General Fiction
The Audacity.
By Ryan Chapman.
Apr. 2024. 288p. Soho, $27 (9781641295628); e-book (9781641295635).
Chapman proves his staying power as a shrewd and suspenseful satirist in his second novel, following Riots I Have Known (2019). The setup is a riff on the notorious Theranos scam run by Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh Balwani. Chapman’s steely mastermind, billionaire Victoria Stevens, claims to have discovered a cure for cancer. Just before her mega-con is outed, she disappears into the California desert where she subjects herself to extreme physical and mental exertions and deprivation in pursuit of a solution to the crisis, leaving her curiously passive husband, Guy Sarvananthan, on the hot seat. He flees to a privately owned Caribbean island for a Davos-like gathering of the world’s richest, most despicably selfish elites who pretend to care about saving the world amidst outrageously decadent luxury. As Guy pursues potentially suicidal dissolution to touching and darkly comic effect, he reflects on his childhood as a Sri Lankan immigrant in Minneapolis and his failure to launch a career as a classical composer. Chapman conveys malignant excess, arrogance, and greed in scenes of dizzying apocalyptic detail and acid humor. —Donna Seaman
Blue Ruin.
By Hari Kunzru.
May 2024. 272p. Knopf, $28 (9780593801376).
Years ago, Jay was an artist on the cusp of success. Living in London with his girlfriend Alice, things are on the upswing until Jay starts to question the very purpose of art. He lets it all crash and burn, erasing himself completely from the art world and Alice’s life. So it’s an almost implausible coincidence that during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Jay living without documents in the U.S., his job as a groceries delivery person brings him back into Alice’s orbit. This Alice, reeking “of health that’s made of yoga and massage and raw juices and money,” is squirreled away in a country home with her husband and a couple of friends to avoid New York City’s pandemic nightmare. Alice offers Jay a place to stay. Alice’s artist husband, Rob, who was once Jay’s closest friend, has opted for a more straightforward path than Jay, leveraging his art for riches. With Jay back, tensions flare over the past and how the group can make art to simply survive. Jay’s navel-gazing can feel overwrought, but that’s balanced out by the exquisite writing and keen insights into class tensions and creative dilemmas. Kunzru (Red Pill 2020) affirms that it’s always a good time to live an examined life, even during a pandemic. —Poornima Apte
Crooked Seeds.
By Karen Jennings.
Apr. 2024. 240p. Hogarth, $28 (9780593597125); e-book (9780593597132).
The past comes back to haunt a woman whose life is deteriorating in this powerful new novel from Booker Prize–longlisted author Jennings (An Island, 2022). Deidre struggles to get by on disability pay and strict water rations in a South Africa plagued by drought, wildfires, and government corruption. Relying on help from neighbors, she drowns bitter memories with drinks coaxed from the local bartender. When police question her about three bodies buried on her family’s old property, Deidre is forced to face a time she would rather forget and a brother she deeply resents. “Once more this dark sickness upon her,” Jennings writes, “the taste of her childhood a rotten thing that she couldn’t swallow away.” Deidre’s mother, Trudy, is still holding on to the last of her son’s dark secrets, hoping her precious boy will return to her. With evocative prose and an apocalyptic setting, Jennings brings these complicated women to life while the world around them slowly crumbles. Readers will be captivated by this compelling novel about the corrosive power of family secrets. —Rebecca Hopman
Crow Talk.
By Eileen Garvin.
Apr. 2024. 368p. Dutton, $28 (9780593473887).
Ornithology grad student Frankie O’Neill retreats to her family’s remote lakeside cabin, seeking solitude and guidance in the aftermath of her father’s death and the abrupt dissolution of her studies. There are few cottages there, and most should be unoccupied, a fact Frankie knows since her father, Jack, was caretaker for those wealthy Seattle residents who “roughed it” for short summer respites. But Frankie’s reverie is shattered when a young couple arrives with their precocious son. She wants to keep her distance, but that becomes difficult once five-year-old Aiden runs away from his parents and takes refuge in Frankie’s cottage. Aiden’s recent behavioral difficulties have frustrated his family, and his mother, Irish expat musician Anne, interprets Aiden’s silence and withdrawal as a rebuke for the emotional distance she imposed after her dearest friend’s death. When Frankie rescues an injured baby crow, the bird’s rehabilitation provides the catalyst for a journey of restoration for herself, Aiden, and Anne. With great compassion and keen appreciation, Garvin (The Music of Bees, 2021) gently applies the wisdom found in this simple act of caring to help a marriage mend, a friendship blossom, and a child heal. A stunning affirmation of nature’s power to soothe and rejuvenate. —Carol Haggas
Days of Wonder.
By Caroline Leavitt.
Apr. 2024. 320p. Algonquin, $29 (9781643751283).
