Novels, short stories, and fictional narratives
The eighteenth Chief Inspector Gamache novel delivers one of the strongest entries in the series, weaving a dual-timeline mystery around siblings Fiona and Sam Arsenault — whose mother's murder opens both a harrowing flashback and a tense present-day investigation in Three Pines — while giving long-time readers the origin story of Gamache and Beauvoir's partnership they never knew they needed.
Apr 3, 2026
Marjan Kamali's The Lion Women of Tehran is a New York Times bestseller that traces the decades-long friendship of Ellie and Homa against the turbulent backdrop of twentieth-century Iran, from the early 1950s through 2022. Published by Gallery Books on July 2, 2024, the novel earned a starred notice from Kirkus Reviews as "a touching portrait of courage and friendship," and People called it "an evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism." Kamali, a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Award recipient whose books have been translated into more than thirty languages, brings her command of Iranian history and culture to what is widely regarded as her most ambitious work to date.
Apr 7, 2026
The Frozen River is a New York Times bestseller and GMA Book Club Pick that resurrects the remarkable true story of Martha Ballard — an 18th-century Maine midwife whose real diary becomes the engine of a taut historical mystery set against the frozen landscape of 1789 Hallowell. Ariel Lawhon, the bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène, constructs a narrative in which a body entombed in the Kennebec River, an alleged rape by two prominent townsmen, and a community's determination to silence a woman's testimony all converge in one relentless winter. Starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Shelf Awareness, and BookPage confirm the novel as a standout in both the historical fiction and historical mystery genres.
Apr 2, 2026
Kristin Hannah's historical fiction novel The Four Winds follows Elsa Wolcott Martinelli from Dalhart, Texas, in 1921 through the Dust Bowl catastrophe of the 1930s, tracing one woman's fierce determination to survive for her children against a backdrop of drought, displacement, and economic collapse. Named the Bestselling Hardcover Novel of the Year by Publishers Weekly, it is a sweeping American epic with genuine emotional power — though Kirkus Reviews notes that its historical ambitions occasionally tip into the didactic.
Apr 1, 2026
Milton's Paradise Lost, presented here in the Penguin Classics edition edited and introduced by John Leonard, is widely considered the greatest epic poem in the English language — a work of over ten thousand lines that retells the biblical story of Satan's rebellion, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and humanity's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, while grappling with free will, obedience, and the possibility of redemption.
Apr 7, 2026
Set in Tupelo, Mississippi during the summer of 1964, Elizabeth Berg's novel We Are All Welcome Here centers on three women — the quadriplegic Paige Dunn, her teenage daughter Diana, and their no-nonsense Black caregiver Peacie — each fighting for her own version of freedom against the twin backdrops of the civil rights movement and deeply personal adversity. A New York Times bestselling author whose work has been published in thirty-one countries, Berg brings her characteristic empathy to a story that is both intimate and historically grounded. Kirkus Reviews assessed it as a "feathery feel-good story about triumph over adversity," noting that while the novel's components are compelling, it falls short of full emotional resonance in places — a tension between warmth and weight that readers should weigh before picking it up.
Apr 2, 2026
Rachel Hochhauser's debut novel Lady Tremaine — an Instant New York Times Bestseller, Reese's Book Club Pick, IndieNext Pick, and LibraryReads Pick — reimagines Cinderella's iconic stepmother as a fierce, fully realized protagonist fighting to secure her daughters' futures against impossible odds. The audiobook edition, narrated by Bessie Carter and released by Macmillan Audio on March 3, 2026, runs 12 hours and 41 minutes and delivers what blurb contributors and Reese's Book Club describe as a riveting, complex paean to women's strength.
Apr 3, 2026
Evie Woods's The Lost Bookshop is a genre-blending novel that weaves magical realism, historical fiction, bibliophilia, and romance across two timelines — 1920s Europe and contemporary Dublin — drawing together three distinct narrators in a mystery centred on a vanished bookshop and a possibly undiscovered Emily Brontë manuscript. Published in 2023 by One More Chapter, an imprint of HarperCollins, it topped the Wall Street Journal's weekly book list, made the Sunday Times top 10, became a bestseller on Amazon UK and US, was shortlisted for Page-Turner of the Year at the 2024 British Book Awards, and by May 2024 had surpassed one million copies sold worldwide.
Apr 2, 2026
Allegra Goodman's Isola is a national bestseller and Reese's Book Club pick that draws on the true story of a sixteenth-century woman marooned on an island, delivering what Vogue called "an extraordinary book that reads like a thriller, written with the care of the most delicate psychological and historical fiction."
Mar 31, 2026
Trust by Hernán Díaz is a structurally daring, Pulitzer Prize–winning novel composed of four interlocking fictional texts that circle a secretive Wall Street financier and his wife, interrogating how wealth, power, and narrative itself can be weaponized to erase inconvenient truths. Named a New York Times bestseller, longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, and named one of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, it stands as one of the most decorated American novels of its era — demanding, rewarding, and unlike almost anything else in contemporary fiction.
Mar 31, 2026
D.S. Marsh's debut nonfiction collection, The Quiet Ones: Stories of Unseen Greatness: Echoes of Quiet Power, gathers real accounts of people whose influence on leadership, community, and conscience operated entirely beneath the surface of public attention — a thoughtful, if uneven, examination of power that never announced itself.
Apr 1, 2026Search
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