“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.” – Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale
FICTION
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah ★
Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.
In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
Description from Goodreads.
“Hannah brings Dust Bowl migration to life in this riveting story of love, courage, and sacrifice… combines gritty realism with emotionally rich characters and lyrical prose that rings brightly and true from the first line.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Outstanding… [A] rich, rewarding read about family ties, perseverance, and women’s friendships and fortitude.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Like a wise and imaginative teacher, Kristin Hannah imbues past events with relevance and significance in her novel The Four Winds… With biting dialogue that holds nothing back, The Four Winds is classic in its artistry. Overtones of America’s present political struggles echo throughout the novel’s events. These indomitable female characters foreshadow the nation’s sweeping change through their fierce commitment to each other and to a common, timeless goal.” – BookPage
“Kristin Hannah’s breathtaking prose will immerse the reader deep into Elsa’s life and heart as she maneuvers the pitfalls of exclusion and despair as well as the joys of hope and a mother’s unequivocal love.” – Lone Star Literary Life
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The Removed by Brandon Hobson ★
In the fifteen years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer’s in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation.
With the family’s annual bonfire approaching—an occasion marking both the Cherokee National Holiday and Ray-Ray’s death, and a rare moment in which they openly talk about his memory—Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world. Maria and Ernest take in a foster child who seems to almost miraculously keep Ernest’s mental fog at bay. Sonja becomes dangerously fixated on a man named Vin, despite—or perhaps because of—his ties to tragedy in her lifetime and lifetimes before. And in the wake of a suicide attempt, Edgar finds himself in the mysterious Darkening Land: a place between the living and the dead, where old atrocities echo.
Drawing deeply on Cherokee folklore, The Removed seamlessly blends the real and spiritual to excavate the deep reverberations of trauma—a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level.
Description from Goodreads.
“You’ll be sucked right in, and you won’t be able to put it down.” – Alma
“Hobson’s last novel… was a finalist for the National Book Award, and I’ll eat my pajamas if his new novel — which is also set in Oklahoma and deepens Hobson’s themes of displacement and violence — doesn’t get a nom too.” – Vulture
“Stunning… Hobson uses Cherokee folklore to great effect in this profound, powerful look at the ways in which trauma — both recent and generational — infuses every aspect of our lives, but that it is possible to heal, to recover without ever forgetting what happened and what is still owed in order to reach a place of true understanding.” – Refinery29
“Mesmerizing… Spare, strange, bird-haunted, and mediated by grief, the novel defies its own bleakness as its calls forth a delicate and monumental endurance.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
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The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson ★
A promise could betray you.
It’s 2008, and the rise of Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and abandoned—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.
Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. While her family is happy to see her, they remind her of the painful sacrifices to give Ruth a shot at a better future—like the comfortable middle-class life she now enjoys.
Determined, Ruth begins digging into the past. As she uncovers burning secrets her family desperately wants to hide, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. When a traumatic incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, Ruth and Midnight find themselves on a collision course that could upend both their lives.
The Kindest Lie examines the heartbreaking divide between black and white communities and plumbs the emotional depths of the struggles faced by ordinary Americans in the wake of the financial crisis. Capturing the profound racial injustices and class inequalities roiling society, Nancy Johnson’s debut novel offers an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.
Description from Goodreads.
“…eloquently written, introspective, and emotionally resonant… a visceral depiction of being Black in America, the quest for understanding and acceptance, the struggles of motherhood, and the strength of family amid the backdrop of a racially divided country.” – Washington Independent Review of Books
“Johnson’s sharp debut takes a deep dive into the life of a Black Chicago woman after the 2008 presidential election… Powerful insights emerge on the plurality of Black American experience and the divisions between rural and urban life, and the wealthy and the working class. Johnson’s clear-eyed saga hits hard.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“It takes tremendous talent to seamlessly combine social commentary with a powder keg of a plot, and Nancy Johnson accomplishes just that… gripping… Don’t miss this powerful debut.” – BookPage, STARRED REVIEW
“Generational secrets, class divides, motherhood, and American life on the edge of political and economic change are all examined in Johnson’s engaging debut… Through well-developed characters, Johnson provides a realistic portrayal of middle America in the tumultuous era of economic collapse.” – Booklist
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Milk Fed by Melissa Broder ★
Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, by way of obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting.
Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey.
Pairing superlative emotional insight with unabashed vivid fantasy, Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we as humans can compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is a tender and riotously funny meditation on love, certitude, and the question of what we are all being fed, from one of our major writers on the psyche—both sacred and profane.
Description from Goodreads.
“Broder’s funny, semi-sweet writing will leave you ravenous for more.” – The Week
“A sensuous and delightfully delirious tale… Filled with an unadulterated filthiness that would make Philip Roth blush, Broder’s latest is a devour-it-in-one-sitting wonder.” – O, The Oprah Magazine
“Spell-caster Broder guides readers through this seriously tender tale of transformation with seamless humor and staggering smarts: it contains multitudes. An empathic, enrapturing, unputdownable novel of faith, sex, love, and nurture.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Few writers so innately understand or better capture the endless, palpable hunger that so many people carry around with them, day after day. This hunger is for food, for sex, for love, for compassion, for understanding, and it is this kind of ravenous appetite that Broder explores in her exultant new novel… riotously funny and perfectly profane.” – Refinery29
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My Year Abroad by Chang-Rae Lee ★
Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.
