New Fiction Roundup, May 2019

With a trio of new releases by local authors (Chiang, McGuire, Bauermeister), a selection of contemporary romances, several short story collections, and the long awaited latest from Thomas Harris, May should have a little something for every reader.

5/7: The Bride Test by Helen Hoang – Khai Diep, on the autism spectrum, is mortified when his mother plays matchmaker and returns from a visit to Vietnam with Esme, a potential bride. A romance from the author of The Kiss Quotient. A Peak Pick!

5/7: Exhalation by Ted Chiang – Chiang’s long awaited second short story collection gathers together nine stories that examine what it means to be human, and the ways that meaning is complicated and enhanced by our experiences with ever advancing technology. A Peak Pick!

Fresh Romance Picks

Romance is a genre with prolific writers and many sub-genres, which means there’s always something new to get excited about. Here are a few titles published in the past year; find a list of 25 recent titles selected by librarians in our catalog.

A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole
Naledi Smith is an epidemiology grad student in New York holding down multiple jobs to make ends meet, but what might put her over the edge are the nonstop spam emails claiming she is betrothed to an African prince. But it’s not a scam, and when Thabiso, the crown prince of Thesolo, comes find Ledi and she mistakes him for a new coworker, subterfuge begins and sparks fly.

The best of genre reading in 2018

Coordinated by the American Library Association, each year a group of librarians from across the country form The Reading List Council with the goal to identify the year’s best books across eight genres. Here are the 2019 winners (for books published in 2018) in Adrenaline, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, and Women’s Fiction, plus the short list of runners up in each category. Find new titles in the genre you love, or branch out and find something new to try. You can also find this full list in our library catalog.

Adrenaline

Safe Houses by Dan Fesperman
Managing CIA safe houses in 1979 West Berlin, Helen overhears a secret conversation that sends her on the run. Thirty-five years later, a tragedy leads Helen’s daughter to dig into her mother’s secret past, unaware that her mother’s old enemies are still watching.

New fiction roundup – January 2019

Did you set a reading resolution to start the new year? If you’re looking for books to get you started, here are a crop of titles coming out in January – from explorations of near-future societies, to eerie short stories, to picaresque adventures and mystery, there’s a little something for everyone.

1/8: An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks – When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study, she thinks all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave. But as the study morphs into real life situations, Jess realizes she may have told her secrets to the wrong person… A Peak Pick!

New Fiction Roundup – November 2018

11/6: The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco – In 1887, Alma Rosales goes undercover as a man to hunt for an opium shipment missing from a Washington Territory outpost.

11/6: The Colors of All the Cattle by Alexander McCall Smith – In this latest installment of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, Precious Ramotswe finds herself running for office, much to her dismay.

11/6: The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem – Phoebe enlists the help of a loner with a pet possum to look for her friend’s missing daughter in California’s Inland Empire. Hailed as Lethem’s return to detective fiction.