This is Bob: A Guide to Not Dying (Mostly) by Robert J. McCartney is a psychological exploration of chronic suicidality, self-harm, and existential resilience. Part of the Willborne Saga, the story centers around Bob, a character who repeatedly enacts suicide attempts only to reset and...

In The Rabbi’s Suitcase, Robert Kehlmann vividly combines family history with historical facts in a cohesive and emotionally resonant narrative that anchors history in personal experience. Beginning with the family’s migration from Eastern Europe to Jerusalem in the 1880s, he depicts their struggle to preserve...

The Inconvenient Unraveling of Gemma Sinclair by Meg Myers Morgan centers on Gemma Sinclair, a married mother of two. Gemma can’t catch a break. Having given birth a few days ago, she can’t shake this insurmountable feeling of pressure. However, she’s not entirely sure where...

Jessica Levine's Three Cousins unfolds beautifully in the constantly changing tide of America in the 1970s, during a period of opportunity, resistance, and personal reinvention. Julia, Anna, and Robin are cousins united by blood, goodwill, and the clutter that typically emerges when a person decides...

The Standing Stone on the Moor is the fourth book by Allie Cresswell in the acclaimed Talbot Saga, and while the series is not published in chronological order, my best effort in the lead-up begins with The House in the Hollow, where Jocelyn Talbot rejects...

Turn Around by Carole Wolfe follows Heather Ramsey, a high school vice principal who expects to be promoted to principal at Stadium High but is abruptly passed over for outsider Shannon Parker. Reassigned under Shannon’s rigid leadership, Heather’s workload increases without compensation while her husband...

The Olive Grove by Deborah Rohan is a sweeping historical novel that tells the story of one Palestinian family’s journey through love, loss, and displacement across the twentieth century. Hamzi Moghrabi is a young boy growing up in the coastal city of Akka in 1913,...

The Orchard by Joseph Kinnebrew is a haunting and ambitious work of literary fiction. We find ourselves in a symbolic, often surreal meditation on morality, sin, and the soul’s pursuit of grace. It is structured through layered metaphors and an abstract narrative style, as the...

The Hag Stone by W. J. Small, set in late medieval England, reveals societal forces that frighteningly still shape women’s lives in subtle, systemic, and sometimes deeply personal ways. Cecily Heaton has just received news of her husband Ellis’s death on the battlefield of Calais....

The Strangers Saga: Baton Rouge by Ana Ban tells the story of Sadie Nichols, a young woman who returns to her hometown to open a store and take care of her troubled cousin, Eva. Sadie’s decision to adopt Eva sets the story in motion, showing...