In celebration of ICPL’s 125th anniversary, we thought you might like to browse the top 125 Fiction Checkouts of 2020! This list is posted in order of popularity and includes general fiction, mystery and science fiction. Enjoy!
Where the crawdads sing
Delia Owens
FICTION Owens Delia
For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say...
The Dutch house : a novel
Ann Patchett
FICTION Patchett Ann
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
The silent patient
Alex Michaelides
FICTION Michaelides, Alex
Alicia Berenson's life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London's most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia's refusal to talk or give any kind of explanation turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety.
Such a fun age : a novel
Kiley Reid
FICTION Reid Kiley
Alix Chamberlain is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
The Nickel boys : a novel
Colson Whitehead
FICTION Whitehead, Colson
Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future.
Normal people : a novel
Sally Rooney
FICTION Rooney Sally
"At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He's popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne's house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers--one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they're both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other" --
This tender land : a novel
William Kent Krueger
FICTION Krueger, William Kent
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 little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.
The overstory : a novel
Richard Powers
FICTION Powers Richard
A novel of activism and natural-world power presents interlocking fables about nine remarkable strangers who are summoned in different ways by trees for an ultimate, brutal stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.
Little fires everywhere
Celeste Ng
FICTION Ng Celeste
Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood - and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.
The most fun we ever had : a novel
Claire Lombardo
FICTION Lombardo Claire
A multi-generational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple--still madly in love after forty years--match wits, harbor grudges, and recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they've built.
Lady in the lake : a novel
Laura Lippman
FICTION Lippman Laura
"New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman returns with a new stand-alone novel about a middle aged housewife turned aspiring reporter Maddie Schwartz, who is determined to solve the murder of a forgotten young woman in order to make her own reputation"--
City of girls
Elizabeth Gilbert
FICTION Gilbert, Elizabeth
Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.
The giver of stars
Jojo Moyes
FICTION Moyes Jojo
Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond. Based on a true story rooted in America's past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope. At times funny, at others heartbreaking, this is a richly rewarding novel of women's friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.
A gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles
FICTION Towles Amor
A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors.
Red at the bone
Jacqueline Woodson
FICTION Woodson, Jacqueline
Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces.
One good deed
David Baldacci
FICTION Baldacci David
It's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of do's and a much longer list of don'ts: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job -- and don't ever associate with loose women. The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail.
American dirt
Jeanine Cummins
FICTION Cummins Jeanine
Acapulco. Lydia Quixano Perez runs a bookstore. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is fairly comfortable. Javier browses at the store and comes up to the register with two of her favorites books. Javier is charming... and the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When her husband's tell-all profile of Javier is published, Lydia and her son find themselves making their way north toward the United States, the only place Javier's reach doesn't extend.
All the light we cannot see : a novel
Anthony Doerr
FICTION Doerr Anthony
From Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
A better man
Louise Penny
MYSTERY Penny Louise
It's Gamache's first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter. As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.
On earth we're briefly gorgeous : a novel
Ocean Vuong
FICTION Vuong Ocean
"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity"--
The turn of the key
Ruth Ware
FICTION Ware Ruth
When she stumbles across the ad, she's looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss--a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten--by the luxurious "smart" home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family. What she doesn't know is that she's stepping into a nightmare--one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.
Evvie Drake starts over : a novel
Linda (Radio talk show host) Holmes
FICTION Holmes Linda
In a small town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth "Evvie" Drake rarely leaves her house. Everyone in town, including her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and she doesn't correct them. In New York, Dean Tenney, former major-league pitcher and Andy's childhood friend, is struggling with a case of the "yips": he can't throw straight anymore, and he can't figure out why. An invitation from Andy to stay in Maine for a few months seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button.
The inn
James Patterson
FICTION Patterson, James
The seclusion of the Inn at Gloucester suits former Boston police detective, Bill Robinson. Robinson runs the Inn and doesn't ask any questions, until Mitchell Cline arrives bringing drugs and violence to the peaceful inn.
The testaments
Margaret Atwood
SCIENCE FICTION Atwood Margaret
The theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results. Each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
Summer of '69
Elin Hilderbrand
FICTION Hilderbrand, Elin
It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same.