In the breathtaking, “precise, elliptical prose” that Chang-rae Lee is known for (New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller’s outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion–on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.
Description from Goodreads.
“My Year Abroad is an extraordinary book, acrobatic on the level of the sentence, symphonic across its many movements—and this is a book that moves… My Year Abroad is a wild ride—a caper, a romance, a bildungsroman, and something of a satire of how to get filthy rich in rising Asia. This isn’t a book that skates through its many disparate-seeming scenes, but rather unites them in the heartfelt adventure of its protagonist, who begins his year ‘abroad’ as a foreign land to himself and arrives at something like belonging by the end of his story.” – Vogue
“A syncopated surprise, with an ending that will be sure to leave you texting all your friends.” – Vulture
“Chang-rae Lee’s electric new novel has the kind of kinetic energy that makes reading it feel like a full body experience, leaving you wondering and in awe of where exactly it will take you next… a virtuosic, wildly original book — one that cements Lee’s status as one of the most exciting writers working today.” – Refinery29
“[A] wildly inventive comic novel… Chang-rae Lee has written a surprising, spirited, keenly observed novel, full of the crazy and the profound.” – BookPage, STARRED REVIEW
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Milk Blood Heat: Stories by Dantiel W. Moniz ★
Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story in Milk Blood Heat delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another.
A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter—whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.
Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat forms an ouroboros of stories that bewitch with their truth.
Description from Goodreads.
“The stories in Milk Blood Heat are glorious. We meet an eclectic cast of Floridians grappling with questions of what it is to be human and how to live in the world: difference, girlhood, womanhood, manhood, pleasure, loss, and the visceral desire to belong. The prose pulsates with wonderment, easing us into moments of discovery that surprise, and deepen, both our and the characters’ sense of the world. I enjoyed, particularly, the ways in which these stories are filled with incisive bursts of ecstasy, broadening our experience of joy and heartache.” – The Millions
“The stories in Moniz’s debut collection—many of which shine a multihued light on Black girlhood in Florida—are to not only be read but felt. Like Danielle Evans and Lauren Groff, Moniz is unafraid to expose the darkened corners of the Sunshine State, and of female desire.” – O, The Oprah Magazine
“If the ‘Florida Man’ memes pulled from years of headlines have taught us anything, it’s that the Sunshine State is its own world, unique from any other American region. In enchanting prose, debut storyteller Dantiel W. Moniz plunges readers head first into the lives of oft misunderstood Floridians and their personal crises, stitching together a portrait that feels both original and startlingly familiar.” – Elle
“A fresh feel for the intensity and contradictions of girlhood sings across tough stories… The prose is pretty, but it punishes.” – Entertainment Weekly
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This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith ★
On a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home from work when she spots a man precariously standing on the side of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally shares his name: Emmett.
Over the course of the emotionally charged weekend that follows, Tallie makes it her mission to provide a safe space for Emmett, though she hesitates to confess that this is also her day job. But what she doesn’t realize is that he’s not the only one who needs healing — and she’s not the only one with secrets.
Alternating between Tallie and Emmett’s perspectives as they inch closer to the truth of what brought Emmett to the bridge’s edge — as well as the hard truths Tallie has been grappling with in her own life — This Close to Okay is a vibrant, powerful story of two strangers brought together by wild chance at the moment they needed each other most.
Description from Goodreads.
“As dark and tense as it is flirty and humorous, this moving novel offers consistent surprises.” – Publishers Weekly
“[A] poignant page-turner about perseverance and two broken people who, like all of us at one time or another, just need someone to tell them everything’s going to be all right.” – Real Simple
“Cross-Smith places mental health at the heart of this story, bringing attention to the importance of asking for help when navigating the complicated twists and turns of life. This Close to Okay is a fast-moving, drama-filled roller coaster that will keep you guessing about how things will turn out for these two lost souls.” – BookPage
“[A] heartfelt and moving novel about grief, love, second chances, and the coincidences that change lives.” – The Millions
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Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan
Welcome to Maple Street, a picture-perfect slice of suburban Long Island, its residents bound by their children, their work, and their illusion of safety in a rapidly changing world.
Arlo Wilde, a gruff has-been rock star who’s got nothing to show for his fame but track marks, is always two steps behind the other dads. His wife, beautiful ex-pageant queen Gertie, feels socially ostracized and adrift. Spunky preteen Julie curses like a sailor and her kid brother Larry is called “Robot Boy” by the kids on the block.
Their next-door neighbor and Maple Street’s Queen Bee, Rhea Schroeder—a lonely community college professor repressing her own dark past—welcomes Gertie and family into the fold. Then, during one spritzer-fueled summer evening, the new best friends share too much, too soon.
