Feature Image Credit: @booksnbikram
To the average American, the Good Morning America show is a staple in our world. The show gives us the day’s top headlines and in-depth inspiration for living a better life. As one of the most popular morning shows, it’s only reasonable that the Times Square talk show start a book club. In honor of the incredible and thriving show that many generations have grown up watching, and the magnificent books that exist and have been chosen, we have rounded up every GMA Book Club Pick and want to share with you what America is reading!
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
When Jane and her family are offered the opportunity to housesit a luxurious home in the Hollywood Hills for a year, she sees it as the perfect chance to work on her second novel. But when things take an unexpected turn, Jane ends up collaborating with producer Hampton Ford on the development of a project described as “the Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies.” Senna delivers a dark comedy that delves into the complexities of racial identity and the harsh realities faced by struggling artists.
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The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
From New York Times bestselling author Silvia Moreno-Garcia comes a novel set in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Vera Larios has just been cast as the lead in a major Hollywood film, playing the iconic Princess Salome. Nancy Hartley, hungry for fame, sets her sights on Vera and the role that could make or break a young actress’s career. The novel follows these women and delivers a gripping tale of ambition, rivalry, and the seductive allure of fame.
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The Love of My Afterlife by Kristy Greenwood
Life never quite turns out the way you think it will. The same can be said for the life of Delphie, who always seemed to be waiting for her life to begin. Then, one night, after chocking to death on a microwave hamburger, she found herself in a waiting room for the afterlife with a man who was drop dead gorgeous. While waiting, they begin to chat and Delphie realizes this is her dream guy, but he is soon taken back to his life after someone comes barreling into the waiting room saying their has been a mistake. Now, Delphie is once again, alone in a perpetual loop of waiting, until she is offered a chance to go back to Earth and find him. Her journey home to a crowded city is going to take a lot of heart and determination to find him and fall in love with life again.
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The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
In a not-so-distant future, a woman is offered a promotion at her job to work on a top secret government project as a “bridge”. They are conducting experiments to see if humans, and spacetime, can withstand time travel. Her job is to house a person brought from the past. The project brings Commander Graham Gore– who died in 1845 in a failed mission to the Arctic–to her door. The new world he lives in confuses him with the moving pictures and the bewitching woman he has come to know. After a while, the bridge realizes she is hopelessly in love with Commander Gore. But when she discovers the real reason behind the Ministry’s time travel project, she must question whether she and Gore can ever really be and how her choices now affect everything that came before her and everything that follows.
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Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez
Justin is internet famous, and not for a good reason. A Reddit thread has gone viral exposing his dating curse, causing every woman he dates finds their soulmate the moment he breaks up with them. When this information gets leaked a woman DMs him explaining that she has the same problem. A plan forms: they will date and break up, both finding their soulmates after the breakup. When Emma is moved to Minnesota for her next job as a traveling nurse, she never expected to be dating Justin for long. But in their private island cottage, the feeling of romance is in the air. As things go wrong with Emma’s toxic mother and Justin gaining guardianship of his siblings, everything gets a lot bigger than expected, especially their feelings for each other. Could it be that they have finally found their soulmate?
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Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera
Savvy and Lucy were best friends, each providing the perfect balance to the other. But after that one tragic night, Lucy and Savvy will never see each other again, and it may be Lucy’s fault, if only she could remember what actually happened. Since then, the has tried her best to move past it and the old life she knew, but when a true crime podcast host starts digging around in her past and Savvy’s death, Lucy must figure out what really happened the night Savvy was murdered, and hope she wasn’t the one who did it.
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Come & Get It by Kiley Reid
Millie is so close to graduation from the University of Arkansas she can taste it. Graduation is the beginning of the rest of her life where she will get a job she loves and buy a house. Then, a visiting professor and writer offers her an odd job that Millie takes as her first step towards her new life. But the job comes with some difficulties dealing with strange friends, dangerous dorm room antics, and forbidden curiosities.