Mrs. Everything : a novel
Jennifer Weiner
FICTION Weiner Jennifer
"A smart, thoughtful, and timely exploration of two sisters' lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places--and be true to themselves--in a rapidly evolving world. Mrs. Everything is an ambitious, richly textured journey through history--and herstory--as these two sisters navigate a changing America over the course of their lives"--
All the devils are here
Louise Penny
MYSTERY Penny Louise
"All the Devils are Here" finds Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Quebec investigating a sinister plot in the City of Light On their first night in Paris. The Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand's godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Gamache knows is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on the elderly man's life.
The lager queen of Minnesota
J. Ryan Stradal
FICTION Stradal J. Ryan
"A novel of family, Midwestern values, hard work, fate, and the secrets of making a world-class beer, from the author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest"--
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine
Gail Honeyman
FICTION Honeyman Gail
Smart, warm, uplifting, the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes the only way to survive is to open her heart.
Outfox
Sandra Brown
FICTION Brown Sandra
FBI Drex Easton is driven to outmaneuver the conman known as Weston Graham. When eight women turn up missing, Easton is convinced Graham is responsible and that he murdered them.
Before we were yours
Lisa Wingate
FICTION Wingate Lisa
Memphis, Tennessee, 1936. The five Foss children find their lives changed forever when their parents leave them alone on the family shantyboat one stormy night. South Carolina, Present Day. Avery Stafford has lived a charmed life. Loving daughter to her father, a U.S. Senator, she has a promising career as an assistant D.A. in Baltimore and is engaged to her best friend. But when Avery comes home to help her father weather a health crisis and a political attack, a chance encounter with a stranger leaves her deeply shaken. Avery's decision to learn more about the woman's life will take her on a journey through her family's long-hidden history.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz : a novel
Heather (Screenwriter) Morris
FICTION Morris Heather
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.
The guest book : a novel
Sarah Blake
FICTION Blake Sarah
1935: Kitty and Ogden Milton appear to have perfect children, good looks, a love everyone envies. When a tragedy befalls them, Ogden tries to bring Kitty back to life by purchasing an island in Maine. It is there that Kitty issues a refusal that will haunt her till the day she dies. 1959: a young Jewish man, Len Levy, gets a job in Ogden's bank and earns the admiration of Ogden and one of his daughters, but the scorn of everyone else. Present day: This generation of the Miltons doesn't have the money to keep the island. When Evie Milton's husband brings back disturbing evidence about her grandfather's past, it exposes the secrets that hovered just below the surface of her family all her life.
The last widow : a novel
Karin Slaughter
MYSTERY Slaughter, Karin
On a serene summer Sunday, a routine admission for a run-of-the-mill surgery at Atlanta's Emory Hospital goes tragically wrong, setting off a catastrophic wave of destruction that sends the facility and the surrounding area into lockdown.
The Guardians
John Grisham
FICTION Grisham John
In a small Florida town, a young lawyer is shot to death. A young black man, a former client, named Quincy Miller is charged and convicted. For 22 years, Miller maintains his innocence from inside prison. Finally, Guardian Ministries takes on Miller's case, but the Episcopal minister in charge gets more than he bargained for as powerful people do not want Miller exonerated.
There there : a novel
Tommy Orange
FICTION Orange Tommy
Tommy Orange delivers a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. A multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people.
Nine perfect strangers
Liane Moriarty
FICTION Moriarty Liane
Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can't even admot to themselves. Amid all the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.
Fleishman is in trouble : a novel
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
FICTION Brodesse Taffy
Dr. Toby Fleishman wakes up each morning surrounded by women. Women who are self-actualized and independent and know what they want--and, against all odds, what they want is Toby. But just as the winds of his optimism are beginning to pick up, they're quickly dampened, and then extinguished, when his ex-wife, Rachel, suddenly disappears. A searing, funny, and electric debut from one of the most exciting writers working today, Fleishman Is In Trouble is an exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of both our great wariness and our great optimism.
Things you save in a fire
Katherine Center
FICTION Center, Katherine
From the New York Times-bestselling author of How to Walk Away comes a stunning new novel about courage, hope, and learning to love against all odds. Things You Save in a Fire is a heartfelt and healing tour-de-force about the strength of vulnerability and the nourishing magic of forgiveness.
