General Fiction

• The Smash-Up - Ali Benjamin - "Inspired by a classic Edith Wharton novella about a strained marriage in a small town. It's September 2018. In Washington, D.C., - and in cities and towns across America - women have taken to the streets to protest a Supreme Court nominee. And in Starkfield, Massachusetts - a sleepy rural town where nothing much ever happens - Ethan Frome's otherwise quiet life has turned upside down. Ethan's wife, Zo, is so enraged by the national political scene that she's transformed their home into a local headquarters for the Resistance. ...Enter Maddy Silver-a breezy, blue-haired millennial making her way through the gig economy. Suddenly Ethan and Zo must question everything: their past, their future, their marriage, and what they value most. And all the while, a world-rocking cultural smash-up inches ever closer to home."
• The Mission House - Carys Davies - "Fleeing his demons and the dark undercurrents of contemporary life in the UK, Hilary Byrd takes refuge in a former British hill station in South India. Charmed by the foreignness of his new surroundings and by the familiarity of everything the British have left behind, he finds solace in life's simple pleasures...and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where the Padre and his adoptive daughter Priscilla have taken Hilary under their wing. The Padre is concerned for Priscilla's future, and as Hilary's friendship with the young woman grows, he begins to wonder whether his purpose lies in this new relationship. But religious tensions are brewing and the mission house may not be the safe haven it seems."
• American Delirium - Betina Gonzalez - "In a small Midwestern city, the deer population starts attacking people. So Beryl, a feisty senior and ex-hippie with a troubled past, decides to take matters into her own hands... At the same time, a group of protesters decides to abandon the "system" and live in the woods, leaving behind the demands of modern life-including their children. Vik, a taxidermist at the natural history museum and an immigrant from the Caribbean, is beginning to see the connections among the dropouts, the deer, and the discord. He's not normally the type to speak up, but when he finds a woman living in his closet, he's forced to get involved.... Just as their lives start to spin out of control, they rescue one another in surprising ways."
• Dark Horses - Susan Mihalic - "Fifteen-year-old equestrian prodigy Roan Montgomery has only ever known two worlds: inside the riding arena, and outside of it. Both, for as long as she can remember, have been ruled by her father, who demands strict obedience in all areas of her life. The warped power dynamic of coach and rider extends far beyond the stables, and Roan's relationship with her father has long been inappropriate. She has been able to compartmentalize that dark aspect of her life, ruthlessly focusing on her ambitions as a rider heading for the Olympics, just as her father had done. However, her developing relationship with Will Howard, a boy her own age, broadens the scope of her vision."

Milk Fed
Melissa Broder

The Removed
Brandon Hobson

Caul Baby
Morgan Jerkins

No One is Talking About This
Patricia Lockwood

Sorrow and Bliss
Meg Mason

The Delivery
Peter Mendelsund

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World
Laura Imai Messina

Milk Blood Heat
Dantiel W. Moniz

Wild Swims
Dorthe Nors

Prayer for the Living
Ben Okri

The Five Wounds
Kirsten Valdez Quade

The Night Always Comes
Willy Vlautin

Historical Fiction

• The Twilight Zone - Nona Fernandez - "It is 1984 in Chile, in the middle of the Pinochet dictatorship. A member of the secret police walks into the office of a dissident magazine and begins to talk to a reporter, who records his testimony. His complicity in the worst crimes of the regime and his commitment to speaking about them haunt the narrator into her adulthood and career as a writer and documentarian. Like a secret service agent from the future, through extraordinary feats of the imagination, Fernandez follows the "man who tortured people" to places that archives can't reach, into the sinister twilight zone of history where morning routines, a game of chess, Yuri Gagarin, and the eponymous TV show of the novel's title coexist with the brutal yet commonplace machinations of the regime."
• The Blizzard Party - Jack Livings - "On the night of February 6, 1978, a catastrophic nor'easter struck the city of New York. On that night, in a penthouse in the Upper West Side's stately Apelles, a crowd gathered for a wild party. And on that night, Mr. Albert Haynes Caldwell-a partner emeritus at Swank, Brady & Plescher; Harvard class of '26; father of three; widower; atheist; and fiscal conservative-hatched a plan to fake a medical emergency and toss himself into the Hudson River, where he would drown. In the eye of this storm: Hazel Saltwater, age six. The strange events of that night irrevocably altered many lives, but none more than hers. The Blizzard Party is Hazel's reconstruction of that night, an exploration of love, language, conspiracy, auditory time travel, and life after death."

