Marina Salles’s life does not end the day she wakes up dead. Instead, in the course of a moment, she is transformed into the stuff of myth, the stuff of her grandmother’s old Filipino stories—an aswang. She spent her life on the margins, knowing very little about her own life, let alone the lives of others; she was shot like a pinball through a childhood of loss, a veteran of Child Protective Services and a survivor, but always reacting, watching from a distance. Death brings her into the hearts and minds of those she has known—even her killer—as she is able to access their memories and to see anew the meaning of her own. In the course of these pages she traces back through her life, finally able to see what led these lost souls to this crushingly inevitable conclusion.
In A Tiny Upward Shove, Melissa Chadburn charts the heartbreaking journeys of two of society’s cast-offs as they find their way to each other and their roles as criminal and victim. What does it mean to be on the brink? When are those moments that change not only our lives but our very selves? And how, in this impossible world, can we rouse ourselves toward mercy?
Twenty-nine-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang is desperate to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and never read about “Chinese-y” things again. But after four years of grueling research, she has nothing but anxiety and stomach pain to show for her efforts. When she accidentally stumbles upon a strange and curious note in the Chou archives, she convinces herself it’s her ticket out of academic hell. But Ingrid’s in much deeper than she thinks. Her clumsy exploits to unravel the note’s message lead to an explosive discovery, one that upends her entire life and the lives of those around her. With her trusty friend Eunice Kim by her side and her rival Vivian Vo hot on her tail, together they set off a roller coaster of mishaps and misadventures, from campus protests and OTC drug hallucinations, to book burnings and a movement that stinks of “Yellow Peril” propaganda. As the events Ingrid instigated keep spiraling, she’ll have to confront her sticky relationship to white men and white institutions—and, most of all, herself. In this electrifying debut novel from a provocative new voice, Chou asks who gets to tell our stories—and how the story changes when we finally tell it ourselves.
A razor sharp debut novel of three best friends navigating love, sex, faith, and the one night that changes it all. It’s always been Malak, Kees, and Jenna against the world. Since childhood, under the watchful eyes of their parents, and countless aunties and uncles, they’ve learned to live their own lives alongside the expectations of being good Muslim women. Staying over at a boyfriend’s place is disguised as a best friend’s sleepover, and tiredness can be blamed on studying instead of partying. But as they grow older and the stakes of love and life grow higher, the three young women find this delicate balancing act between rebellion and religion increasingly difficult to navigate. As their lives begin to take different paths, Malak, Kees, and Jenna—now on the precipice of true adulthood—must find a way back to each other as they reconcile faith, family, and tradition with their own needs and desires. These Impossible Things is a paean to youth and female friendship—and to all the joy and messiness love holds.
A moving and deeply engaging debut novel about a young Native American man finding strength in his familial identity, from a stellar new voice in literary fiction.
Told in a series of voices, Calling for a Blanket Dance takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle through the multigenerational perspectives of his family as they face myriad obstacles: his father’s injury at the hands of corrupt police, his mother’s struggle to hold on to her job and care for her husband, the constant resettlement of the family, and Ever’s own bottled-up rage at the instability all around him. Meanwhile, all of Ever’s relatives have ideas about who he is and who he should be. His Cherokee grandmother urges the family to move across Oklahoma to find security; his grandfather hopes to reunite him with his heritage through traditional gourd dances; his Kiowa cousin reminds him that he’s connected to an ancestral past. And once an adult, Ever must take the strength given to him by his relatives to save not only himself, but also the next generation of his family.
How will this young man visualize a place for himself when the world hasn’t given him a place to start with? Honest, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, Calling for a Blanket Dance is the story of how Ever Geimausaddle found his way to home.
An astonishing debut novel following three adopted brothers who live above a mosque in Staten Island with their imam father. With stylistic brilliance and intellectual acuity, Zain Khalid brings characters to vivid life with a bold energy that matches the great themes of his novel—family, capital, power, sexuality, and the possibility of reunion for those who are broken.
In this modern take on the Golden Age detective novel, a retired stage magician-turned-sleuth in 1930s London solves three impossible crimes surrounding the death of a famous psychologist. The first novel from celebrated short story author Tom Mead, Death and the Conjuror will appeal to readers of classic mystery authors such as Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, or of contemporaries like Anthony Horowitz and Elly Griffiths.
Evvie Drake Starts Over meets Beach Read in this heartwarming and hilarious novel about a divorced romance channel screenwriter whose script about her marriage’s collapse just might help her reclaim her life and find love. Nora’s life is about to get a rewrite! Nora Hamilton knows the formula for love better than anyone. As a romance channel screenwriter, it’s her job. But when her too-good-to work husband leaves her and their two kids, Nora turns her marriage’s collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it’s picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old-home. When former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance, is cast as her ne’er do well husband Nora’s life will never be the same. The morning after shooting wraps and the crew leaves, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a half-empty bottle of tequila and a proposition. He’ll pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it’s the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: it’s the blink of an eye or an eternity depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart. Filled with warmth, wit, and wisdom, Nora Goes Off Script is the best kind of love story—the real kind where love is complicated by work, kids, and the emotional baggage that comes with life. For Nora and Leo, this kind of love is bigger than the big screen.
A story of redemption and righting the wrongs of the past, Keya Das’s Second Act is a warmly drawn homage to family, creativity, and second chances. A discovered box in the attic leads one Bengali American family in the New Jersey suburbs down a path toward understanding the importance of family, even when splintered after a tragedy. This debut novel is both poignant and, at times, a surprising hilarious testament to the unexpected ways we build family and find love, old and new.
For fans of John Grisham and Richard Price, a debut high-stakes legal thriller about a murder in Miami with no body, no weapon, no eyewitnesses—and the prejudice that hangs over every trial in America. Gabriel Soto is a social recluse accused of murdering the free-spirited Melina Mora. At the center of the media spotlight is Sandy Grunwald, an ambitious young prosecutor whose political fortunes depend on her using the limited evidence to secure a conviction. But the criminal justice system is complicated, and everyone has a story—especially the jury. With striking originality and expert storytelling, the ensemble cast comes alive on the page, and as their stories are revealed, their own experiences, biases, and beliefs—not the facts of the case—are what ultimately shape the verdict. You’ve never read a legal thriller quite like this. There’s never been a thriller writer quite like Robin Peguero. And you will not be able to predict how it all ends.
A hilarious, rollicking, and razor-sharp satirical novel about a disillusioned American Muslim woman—armed with only sarcasm and an arcane knowledge of American foreign policy debacles—who becomes embroiled in a plot to infiltrate an international terrorist organization, and in the process, reconnects with her loves ones and her faith.