Someone we know
Shari Lapeña
FICTION Lapena Shari
Neighbors begin to turn on each other after a series of break-ins is followed by a murder --
Bloody genius
John Sandford
MYSTERY Sandford John
At the local state university, two feuding departments have faced off on the battleground of PC culture. Each carries their views to extremes that may seem absurd, but highly educated people of sound mind and good intentions can reasonably disagree, right? Then someone winds up dead, and Virgil Flowers is brought in to investigate...
Big sky
Kate Atkinson
FICTION Atkinson Kate
Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son and an aging Labrador, both at the discretion of his ex-partner Julia. It's picturesque, but there's something darker lurking behind the scenes. Jackson's current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, is fairly standard-issue, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network - and back across the path of his old friend Reggie.
The Bitterroots : a novel
C. J. Box
MYSTERY Box C. J.
Former police officer Cassie Dewell is trying to start over with her own private investigation firm. Guilty about not seeing her son and exhausted by the nights on stakeout, Cassie is nonetheless managing...until an old friend calls in a favor: she wants Cassie to help exonerate a man accused of assaulting a young girl from an influential family.
The great alone
Kristin Hannah
FICTION Hannah Kristin
Lenora Allbright is 13 when her father convinces her mother, Cora, to forgo their inauspicious existence in Seattle and move to Kaneq, AK. It's 1974, and the former Vietnam POW sees a better future away from the noise and nightmares that plague him. Yet the harsh conditions bring out the worst in Ernt, whose paranoia takes over their lives and exacerbates what Leni sees as the toxic relationship between her parents. The Allbrights are as green as greenhorns can be, and even first love must endure unimaginable hardship and tragedy as the wilderness tries to claim more victims.
Unsheltered : a novel
Barbara Kingsolver
FICTION Kingsolver, Barbara
At the corner of Sixth and Plum in Vineland, New Jersey two families live in the same house-- centuries apart. Willa and Iano Knox followed all the rules as responsible parents and professionals, and have nothing to show for it but debts and an inherited brick house that is falling apart. In a different time, Thatcher Greenwood, a science teacher, has been forbidden to speak of the work just published by Charles Darwin. His young bride and social-climbing mother-in-law bristle dismiss his worries that their elegant house is unsound. Each family lives in precarious times-- and the foundations of the past have failed to prepare either for the future.
Olive, again
Elizabeth Strout
FICTION Strout, Elizabeth
Now Olive returns, this time as a person getting older, navigating her next decade as she comes to terms with the changes--sometimes welcome, sometimes not--in her own life. Here is Olive, strangely content in her second marriage, still in an evolving relationship with her son and his family, encountering a cast of memorable characters in the seaside town of Crosby, Maine.
Ask again yes : a novel
Mary Beth Keane
FICTION Keane Mary
"A family saga about two Irish American families in a New York suburb, the love between two of their children, and the tragedies that threaten to tear them apart and destroy their futures"--
Shamed
Linda Castillo
MYSTERY Castillo Linda
In this riveting new thriller in Linda Castillo's New York Times bestselling series, Kate Burkholder races against the clock to find a missing Amish girl. An Amish grandmother is murdered on an abandoned farm, her seven year old granddaughter abducted. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder plunges headlong into a case that quickly becomes a race against the clock.
The book woman of Troublesome Creek
Kim Michele Richardson
FICTION Richardson, Kim
1936. Tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry. She joins Roosevelt's Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a traveling librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.
Circe : a novel
Madeline Miller
FICTION Miller Madeline
Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.
Daisy Jones & the Six : a novel
Taylor Jenkins Reid
FICTION Reid Taylor
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it's the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she's twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
The Institute : a novel
Stephen King
FICTION King Stephen
In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis' parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents.
A dangerous man
Robert Crais
MYSTERY Crais Robert
Joe Pike didn't expect to rescue a woman that day. He went to the bank same as anyone goes to the bank, and returned to his Jeep. So when Isabel Roland, the lonely young teller who helped him, steps out of the bank on her way to lunch, Joe is on hand when two men abduct her. Joe chases them down, and the two men are arrested. But instead of putting the drama to bed, the arrests are only the beginning of the trouble for Joe and Izzy.