As tensions mount, a sinkhole opens in a nearby park, and Rhea’s daughter Shelly falls inside. The search for Shelly brings a shocking accusation against the Wildes that spins out of control. Suddenly, it is one mom’s word against the other’s in a court of public opinion that can end only in blood.
A riveting and ruthless portrayal of American suburbia, Good Neighbors excavates the perils and betrayals of motherhood and friendships and the dangerous clash between social hierarchy, childhood trauma, and fear.
Description from Goodreads.
“A creepy standout for readers who want an extra kick to their suburban dramas.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Langan weaves interviews and news clips into her tightly written, fast-paced narrative, conveying the infectious spread and mutation of stories goaded by media sensationalism and attention-seeking neighbors. As gossip and rumors swell and proliferate, the stakes grow exponentially as well. The richly complex main characters reveal flawed pasts and duplicitous natures as the story transforms into a witch hunt… Intricate and edgy, Good Neighbors is a descent into depraved suburban drama, perfect for fans of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Stephen King-style thrills.” – BookPage
“[A] mesmerizing novel… A must-read from the Bram Stoker award-winning author (she’s known for her horror stories) that offers both page-turning suspense and brilliant social commentary.” – AARP
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On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu
Firuzeh and her brother Nour are children of fire, born in an Afghanistan fractured by war. When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin fairy tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia.
As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found.
When they arrive in Australia, what seemed like a stable shore gives way to treacherous currents. Neighbors, classmates, and the government seek their own ends, indifferent to the family’s fate. For Firuzeh, her fantasy worlds provide some relief, but as her family and home splinter, she must surface from these imaginings and find a new way.
Description from Goodreads.
“…outstanding… In flowing, lyrical prose, Yu showcases the power of folklore and the pain of displacement. This is a knockout.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“On Fragile Waves is a masterful and poetic novel about finding hope and joy in the most dire circumstances.” – Foreword Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“[A] heavy novel about displacement and belonging, family and struggle and the fragility and importance of hope. Yu skillfully threads the needle between contemporary and magical realist literature while centering on the important and timely subject of immigrants and refugees’ plight.” – Geek Girl Authority
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SUSPENSE
Girls with Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier & Wendy Katzman
College admissions season at Seattle’s Elliott Bay Academy is marked by glowing acceptances from top-tier institutions and students as impressive as their parents are ambitious. But when Stanford alerts the school it’s allotting only one spot to EBA for their incoming class, three mothers discover the competition is more cut-throat than they could have imagined.
Tech giant Alicia turns to her fortune and status to fight for her reluctant daughter’s place at the top. Kelly, a Stanford alum, leverages her PTA influence and insider knowledge to bulldoze the path for her high-strung daughter. And Maren makes three: single, broke, and ill-equipped to battle the elite school community aligning to bring her superstar daughter down.
That’s when, days before applications are due, one of the girls suffers a near-fatal accident, one that doesn’t appear to be an accident at all.
As the community spirals out of control, three women will have to decide what lines they’re willing to cross to secure their daughters’ futures… and keep buried the secrets that threaten to destroy far more than just college dreams.
Description from Goodreads.
“A shrewd comedy of manners… The exhilarating narrative speeds along to a satisfying conclusion. This is an unputdownable morality tale for our times.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“A thriller for the post-college-admission-scandal age.” – PopSugar
“Elegantly plotted and quick-paced… Girls with Bright Futures expertly contends with the nuances of meritocracy through its sharp comedic voice, creating a deeply poignant and pleasurable reading experience.” – Columbia Review
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Girl A by Abigail Dean
“‘Girl A, ‘ she said. ‘The girl who escaped. If anyone was going to make it, it was going to be you.'”
Lex Gracie doesn’t want to think about her family. She doesn’t want to think about growing up in her parents’ House of Horrors. And she doesn’t want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It’s been easy enough to avoid her parents–her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can’t run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings – and with the childhood they shared.
What begins as a propulsive tale of escape and survival becomes a gripping psychological family story about the shifting alliances and betrayals of sibling relationships–about the secrets our siblings keep, from themselves and each other. Who have each of these siblings become? How do their memories defy or galvanize Lex’s own? As Lex pins each sibling down to agree to her family’s final act, she discovers how potent the spell of their shared family mythology is, and who among them remains in its thrall and who has truly broken free.
Description from Goodreads.
“A novel that’s psychologically astute and written with flair. In the traditional new year battle between much touted first thrillers it’s the clear winner.” – Sunday Times
“A tour de force, beautifully written, richly imagined, and compulsively readable. Add to this its grave sometimes ominous tone, and the result is unforgettable.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“This gripping story about family dynamics and the nature of human psychology will hold you tight all the way through.” – Good Housekeeping
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MYSTERY
Blood Grove by Walter Mosley ★
It is 1969, and flames can be seen on the horizon, protest wafts like smoke though the thick air, and Easy Rawlins, the Black private detective whose small agency finally has its own office, gets a visit from a white Vietnam veteran. The young man comes to Easy with a story that makes little sense. He and his lover, a beautiful young woman, were attacked in a citrus grove at the city’s outskirts. He may have killed a man, and the woman and his dog are now missing. Inclined to turn down what sounds like nothing but trouble, Easy takes the case when he realizes how damaged the young vet is from his war experiences—the bond between veterans superseding all other considerations.