Half-Life
Jillian Cantor

Leonora in the Morning Light
Michaela Carter

The Widow Queen
Elzbieta Cherezinska

Send for Me
Lauren Fox

The Slaughterman’s Daughter
Yaniv Iczkovits

Mysteries

• Who is Maud Dixon? - Alexandra Andrews - "Florence Darrow is a low-level publishing employee who believes that she's destined to be a famous writer. When she stumbles into a job the assistant to the brilliant, enigmatic novelist known as Maud Dixon - whose true identity is a secret - it appears that the universe is finally providing Florence's big chance. The arrangement seems perfect. Maud Dixon (whose real name, Florence discovers, is Helen Wilcox) can be prickly, but she is full of pointed wisdom. Florence quickly falls under Helen's spell and eagerly accompanies her to Morocco, where Helen's new novel is set. But when Florence wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident, with no memory of the previous night - and no sign of Helen - she's tempted to take a shortcut. Instead of hiding in Helen's shadow, why not upgrade into Helen's life? Not to mention her bestselling pseudonym...."

The Low Desert
Tod Goldberg

The Jigsaw Man
Nadine Matheson

Romance

• The Love Proof - Madeleine Henry - "Sophie Jones is a physics prodigy on track to unlock the secrets of the universe. But when she meets Jake Kristopher during their first week at Yale they instantly feel a deep connection, as if they've known each other before. Quickly, they become a couple. Slowly, their love lures Sophie away from school. When a shocking development forces Sophie into a new reality, she returns to physics to make sense of her world. She grapples with life's big questions, including how to cope with unexpected change and loss. Inspired by her connection with Jake, Sophie throws herself into her studies, determined to prove that true loves belong together in all realities."

Under the Southern Sky
Kristy Woodson Harvey

Twice Shy
Sarah Hogle

The Things We Leave Unfinished
Rebecca Yarros

Sci-Fi / Fantasy

• Creatures of Passage - Morowa Yejide - "Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying passengers in a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River. Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, ten-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash…has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man." When Dash arrives unexpectedly at Nephthys's door bearing a cryptic note about his unusual conversations with the River Man, Nephthys must face what frightens her most."

The Councillor
E. J. Beaton

The Last Watch
J.S. Dewes

Malice
Heather Walter

Thrillers

• The Downstairs Neighbor - Helen Cooper - "From her downstairs apartment in suburban London, Emma has often overheard the everyday life of the seemingly perfect family upstairs-Steph, Paul and teenage daughter Freya-but has never got to know them. Until one day, she hears something that seizes her attention: Freya has vanished and the police are questioning Steph and Paul about their life. The effects of Freya's disappearance ripple outward, affecting not just her parents, but everyone who lives in the building. Each character's life is thrown into sharp focus as devastating mistakes and long-held secrets are picked apart and other crimes come to light-including a child gone missing twenty-five years earlier, and a shocking murder-that make clear that the past never stays where we leave it, and that homes can be built on foundations of lies."
• Girl A - Abigail Dean - "Lex Gracie doesn't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the home into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings-and with the childhood they shared."

Take It Back
Kia Abdullah

The Opium Prince
Jasmine Aimaq

The Captive
Fiona King Foster

Pretty Little Wife
Darby Kane

A Certain Hunger
Chelsea G. Summers

The Lady Upstairs
Halley Sutton

Beyond the Bestsellers
Copyright © 2021 Middletown Thrall Library


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