2021 Fiction Favorites (SCPL)

"Set against the backdrop of the Malibu surf culture of the 1980s this novel follows the daughter of a famous singer who, once she finds fame, must grapple with the fact that her father abandoned her and her siblings when they were young"-- Provided by publisher.

Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientèle. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary's fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries. Meanwhile...

1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything, but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl. Imperious self-made Mab, works the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see...

"When a county initiative in the Piedmont of North Carolina forces the students at a mostly black public school on the east side to move across town to a nearly all-white high school on the west, the community rises in outrage. For two students, quiet and aloof Gee and headstrong Noelle, these divisions will extend far beyond their schooling. As their paths collide and overlap over the course of thirty years, their two seemingly disconnected families...

"An Indian-American serio-comic and magical realist epic love story about the perils of ambition, tracing the mysterious alchemy of its characters' transformation from high school in an Atlanta suburb through young adulthood in the Bay Area"-- Provided by publisher.

Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental...

"A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family, about a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for--and everything she feared. Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting, supportive mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter--Violet...

"For generations, Rich Gundersen's family has chopped a livelihood out of the redwood forest along California's rugged coast. Now Rich and his wife, Colleen, are raising their own young son near Damnation Grove, a swath of ancient redwoods on which Rich's employer, Sanderson Timber Co., plans to make a killing. In 1977, with most of the forest cleared or protected, a grove like Damnation--and beyond it 24-7 Ridge--is a logger's dream. It's dangerous...

"From the author of the highly praised Days of Awe: a sweeping, achingly beautiful new novel that moves between Germany on the eve of World War II and present day Wisconsin, unspooling a story of love, longing, and the ceaseless push and pull of motherhood. Annelise is a dreamer: imagining her future while working at her parents' popular bakery in Feldenheim, Germany, anticipating all the delicious possibilities yet to come. There are rumors that...