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The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
Set against the backdrop of WWII-era Malaya, a mother’s secret past as a spy and her entanglement in a love affair with a Japanese general lead to dire consequences for her family, as colonial tensions and wartime horrors test their bonds. Her son Abel vanishes, her daughter Jasmin hides from the threat of forced servitude, and her eldest, Jujube, seethes with anger from working amidst the enemy, all while Cecily harbors a devastating secret about her role in the brutal Japanese occupation. This novel weaves a complex tapestry of love, betrayal, and the struggle for survival, seen through the eyes of four indelible characters navigating the moral ambiguities of war and colonialism.
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The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
When a man is entombed in a frozen river in 1789, Martha Ballard is called upon to examine the body and determine the cause of death. In the small, close-knit community of Hallowell, Martha is a midwife and healer, and her diary documents every birth, death, crime, and debacle. One of her entries documented an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen. Now, one of those gentlemen has been found dead in the ice. When a local physician undermines her and says the death was an accident, Martha must investigate the murder on her own. Whispers and prejudices grow louder, and when her diary lands at the center of the scandal, Martha has to choose where her loyalties lie.
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Class by Stephanie Land
In this memoir, Stephanie Land takes readers through her journey of finishing college and pursuing a writing career. Land navigates many barriers, including an outdated loan system, food insecurity, and judgmental professors and peers. She shows the realistic struggles of attending college while living below the poverty line, and perseveres to graduate college in her mid-thirties.
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The List by Yomi Adegoke
Ola Olajide is a celebrated journalist who is getting married in one month. Her and her fiancé Michael are the couple goals of their social groups, and they seem to have it all. But one day, they wake up to Michael’s name on The List. The List is an anonymous account on social media that posts allegations. While Ola is the first to support something like this, seeing her fiancé’s name on there is something she never expected. Provactive, entertaining, and thrilling, The List explores secrets, lies, the internet, and our complicated online culture.
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Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
When a father and son go missing, the lives of a Korean American family are upended forever. Mia, the twenty-year-old daughter, is not initially concerned when her father and brother don’t come back from a walk. But when her brother Eugene bursts through the front door alone and covered in blood, it becomes clear that Mia’s father is missing and something bad has happened. Eugene is the only witness, but with his rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome, he cannot speak. As the ticking-clock investigation proceeds, the family realizes their most personal secrets might be at the root of the the disappearance.
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Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
Flor Marte has the ability to predict when someone will die. When she decides to throw a living wake to bring her family and friends together to celebrate her life, her sisters are surprised and suspicious of her motives. Did Flor see her own death, or someone else’s? Flor refuses to tell her sisters, but they have secrets of their own. This novel weaves together past and present as it follows the lives of each Marte woman and paints a stunning portrait of sisters, cousins, aunts, and nieces navigating their history and their future.
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Save What’s Left by Elizabeth Castellano
When Kathleen’s husband decides he needs to “find himself” after thirty years of marriage, Kathleen decides to pack her stuff and ditch Kansas for the coastal town of Whitbey. But when she gets there, she finds a much different place than the annual picture-perfect postcards she received from her best friend. Kathleens’s neighbor is extremely grouchy, the town supervisor won’t respond to her emails, and a monstrosity of a house, coined ‘the Sugar Cube’ is being built next to her quaint cottage. As time goes on and Kathleen gets involved in the fight against the Sugar Cube and town politics, she realizes Whitbey isn’t what she expected, but it’s exactly what she needs.
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Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
The Kalotay family has been tasked with protecting a collection of rare and ancient books for generations. These are books of magic that allow a person to do the unthinkable. Half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and guard these books, but this magic comes with a price. Joanna fled to a remote location to escape the fate that killed her mother while Esther isolated herself and devoted her life to the study of these books. But when their father suddenly dies when reading an unknown book, the sisters reunite to save the family legacy. But they never expected to discover a world of magic bigger and more dangerous than they ever knew.
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The Nigerwife by Vanessa Walters
Nicole Oruwari left her troubled family behind in London and became a part of the Nigerwives—a group of foreign women married to Nigerian men. Now, her life is a dream. She has a handsome husband, a stunning home, and all the glamours of life money can afford. But when Nicole disappears after a boat trip, the truth of her perfect life is slowly revealed. Her auntie Claudine heads to Nigeria to investigate for herself and discovers dark secrets about Nicole and her life that threaten to expose Claudine’s buried past as well.
Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose
A perfect life is easy to capture on Instagram, and that’s what Ciara Dunphy has done. Her inner circle of fellow mothers range from a discontent best friend, suffering from a marriage arranged in Calcutta, to a disheveled, ostracized Lauren who is the butt of the villagers jokes. However, when Ciara is found murdered, everyone becomes a suspect. It’s every woman for themselves as the truth unspools and love and deceit become a tangled web.
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
This book follows the story of three women living in New York City and their experiences and family dynamics as wealthy residents in a lavish city. Darley is the oldest daughter of a a well-off family and has just traded everything, her status, money, and life, away to become a mother, where she learns how much more she will have to trade away in this life as well. Sasha is from New England and has just married into a wealthy New York family that views her as an outsider looking for ways to bask in the limelight of the family’s wealth. And lastly, Georgiana has just fallen in love with someone she can never be with, forcing her to chose between her life and the life should could have.
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River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
The Emancipation Act of 1834 put an end to slavery in Barbados. But now all former slaves are apprentices for the plantation master, still forced to work for six years with no freedom. Rachel makes the decision to run and begin a desperate search for her five children who were sold into slavery. She does not even know if they are still alive, but she needs to find answers, no matter what.
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor
The Wadia family is loved, loathed, and feared in Delhi. Behind the curtains of insane wealth, corruption, violence, and calculated moves are three people whose lives become dangerously intertwined. Ajay was born into poverty but now climbs the ranks as an observant servant. Sunny is the heir who has ruthless ambitions. And Neda is a journalist torn between morality and desire. The connections between these three can set up a path for escape, or for destruction. Tying together crime thrillers and family drama, this intoxicating novel goes past the glitter of wealth and luxury to reveal the dark truth behind it.
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
As a powerful hurricane approaches a small town in Florida, a woman goes into labor prematurely and gives birth to a daughter, Wanda. As Wanda grows up, Florida continues to unravel due to the effects of climate change. She finds herself among a new community of survivors all adapting to nature’s changes. Wanda goes through loss, seeks love and adventure, and tries to find purpose.
Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli
He was the love of her life. He was perfectly happy as far as she or anyone could tell. And he committed suicide on New Year’s Eve. She found him, and she is not okay. This debut novel explores unimaginable loss and grief along with the support of a tight-knit Nigerian family and a group of friends trying to make things seem okay.
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
Olivia McAfee never thought she would end up back in her small New Hampshire hometown, but after fleeing her abusive husband, she didn’t have many other options. While Olivia and her son Asher adjust to their new lives, Lily Campanello and her mother also find a fresh start in Adams, New Hampshire. Then Lily and Asher cross paths at school, and it’s not long before they’ve fallen for each other. But one day, Olivia receives a phone call and discovers that Lily is dead and Asher is being questioned as a person of interest. Olivia doesn’t want to believe Asher had anything to do with Lily’s death, but she can’t deny that he has some of his father’s temper in him. And as the case unravels, Olivia begins to question how well she really knows her son.
The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh
When Oanh chose true love over her marriage, a Vietnamese witch cursed her and her descendants so they would never find love or happiness, and so they would only give birth to daughters. Mai Nguyen, divorced and estranged from her sisters, is familiar with the power of this curse. Her three adult daughters have had just as much luck finding love as she’s had. But after a visit to her psychic, Mai receives a prediction that this year, her family will experience a marriage, a death, and the birth of a baby boy. The prophecy reunites this peculiar family, teaching them how to love, mourn, celebrate, and heal.
Mika in Real Life by Emiko Jean
Mika Suzuki is thirty-five years old and a disappointment to her traditional Japanese parents. Her last relationship imploded, her roommate might be a hoarder, and she was just fired from yet another dead-end job. But then Mika receives a phone call from the daughter she placed for adoption sixteen years ago. Determined to make Penny proud and forge a relationship with her, Mika begins to embellish facts about her life until Penny is convinced her mother is a mature, successful, and put-together woman. Mika also begins to develop feelings for Penny’s adoptive father, Thomas Calvin, with whom she forms a friendship, and eventually something more. Can Mika have it all? Or will her lies eventually catch up to her and destroy the relationships she’s worked so hard to build?
