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Reviews

Reviews

by Adam Haslett - Fiction

At 40, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for 20 years returns to haunt him. Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is hurt by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago put behind her the decision that divided her from her son. But as Peter’s case plunges him further into the fraught memory of his first love and the night of violence that changed his life, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart.

by Lily Tuck - Fiction, Historical Fiction

First glimpsed riding on the back of a boy’s motorcycle, 14-year-old Czeslawa comes to life in this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, who imagines her upbringing in a small Polish village before her world imploded in late 1942. Stripped of her modest belongings, shorn, and tattooed number 26947 on arriving at Auschwitz, Czeslawa is then photographed. Three months later, she is dead. How did this happen to an ordinary Polish citizen? This is the question that Tuck grapples with in THE REST IS MEMORY, which frames Czeslawa’s story within the epic tragedy of six million Poles who perished during the German occupation.

by Amanda Lee Koe - Fiction

Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim and using her charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once, they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang dynasty China. A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her, but she soon begins to worry that Emerald’s irrepressible behavior will out them both.

by Jane Pek - Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literary Mystery, Mystery

Claudia Lin --- mystery novel superfan and, until recently, clichéd underemployed English major --- has scored her dream job: co-running Veracity, a dating detective agency for chronically online New Yorkers who want to know if their prospective partners are telling the truth. Unfortunately, along the way, she and her colleagues have uncovered a far-reaching AI conspiracy. And the corporate matchmakers may be resorting to murder to protect their secrets. In the wake of a client’s sudden death, Claudia convinces his ex, an industry insider, to turn on his employer and feed the verifiers information about what the powerful dating platforms are really up to. But even as Claudia starts to get a feel for this new genre, she fears that her beloved older brother is unwittingly being drawn into the matchmakers’ deadly web.

by Weike Wang - Fiction

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection, while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife. Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

by Sophie Cousens - Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Romance, Women's Fiction

Columnist Anna Appleby has left her love life behind after a painful divorce. Who needs a man when she has two kids, a cat and uncontested control of the TV remote? Besides, she’d rather be single than subject herself to the hell of online dating. But her office rival is vying for her column, and no column means no stable source of income. In a desperate attempt to keep her job, Anna finds herself pitching a unique angle: seven dates, all found offline, chosen by her children. From awkward encounters to unexpected connections, Anna gamely begins to put herself out there, asking out waiters, the mailman and even her celebrity crush. But when a romantic connection appears where she least expected it, will she be brave enough to take another chance on love?

by Katherine Rundell - Essays, Nature, Nonfiction

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In VANISHING TREASURES, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes --- to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and, above all, how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures.

by Emma C. Wells - Fiction, Humor, Suspense, Thriller

Cordelia Black loves exactly three things: her chosen family, her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip) and killing bad men. By day, she's an ambitious pharma rep with a flawless reputation and designer wardrobe. By night, she culls South Louisiana of unscrupulous men --- monsters who think they've evaded justice, until they meet her. But when the evening news starts throwing around the term "serial killer" and her best friend starts dating a man who just might unravel everything Cordelia has worked for, she must come face to face with the choices she's made. The good, the bad and the murderous. Her family and her freedom depend on it.

by Louise Erdrich - Fiction

In the Red River Valley of North Dakota, several lives revolve around a wedding fraught with desire, jealousy and uncertainty. Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed goth who can’t read her own future but will settle for fulfilling his. Her best friend, Hugo, a gentle, red-haired, homeschooled giant, also loves Kismet and is determined to steal her away and build a life together. Kismet’s mother, Crystal, drives a truck for Gary’s family. On her nightly runs, she tunes in to the darkness of late-night radio, experiences visions of guardian angels, and worries about what’s to come, for her daughter and herself.

by Molly Aitken - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

Alice, the daughter of a wealthy innkeeper in Kilkenny, grows up watching her mother wither under the constraints of family responsibilities --- and she vows that she will never suffer the same fate. In time, she discovers she has a flair for making money and takes her father's flourishing business to new heights. But as her riches and stature grow, so too do rumors about her private life. By the time she marries her fourth husband --- the three earlier are dead --- a storm of local gossip and resentment culminates in a life-threatening accusation.