Rooms

Lauren Oliver

A tale of family, ghosts, secrets, and mystery, in which the lives of the living and the dead intersect in shocking, surprising, and moving ways Wealthy Richard Walker has just died, leaving behind his country house full of rooms packed with the detritus of a lifetime. His estranged family—bitter ex-wife Caroline, troubled teenage son Trenton, and unforgiving daughter Minna—have arrived for their inheritance. But the Walkers are not alone. Prim Alice and the cynical Sandra, long dead former residents bound to the house, linger within its claustrophobic walls. Jostling for space, memory, and supremacy, they observe the family, trading barbs and reminiscences about their past lives. Though their voices cannot be heard, Alice and Sandra speak through the house itself—in the hiss of the radiator, a creak in the stairs, the dimming of a light bulb. The living and dead are each haunted by painful truths that will soon surface with explosive force. When a new ghost appears, and Trenton begins to communicate with her, the spirit and human worlds collide—with cataclysmic results.

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Mother Tongue

Naima Brown

What if being true to yourself means hurting everyone around you? Brynn is a claustrophobic suburban mother on the brink . . .Eric, her husband, is transforming in dark and dangerous ways . . .Their daughter, Jenny, can't fathom the storm barrelling towards her . . .When Brynn awakes from a coma speaking fluent French, she seizes the opportunity to start a new life in Paris, a seismic personal transformation that leaves a slew of shattered lives in its wake. Darkly funny and profoundly insightful, Mother Tongue challenges our expectations of motherhood and our beliefs about women's lives. It is at once an exhilarating tale of escape and a warning about the cost of renewal.Praise for Mother Tongue:'A mother's love is supposed to be immutable. What happens when you lose your language, maybe your mind? This is a story with guts that will charm and alarm in equal measure. Naima Brown is one of our most interesting storytellers and Mother Tongue should go straight to the top of your to-be-read pile.' HAYLEY SCRIVENOR'Darkly funny, surprising and ridiculously fresh, Mother Tongue is a searing portrait of the ways motherhood transforms us but also doesn't. It is a daring exploration of identity, full of suspense and bubbling with tension. Brown takes us to places most novels don't have the guts to.' JESSIE STEPHENS'Mother Tongue is the perfect blend of page-turning drama and sharp feminist wit. Naima Brown brilliantly exposes the double standards placed on mothers, all while keeping you fully entertained from start to finish.'DEE SALMIN, host of triple j The Hook Up

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Taipei Story

R.F. Kuang

A wryly humorous and profoundly moving coming-of-age novel that grapples with grief, language, and culture shock—all set against the backdrop of an unforgettable summer in Taipei. College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home. Then shocking news Lily’s grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she’s drawn into a journey of self-discovery—piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection. What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can’t bring you any closer to the people you’re trying to reach? What if you search for your family’s history, but your family doesn’t want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding—of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

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Favorita

Michelle Steinbeck

Eine wilde, wütende, witzige und spielerische Geschichte, die Fragen nach Identität, Zugehörigkeit, sexuellem Begehren und patriarchalischer ... auf den Punkt bringt. »Es tut mir leid, deine Mutter wurde getötet.« Mit diesen Worten beginnt Filas Reise von der Schweiz nach Italien. Von dem Land, in dem sie aufgewachsen ist, in das Land, das ihre Großmutter als junge Frau verlassen hat und in das ihre Mutter verschwunden ist. Fila zeichnet die Geschichte dieser beiden Frauen nach, zusammen mit ihren Erinnerungen und ihren Begegnungen auf dem feministischen Widerstandskämpferinnen, faschistischen Deserteuren und dem Geist einer jungen Bäuerin mit durchschnittener Kehle. Der Roadtrip auf den Spuren ihrer geheimnisvollen Mutter führt sie zum mutmaßlichen Mörder - und mitten ins Herz des faschistischen Zirkels, der das Land kontrolliert.  Favorita erzählt eine wilde, wütende, spielerische Geschichte, die Fragen nach Identität, Zugehörigkeit, sexuellem Begehren und patriarchalischer Gewalt gegen Mensch und Umwelt auf den Punkt bringt. Eine Lektüre, bei der man den Atem anhält und sich fragt, was zur Hölle man da gerade liest - ein Roman, der einen nicht mehr loslässt und noch lange nachwirkt.  

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Sometimes I Lie

Alice Feeney

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

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Furious Violet

Sarai Walker

From the author of the bestselling phenomenon Dietland comes a razor-sharp, subversive thriller about motherhood, obsession, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. Violet “West” Shelley, a self-described “low-brow” crime journalist, has unwillingly spent her life in the spotlight, as the only daughter of a legendary poet and feminist icon who died tragically young. Now as West approaches fifty—burned out, creatively blocked, and far older than her mother ever was—she retreats to her desolate Colorado hometown to finish a long-overdue book about the Crying Killer, a serial killer who sobs for his mother after committing his crimes. But what begins as a bid for solitude quickly spirals into something far more sinister. A stalker emerges—mysterious, relentless, and disturbingly intimate—claiming that West is their mother; yet West knows this is impossible. As threatening messages escalate and her carefully constructed life starts to unravel, West is drawn into a chilling psychological web where the boundaries between fiction and reality collapse. Is she being watched? Hunted? Or is her own mind turning against her? Gripping, provocative, and laced with pitch-black humor, Furious Violet is a psychological thrill ride and a fierce exploration of motherhood, fame, and the question of who can lay claim to women’s legacies. Sarai Walker delivers a heroine unlike any other: damaged, defiant, and utterly unforgettable.

