Winter is emphatically here and this is the best time of the year to stay inside and curl up with a good novel. As the person who selects fiction for the library’s print collection for adults, I try to choose a broad array of “good” (preferably great) novels for a wide variety of readers and tastes. It’s important to note that I don’t have to like, or even be interested in, all of the books that end up in our collection. If I just chose books that I want to read, we would have a great collection for me, but not for most of our readers. To put it bluntly, I would be a bad collection development librarian.
If I may be a bit self-indulgent, I’d like to share just a few of the forthcoming fiction titles that really piqued my interest, and I look forward to having them on our shelves. The five books below come from authors I admire, or they are from a genre I appreciate, or feature a subject that interests me…or some combination of any of these. I hope you find at least some of them appealing and check them out from the library. All of these books have been ordered, but none are here yet and thus have not yet been read by me. I rely on the publishers for their descriptions of these works.
Brawler by Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff is a National Book Award finalist and the author of “Fates and Furies,” “Matrix,” and “The Vaster Wilds.”
This well-reviewed new collection of short stories ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moves across age, class, and region. In settings from New England to Florida to California, these nine stories reflect and expand upon a shared theme: the ceaseless battle between humans’ dark and light angels. Among those we see caught in this match are a young woman suddenly responsible for her disabled sibling, a hot-tempered high school swimmer in need of an adult, a mother blinded by the loss of her family, and a banking scion endowed with a different kind of inheritance. Motivated by love, impeded by the double edges of other people’s good intentions, they try to do the right thing for as long as they can. “Brawler“reveals the repeated, sometimes heartbreaking turning points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and what it takes to survive.
The Future Saints by Ashley Winstead
For fans of “Daisy Jones and the Six,” this is a powerful and transportive novel about a music executive desperately trying to bring a rock band back from the brink. When Theo meets the Future Saints, they’re bombing at a dive bar in their hometown. Since the tragic death of their manager, the band has been in a downward spiral and Theo has been dispatched to coax a new album out of them or else let them go. Immediately, Theo is struck by Hannah, the group’s impetuous lead singer, who’s gone off script by debuting a whole new sound and replacing their California pop with gut-wrenching rock. When this new music goes viral, striking an unexpected chord with fans, Theo puts his career on the line to give the Saints one last shot at success with a new tour, new record and new start. But Hannah’s grief has larger consequences for the band and her increasingly destructive antics become a distraction as she and her sister Ginny undermine Theo at every turn. Hannah isn’t ready to move on or prepared for the fame she has been chasing. The weight of her problems jeopardize the band, her growing closeness with Theo, and her relationship with her sister, all while the world watches closely. The Future Saints big break is here if only they can survive it.
Hot Chocolate on Thursday by Michiko Aoyama
By the author of “What You Are Looking For Is In The Library,” the cozy novel centers on a cafe in Tokyo. At the Marble Cafe, a woman writes in a notebook and a young waiter prepares her favorite hot drink. Both wonder about each other and about the lives of the clientele who frequent this little cafe behind the trees. Without even realizing it, they may touch and change someone else’s life. Small, everyday acts can lead to unexpected encounters, reverberate far beyond their own circles, and ultimately make a difference in the larger world. “Hot Chocolate on Thursday” is a tapestry of slice-of-life moments that each open and close with a woman ordering her regular hot chocolate at the mysterious Marble Cafe. What happens in between will touch your heart, as you connect with a community of untold unfolding lives.
Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson
Set between post-WWII Germany and 1960s America, this novel follows three characters with intertwining stories. In 1948, Ozzie joins the army but realizes he cannot escape the racism he faced at home in Philadelphia. In 1950, Ethel, a newlywed living abroad, journeys to France and discovers a calling that will alter the course of many young lives. And in 1960s Maryland, a determined young woman named Sophia longs to escape her life of hardship on a struggling farm, unaware that the secrets of her past are already shaping her future. Across generations and continents, their stories intersect through love, loss, and the search for belonging. The author uncovers overlooked corners of history, blending emotional storytelling with historical depth. Inspired by the real experiences of mixed-race children abandoned after WWII, she sheds light on a little-known chapter of postwar history and the resilience of those who sought to protect the children society tried to forget. Johnson gives voice to history’s voiceless and delivers a moving exploration of hope, courage, and the ties that bind us through generations.
Kin by Tayari Jones
A new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of “An American Marriage.” Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College. There she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.
A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant work from one of the brightest voices in contemporary fiction.
Stay warm, everyone, and happy reading!
Book stacks photo by the author.