“To three-year-old Pari, big brother Abdullah is more mother than brother. To ten-year-old Abdullah, little Pari is his everything. What happens to them – and the large and small manners in which it echoes through the lives of so many other people – is proof of the moral complexity of life. In a multigenerational novel revolving around not just parents and children but also brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which family members love, wound, betray, honor and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those close to us, at the times that matter most.” –Jacket.
Roll Up The Rim by Leo McKay Jr.
A story of obsession, redemption, divine intervention, and donuts, Roll Up the Rim follows the misadventures of downhearted Owen - a Tim Horton's employee who is obsessed with rolling up the rim to win the prize car. –Summary.
Smoke by Ellen Hopkins
“Pattyn Von Stratten’s father is dead, and Pattyn is on the run. After far too many years of abuse at the hands of her father, and after the tragic loss of her beloved Ethan and their unborn child, Pattyn is desperate for peace. But is it even possible to rebuild a life when everything you’ve known has burned to ash and lies seem far safer than the truth?” –Jacket.
The Dinner by Herman Koch
“On a summer evening in Amsterdam, two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. At first, the conversation is a gentle hum of small talk – the banality of work, the latest movies they’ve seen. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act – an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families.” – Jacket.
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
"After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one. Now, it's the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother – or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up." –Amazon.
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Lynnhurst, Virginia, 1952. Seventeen-year-old Josephine decides to run away from the tobacco farm where she is a slave. New York, 2004. Lina, an ambitious young lawyer, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment: she must find the "perfect plaintiff" to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves. Moving between Virginia and New York, The House Girl weaves a tale of art and history, love and secrets, and truth and justice.– Summary.
The Kitchen House by Kathleeb Grissom
“In 1790, Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, arrives on a tobacco plantation where she is put to work as an indentured servant with the kitchen house slaves. Though she becomes deeply bonded to her new family, Lavinia is also slowly accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. As time passes she finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds and when loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare and lives are at risk.”– Publisher.
The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski
“Bonaventure Arrow didn’t make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead. But he was listening, placing sound inside quiet and gaining his bearings. By the time he turns five, he can hear flowers grow, a thousand shades of blue, and the miniature tempests that rage inside raindrops. He also hears the voice of his dead father, William Arrow, mysteriously murdered by a man known only as the Wanderer. Exploring family relics, he opens doors to the past and finds the key to a web of secrets that both hold his family together, and threaten to tear them apart. Set against the backdrop of 1950s New Orleans, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow is a magical story about the lost art of listening and a wondrous little boy who brings healing to the souls of all who love him.” –Amazon.