy, thought-provoking debut novel and inspiration for an upcoming TV series. Read-alikes: Kazuo Ishiguro's novels; This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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