The water dancer : a novel
Ta-Nehisi Coates
FICTION Coates, Ta-Nehisi
This is a bracingly original vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author's bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters, The Water Dancer is the story of America's oldest struggle--the struggle to tell the truth--from one of our most exciting thinkers and beautiful writers.
The woman in the window : a novel
A. J. Finn
FICTION Finn, A. J.
Anna Fox lives alone -- a recluse in her New York City home, drinking too much wine, watching old movies ... and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move next door: a father, a mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna sees something she shouldn't, her world begins to crumble.
Knife
Jo Nesbø
MYSTERY Nesbo Jo
Brilliant, audaciously rogue police officer, Harry Hole is back and in the throes of a new, unanticipated rage -- once again hunting the murderer who has haunted his entire career. Harry Hole is not in a good place. When Harry wakes up the morning after a blackout, drunken night with blood that's clearly not his own on his hands, it's only the very beginning of what will be a waking nightmare the likes of which even he could never have imagined.
An American marriage
Tayari Jones
FICTION Jones Tayari
"Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. An insightful look into the lives of people who are bound and separated by forces beyond their control"--
The unhoneymooners
Christina Lauren
FICTION Lauren, Christina
For two sworn enemies, anything can happen during the Hawaiian trip of a lifetime--maybe even love--in this romantic comedy.
The goldfinch
Donna Tartt
FICTION Tartt, Donna
A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld.
The secrets we kept
Lara Prescott
FICTION Prescott Lara
At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world.
Recursion : a novel
Blake Crouch
FICTION Crouch Blake
New York City cop Barry Sutton investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome-- a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. Neuroscientist Helena Smith dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent. Together they face a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past. Memory makes reality-- and the force is beginning to unmake the world as we know it.
The last house guest : a novel
Megan Miranda
FICTION Miranda Megan
"From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls, a suspenseful new novel about an idyllic town in Maine dealing with the suspicious death of one of their own--and her best "summer" friend, who is trying to uncover the truth...before fingers point her way"--
Chances are...
Richard Russo
FICTION Russo Richard
Shot through with Russo's trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are... also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader's heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship's bonds are every bit as constricting and rewarding as those of family or any other community. For both longtime fans and lucky newcomers, Chances Are... is a stunning demonstration of a highly acclaimed author deepening and expanding his remarkable achievement.
A minute to midnight
David Baldacci
FICTION Baldacci David
'My sister was abducted from here nearly thirty years ago. The person who took her was never found. And neither was she. Her abductor nearly killed me. So I'm back here now trying to find the truth.' Atlee Pine has spent most of her life trying to find out what happened that fateful night in Andersonville, Georgia.
A man called Ove : a novel
Fredrik Backman
FICTION Backman, Fredrik
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon; the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul.
Conversations with friends : a novel
Sally Rooney
FICTION Rooney Sally
Written with gem-like precision and marked by a sly sense of humor, Conversations with Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth, and the messy edges of female friendship.
Dear Edward : a novel
Ann Napolitano
FICTION Napolitano, Ann
One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor. Edward's story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place in a world without his family.
The chain
Adrian McKinty
FICTION McKinty, Adrian
Your phone rings. You child has been kidnapped. And to free her, you must abduct someone else's child. Your child will be released when your victim's parents kidnap another child. Rachel will be part of the chain... or her daughter Kylie will be killed. But the masterminds may have made a mistake this time. Rachel may be the one to finally break the chain.
Then she was gone : a novel
Lisa Jewell
FICTION Jewell Lisa
Ten years after her teenage daughter disappears, a woman crosses paths with a charming single father whose young child feels eerily familiar, in this evocative, suspenseful drama from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell--perfect for fans of Paula Hawkins and Liane Moriarty.
The huntress : a novel
Kate Quinn
FICTION Quinn Kate
Shining a light on a shadow of history, The Huntress is an epic, sweeping Second World War novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network.
The never game
Jeffery Deaver
MYSTERY Deaver Jeffery
From the bestselling and award-winning master of suspense, the first novel in a thrilling new series, introducing Colter Shaw. A young woman has gone missing in Silicon Valley and her father has hired Colter Shaw to find her. The son of a survivalist family, Shaw is an expert tracker.
