Great novels by first-time authors you don’t want to miss!
The Tobacco Wives
Adele Myers
When teenage Maddie’s recently widowed mother suffers a mental breakdown, she is abruptly sent to live with her Aunt Etta, a renowned seamstress working for the wealthy wives of postwar Bright Leaf, North Carolina, where tobacco is king. With the a
Read More View in CatalogTripping Arcadia
Kit Mayquist
Med school dropout Lena is desperate for a job, any job, to help her parents, who are approaching bankruptcy after her father was injured and laid off nearly simultaneously. So, when she is offered a position, against all odds, working for one of Bos
Read More View in CatalogHow High We Go in the Dark
Sequoia Nagamatsu
Nagamatsu examines the way a pandemic changes the world in the decades and even centuries that follow in chapters told from the perspectives of various linked characters. The story opens when Dr. Cliff Miyashiro journeys to Siberia to finish the work
Read More View in CatalogSisters in Arms
Kaia Alderson
Grace Steele and Eliza Jones may be from completely different backgrounds, but when it comes to the army, specifically the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), they are both starting from the same level. Not only will they be among the first cla
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Black Buck
Mateo Askaripour
An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby
Read More View in CatalogFirekeeper's Daughter
Angeline Boulley
Reeling after the death of her uncle, Daunis is trying to adjust to her new normal, a challenge at the best of times in her gossip-prone town, especially when her scandalous origins leave her caught between two worlds: Ojibwe on her father’s side,
Read More View in CatalogThe Prophets
Robert Jones, Jr.
"A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence."
View in CatalogGold Diggers
Sanjena Sathian
Flouting expectations, second-generation Indian American teenager Neil Narayan prefers hanging out to striving mightily for success. Soon he's hanging out with Anita Dayal, helping her use stolen jewelry to create an alchemical potion drawing on
Read More View in CatalogBeasts of a Little Land
Juhea Kim
An epic story of love, war, and redemption set against the backdrop of the Korean independence movement, following the intertwined fates of a young girl sold to a courtesan school and the penniless son of a hunter.
View in CatalogThe Reading List
Sara Nisha Adams
A BEST OF SUMMER READ ACCORDING TO NEWSWEEK, PARADE MAGAZINE, NBC NEWS, LITHUB, AND POPSUGAR! "The most heartfelt read of the summer...a surprising delight of a novel."--Shondaland An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance
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