The veteran is not Easy’s only unlooked-for trouble. Easy’s adopted daughter Feather’s white uncle shows up uninvited, raising questions and unsettling the life Easy has long forged for the now young woman. Where Feather sees a family reunion, Easy suspects something else, something that will break his heart.
Blood Grove is a crackling, moody, and thrilling race through a California of hippies and tycoons, radicals and sociopaths, cops and grifters, both men and women. Easy will need the help of his friends—from the genius Jackson Blue to the dangerous Mouse Alexander, Fearless Jones, and Christmas Black—to make sense of a case that reveals the darkest impulses humans harbor.
Blood Grove is a novel of vast scope and intimate insight, and a soulful call for justice by any means necessary.
Description from Goodreads.
“It’s hard to believe Mosley once gave serious thought to killing off his first detective hero. He’s still got plenty of game.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…heart-pounding… will appeal to Easy Rawlins fans and newcomers alike.” – Novel Suspects
“Mosley does a fine job highlighting a world of Black survivors who know how difficult their struggle remains, every day of every decade. This marvelous series is as relevant as ever.” – Publishers Weekly
“Easy’s finely calibrated understanding of and commentary on the social and racial climate around him gives the novel its defining texture and power… A new Easy Rawlins novel is always big news in crime-fiction circles, and this fifteenth entry in the series does not disappoint.” – Booklist
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The Survivors by Jane Harper ★
Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.
The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.
Kieran’s parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.
When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away…
Description from Goodreads.
“Another suspenseful thriller… And in Harper’s proven style, the story is not only atmospheric, it delves deep into the psyche of main character Kieran Elliott and the townsfolk, unearthing dark secrets, hidden guilt and simmering social tensions.” – Herald Sun
“It’s now clear Harper has a gift… every book has a distinct landscape that plays a central part in the plot made possible by her uncanny knack of bringing scenery to life.” – Daily Telegraph
“[Harper is] a master at creating atmospheric settings, and it’s easy to fall under her spell… A layered and nuanced mystery.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Harper expertly weaves past guilts with present grief. She remains a writer to watch.” – Publishers Weekly
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The Unwilling by John Hart
Gibby’s older brothers have already been to war. One died there. The other came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison.
Jason won’t speak of the war or of his time behind bars, but he wants a relationship with the younger brother he hasn’t known for years. Determined to make that connection, he coaxes Gibby into a day at the lake: long hours of sunshine and whisky and older women.
But the day turns ugly when the four encounter a prison transfer bus on a stretch of empty road. Beautiful but drunk, one of the women taunts the prisoners, leading to a riot on the bus. The woman finds it funny in the moment, but is savagely murdered soon after.
Given his violent history, suspicion turns first to Jason; but when the second woman is kidnapped, the police suspect Gibby, too. Determined to prove Jason innocent, Gibby must avoid the cops and dive deep into his brother’s hidden life, a dark world of heroin, guns and outlaw motorcycle gangs.
What he discovers there is a truth more bleak than he could have imagined: not just the identity of the killer and the reasons for Tyra’s murder, but the forces that shaped his brother in Vietnam, the reason he was framed, and why the most dangerous man alive wants him back in prison.
This is crime fiction at its most raw, an exploration of family and the past, of prison and war and the indelible marks they leave.
Description from Goodreads.
“Another scorcher from Hart… [he] keeps us engaged… subtly folding quiet, character-driven moments into the story while still powering the narrative toward an all-stops-out ending–and a chilling coda. Remember to breathe after you turn the last page.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“By turns a family drama, coming of age story, and unnerving psychological thriller, The Unwilling by John Hart is altogether a very enjoyable, twisty ride… an absolutely excellent thriller from an author at the top of his game.” – Mystery & Suspense
“…well defined characters and tension that never relents…” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano
Finlay Donovan is killing it… except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.
When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet… Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.
Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moments, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from award-winning author Elle Cosimano.
Description from Amazon.
“A suburban Virginia divorcée struggles with that classic dilemma: What should she do when she’s offered a fat paycheck to kill a complete stranger?… Suspenseful, funny, and even a tad mysterious. More, please.” – Kirkus Reviews
“[A] pleasingly absurd premise… those willing to enter into the spirit of Finlay’s world should enjoy this romp from a skilled comic writer.” – Publishers Weekly
“[R]eaders will enjoy this breezy romp.” – Library Journal
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The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse
Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Once a sanatorium treating tuberculosis patients, it was abandoned years ago and had fallen into disrepair. Long plagued by troubling rumors, it has recently been renovated into a lavish hotel.
An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place detective Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin’s on a career break, scarred by a particularly brutal case she just can’t shake. So when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.
But when Elin wakes the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. And she soon realizes that Laure is not the first person to have vanished mysteriously from the old sanatorium.
As one of the worst snowstorms in thirty years descends, Elin starts to connect the dots between Laure’s disappearance and the hotel’s troubling history. Just when she thinks she’s making progress, a body is found, staged to send a terrifying message. With avalanches closing off all access to the hotel, Elin is under pressure to uncover the sanatorium’s secrets and find her brother’s fiancée before the killer strikes again.