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Child and God

Kevin Quinn

A lyrical, polyphonic debut about a brother and sister growing up in a Black Pentecostal Church in Detroit, exploring themes of revelation and concealment; desire and its sublimation; and the ultimate cost of belief from a major new literary voice. Here is the perfect godly family: a stoic father, his dutiful wife, and their two children, a daughter and a son. On the surface, they are a shining example within their church—a beacon of God’s many promises. But the sister, older and more knowing than anyone suspects, quietly resists their religious context while the younger brother, not yet in middle school, appears destined for unwavering devotion—that is, if he can excise those parts of himself he fears God will not accept. Told in tight, alternating narratives—Him, Her, and Them—Child and God captures both the intimacy of their individual selves and the fraught terrain of their shared world. What emerges is a haunting meditation on the American Black church—a testament to the beauty and terror of belief, the sanctity of family, and the profound psychological toll of devotion. At the novel’s heart is the child who is told he must be "trained in the way he should go," and the perilous cost of such training on the soul. In the literary tradition of James Baldwin and Douglas Stuart, Child and God is a searing, transcendent treatment of faith, identity, class, and sexuality.

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In One Brief Moment All Eternity

Elif Shafak

In One Brief Moment All Eternity is an astonishing new novel by the bestselling, prize-winning novelist Elif Shafak. Spanning decades and continents, from revolutionary 19th century France to Istanbul, Egypt and Beirut, it is a profound meditation on creativity in times of political crisis and war, asking what literature can hope to offer when the world feels broken. Building a fascinating bridge between Western prose and Eastern poetry, this story offers a luminous portrait of the life of an iconic writer, Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, told through the lives of the women – both real and fictional – who shaped him.'Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won't regret it' ARUNDHATI ROY'A unique and powerful voice in world literature' IAN MCEWAN

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Worship: A Novel

Alice Winn

Irish princess Isode is certain she will marry a king worthy of her, and she believes that king might just be Sir Palomides – if only he would convert to Christianity. Her plans, however, are shattered when a mysterious knight named Tristram defeats her beloved in a tournament. Solitary, handsome, and fast becoming the best knight of all, Tristram has no interest in marrying Isode. He only wanted to win approval – worship – from his idol, Palomides, and a seat with the knights of the Round Table. But after the tournament, Tristram and Isode’s fates are tied, whether they like it or not. As civil war brews in Camelot, Isode tries to regain control of her once glittering future. Amid turmoil and magic, Tristram and Isode set off on a perilous voyage and begin to see each other in a new light. What if their future holds more than either of them could ever imagine?

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Will and Attention: A Memoir

Meghan O'Gieblyn

Award-winning author Meghan O’Gieblyn returns with her most personal writing yet, a spiritual autobiography that contemplates addiction, recovery and the mystifying nature of the will.In her late thirties, Meghan O’Gieblyn found herself confronting the bewildering persistence of desires and compulsions she believed she had overcome. Earlier that year, she had returned to an addiction she had kicked in her twenties, a habit of drinking she thought was long behind her. The year before that, she had been briefly drawn back to the faith she had renounced decades earlier, through a friendship she developed with a Catholic priest. Both of these events felt like acts of regression—returning to solutions that had not worked for her in the past—and they fundamentally unsettled her belief that she was a unified self with transparent motives. How is a person to avoid those irrational mistakes that they continually return to, despite knowing they are harmful? Can we truly master our will or are we always divided selves?O’Gieblyn’s crisis moves her to spend a year reading the work of Simone Weil, the philosopher and political activist who also struggled with questions of faith and whose essay “Attention and Will” provides a loose frame for the book. Will and Attention, like all O’Gieblyn’s writing, is both beautifully written and intellectually sparkling. Combining memoir, literary criticism, and philosophical inquiry, it explores a fundamental question of being the mystifying nature of our power over ourselves.

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When Life Gives You Corpses

Lene D. Buttner

In this delightfully cozy and creepy YA romp, a cave monster masquerading as a search-and-recovery guide intends to find and eat a lost wizard—but catches feelings for him instead, perfect for fans of TJ Klune and Andrew Joseph White.Theory has a monstrous secret. He isn’t an ordinary search-and-recovery guide at Fiendworld, the world’s premier magical-sinkhole-turned-amusement-park; he’s a cursed, human-eating mantis. But not to worry—he has an excellent solution for his particular diet. Whenever he’s asked to retrieve the corpse of a lost adventurer, he simply snacks on a finger or two. No harm done. That is, until he’s given his latest recover the body of park management’s missing son. Great. Yet another foolish wizard who got lost adventuring, and this time the direct descendant of the very person who cursed Theory in the first place. Worse, when Theory reluctantly sets off on the search, he’s shocked to find the wizard somehow still alive. Nim—the wizard in question—has no desire to be rescued. He’s on a mission to the bottom of the sinkhole, and refuses to return to the surface before he gets there. He may be a subpar wizard, as his parents constantly remind him, but he’s got a positive attitude, an enchanted backpack, and now a mysterious rescue worker to recruit to his cause! Even though said worker is quite rude and seems to be getting Nim into more danger rather than out of it. To survive, Theory and Nim must brave man-eating fish, walls of tentacles, and devastating both their own, and ones the park desperately tries to keep hidden. Along the way, they may just discover that they’re stronger together than apart.

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