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
When romance ghostwriter Florence Day goes through a terrible breakup, she finds she can no longer write about love. To make matters worse, her new editor refuses to give her an extension for her latest book. She’s ready to hang up her writing career when she receives devastating news that her father has passed away. Florence returns to the Southern town she left in her rear-view mirror all those years ago and is shocked to find a ghost standing at the door of her family’s funeral parlor – the ghost of her new editor. As she works to help him resolve whatever unfinished business is keeping him tied to the living world, she begins to question everything she thought she knew about love.
More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez
Katie Gutierrez’s debut novel follows alternating timelines: in 1985, Lore Rivera marries Andres Russo, even though she is already married to Fabian Rivera and they share twin sons. She splits her time between two families—until the truth is revealed when one husband is arrested for murdering the other. Fast-forward more than 30 years, when struggling true-crime writer Cassie Bowman encounters an article detailing that tragic final act and is immediately enticed by what is not asked: Why would a mother risk everything for a secret double marriage? She decides to track Lore down, but the more time she spends with Lore, the more Cassie questions the facts surrounding the murder itself.
The Change by Kirsten Miller
Three women are discovering that mid-life brings bigger and better than things than crisis. Nessa James is newly an empty nester and a widow who begins to hear voices, only to discover the voices are those of the dead and is a gift inherited by her grandmother. Harriett Osborne is on the cusp of 50, and after not leaving her house for months after the downfall of her career and marriage, she is having a stunning metamorphosis. Jo Levison has been at war with her body for thirty years, but now she is finally realizing she has the ability to channel these physical flashes and come into her power fully. When all three of these women come together, they discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. When the investigation writes off the helpless victim, this trio of women must take their powers and matters into their own hands.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Elizabeth Zott is a chemist who, in the 1960’s, is unlike the average American women of her time. Where she works at the Hastings Research Center, her all-male team members have unfounded views about the inferiority of women. All except for Calvin Evans, the man who falls in love with Elizabeth for her mind. Years later, Elizabeth’s life has changed drastically and she finds herself a single mother and the reluctant star of a cooking show. But Elizabeth is revolutionary, giving her female-viewers scientific cooking instruction that dares to challenge the notion that women and science don’t mix.
The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh
When Emma is diagnosed with a serious illness, her husband, an obituary writer, handles his grief in the best way he knows how –writing the story of Emma’s life. Yet Emma has never been honest with her husband about her past. In fact, she’s fabricated a persona and a past that is almost entirely fictitious. Her real name isn’t even “Emma”. As her husband begins to uncover the truth about her past, he realizes that the woman he loves doesn’t exist. Now, Emma must try to somehow convince Leo that she really is the woman he believed her to be. To do this, she’ll have to finally reveal everything about the past she’s been hiding, including telling him about the other love of her life.
The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
Ray McMillian has a gift that sets him apart from other youth growing up in rural North Carolina. He’s a talented musician and he dreams of becoming a professional, world-renowned violinist. Though he can’t afford the type of violin that will allow him to fully showcase his talents and though being a young Black man means he must face racism in the world of classical music, the world he loves, McMillian is determined to make his dream come true. When he discovers that what he thought was a useless hand-me-down from his great-great-grandfather is actually a valuable Stradivarius, McMillian begins to show the world what he can do. But the night before the competition that could make or break his career, his violin is stolen. McMillian must put together what he knows about the friends, family and foes to find his beloved violin and to finally stake his claim on success.