Description from Goodreads.
“Pearse’s engrossing debut boasts a highly atmospheric setting… Readers will applaud as Elin, for all her anxieties, emerges as a competent sleuth. This dark tale of family dynamics is sure to please suspense fans.” – Publishers Weekly
“Dark and deliciously so.” – The Book Trail
“A colorful and tense murder mystery with a chilling (in more ways than one) atmosphere… There is a pleasing pressure-cooker feel to proceedings, reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None. Pearse uses clever red herrings – secrets, pills, affairs, mental illness – and the stand-off scenes between Elin and the murderer are genuinely scary.” – The Irish Times
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HISTORICAL FICTION
The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner
April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed.
Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin’s silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin’s odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn’t right.
Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved.
The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.
From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity.
Description from Goodreads.
“Meissner spins an exceptional story… Unexpected and masterfully crafted twists and turns abound… Ingeniously plotted and perfectly structured, this captivates from beginning to end.” – Publisher’s Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Vividly rendered in the chaos and mass destruction of the historic earthquake, Meissner’s latest is a testament to the strength and solidarity of women in crisis.” – Library Journal
“Meissner’s latest is her best yet, an ultimately uplifting story of strong women and found family.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
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The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat
The year is 1940, and the world is torn apart by war. In June of that year, Hitler’s army captures the Channel Islands—the only part of Great Britain occupied by German forces. Abandoned by Mr. Churchill, forgotten by the Allies and cut off from all help, the Islands’ situation is increasingly desperate.
Hedy Bercu is a young Jewish girl who fled Vienna for the island of Jersey two years earlier during the Anschluss, only to find herself trapped by the Nazis once more—this time with no escape. Her only hope is to make herself invaluable to the Germans by working as a translator, hiding in plain sight with the help of her friends and community—and a sympathetic German officer. But as the war intensifies, rations dwindle and neighbors are increasingly suspicious of one another, Hedy’s life is in greater danger every day. It will take a definitive, daring act to save her from certain deportation to the concentration camps.
A sweeping tale of bravery and love under impossible circumstances, Hedy’s remarkable story reminds us that it’s often up to ordinary people to be quiet heroes in the face of injustice.
Description from Goodreads.
“This gripping tale of forbidden love and survival will leave you breathless.” – Sunday Post
“A strong story of a small island in the battle of WWII with characters you root for and a love story that makes you happy.” – Red Carpet Crash
“Lecoat capably combines historical fact with the fictional narrative, and offers a cast rich with multidimensional characters. Readers will be riveted.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
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SCI-FI & FANTASY
Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell ★
While the Iskat Empire has long dominated the system through treaties and political alliances, several planets, including Thea, have begun to chafe under Iskat’s rule. When tragedy befalls Imperial Prince Taam, his Thean widower, Jainan, is rushed into an arranged marriage with Taam’s cousin, the disreputable Kiem, in a bid to keep the rising hostilities between the two worlds under control.
But when it comes to light that Prince Taam’s death may not have been an accident, and that Jainan himself may be a suspect, the unlikely pair must overcome their misgivings and learn to trust one another as they navigate the perils of the Iskat court, try to solve a murder, and prevent an interplanetary war… all while dealing with their growing feelings for each other.
Description from Goodreads.
“…gorgeously plotted… this exciting adventure is sure to win Maxwell many fans.” – Publishers Weekly
“Maxwell’s delightful debut will please science fiction and romance readers alike, telling a slow burn of a relationship fraught with high stakes and action.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“At the heart of Winter’s Orbit is an argument about healing, honesty, and the nature of trust and power. Well-paced and deftly written, it’s one of the most enjoyable space (or planetary) opera romances that I’ve had the pleasure to read, and I look forward to seeing more of Maxwell’s work in the years to come.” – Locus
“Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit did every single thing I expected it to do and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it… The world and its politics are ably developed, but they are very much not the point. Jainan and Kiem’s relationship is spot-lit and center stage, every misstep and hesitation both building and delaying the reader’s satisfaction… One doesn’t fault a sonnet for having a rhyme scheme—and in a world so relentlessly uncertain, there’s a powerfully simple pleasure in the experience of a promise kept.” – New York Times Book Review
Available Formats:
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Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen
The Tearling has reverted to feudalism, a far cry from the utopia it was founded to be. As the gap between rich and poor widens and famine threatens the land, sparking unrest, rumors of a prophecy begin to spread: a great hope, a True Queen who will rise up and save the kingdom.
But rumors will not help Lazarus, a man raised to kill in the brutal clandestine underworld of the Creche, nor Aislinn, a farm girl who must reckon with her own role in the growing rebellion. In the Keep, the crown princess, Elyssa, finds herself torn between duty to the throne and the lure of the Blue Horizon, a group of fierce idealists who promise radical change… but Elyssa must choose quickly, before a nefarious witch and her shadowy master use dark magic to decide for her. It is only a matter of time before all three will be called into the service of something bigger than they have ever imagined: a fight for a better world.
