Skip to main content

Feature and Contest

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco, where she runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day, a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy. Unbeknownst to Lydia, Javier is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city.

Read more »

If Only I Could Tell You by Hannah Beckerman

Audrey’s dream as a mother had been for her daughters, Jess and Lily, to be as close as only sisters can be. But now, as adults, they no longer speak to each other, and Audrey’s two teenage granddaughters have never met. Audrey just can’t help feeling like she’s been dealt more than her fair share as she’s watched her family come undone over the years, and she has no idea how to fix her family as she wonders if they will ever be whole again. If only Audrey had known three decades ago that a secret could have the power to split her family in two, and yet also keep them linked. And when hostilities threaten to spiral out of control, a devastating choice that was made so many years ago is about to be revealed, testing this family once and for all.

Read more »

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Anna Kerrigan accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men. Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, repairing the ships that will help America win the war.

Read more »

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

While Kitty Milton and her husband, Ogden, summer on their island in Maine, anchored as they are to the way things have always been, the winds of change are beginning to stir. In 1959 New York City, two strangers enter the Miltons’ circle. One captures the attention of Kitty’s daughter, while the other makes each of them question what the family stands for. This new generation insists the times are changing. And in one night, everything does. So much so that in the present day, the third generation of Miltons doesn’t have enough money to keep the island in Maine. Evie Milton’s mother has just died, and as Evie digs into her mother’s and grandparents’ history, what she finds is a story as unsettling as it is inescapable, the story that threatens the foundation of the Milton family myth.

Read more »

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

1932, Minnesota. The Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Read more »

The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World (Audiobook) by Melinda Gates

For the last 20 years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down. In THE MOMENT OF LIFT, Melinda shares lessons she’s learned from the inspiring people she’s met during her work and travels around the world. Her unforgettable narrative is backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention.

Read more »

The Huntress by Kate Quinn

When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, Nina Markova risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress. Transformed by the horrors he witnessed, British war correspondent Ian Graham has become a Nazi hunter. Yet one target eludes him: a vicious predator known as the Huntress. To find her, the fierce, disciplined investigator joins forces with the only witness to escape the Huntress alive: the brazen, cocksure Nina. But a shared secret could derail their mission unless Ian and Nina force themselves to confront it.

Read more »

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land

At 28, Stephanie Land turned to housekeeping to make ends meet. With a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly. She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance.

Read more »

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult

The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center --- a women’s reproductive health services clinic --- its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage. After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages, he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his 15-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

Read more »

The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter by Hazel Gaynor

1838: Northumberland, England. Longstone Lighthouse has been Grace Darling’s home for all of her 22 years. When she and her father rescue shipwreck survivors in a furious storm, Grace becomes celebrated throughout England. But far more precious than her unsought fame is the friendship that develops between Grace and visiting artist George Emmerson. 1938: Newport, Rhode Island. A pregnant Matilda Emmerson has been sent away from Ireland in disgrace. She is to stay with Harriet, a reclusive relative and assistant lighthouse keeper, until her baby is born.

Read more »