Wolf pack
C. J. Box
MYSTERY Box C. J.
The good news is that Joe Pickett has his job back, after his last adventure in The Disappeared. The bad news is that he's come to learn that a drone is killing wildlife--and the drone belongs to a mysterious and wealthy man whose son is dating Joe's own daughter, Lucy. When Joe tries to lay down the rules for the drone operator, he's asked by the FBI and the DOJ to stand down, which only makes him more suspicious.
Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi
FICTION Gyasi Yaa
Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi's has written a modern masterpiece, a novel that moves through histories and geographies and--with outstanding economy and force--captures the troubled spirit of our own nation.
Land of wolves
Craig Johnson
MYSTERY Johnson Craig
In Land of Wolves, Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire is neck deep in the investigation of what could or could not be the suicidal hanging of a shepherd. With unsettling connections to a Basque family with a reputation for removing the legs of Absaroka County sheriffs, matters become even more complicated with the appearance of an oversize wolf in the Big Horn Mountains to which Walt finds himself feeling more and more empathetic.
Redemption
David Baldacci
FICTION Baldacci David
Confronted by the first murder suspect of his early career while visiting his hometown, FBI detective Amos Decker reexamines startling connections to another crime that make him question if he arrested the wrong man years earlier.
A fatal grace
Louise Penny
MYSTERY Penny, Louise
No one liked CC de Poitiers -- not her family, not her lover, not her neighbors in Three Pines. When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to investigate CC's sudden death on the day after Christmas, it seems like an impossible murder. How could she have been lectrocuted in the middle of a frozen lake in the midst of Three Pines annual curling match without anyone seeing a thing?
Everything I never told you
Celeste Ng
FICTION Ng Celeste
A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
Under currents
Nora Roberts
FICTION Roberts Nora
Within the walls of a tasteful, perfectly kept house in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, young Zane Bigelow feels like a prisoner of war. Strangers -- and even Zane's own aunt across the lake -- see his parents as a successful surgeon and his stylish wife, making appearances at their children's ballet recitals and baseball games. Zane and his sister know the truth: There is something terribly wrong.
The American agent : a Maisie Dobbs novel
Jacqueline Winspear
MYSTERY Winspear, Jacqueline
When Catherine Saxon, an American correspondent reporting on the war in Europe, is found murdered in her London digs, news of her death is concealed by British authorities. Serving as a linchpin between Scotland Yard and the Secret Service, Robert MacFarlane pays a visit to Maisie Dobbs, seeking her help.
Ninth house
Leigh Bardugo
SCIENCE FICTION Bardugo, Leigh
Galaxy "Alex" Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she's thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world's most prestigious universities on a full ride. What's the catch, and why her?
The nightingale
Kristin Hannah
FICTION Hannah Kristin
Viann and Isabelle have always been close despite their differences. Younger, bolder sister Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann lives a quiet and content life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. When World War II strikes and Antoine is sent off to fight, Viann and Isabelle's father sends Isabelle to help her older sister cope. As the war progresses, it's not only the sisters' relationship that is tested, but also their strength and their individual senses of right and wrong.
What happens in paradise : a novel
Elin Hilderbrand
FICTION Hilderbrand, Elin
A year ago, Irene Steele had the shock of her life: her loving husband, father to their grown sons and successful businessman, was killed in a plane crash. But that wasn't Irene's only shattering news: he'd also been leading a double life on the island of St. John, where another woman loved him, too.
The searcher
Tana French
MYSTERY French Tana
"Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets"--
Walk the wire
David Baldacci
FICTION Baldacci, David
"Amos Decker, the FBI consultant with a perfect memory, and Alex Jamison FBI. Return to solve a gruesome murder of a young woman named Irene Cramer, in a booming North Dakota oil fracking town. The promise of a second gold rush has attracted an onslaught of newcomers all hoping for a windfall, bringing with them problems, including drugs, property crimes, prostitution and now a gruesome murder."--Publisher description.
Where'd you go, Bernadette : a novel
Maria Semple
FICTION Semple Maria
A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this "whip-smart and divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (New York Times). Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle — and people in general — has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic. To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence — creating a compulsively readable.
