April - June 2024 Issue
See also:
Alban, Emma R. Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend.
In this Victorian lesbian romance, the first of a projected series, two debutantes meet in London, gradually fall in love, and plot a match between their parents, a widow and widower. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Bertino, Marie-Helene. Beautyland.
In this unusual story set in Philadelphia, a baby born to a human woman is actually an alien, sent by a planet 300,000 light-years away, with the mission of taking notes on life on Earth, which she sends to her home planet via fax machine. Ebook
Blackburn,Venita. Dead in Long Beach, California.
A gay Black woman, the author of a popular postapocalyptic graphic novel, finds her brother dead from suicide, and in shock and grief, impersonates him to keep him alive in the virtual world.
Blake, Matthew. Anna O.
In this thriller, a psychologist and sleep specialist is assigned to awaken a journalist who has been in a deep sleep since she was accused of killing two people while sleepwalking four years earlier. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Burns, Amy Jo. Mercury.
In a small Rust Belt town in Pennsylvania in the 1990's, a young woman, new in town, meets three men who work in their father's roofing business, and soon becomes a member of the family, but the family is dysfunctional and the business is struggling. Ebook
Campbell, Bonnie Jo. The Waters.
An herbalist with three grown daughters lives on a swampy island in Michigan, raising her granddaughter and making medicines she sells to local people. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Cheeks, Maura. Acts of Forgiveness.
A Black journalist in New York City is called back to her Philadelphia home to help run the family business after her father is injured in a construction accident; after her mentor becomes president of the U.S. and signs a bill which will pay reparations to people who can prove their ancestors were enslaved, the journalist begins to explore her family's history.
Choo, Yangsze. The Fox Wife.
In this folktale-like mystery, an elderly detective in Manchuria in the early 1900s attempts to identify the corpse of a courtesan found frozen in a doorway, who local villagers believe was lured to her death by a fox in human form.
Chung, Bora. Your Utopia: Stories.
A collection of imaginative, surprising, and darkly humorous stories by a Korean author, mostly science fiction and horror.
Darraj, Susan Muaddi. Behind You Is the Sea.
This novel about Baltimore's Palestinian immigrant community is written as a series of interconnected stories in which the characters find themselves stuck between the traditions of the old world and the challenges of life in America. Ebook
Enrigue, Álvaro. You Dreamed of Empires.
This historical novel reimagines the encounter in Tenochtitlan - today's Mexico City - between Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes and the Aztec emperor Moctezuma; in this version, the Spanish conquest fails. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Gonzalez James, Elizabeth. The Bullet Swallower.
The story of two Mexican men: a peasant in the 19th century who left his village to become a bandit in the United States, and his grandson, a Mexican movie star who is writing a film script about his grandfather. Ebook
Graff, Andrew J. True North.
A Chicago couple move to a small northwoods Wisconsin town to run a white water rafting company and try to repair their shaky marriage, but a rival business, severe flooding, and a mining company complicate their plan.
Hunt, Laird. Float Up, Sing Down: Stories.
This collection of short stories portrays one summer day in the lives of fourteen of the residents of the small town of Bright Creek, Indiana, in the early 1980's.
Khan, Shubnum. The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years.
In this fantasy novel set in South Africa, a teenaged girl and her father, both still grieving the death of her mother, move into an apartment in an old, dilapidated mansion full of ghosts and secrets. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Livesey, Margot. The Road from Belhaven.
In this coming-of-age novel set in late 19th century Scotland, a girl with the gift of clairvoyance grows up on her grandparents' struggling farm, then moves to Glasgow to be with a young man she's fallen in love with.
Matar, Hisham. My Friends.
A young Libyan student, studying in Britain, is shot and nearly killed by Libyan government forces after being talked into attending a protest at the Libyan Embassy in London. Afterwards, he cannot return to his home and family without endangering them.
McCauley, Stephen. You Only Call When You're in Trouble.