Description from Goodreads.
“The story considers the nature of forgiveness, the use and abuse of power, and the morality of right and wrong as characters develop in unexpected ways. The dramatic climax will have readers questioning who the real hero is at the end of this compelling tale of epic fantasy. Series fans will be intrigued to discover the background details of individuals who are pivotal to events in the trilogy, and those new to the series will want to find out what comes next.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
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A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel
Always run, never fight.
Preserve the knowledge.
Survive at all costs.
Take them to the stars.
Over 99 identical generations, Mia’s family has shaped human history to push them to the stars, making brutal, wrenching choices and sacrificing countless lives. Her turn comes at the dawn of the age of rocketry. Her mission: to lure Wernher Von Braun away from the Nazi party and into the American rocket program, and secure the future of the space race.
But Mia’s family is not the only group pushing the levers of history: an even more ruthless enemy lurks behind the scenes.
A darkly satirical first contact thriller, as seen through the eyes of the women who make progress possible and the men who are determined to stop them…
Description from Goodreads.
“A highly crafted and unique look at the space race, through the eyes of those who exist only to ensure its success… Neuvel’s intriguing first-contact story is set through centuries of manipulation and pursuit. It’s a promising start to what looks to be a dark and exciting trilogy.” – Library Journal
“The balance of wry narration, wired action, and delicate worldbuilding make for deeply gratifying reading. Fans of alternate history and intelligent sci-fi will love this.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
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ROMANCE
Make Up Break Up by Lily Menon
Love, romance, second chances, fairy-tale endings… these are the things Annika Dev believes in. Her app, Make Up, has been called the “Google Translate for failing relationships.”
High efficiency break-ups, flashy start-ups, penthouses, fast cars…these are the things Hudson Craft believes in. His app, Break Up, is known as the “Uber for break-ups.” It’s wildly successful—and anathema to Annika’s life philosophy.
Which wouldn’t be a problem if they’d gone their separate ways after that summer fling in Las Vegas, never to see each other again. Unfortunately for Annika, Hudson’s moving not just into her office building, but into the office right next to hers. And he’ll be competing at the prestigious EPIC investment pitch contest: A contest Annika needs to win if she wants to keep Make Up afloat. As if it’s not bad enough seeing his irritatingly perfect face on magazine covers when her own business is failing. As if knowing he stole her idea and twisted it into something vile—and monumentally more successful—didn’t already make her stomach churn.
As the two rival app developers clash again and again—and again—Annika finds herself drawn into Hudson Craft’s fast-paced, high velocity, utterly shallow world. Only, from up close, he doesn’t seem all that shallow. Could it be that everything she thought about Hudson is completely wrong? Could the creator of Break Up teach her what true love’s really about?
Description from Goodreads.
“Packed with heart, humor, and multiple swoonworthy moments, YA author Menon’s adult debut brings a welcome zing to the romance genre that is sure to have wide app.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“…the witty banter and electric sexual tension throughout will keep readers hooked. This winning romance will especially appeal to fans of The Hating Game.” – Publishers Weekly
“This entertaining enemies-to-lovers romance marks the adult debut of the popular YA author, writing as Sandhya Menon, of When Dimple Met Rishi… the sexual tension sizzles, and themes of familial expectations and financial stress add richness and intrigue. Hand this one to fans of Alisha Rai and Sally Thorne.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
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YOUNG ADULT
The Project by Courtney Summers ★
Lo Denham is used to being on her own. After her parents died, Lo’s sister, Bea, joined The Unity Project, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt. Thanks to its extensive charitable work and community outreach, The Unity Project has won the hearts and minds of most in the Upstate New York region, but Lo knows there’s more to the group than meets the eye. She’s spent the last six years of her life trying—and failing—to prove it.
When a man shows up at the magazine Lo works for claiming The Unity Project killed his son, Lo sees the perfect opportunity to expose the group and reunite with Bea once and for all. When her investigation puts her in the direct path of its leader, Lev Warren and as Lo delves deeper into The Project and the lives of its members, it upends everything she thought she knew about her sister, herself, cults, and the world around her—to the point she can no longer tell what’s real or true. Lo never thought she could afford to believe in Lev Warren… but now she doesn’t know if she can afford not to.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] deeply disconcerting investigative thriller that seems unassuming but worms under the skin and into the mind… Winding questions of faith and sacrifice into an already fibrous plot, Summers presents a rich offering that lingers even as it shocks.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Masterfully written and pulling no punches… Summers creates and sustains almost unbearable tension, exploring sacrifice, loss, forgiveness, miracles, surrender, grief, and lies. Readers will question the truth and everyone’s motivations in this world full of manipulation and mind games. A gripping, flawless psychological thriller ready to leave readers shattered.” – School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“This is a beautifully-written, compelling book about the lengths to which someone will go in order not to lose their sense of belonging. It’s full of twists and turns, keeping its readers guessing until the very end. The characterisation is masterfully done and so empathetic that the reader will find it almost impossible not to sympathise with the characters even if they are seemingly going down the wrong path. It’s a tour de force, unflinchingly posing uncomfortable questions and forcing its readers to dig deep into themselves in order to find the answers.” – The NERD Daily
“The beauty of the story lies in its focus on the downtrodden, the vulnerable, and the earnest, expressed with an enormous amount of empathy. A powerful, suspenseful, and heartbreaking thriller about identity, sisterhood, and belonging.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
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Love in English by Maria E. Andreu
Sixteen-year-old Ana has just moved to New Jersey from Argentina for her Junior year of high school. She’s a poet and a lover of language—except that now, she can barely understand what’s going on around her, let alone find the words to express how she feels in the language she’s expected to speak.
