OBD Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2023 - Adult

"Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long...

"The People Who Report More Stress is a collection of connected stories examining issues of parenting, systemic and interpersonal racism, and class conflict in gentrified Brooklyn."-- Provided by publisher.

"Annie, Edward, and their young daughter, Rose, live in a cramped apartment. One night, without warning, they find a beautiful terrace hidden in their closet. It wasn't there before, and it seems to only appear when their friend Stephanie visits. A city dweller's dream come true! But every extra bit of space has a hidden cost, and the terrace sets off a seismic chain of events, forever changing the shape of their tiny home, and the shape of the world"--...

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers, a novel inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, an isolated island off the coast of Maine that became one of the first racially integrated towns in the Northeast. In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys' descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated,...

"From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them...

"January 15, 1978, is a night of promise, excitement, and desire. A serial killer's murderous spree in the Pacific Northwest couldn't be further from the minds of the vibrant young women at the top sorority on Florida State University's campus in Tallahassee. That night, Pamela Schumacher, president of the sorority, makes the unpopular decision to stay home. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she makes the fateful decision to investigate....

"Seven Days. Seven Questions. Forever Changed. That's how The Eden Test, a week-long getaway, advertises itself for couples in trouble. And that's what Daisy, a talented actress, has signed up for, in the hopes of saving her marriage. It's a tall order, seeing as her husband Craig plans on leaving her for another woman. In fact, his bags are packed in the back of the car as he drives to the cabin in the woods in upstate New York. But spending time...

"At home in Seoul, former journalist Sae, is waiting with two clingy toddlers for her husband to come home from work. He has never been this late before. Her children are crying, and Sae, exhausted and anxious, turns on the TV to distract herself. She clicks to the news, which shows a horrific disaster, the collapse of a massive skyscraper where Jae was an engineer. Minutes, then hours, and then days pass. No one has seen Jae, but things aren't adding...

"No one knows Margo's real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges. That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist,...

"An impressive coming-of-age novel and a gripping investigation into the life of a mysterious author. A prolific novel and a true ode to literature in the vein of Roberto Bolaño's Savage Detectives, written by one of the most prominent figures in contemporary literature. In 2018, Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a legendary book in Paris, published in 1938 and entitled Le labyrinthe de l'inhumain (The Maze of Inhumanity)....