Masood, Syed, author.
2021
It is 1995, Anvar Faris and his family decide, not quite unanimously, to start life over in California. The irony is not lost on Anvar that in America, his deeply devout mother and his model-Muslim brother are the ones who fit right in. Safwa, a young girl suffocating in war-torn Baghdad, will find a quite different and far more dangerous path to America. These two narratives are intrinsically linked, and when their worlds come together, the fates of two remarkably different people intertwine and set off a series of events that rock their whole community to its core.
Johansen, Iris, author
2021
Investigator Kendra Michaels, a formerly blind, modern-day Sherlock Holmes, must solve the abduction of a famous pop star before time runs out.
Hawke, Ethan, 1970- author
2021
The first novel in nearly twenty years from the acclaimed actor/writer/director is a book about art and love, fame and heartbreak--a blistering story of a young man making his Broadway debut in Henry IV just as his marriage implodes. A bracing meditation on fame and celebrity, and the redemptive, healing power of art; a portrait of the ravages of disappointment and divorce; a poignant consideration of the rites of fatherhood and manhood; a novel soaked in rage and sex, longing and despair, and a passionate love letter to the world of theater, A Bright Ray of Darkness showcases Ethan Hawke's gifts as a novelist as never before.
Ekwuyasi, Francesca, 1990- author
2020
This is the interwoven stories of twin sisters, Kehinde and Taiye, and their mother, Kambirinachi. A devasting childhood trauma causes the family to fracture in seemingly irreversible ways. After more than a decade of living apart, Taiye and Kehinde have returned home to Lagos to visit their mother. It is here that the three women must face each other and address the wounds of the past if they are to reconcile and move forward.
Baldacci, David, author
2020
FBI Agent Atlee Pine's search for her sister Mercy clashes with military investigator John Puller's high-stakes case, leading them both deep into a global conspiracy -- from which neither of them will escape unscathed.
Eaton, Ellie, author
2021
The girls of St. John the Divine were fiercely loyal, sharp-tongued, and cuttingly humorous in the way that only teenage girls can be. For Josephine, now in her thirties, the years at St. John were a lifetime ago. She hasn't spoken to another Divine in fifteen years, not since the day the school shuttered its doors in disgrace. Ruminating on the past, Josephine circles closer to the violent secret at the heart of the school's scandal. But the more Josephine recalls, the further her life unravels, derailing not just her marriage and career, but her entire sense of self.
Mandel, Emily St. John, 1979- author
2020
A weaving of three lives that captivates money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts, and moral compromise. Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette. New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it's the beginning of their life together. Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees a note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core. Thirteen years later, Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship.
O'Neill, John, 1959- author.
2020
"John O'Neill's gothic short stories, set in the Canadian Rockies, are haunted by the violence inherent in nature and humans. The mountains are majestic and impassive. The characters are surprising, bent, but also empathetic. Their survival is tenuous. A two-sister team of goth tour guides offers guided excursions up switchback mountain trails; a paroled convict thumbs his way into the life of a family driving west; and an animal pathologist, while performing a necropsy on a grizzly bear, has an unusual encounter with both technology and humanity. Goth Girls of Banff is a superb collection, sharply written, with plot turns as consequence-laden as those on an iced-over mountain road."-- Provided by publisher.
Richardson, Jael Ealey, 1980- author.
2021
Set in an imagined world in which the most vulnerable are forced to buy their freedom by working off their debt to society. Elimina Dubois is one of only 100 babies taken from the Gutter and raised in the land of opportunity as part of a social experiment led by the Mainland government. But when her Mainland mother dies, Elimina's life takes another unexpected turn, she will discover that what she needs more than anything may not be the freedom she longs for after all.
Bergen, David, 1957- author
2020
From the streets of Danang, where a boy falls in with an American missionary, to the Canadian prairies, where an aging rancher finds himself smitten and a teenage boy's infatuation reveals his naivete, and a young woman in a cloistered Mennonite community is torn between faith and doubt, Here the Dark deftly renders moral complexities and asks what it means to be lost--and how, through grace, we can be found.
Medie, Peace A., author.
2020
Afi Tekple lives in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother until she is offered a life-changing opportunity - a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo, a man she doesn't truly know. She acquiesces, but soon realizes that Elikem is not quite the catch he seemed. It turns out that he is in love with another woman, whom his family disapproves of and Afi is supposed to win him back on their behalf. But it is the city Accra that eventually wins Afi's heart and gives her a life of independence that she never could have imagined for herself.
Thammavongsa, Souvankham, 1978- author
2020
In her stunning debut, Souvankham Thammavongsa captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and above all, the pursuit of a place to belong. An ex-boxer turned nail salon worker falls for a pair of immaculate hands; a mother and daughter harvest earthworms in the middle of the night; a country music-obsessed housewife abandons her family for fantasy; and a young girl's love for her father transcends language. Uncannily and intimately observed, written with prose of exceptional precision, the stories in How to Pronounce Knife speak of modern location and dislocation, revealing lives lived in the embrace of isolation and severed history - but not without joy, humour, resilience, and constant wonder at the workings of the world.
Chen, Te-Ping, author.