All Ana wants to do is go home—until she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class. And then there’s her new friend Neo, the Greek boy she’s partnered up with in ESL class, who she bonds with over the 80s teen movies they are assigned to watch for class (but later keep watching together for fun), and Altagracia, her artistic and Instagram-fabulous friend, who thankfully is fluent in Spanish and able to help her settle into American high school.
But is it possible that she’s becoming too American—as her father accuses—and what does it mean when her feelings for Harrison and Neo start to change? Ana will spend her year learning that the rules of English may be confounding, but there are no rules when it comes to love.
Description from Goodreads.
“Andreu creates a realistic portrait of the obstacles facing English language learners in the United States. Her characters are nuanced and their interactions endearing. Teenagers and adults alike will gain necessary perspective from reading this accessible story about a topic that affects millions. An engaging novel about language, culture, and empathy.” – School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“The novel, focusing on Ana’s experience as a documented immigrant, effectively explores the character’s struggle to navigate unlike cultures and languages while she learns to communicate in English, discovers different facets of herself, falls a bit in love, and ultimately finds her footing—and her voice—in the U.S. A wholesome immigration story with a healthy dose of romance on the side.” – Kirkus Reviews
“The teen love triangle at the center of this warm and humorous novel by Andreu is threaded with experiences that accompany acclimation to a new school and country. But as a budding poet (her journals punctuate the chapters), Ana’s real love affair is with language itself. Andreu captures Ana’s cultural and linguistic roller coaster with eloquence and precision, as Ana wonders ‘if learning one language doesn’t sometimes mean forgetting a little bit of another,’ a process described as bittersweetly as coming-of-age itself.” – Publishers Weekly
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Everything That Burns by Gita Trelease
Magic. Betrayal. Sacrifice.
Camille Durbonne gambled everything she had to keep her and her sister safe, and now the Vicomtesse de Seguin seeks a new life in Paris. But revolution roils the bloody streets and “aristocrat” is a dangerous word. Safety may no longer be possible.
Following in her father’s footsteps, Camille prints revolutionary pamphlets, sharing the stories of girls.
Description from Goodreads.
“Sweeping and enchanting.” – BuzzFeed
“Diverse characters, a compelling plot, romantic tension, and Camille’s internal conflict with her own magic powers fuel this intriguing story that will resonate with fantasy and historical fiction fans.” – School Library Journal
Available Formats:
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What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo
Eleanor Zarrin has been estranged from her wild family for years. When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds.
Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together — in order to save them all, Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her.
Exquisitely terrifying, beautiful, and strange, this fierce gothic fantasy will sink its teeth into you and never let go.
Description from Goodreads.
“Deliciously gothic and wonderfully creepy.” – The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, STARRED REVIEW
“A tale so gorgeously twisty, it’ll turn you inside out.” – Tor.com
“…one part haunting mystery, one part dark fantasy… This darkly thrilling gothic fantasy will appeal to fans of Karen McManus and Maggie Stiefvater alike.” – School Library Journal
Available Formats:
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NONFICTION
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain ★
An epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, Four Hundred Souls is a chronological account of four hundred years of Black America as told by ninety of America’s leading Black writers.
Curated by Ibram X. Kendi, author of the number one bestseller How To Be an Antiracist, and fellow historian Keisha N. Blain, Four Hundred Souls begins with the arrival of twenty enslaved Ndongo people on the shores of the British colony in mainland America in 1619, the year before the arrival of the Mayflower.
In eighty chronological chapters, the book charts the tragic and triumphant four-hundred-year history of Black American experience in a choral work of exceptional power and beauty.
Contributors include some of the best-known scholars, writers, historians, journalists, lawyers, poets and activists of contemporary America who together bring to vivid life countless new facets to the drama of slavery and resistance, segregation and survival, migration and self-discovery, cultural oppression and world-changing artistic, literary and musical creativity. In these pages are dozens of extraordinary lives and personalities, rescued from the archives and restored to their rightful place in America’s narrative, as well as the ghosts of millions more.