Prolific novelist Leavitt (With or Without You, 2020) spins a tale of young love, loss, and new beginnings. Ella, 22, is released from prison after serving only six of her 25-year sentence, a correction due to a forced confession and lawyer negligence. Her loving and faithful mother, Helen, whisks her back to New York. Ella had been convicted of the attempted murder of her boyfriend Jude’s father, and after landing in prison, discovered she was pregnant and had to give up the baby. Now freed, she determines to find her child and to make a life of her own, away from Helen. Ella lands in Ann Arbor, Michigan, becomes an advice columnist under a new name, and tries to insert herself into the lives of the child’s adoptive parents. Flashbacks reveal more about Ella and Jude’s tender love and Helen’s devotion to Ella. Readers also see Jude in the current day, having moved on, and Helen, struggling to hold onto her daughter. This is ripe with improbabilities, but readers who crave drama will love it. —Kathy Sexton
YA: Teens will relate to Ella’s struggle to become her own person and enjoy the story’s innate drama. KS.
Friends in Napa.
By Sheila Yasmin Marikar.
Apr. 2024. 240p. Mindy’s Book Studio, $28.99 (9781662513152); e-book (9781662513169).
When Raj and Rachel Ranjani invite their college friends for a weekend at their newly purchased winery, they hope that the lavish weekend will help them recapture the magic of their younger years. But when their guests arrive, it becomes clear that longstanding tensions still simmer. Rachel and Raj have financial problems that Raj insists the winery will resolve, Victoria’s superficial, social-media persona hides both her insecurity and her ambition, and Anjali is burned out after years of hustling for promotions in the competitive world of magazine journalism and trying to hold her marriage together after her husband’s inappropriate behavior gets him fired from his job as a literary agent. As the weekend progresses from uncomfortable to disastrous, alliances shift, relationships rekindle, and secrets are revealed. Readers expecting a thriller may be disappointed—while there are some suspenseful elements, this is primarily a story about interpersonal dramas and women struggling with unreasonable expectations. However, Marikar (The Goddess Effect, 2022) is skilled at dissecting the social-media-obsessed culture of comparison that traps so many people in its web. —Nanette Donohue
A Good Life.
By Virginie Grimaldi. Tr. by Hildegarde Serle.
May 2024. 272p. Europa, $28 (9798889660248).
After their grandmother’s death, sisters Emma and Agathe return for one last visit to the house that provided a refuge during a turbulent and chaotic childhood. Raised by an emotionally and physically abusive mother, both women bear the psychological wounds of this tumultuous time, and while they were very close as girls, they have grown distant in adulthood. The week they are spending at their grandmother’s seaside home is an opportunity to reconnect as well as say goodbye to the woman who provided stability in their lives. Diary entries shed light on the complicated dynamics at play in the sisters’ relationship and the ways they supported and failed each other throughout the years. Grimaldi is a best-selling author in France, and her bittersweet English-language debut is sure to tug at the heartstrings of readers who appreciate moving novels which explore the complexities of sisterly love and mental illness, such as All My Puny Sorrows (2014), by Miriam Toews, or Everything Here Is Beautiful (2018), by Mira T. Lee. —Halle Carlson
The Heirloom.
By Jessie Rosen.
May 2024. 320p. Putnam, paper, $18 (9780593716052).
Shea is in love with John, but when he proposes with an heirloom ring, she can’t stop thinking about her Nonna’s rule—never accept a proposal with an heirloom. She is obsessed with finding the ring’s origin story, believing that if she can track down the previous owner and find out if they had a happy marriage, she will have the same fate. This leads her to Italy, accompanied by her sister Annie and a journalist, Graham, who is interested in writing a story on her. She discovers that the ring was from a failed engagement, then she finds out that the ring had an owner before that. While searching, Graham and Shea become closer, and fiancé John, at home, becomes more insecure. As Shea learns more about herself, she fears that what made her hesitate to accept John’s proposal is that she doesn’t believe in love or happily ever after. Rosen’s captivating debut features strong family ties, tons of superstition, and romance. Rebecca Serle fans will enjoy this novel. —Crystal Vela
Help Wanted.
By Adelle Waldman.
Mar. 2024. 278p. Norton, $28.99 (9781324020448).
There’s a cutthroat game of employment roulette underway at the Town Square superstore in an economically distressed city in Upstate New York. The store’s beloved general manager is leaving, and the opening is as substantial as the key block in a teetering Jenga tower. For the store’s lowliest employees, those who work the grueling middle-of-the-night shift in the warehouse and loading dock, the choice of candidate is personal. Their direct supervisor, Meredith, a chirpy, insensitive go-getter, is one of two contenders. She’s a corporate toady universally disliked among her staff. Still, if Meredith moves up, maybe one of them will get her spot. Waldman’s (, 2013) crew of hardworking merchandise movers concocts a plan to ensure that Meredith is promoted, and their three-dimensional chess scheme is a master class