2021
"A debut story collection offering a kaleidoscopic portrait of life for contemporary Chinese people, set between China and the United States"-- Provided by publisher.
Davies, Peter Ho, 1966- author.
2021
Tracing complex consequences of one of the most personal yet public, intimate yet political experiences a family can have: to have a child, and conversely, the decision not to have a child. This spare, graceful narrative chronicles the flux of parenthood, marriage, and the day-to-day practice of loving someone.
Rosnau, Laisha, 1972- author
2019
"In this captivating and intricate novel Laisha Rosnau introduces us to three women, each of whom is storied enough to have their own novel and who, together, make for an unforgettable tale. Based on the true story of the Caetanis, Italian nobility driven out of their home by the rise in fascism who chose exile in Vernon, BC, Rosnau brings to life Ofelia Caetani, her daughter Sveva Caetani and their personal secretary, Miss Juul. Miss Juul is the voice of the novel, a diminutive Danish woman who enters into employment with the Caetani family in Italy before the birth of Sveva, stays with them through twenty-five years of seclusion at their home in Vernon, and past the death of Ofelia. Little Fortress is a story of a shifting world, with the death of its age-old nobility, and of the intricacies of the lives of women caught up in these grand changes. It is a story of friendship, class, betrayal and love."--Publisher.
Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924.
2020
"Unearthed by the master Kafka biographer and scholar Reiner Stach and translated by the peerless Michael Hofmann, this collection comes as a prize and a joy. Some stories are several pages long; some run about a page; a handful are only a few lines long. Lost to English-language readers until now, all are marvels: even the most fragmentary texts are revelations. "Wonderful," Hofmann remarked, as he was translating. "It's full of the love of narration, surprises, and the sweetness and purity of invention. It's amazing how inexhaustible Kafka is. We think we 'know' him and have him down. He pops up somewhere else, as something different. It's my (sober) assessment that nothing will have changed our view of Kafka more than this book in fifty years"--Provided by publisher.
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia, author
2020
"The acclaimed author of Gods of Jade and Shadow returns with a darkly enchanting reimagining of Gothic fantasy, in which a spirited young woman discovers the haunting secrets of a beautiful old mansion in 1950s Mexico"-- Provided by publisher.
Broder, Melissa, author
2021
Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favourite 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. This is a tender and riotously funny meditation on love, certitude, and the question of what we are all being fed.
Horgan, John, 1953-
2020
"A renowned science writer's narrative non-fiction take on a profane, profound meditation on the entanglements of our inner and outer worlds and the elusiveness of truth"-- Provided by publisher.
Sacco, Joe, author, illustrator
2020
"The Dene have lived in the vast Mackenzie River Valley since time immemorial, by their account. To the Dene, the land owns them, not the other way around, and it is central to their livelihood and very way of being. But the subarctic Canadian Northwest Territories are home to valuable resources, including oil, gas, and diamonds. With mining came jobs and investment, but also road-building, pipelines, and toxic waste, which scarred the landscape, and alcohol, drugs, and debt, which deformed a way of life. In Paying the Land, Joe Sacco travels the frozen North to reveal a people in conflict over the costs and benefits of development. The mining boom is only the latest assault on indigenous culture: Sacco recounts the shattering impact of a residential school system that aimed to "remove the Indian from the child"; the destructive process that drove the Dene from the bush into settlements and turned them into wage laborers; the government land claims stacked against the Dene Nation; and their uphill efforts to revive a wounded culture. Against a vast and gorgeous landscape that dwarfs all human scale, Paying the Land lends an ear to trappers and chiefs, activists and priests, to tell a sweeping story about money, dependency, loss, and culture-recounted in stunning visual detail by one of the greatest cartoonists alive."-- Provided by publisher.
Mootoo, Shani, author
2020
Some secrets never die... Priya and Alexandra have moved from the city to a picturesque countryside town. What Alex doesn't know is that in moving, Priya is running from her past--from a fraught relationship with an old friend, Prakash, who pursued her for many years, both online and off. Time has passed, however, and Priya, confident that her ties to Prakash have been successfully severed, decides it's once more safe to establish an online presence. In no time, Prakash discovers Priya online and contacts her. Impulsively, inexplicably, Priya invites him to visit her and Alex in the country, without ever having come clean with Alex about their relationship-- or its tumultuous end. Prakash's sudden arrival at their home reveals cracks in Priya and Alex's relationship and brings into question Priya's true intentions.
Audrain, Ashley, 1982- author
2021
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, supportive mother she never had to her new baby, Violet. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe doesn't find the connection with her daughter she expected. Then their son Sam is born, and with him Blythe has the natural maternal connection she'd always dreamed of. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth about herself, her past, and her daughter.
Mengiste, Maaza, author
2020
With the threat of Mussolini's army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid to Kidane and his wife Aster. Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie's army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade. His initial kindness to Hirut shifts into cruelty when she resists his advances, and Hirut finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and rage. As the war begins in earnest, the Emperor goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope. Hirut helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms against the Italians. -- adapted from jacket.
Whitehead, Colson, 1969- author
2016
Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans. When Caesar tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. But Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