Four Hundred Souls is an essential work of story-telling and reclamation that redefines America and changes our notion of how history is written.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] landmark anthology.” – The Root
“The excellent concept alone is hard to deny.” – Chicago Tribune
“…engrossing… The brief but powerful essays… feature lesser-known people, places, ideas, and events as well as fresh, closer looks at the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the Harlem Renaissance, Brown v. Board of Education, the Black Power movement, the war on drugs, Hurricane Katrina, voter suppression, and other staples of Black American history and experience. Poignant essays by Bernice L. McFadden on Zora Neale Hurston, Salamishah Tillet on Anita Hill, and Kiese Laymon (‘Cotton 1804–1809’) deftly tie the personal to the historical. Every voice in this ‘cabinet of curiosities’ is stellar… An impeccable, epic, essential vision of American history as a whole and a testament to the resilience of Black people.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“An engrossing anthology of essays, biographical sketches, and poems by Black writers tracing the history of the African American experience from the arrival of the first slaves in 1619 to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement… With a diverse range of up-and-coming scholars, activists, and writers exploring topics both familiar and obscure, this energetic collection stands apart from standard anthologies of African American history.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
Print Book | Playaway | eBook | eAudiobook
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal by Mark Bittman
The history of Homo sapiens is usually told as a story of technology or economics. But there is a more fundamental driver: food. How we hunted and gathered explains our emergence as a new species and our earliest technology; our first food systems, from fire to agriculture, tell where we settled and how civilizations expanded. The quest for food for growing populations drove exploration, colonialism, slavery, even capitalism.
A century ago, food was industrialized. Since then, new styles of agriculture and food production have written a new chapter of human history, one that’s driving both climate change and global health crises. Best-selling food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of the story and explains how we can rescue ourselves from the modern wrong turn.
Description from Goodreads.
“Little in the present food world escapes [Bittman’s] critical eye… [his] work is certain to increase controversy over the future of food.” – Booklist
“An expert’s vigorous argument for systemic food reform.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Recommended for readers of food and diet history and those interested in the future of agriculture and sustainable farming.” – Library Journal
Available Formats:
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Made In China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods by Amelia Pang
In 2012, an Oregon mother named Julie Keith opened up a package of Halloween decorations. The cheap foam headstones had been five dollars at Kmart, too good a deal to pass up. But when she opened the box, something shocking fell out: an SOS letter, handwritten in broken English.
“Sir: If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicuton of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”
The note’s author, Sun Yi, was a mild-mannered Chinese engineer turned political prisoner, forced into grueling labor for campaigning for the freedom to join a forbidden meditation movement. He was imprisoned alongside petty criminals, civil rights activists, and tens of thousands of others the Chinese government had decided to “reeducate,” carving foam gravestones and stitching clothing for more than fifteen hours a day.
In Made in China, investigative journalist Amelia Pang pulls back the curtain on Sun’s story and the stories of others like him, including the persecuted Uyghur minority group whose abuse and exploitation is rapidly gathering steam. What she reveals is a closely guarded network of laogai—forced labor camps—that power the rapid pace of American consumerism. Through extensive interviews and firsthand reportage, Pang shows us the true cost of America’s cheap goods and shares what is ultimately a call to action—urging us to ask more questions and demand more answers from the companies we patronize.
Description from Goodreads.
“Amelia Pang exposes the shadow economy of forced labor in Made in China. Pang adroitly situates readers to Chinese culture and society… [and] sounds an uplifting note of agency and empowerment about the prospective impact of reforming Western consumption.” – San Francisco Chronicle
“The result of Pang’s investigation is this powerful, illuminating book, which serves as a reminder that not only is nothing in life actually free, but it should also never be inexplicably cheap—someone, somewhere, is always paying the price.” – Refinery29
“Journalist Pang debuts with a vivid and powerful report on Chinese forced labor camps and their connections to the American marketplace. Cinematic… Engrossing and deeply reported, this impressive exposé will make readers think twice about their next purchase.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
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Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia by Elizabeth Catte
Between 1927 and 1979, more than 8,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in five hospitals across the state of Virginia. From this plain and terrible fact springs Elizabeth Catte’s Pure America, a sweeping, unsparing history of eugenics in Virginia, and by extension the United States.
Virginia’s twentieth-century eugenics program was not the misguided initiative of well-meaning men of the day, writes Catte, with clarity and ferocity. It was a manifestation of white supremacy. It was a form of employment insurance. It was a means of controlling “troublesome” women and a philosophy that helped remove poor people from valuable land. It was cruel and it was wrong, and yet today sites where it was practiced like Western State Hospital, in Staunton, VA, are rehabilitated as luxury housing, their histories hushed up in the service of capital. As was amply evidenced by her acclaimed 2018 book What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, Catte has no room for excuses; no patience for equivocation. What does it mean for modern America, she asks here, that such buildings are given the second chance that 8,000 citizens never got? And what possible interventions can be made now, to repair their damage?
Description from Goodreads.
“In a lacerating analysis of the links between economic policies and eugenicist thought, Catte examines coerced labor at Virginia’s psychiatric institutions, the destruction of a historically-Black neighborhood in Charlottesville under the guise of urban renewal, and the transformation of Western State into an upscale hotel and condominiums. This provocative and impeccably argued history reveals how traumas of the past inform the inequalities of today.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“In this grounded, well-rendered, and highly disturbing account, Catte examines the period from the late 1920s to 1979 at the Western State Lunatic Asylum… A well-told, richly contextualized investigation of an appalling episode in American history.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
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So many of these look like great escapes. Will save list. So many books. So little time.
Our “too-read” lists are certainly never empty…