Conviction
Denise Mina
MYSTERY Mina Denise
An upper-class Edinburgh housewife who enjoys listening to the sordid details of true-crime podcasts has her world turned upside down when a new podcast turns out to have connections to her own dark past.
Trust exercise
Susan Choi
FICTION Choi Susan
In 1982 in a southern city, David and Sarah, two freshmen at a highly competitive performing arts high school, thrive alongside their school peers in a rarified bubble, ambitiously devoting themselves to their studies--to music, to movement, to Shakespeare and, particularly, to classes taught by the magnetic acting teacher Mr. Kingsley. It is here in these halls that David and Sarah fall innocently and powerfully into first love.
Neon prey
John Sandford
MYSTERY Sandford John
"Lucas Davenport tracks a prolific serial killer in the newest nail-biter by #1 New York Times-bestselling author John Sandford."--
The mothers : a novel
Brit Bennett
FICTION Bennett Brit
"A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community--and the things that ultimately haunt us most"--
Station eleven : a novel
Emily St. John Mandel
FICTION Mandel Emily
An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame, and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
Outlander
Diana Gabaldon
FICTION Gabaldon, Diana
In 1945, a former combat nurse, back from the war and on her honeymoon, touches a boulder in an ancient Scottish ruin and is instantly transported to a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in 1743.
The need : a novel
Helen Phillips
FICTION Phillips Helen
From LA Times Book Prize finalist and author of The Beautiful Bureaucrat comes a subversive speculative thriller about a mother of two young children who, by confronting a masked intruder in her home, slips into an existential rabbit hole where she grapples with the dualities of motherhood--joy and dread, longing and suffocation--in blazing, arresting prose.
Run away
Harlan Coben
FICTION Coben Harlan
You've lost your daughter. She's addicted to drugs and to an abusive boyfriend. And she's made it clear that she doesn't want to be found. Then, by chance, you see her playing guitar in Central Park. But she's not the girl you remember. This woman is living on the edge, frightened, and clearly in trouble. You don't stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home.
The lost girls of Paris
Pam Jenoff
FICTION Jenoff Pam
A remarkable story of friendship and courage centered around three women and a ring of female secret agents during World War II.1946, Vividly rendered and inspired by true events, author Pam Jenoff shines a light on the incredible heroics of the brave women of the war and weaves a mesmerizing tale of courage, sisterhood and the great strength of women to survive in the hardest of circumstances.
The Alice network : a novel
Kate Quinn
FICTION Quinn Kate
It's 1947 and American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a fervent belief that her beloved French cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive somewhere. So when Charlie's family banishes her to Europe to have her "little problem" take care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.
The friends we keep
Jane Green
FICTION Green Jane
Evvie, Maggie, and Topher have known each other since university. Now years have passed, the friends have drifted apart, and none of them ever found the lives they wanted - the lives they dreamed of when they were young and everything seemed possible. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness... until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything. The Friends We Keep is about how despite disappointments we've had or mistakes we've made, it's never too late to find a place to call home.
The farm : a novel
Joanne Ramos
FICTION Ramos Joanne
Nestled in New York's Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, private fitness trainers, daily massages--and all of it for free. In fact, you're paid big money to stay here--more than you've ever dreamed of. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds; your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby.
Good omens : the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch
Neil Gaiman
SCIENCE FICTION Gaiman, Neil
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee
FICTION Lee Min
PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.
Inland : a novel
Téa Obreht
FICTION Obreht Tea
In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives collide. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman, alone in a house abandoned by the men in her life--her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her two older sons, who have gone in search of their father after his return is delayed. Lurie is the son of a dead dockworker, a former outlaw, and a man haunted by ghosts. The way in which Nora and Lurie's stories intertwine is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel.
The new girl : a novel
Daniel Silva
FICTION Silva Daniel
At an exclusive private school in Switzerland, mystery surrounds the identity of the beautiful girl who arrives each morning and leaves each afternoon in a heavily protected motorcade fit for a head of state. And when she is brutally kidnapped across the border in the Haute-Savoie region of France, Gabriel Allon, the legendary chief of Israeli intelligence, is thrust into a deadly secret war with an old enemy that will determine the future of the Middle East --and perhaps the world . . .
