| Homebound by Portia ElanWhat do two genius programmers in 1980s Ohio, a Berkeley scientist in 2086, a sentient robot she creates, and a sea captain in the 2500s all have in common? Homebound, a video game created after a teenager finished the coding started by her beloved late uncle, which goes on to influence humanity for epochs. This buzzy, intricately plotted debut explores grief, love, and loneliness. For fans of: Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land; Jennifer Egan's The Candy House. |
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| Villa Coco by Andrew Sean GreerA 21-year-old American college grad snags a job cataloging the papers and artifacts of Coco, a vibrant 92-year-old Baronessa, at her rural Italian villa. But it's soon clear that he's really an all-purpose assistant and part of an eccentric, chaotic community, including boar hunters, nuns, a princess, and a handsome guest. Full of warmth and humor, this latest from Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer is a charming summer read. Try this next: Paul Rudnick's What Is Wrong with You? |
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| Elegy in Blue by Mark HelprinAn unnamed 82-year-old narrator revisits his life, from his childhood and his Wall Street career, to his happy marriage and life as a father. Over the years, violence takes loved ones, leaving him alone in an apartment in his beloved Brooklyn, where he contemplates helping others and his own death. Lyrical and complex, this introspective literary tale digs into intriguing questions of mortality and morality. "Expect to see this on many best-of-2026 lists," raves Library Journal. |
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| Sublimation by Isabel J. KimIn this debut novel, emigration creates two copies of a person. The iterations can be reintegrated, or both can exist, one in the home country, one in the new. They can keep in touch, or not. Rose Kang left Korea for the United States at ten, cutting off her other self, Soyoung. Now Rose is back in Korea, and Soyoung wants to meet. Meanwhile, a tech company tries to monetize reintegration. For fans of: Apple TV's Severance. |
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Country People
by Daniel Mason
Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he's become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life. But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate's words, a great capacity to fall in with anyone, anywhere. And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, from a Shakespearean temptress to a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world's delusions in an Inventory of Wrong Ideas. The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre--perhaps ridiculous--local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all. Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.
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Stimulus
by Daniel Freedman
A blood-soaked briefcase full of cash. A mind reader hellbent on crime. An errant soldier turned hitman. Earthly homunculus. Crystal women. Men made of stars. Deviant frog people. Sorceress succubi. Advanced space-force fighter pilots. Avenging vampires. Sentient sentimental AI constructs. Alien voyeurs. The demigod spawn of heart-broken angels. Cyber enhanced mercenary thieves. Death races. Unfulfilled ancient prophecies. Lost valor. Stolen principles. And the supernatural plant known as "SeaFarer" that ties them all together.
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The Shampoo Effect
by Jenny Jackson
When Caroline Lash arrives in Greenhead, Massachusetts, she falls head-over-heels for Van Whittaker, a fleece-wearing, litter-collecting, kayak enthusiast with long, floppy hair and the personality of a Border collie. Born and raised in this picturesque coastal village, Van runs with the same crowd he did as a kid: His ex-girlfriend, Bailey, a beautiful girl who attracts men like moths to a flame; Augusta, old money, horsey, and snobbish; and Fran, surrounded by brothers and sons, too fed up with boys to ever consider marrying one. Together, the group runs wild through the marshes, beaches, and bars of Greenhead, drinking on houseboats, spending long afternoons sunbathing with their children, and playing games the way they always have. But when Bailey discovers that she is pregnant with Van's baby, the delicate balance of the group's friendship is thrown off. Soon Caroline is cast out of the circle and what she does next--in a potent mix of fury and heartbreak--exposes long-held secrets and works the entire town of Greenhead into a lather. Dazzlingly funny, sexy, and as juicy as it is astute, The Shampoo Effect is a story of late-night parties, early mornings with small children, the dawn of midlife, and a group of old friends finally growing up despite all their best efforts to the contrary.
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Perfect Life
by Meredith Lavender
Following a shocking murder, a woman must face the husband she thought she knew in this twisty, sizzling novel from the bestselling authors of Happy Wife. Welcome back to Winter Park, where looks can kill and secrets refuse to stay buried. Este Walker didn't move to Florida to make friends. Five years ago, she ghosted her life in California to reinvent herself among the lakefront estates of Florida's elite. With a cocktail in hand, more money than she could ever spend, and a past she intends to keep hidden, she's finally content--or, you know, close enough. Her husband, Beau, and her best friend, Nora, are the only company Este needs. But when someone she'd much rather forget resurfaces, the past begins to close on her. And then a mysterious death turns Winter Park upside down--and Beau, who's keeping secrets of his own, is implicated, . Thrust into a high-stakes murder investigation, Este must unravel a web of lies and deception to answer the question: What exactly happened in California, and has it come back to haunt her? More important: How is she going to get herself out of this mess?
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Crash Into Me
by Robinne Lee
In a complicated marriage and raising her children in Los Angeles's toxic playground of privilege and power, Cecilia Chen is struggling to find her real self among the many labels assigned to her: wife, mother, artist, daughter. Until the moment she crashes-literally-into the Anouk Ferrand. It's been twenty years since she last encountered the enigmatic model on a photo shoot in Mexico. And it's this chance second meeting that will upend Cecilia's life. Seeing Anouk again forces Cecilia to revisit their brief time together and question where she truly fits in. Can the renewed intensity of her explosive physical and emotional entanglement with Anouk finally give her an answer? In a sharply observed evolution from her blockbuster debut, The Idea of You, Robinne Lee delivers a completely new, propulsive story layered with desire, power, and identity.
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The Great Wherever
by Shannon Sanders
An impulsive and heartbroken woman inherits her father's share of a Tennessee farm that is rich in family secrets and occupied with busybody ghosts in this sweeping family portrait. At thirty-two, Aubrey Lamb is stumbling through adulthood. An underpaid gig worker in Washington, DC, she's grieving the end of a serious relationship and the recent loss of her father. When Aubrey learns she has inherited his stake in a sizable Tennessee farm she sees an opportunity to get out of the city--and to erase a mounting pile of debt. Watching her arrival with great interest are four ghosts--Aubrey's ancestors, who've staked their own claims to the farm and who never hesitate to pass judgment on the mistakes made by the living, whether romantic, financial, or sartorial. As Aubrey reconnects with her living family, another story unfolds in parallel: the history of the land, beginning with its purchase by Thomas, Aubrey's great-grandfather and one of the first Black landowners in his community. Though Thomas hopes to give his children a homestead on which they could flourish, the land proves to be a burdensome inheritance. Over the years, it turns the Lambs against one another, culminating in a catastrophic tragedy that splinters the family and echoes through the decades. Now, as the clock ticks on a potential sale of the farm, the ghosts fear expulsion from the home they've made, and Aubrey must weigh the hopes and burdens of her forebears with the very real needs of her future. An expansive family saga told with a wry and distinctly modern voice, The Great Wherever is at once grand and intimate; it explores the ways we learn to define ourselves through and against our families, how we carry on after loss, and how the past lives on in all of us.
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