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REELING

One of our recommended books is Reeling by Sarah Stonich

What stage of grief is it when your grandmother’s ghost keeps popping up on your electronic devices? Denial? For RayAnne that seems to be the stage for launching the second season of Fishing!—in New Zealand. Ready or not, she is taking public television’s first all-women fishing talk show on the road, putting the cold Minnesota winter in the rearview mirror—which, it turns out, Gran is haunting, too.

After a challenging first season, and RayAnne’s serendipitous ascension to host, there’s a lot at stake. With camera-wielding twins Rongo and Rangi along as crew and tour guides,

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SAVAGE TONGUES

One of our recommended books is Savage Tongues by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi

A new novel by PEN/Faulkner Award winner Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, “written with the intensity of early Marguerite Duras and Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment,” about a young woman caught in an affair with a much older man, a personal and political exploration of desire, power, and human connection (The Millions).

It’s summer when Arezu, an Iranian American teenager, goes to Spain to meet her estranged father at an apartment he owns there. He never shows up, instead sending her a weekly allowance, care of his step-nephew, Omar, a forty-year-old Lebanese man.

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THE OPHELIA GIRLS

One of our recommended books is The Ophelia Girls by Jane Healey

A mother’s secret past and her daughter’s present collide in this richly atmospheric novel from the acclaimed author of The Animals at Lockwood Manor.

In the summer of 1973, Ruth and her four friends were obsessed with pre-Raphaelite paintings—and a little bit obsessed with each other. Drawn to the cold depths of the river by Ruth’s house, the girls pretend to be the drowning Ophelia, with increasingly elaborate tableaus. But by the end of that fateful summer, real tragedy finds them along the banks.

Twenty-four years later, Ruth returns to the suffocating, once grand house she grew up in,

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THE BOOK OF OTTO AND LIAM

One of our recommended books is The Book of Otto and Liam by Paul Griner

Liam is the boy, lying in the hospital, in grave condition, a bullet lodged in his head. Otto is his father, a commercial artist whose marriage has collapsed in the wake of the disaster. Paul Griner’s brave novel taps directly into the vein of a uniquely American tragedy: the school shooting. We know these grotesque and sorrowful events too well. Thankfully, the characters in this drama are finely drawn human beings—those who gain our empathy, those who commit the unspeakable acts, and those conspiracy fanatics who launch a concerted campaign to convince the world that the shooting was a hoax.

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SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE

One of our recommended books is Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

The landmark new novel from award-winning author Claire Keegan

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.

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NIGHTBITCH

One of our recommended books is Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

In this blazingly smart and voracious debut, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she’s turning into a dog.

An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay home with her newborn son. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler’s demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck and unusually sharp canines. Her husband, who travels for work, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.

As the mother’s symptoms intensify, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library,

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