New Literary Fiction

Wolff here returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket.

Lucas and Margo are fed up. Margo is a brilliant programmer tired of being talked over as the company’s sole black employee, and while Lucas is one of many Asians at the firm, he’s nearly invisible as a low-paid customer service rep. Together, they decide to steal their tech startup’s user database in an attempt at revenge. The heist takes a sudden turn when Margo dies in a car accident, and Lucas is left reeling, wondering what to do with their secret—and wondering whether her death really was an accident.

What readers are saying... "I love this author and her books. Excellent writing and character development. You feel as though you know the characters." Amazon reviewer A preacher was not on her radar… Raised by a preacher who cared more about his flock than his family, Lisa Garcia isn’t interested in betting her heart against the ministry a second time. Transplanted from Los Angeles, Lisa is struggling with life in tiny Harrison, Texas. She’s looking for direction. She’s looking for purpose. She was not looking to be attracted to the handsome youth pastor from the neighboring town. ...

A park ranger is haunted by the memory of the woman, left for dead, whose life he’d saved 20 years ago. He is haunted by the rape and attempted murder of a young woman, who was left for dead in a national park .She survived, but police were unable to solve the case and eventually stopped looking for the perpetrator. Shlomki, the park ranger’searnest and naïve demeanor leads him into conflict with the local security forces, who are used to bending the rules. He is determined to pursue the investigation, discovering much more than he’d imagined about the people who control the area. ...

After the stunning historical novels The Clearing and The Missing, Tim Gautreaux now ranges freely through contemporary life with 12 new stories and eight from previous collections. Most are set in his beloved Louisiana, many hard by or on the Mississippi River, others in North Carolina, and even in midwinter Minnesota. But generally it's heat, humidity, and bugs that beset his people as they wrestle with affairs of the heart, matters of faith, and the pros and cons of tight-knit communities.

An eastern mystic, a western psychic, and a broken man who falls in love with them both at a holy, magnetic mountain. More than an unusual love story, Jonas and the Mountain is a quest for the deepest truth, an excursion into the nature of reality. Jonas has been living a half-life since he lost his marriage, his college teaching position, and his best friend all at once. In his darkest moment, he hears a voice in his head, and strange poems start to come to him.

In the idyllic backdrop of Ballycross, County Cork, Seren once reveled in the bliss of marriage to Frenchman André while managing their quaint wine shop. A perfect world, it seemed, until an unforeseen tragedy shattered everything. Determined not to be a mere pawn in the game of fate, Seren takes charge of her destiny. In this journey, she discovers the stark difference between fate and faith—realizing that control is a powerful force. The revelation of an enigmatic email destined for her husband propels Seren into a harrowing mystery. Abandoning the comforts of Ballycross, she ventures ...

You can always go home…but what will you find when you do. Jonathan Hansen is about to find out. For years they’ve hidden a huge secret…an island that was home to their small town, the families and friends who live there, and the secrets they've kept for generations. But danger might be right beyond the water’s edge. Together, two guarded hearts are willing to face the impending threat and the danger it poses to the peaceful tranquility of their home. Ainslin O’Cleary wasn’t the type to over-react but she was beginning to feel a little desperate. She loved her home and ...

The Story of a New Name is an extraordinary novel about two young women, Lila and Elena, growing up in Naples in the early 1960s. At 16 Lila marries the shopkeeper Stefano. She is filled with pleasure at her new wealth and horror at the life she has chosen. Elena’s own attempts at romance seem to be sabotaged by Lila’s turbulent affairs. As she tries to plot her way out of poverty via academic and literary success, her constant anxiety is that she is just a shadow of the brilliant Lila.

In the New England university town of Elm Harbor, a murder begins to crack the veneer that has hidden the racial complications of the town's past, the secrets of a prominent family, and the most hidden bastions of African-American political influence. At the center is Lemaster Carlyle, the university president, and his wife, Julia Carlyle, a deputy dean at the divinity school - African Americans living in "the heart of whiteness".

This story collection by one of the preeminent writers of this generation traces the arc of an entire career and - in this manifold exploration of delusion, fame, and experience - displays anew McInerney's rare ability to unveil and recreate the manic flux of our society.

The protagonist of Orhan Pamuk's fiendishly engaging novel is launched into a world of hypnotic texts and (literally) Byzantine conspiracies that whirl across the steppes and forlorn frontier towns of Turkey. And with The New Life, Pamuk himself vaults from the forefront of his country's writers into the arena of world literature.

England, 1903. Lord Robert and Lady Isobel Dilberne and the entire grand estate, with its hundred rooms, is busy planning for a visit from Edward VII and Queen Alexandra just a few months a way. Preparations are elaborate and exhaustive: the menus and fashions must be just so, and so must James, the new heir and son of Arthur Dilberne and Chicago heiress, Minnie O'Brien. But there are problems. Little James is being reared to Lady Isobel's tastes, not Minnie's. And Mrs. O'Brien is visiting from America and causing trouble.

An abandoned restaurant on a hill off the highway in Western Massachusetts doesn't look like much. But to Rio, a young Black woman bereft after the loss of her newborn child, this hill becomes more than a safe haven—it becomes a place to start over. She convinces her husband to help her construct a society underground, somewhere everyone can feel safe, loved, and accepted.

Booklist compared this author’s propulsive novels to Big Little Lies. In her eighth suspenseful, emotional page-turner, Simmons explores friendship and the cost of keeping secrets in a small Pennsylvania town. When Sarah, Jonna, and Taylor meet in a church basement support group, they're the same age, but the secrets they keep from their families and from the police, are all different. Still reeling from the crimes committed against their children, the women are hungry for answers and purpose – and yes, for fun. But as their friendship grows, so does their questionable behavior -- and ...

What happens when a sheltered only child and a street-wise orphan are forced to work together in order to stay alive? Two strangers, Caleb and Jael, are thrown together under dire circumstances, joined at the hip, as their captors say. Their singular focus? Survival. A gripping story of courage, determination, sacrifice and survival. A pre-apocalyptic tale told in vivid terms by our hero, Caleb Wiseman.

When Gerald finds a yellow rose hidden in a drawer he suspects Maria might be having an affair. From being disinterested in her trip to Barcelona, he begins to wonder what has actually happened there. Noticing more and more changes in her, he finds clues that hint at some events. Finally he gets a hold of her private journal. Here he reads what happened to Maria when she threw a coin into the box of a gold mime artist. Published by Plato Press, The Gold Man is one of Keziah Shepherd's shorter novels.

With the death of her aunt, the narrator is left to sift through an apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters, diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands, these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish family somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and repressions of the last century.

Quigley Tree drops out of college. At age 23, she's been a complete failure. If she doesn't do something soon, her life will careen into a deep, dark, irrevocable void. Tick Tock. That soon is now. From the publisher: Five-Star Review from Readers' Favorite by Lorraine Cobcroft: Quigley Tree, the protagonist of Linda A. Lavid’s novel of the same name, is a young woman with an odd name. A college dropout from a dysfunctional home, and recently escaped from a relationship with a narcissist, Quigley needs to find a new place to live, quickly. A unique idea sets her on a path to find ...

There is very little that Lizzie Patterson wouldn’t do for those she cares about. That is especially true for her two neighbors in the quiet corner of the canyon that’s been her home for over fifty years and her refuge since she retired from the profession she loved but was more than ready to walk away from. Recently she’s accepted a role in a movie her first husband is producing after years of turning down all the other offers that came her way since her retirement. Many believe that her reason for doing so is because Clay Tobin has agreed to play the lead character in the same movie...