A Chicago professor, who is being investigated by her university after an accusation by one of her students, is invited by her mother to visit her in Woodstock, New York; she also visits her beloved uncle, whose career is also in trouble. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
McCorkle, Jill. Old Crimes: And Other Stories.
These short stories, both comical and heartbreaking, depict the lives of women and men who are looking back on the choices they made in their lives with regret, guilt, and disappointment.
Min, Katherine. The Fetishist.
A Japanese punk rock musician plans revenge on the man she holds responsible for her mother's death, a white professional violinist and philanderer, who has a fetish for Asian women. Ebook
Orange, Tommy. Wandering Stars.
This follow-up to the author's first novel tells the story of several generations of an indigenous family, beginning with a boy in Oklahoma named Jude Star, who escapes a massacre of his camp in 1864, and concluding with his great-great-great grandson, Orvil. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Ordorica, Andrés N. How We Named the Stars.
A shy, gay Mexican-American scholarship student leaves his native California for a university in Ithaca, New York, where his roommate is a handsome and popular athlete who is also gay. Though their friendship turns into romance, the relationship ends in tragedy.
Oshetsky, Claire. Poor Deer.
In this dark fairy tale set in a small town in Maine, a four-year-old girl is inadvertently responsible for the death of a friend. As she grows older, her guilt becomes an actual creature, a deer, who constantly reminds her of the incident.
Platt, Christine. Rebecca, Not Becky.
After a Black woman moves to an upper class white suburb with her family, she finds herself homesick and struggles to adjust until she reluctantly joins a school diversity committee chaired by an earnest white woman. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Reilly, Rebecca K. Greta & Valdin.
In this comic novel set in Auckland, New Zealand, two queer siblings in a dysfunctional Maori-Russian family try to deal with their complicated romantic lives and their eccentric relatives. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Rivero, Melissa. Flores and Miss Paula.
A mother and daughter of Peruvian heritage share an apartment in Brooklyn while grieving the loss of their husband and father three years after his death; they struggle financially, at their jobs, and within their own relationship.
Robinson, Roxana. Leaving.
A man and woman who had a brief romance in college forty years earlier meet again and start an affair, but their families and responsibilities make their new relationship difficult.
Ruffin, Maurice Carlos. The American Daughters.
In this novel set in New Orleans before the Civil War, a young enslaved Black woman discovers a racially integrated inn in the French Quarter run by a free Black woman as a cover for an underground network of Black women working to undermine the Confederacy.
Sierra, Tracy. Nightwatching.
In this suspenseful novel, a woman living in a isolated farm house with her two young children discovers in the middle of a blizzard that there is an intruder in their house; when she realizes who he is and what he wants, she questions every decision she has made. Ebook
Spufford, Francis. Cahokia Jazz.
In this colorful crime novel set in an alternate America in 1922, where the ancient indigenous settlement of Cahokia is now a large modern city in a Native-led state, a police detective investigates a brutal murder with racial implications.
Tsamaase, Tlotlo. Womb City.
In this complex dystopian thriller set in a near-future Botswana, people are implanted with microchips that monitor their behavior, making crime practically nonexistent, but at the expense of personal liberty and autonomy. Ebook
Vardiashvili, Leo. Hard by a Great Forest.
A young man, who has lived in London since his family left the former Soviet republic of Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, returns to Georgia to look for his father and brother, who recently returned to their homeland and then disappeared.
Williams, Phillip B. Ours.
In this magical realist story set near St. Louis in the 1830's, a powerful Black woman has freed a number of slaves and created a self-sufficient community for them, where they are safe and hidden from outsiders, but as the decades pass, changes within and outside of the town lead to conflict.
Wright, Alexis. Praiseworthy.
In this sprawling and complex story set in a small town in northern Australia sometime in the 21st century, the members of an indigenous family respond in different ways to disastrous climate change, which is destroying their community.