The Witch Elm
Tana French
MYSTERY French Tana
A spellbinding standalone from one of the best suspense writers working today, The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are.
The night fire
Michael Connelly
MYSTERY Connelly Michael
Back when Harry Bosch was just a rookie homicide detective, he had an inspiring mentor who taught him to take the work personally and light the fire of relentlessness for every case. Now that mentor, John Jack Thompson, is dead, but after his funeral his widow hands Bosch a murder book that Thompson took with him when he left the LAPD 20 years before -- the unsolved killing of a troubled young man in an alley used for drug deals. And they soon arrive at a worrying question: Did Thompson steal the murder book to work the case in retirement, or to make sure it never got solved?
Kingdom of the blind
Louise Penny
MYSTERY Penny Louise
When a peculiar letter arrives inviting Armand Gamache to an abandoned farmhouse, the former head of the Sûreté du Québec discovers that a complete stranger has named him one of the executors of her will. Still on suspension, and frankly curious, Gamache accepts and soon learns that the other two executors are Myrna Landers, the bookseller from Three Pines, and a young builder. None of them had ever met the elderly woman.
The 18th abduction
James Patterson
MYSTERY Patterson, James
Detective Lindsay Boxer and her husband Joe Molinari team up to protect San Francisco from an international war criminal in the newest Women's Murder Club thriller. For a trio of colleagues, an innocent night out after class ends in a deadly torture session. They vanish without a clue -- until a body turns up.
The better sister : a novel
Alafair Burke
MYSTERY Burke Alafair
When a prominent Manhattan lawyer is murdered, two estranged sisters--one the dead man's widow, the other his ex--must set aside mistrust and old resentments. but can they escape their past?
Camino winds
John Grisham
FICTION Grisham John
Welcome back to Camino Island, where anything can happen - even a murder in the midst of a hurricane, which might prove to be the perfect crime...
A spark of light : a novel
Jodi Picoult
FICTION Picoult Jodi
A novel about ordinary lives that intersect during a heart-stopping crisis. 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. A Spark of Light will inspire debate, conversation. and, hopefully, understanding.
The outsider : a novel
Stephen King
FICTION King Stephen
An eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City's most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. The case seems ironclad, especially when Anderson and the district attorney are able to add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. But Maitland has an alibi, and it turns out his story has incontrovertible evidence of its own.
The bookish life of Nina Hill
Abbi Waxman
FICTION Waxman Abbi
Raised by a single mother, Nina Hill has a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. Then the father she never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews. She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. And now Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her.
Fair Warning
Michael Connelly
MYSTERY Connelly Michael
Veteran reporter Jack McEvoy has taken down killers before, but when a woman he had a one-night stand with is murdered in a particularly brutal way, McEvoy realises he might be facing a criminal mind unlike any he's ever encountered. McEvoy investigates - against the warnings of the police and his own editor - and makes a shocking discovery that connects the crime to other mysterious deaths across the country.
The sentence is death : a novel
Anthony Horowitz
MYSTERY Horowitz Anthony
"You shouldn't be here. It's too late . . . " These, heard over the phone, were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a bottle of wine - a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth 3,000, to be precise. Odd, considering he didn't drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man's many, many enemies did the deed?
Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout
FICTION Strout, Elizabeth
Linked fiction. At the edge of the continent, in the small town of Crosby, Maine, lives Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher who deplores the changes in her town and in the world at large but doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her.
My year of rest and relaxation
Ottessa. author Moshfegh
FICTION Moshfegh Ottessa
It's early 2000 on New York City's Upper East Side, and the alienation of Moshfegh's unnamed young protagonist from others is nearly complete when she initiates her yearlong siesta, during which time she experiences limited personal interactions. Her parents have died; her relationships with her bulimic best friend Reva, an ex-boyfriend, and her drug-pushing psychiatrist are unwholesome. As her pill-popping intensifies, so does her isolation and determination to leave behind the world's travails. She is also beset by dangerous blackouts induced by a powerful medication.
Milkman : a novel
Anna Burns
FICTION Burns Anna
In Northern Ireland during the Troubles of the 1970s, an unnamed narrator finds herself targeted by a high-ranking dissident known as Milkman.
The highest circulating fiction book of 2020!
- Becky