The Maid by Nita Prose
Molly Gray doesn’t mean to give people the wrong impression. Lacking in social skills and often misunderstanding others, she struggles to navigate the world like everyone else. After her grandmother dies, Molly finds a new home at a hotel where she works as a maid. In fact, Molly’s tendency to obsesses over cleanliness and rule-following makes her a perfect fit for the job. She enjoys putting rooms back together from states of disarray. It seems like Molly has finally found her place. Yet, trouble once again finds Molly when she discovers the body of a wealthy guest in a hotel room. Suddenly, her awkward mannerisms and inappropriate social responses lead her to being a primary suspect in the man’s murder case. Molly’s friends must now gather their resources to help clear Molly’s name and solve the case, but they must do so quickly before it’s too late.
Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti
At the age of seventy, one of the world’s wealthiest women is diagnosed with cancer. Dava Shastri’s decides to handle it like everything else in her life, taking death into her own hands. She invites her children to her private island and informs them that she is releasing her death early so she can read her obituaries. As someone who dedicated her life to the arts and the empowerment of women, Dava expects to read articles lauding her philanthropic work. Instead, her “death” reveals two devastating secrets, and now everyone knows including her children. She must come to terms with the decisions of the past and make right the little future she has left.
Still Life by Sarah Winman
This story travels across decades and countries for the triumph and heartbreak of love and war. Ulysses Temper is a young English soldier who has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner in a wine cellar. Evelyn is an art historian who is trying to find the meaning behind ruin and memories of not only the middle ages but in her own youth. As Allied troops are advancing and bombs are falling, Ulysses and Evelyn find themselves in the rubble of war-torn Italy, shaping their lives for what will be the next four decades.
We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
In a story of race and friendship, Jen and Riley have grown up as best friends but are more like sisters, despite their lives going in different directions. Jen got married young and had a family, Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia. But when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager, their friendship is put to the test. Riley is given the chance for this career-making story, but she wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend. Will their long-lasting friendship endure through love or will a deeply divided world separate the two?
Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
Told primarily through Slack channel messages, Several People Are Typing follows a New York-based public relations firm as they adapt to virtual working, dealing with a PR crisis with their huge dog food client, and even more random crises that the employees face in their everyday lives. When mid-level employee Gerald’s consciousness gets uploaded into the Slack channels, everyone thinks it is a joke until his productivity levels skyrocket. He tries to get his friend Pradeep to help him out of his disembodied state, but as his colleagues deal with their PR crises, Gerald becomes more comfortable with his new reality.
The Husbands by Chandler Baker
Successful attorney Nora Spangler is struggling domestically, feeling as if she does all the work at home while her husband offers to do nothing. When she and her husband consider moving into Dynasty Ranch, they find that all of the wives in this neighborhood are highly successful with doting, helpful husbands. Soon, she finds herself slowly be pulled into these women’s lives as she assists with a resident’s wrongful death case. While working, she can’t help herself from wanting to figure out how these women succeed in life—and if it is worth killing for?
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
Soon after young Belle de Costa Green is hired by J.P. Morgan as his personal librarian, she is thrown into elite New York and is soon viewed as one of the most powerful people in the book and art world. However, Belle must navigate this world with the secret of her family and that she is the daughter of well-known equality activist and first Black graduate of Harvard, Richard Greener. This novel shares the extraordinary life of Belle in a new light and how she navigated life as a passing white woman.
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalia Harris
As the only Black employee at Wagner Books, Nella Rogers faces constant isolation and microaggression in the workplace. When she finds out that Hazel, a new Black editorial assistant is hired, Nella is overjoyed to have someone to relate and talk to. Soon, Hazel is an office favorite and leaves Nella far behind without explanation. When threatening notes start appearing on Nella’s desk, warning her to leave immediately, Nella assumes that Hazel has left them behind—but soon realizes that there may be more at stake than her job.
Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann
The Briscoe family has always been the talk of small-town Olympia, between June’s husband having affairs with multiple women and fathering three children outside of their marriage with three children of their own. Once again, the Briscoe family takes the spotlight as another affair has taken place—but this time June’s son, March, has returned home after having an affair with his brother’s wife. Soon after March arrives at the family home, someone is dead, marriages are shattered, and strong bonds are quickly broken. This story weaves classical mythology into present story to express the complexities of family and love.
Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
Following three generations of Cuban women, Gabriela Garcia’s intricately told novel revolves around the emotional trauma of displacement for all those involved, discovering your roots, the battle with addiction, and the importance of family. When Jeanette’s neighbors are detained by ICE, she decides to take in their child and soon becomes motivated to learn more about her family’s complex history. She reaches out to her distraught mother as well as her grandmother who lives in Cuba. In a story told between the 19th century to the present day, Jeanette discovers the traumas, strengths and difficulties that the women in her family faced.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Soon in the distant future, technology has slowly taken over and assists humans with their everyday lives. One example of this fascinated technology is an Artificial Friend, a humanoid that serves as a companion for children. The story is told through the perspective of an AF named Klara, who spends her time observing the world and humans from the inside of a store display. Once she is picked by Josie, a 14-year-old with a mysterious illness, Klara slowly starts to understand life, love and what it means to be human.
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
Lala has grown up with a story her grandmother shared about a one-armed sister, meant to serve as a cautionary tale to inspire daughters to listen to their mothers and never disobey. Years pass and Lala finds herself pregnant and married to a criminal. She spends her days braiding tourists’ hair at Baxter’s Beach, Barbados until one of her husband’s robberies goes terribly wrong. This story alternates perspectives between characters, exploring race, class, abuse and motherhood.
The Push by Ashley Audrain
More than anything, Blythe Connor wants to be the perfect mother she never had for her new child Violet, but soon finds this difficult. Violet acts differently than most children, but it seems as if Blythe is the only one that notices, causing her to question her own sanity. When her second child is born, Blythe and the rest of her family connect with her new son right away, reassuring Blythe. Is Blythe correct in her suspicions about her children—or is she just the same as her mother, or is it all in her head?
This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens
Minnie Cooper is convinced that Quinn Hamilton, a man she has never met, is the reason why all of her New Year’s birthdays get progressively worse each year. Her evidence behind this claim is that he was born minutes before her in the same hospital thirty years prior, receiving the cash prize and also stole the name she was meant to have. When she finally bumps into him unplanned on their shared birthday, she can’t help to see that life favors him more since he is a successful businessman with a perfect girlfriend, while she is a struggling baker. The two find themselves bumping into each other more and find that they can’t help but be more attracted to each other every time.
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Mike, a Japanese American chef, and Benson, a Black daycare worker, have been dating and living with each other for years, but are now asking, “Why?” They love each other, but can’t seem to find that connection that they are both looking for. When Mike finds out this his estranged father is dying in Osaka, he travels across the world to say goodbye as his mother comes into town and becomes Benson’s temporary roommate. The two men take this time apart to explore themselves, their past, and what they want personally, as well as for each other.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Nora Seed wakes up and finds herself in the Midnight Library, a place set in between life and death. Within the shelves contain a multitude of books, each containing various ways that your life could have gone if you made a different choice. Once there, Nora has the opportunity to choose a new way of life, whether it be a different career, living childhood dreams, dating different people, and more. However, she soon finds herself in trouble, must find a way to save herself, and eventually must figure out for herself what makes a fulfilling life.
Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie
As the illegitimate daughter of a Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori has grown up hidden in the attic of her grandparents’ imperial estate, forced to endure chemical baths to lighten her skin. She has learned to never resist or question, but when she gets a chance to meet her half-brother, Akira, the two form a powerful bond that her grandparents disapprove of. Nori has now taken a glimpse into the life that she is forbidden from having and is determined to fight to be a part of it, not matter the cost.
The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis
Laura Lyons seems to have it all: a husband with an amazing job as the superintendent for the New York Public Library, two beautiful children, and a great home. However, Laura wants more and applies for the Columbia Journalism School, soon finding herself wrapped up in a radical all-female group, the Heterodoxy Club. This club soon has her questioning her current life, but she must confront her shifting priorities when books are stolen from the library. Eighty years later, her granddaughter Sadie is working as a curator at the New York Library and finds herself in trouble once rare items from the library have been stolen, forcing her to face her family’s legacy.
Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
When in Capri for a destination wedding, Luci Churchill meets George Zao for the first time and immediately decides that she doesn’t like him. She hates how carefree he seems, how he offered to switch rooms with her so she could get a better view—but she especially hates how her cousin found them kissing. Years pass and Luci sees George again while on a trip with her new fiancée, and can’t help but find herself being drawn to him. Luci, who already struggles with accepting her Asian heritage, finds herself struggling to stop herself from falling in love with George and wreaking havoc within her family.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Sixteen-year-old twins Desiree and Stella run away from their small town in order to find their own destinies with the goal to stick together. After a while on their own, Stella leaves Desiree to find her own path and the two grow apart. As the years pass, Desiree comes back home with a daughter, while Stella lives her life as a passing white woman with a white husband. Their lives soon become intertwined again as their daughters cross paths and face their own share of growing up, life decisions, race, and familial expectations.
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
Oona Lockhart cannot wait for the clock to strike midnight during New Year’s Eve 1982, when she will turn nineteen and has a whole world of possibilities in front of her. She still has yet to make a decision on whether or not to stay in Brooklyn to be with her boyfriend and pursue music or travel to London to study economics, but she doesn’t get a chance to make this decision before she faints before midnight and wakes up thirty-two years in the future. From then on, Oona will hop from one age to another every year and finds herself on a path of self-discovery.
The Book of V. by Anna Solomon
In 2016, Lily is a mother, a second wife and a woman trying to pursue her career goals in Brooklyn. She struggles to balance her duty to her family, as well as her duty to herself and her dreams in life. Readers then meet Vivian Barr, a senator’s wife in the 1970s who finds herself humiliated by her husband. Lastly, the perspective shifts to Queen Esther and how she used her power to save her people. These three narrative interlap to explore womanhood, sex, power, and how women’s lives have not changed over thousands of years.
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
Danni Kohan has always been extremely organized, planning her life to the max up, to the tiniest detail. She could never imagine herself living life on a whim without an inkling of a plan to help her navigate. In fact, her way of life has proven to work for her just fine when she lands a dream job interview, and her boyfriend proposes. That night, she falls asleep content with her choices and finds herself waking up in a different apartment and life, five years in the future. When she wakes up again, she starts to reassess how she lives her life and what she could probably do differently, especially since she can’t stop thinking about the different reality she saw.
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Alternating between the past and present, readers follow policewoman Mickey Fitzpatrick and her relationship with her estranged sister Kacey, who is battling an opioid addiction. Mickey and Kacey both live in a Philadelphia neighborhood that is overtaken by the opioid crisis, and while Mickey goes on her police rounds, she can’t help but constantly worry that the next OD she finds is her sister. When Kacey disappears and seemingly connected murders start to take place, Mickey finds herself on the hunt for the killer and her sister.
Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi
Picking up after the exciting ending of Children of Blood and Bone, Zélie and Amari are successful in bringing back magic to Orïsha but find themselves having to deal with the consequences of doing so. A civil war is starting to form between the maji and the monarchy, and Zélie is fighting to unite the maji under a common cause in order to defeat their enemy. On top of this, she must also fight to keep Amari’s right to the throne valid as the military and monarchy join forces to bring down the maji.
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
One day, Libby Jones comes home to find a letter waiting for her, one that changes the current path of her life forever. She soon discovers that she is the inheritor of her birth parents’ abandoned mansion and that when she was a baby, she was put up for adoption after authorities found her alone in a home with three dead bodies while her four other siblings were declared missing. Libby decides to discover more about her family’s past and parents’ terrifying death, but little does she know that some of her family are waiting at the house for her.
Dominicana by Angie Cruz
When Ana Cancion was just fifteen years old, she married Juan Ruiz, a man twice her age, for an opportunity for her family to immigrate to America, even if there was no love between the two. Ever since their marriage, Ana spends her days in New York miserable and starts to plan her escape. But when she begins to leave, Juan’s younger brother Cesar convinces her to stay. Eventually, Juan leaves to travel back to the Dominican Republic to protect his family assets and leaves Cesar to care for Ana. The two form a bond and Ana starts to a see a life that she could truly enjoy, and she finds that she must choose between doing what’s best for her family or for herself.
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