Things don't all work out too easily in Hendrix's Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, but courage is satisfyingly rewarded.

In The Vanishing Half, Bennett explores the complicated implications of perception as reality when it comes to race.

Mitchell expertly builds the band members into rich characters you're rooting for. More very welcome David Mitchell universe madness.

Six Riveting Time-Travel Escapes

In A Woman Is No Man, Rum explores the often powerless and voiceless status of her conservative Palestinian female characters.

Oluo offers specific steps we can take toward "talk[ing] our way to understanding...and using that understanding to act."

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker is a fascinating, disturbing, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful book.

Zelda has to figure out what it means to live her own legend. (I loved this book.)

A compelling Gothic suspense story that keeps you guessing.

Kidd offers a creepy, dark mystery gloriously steeped in details of Victorian London and seedy, sordid characters, and heroes with heart.

This story imagines a wife for Jesus, questions gender roles, and offers adventure.

Luna has a unique and lovely voice and is an irresistibly odd bird of a twelve-year-old girl.

Sloane is a perfectly imperfect heroine and things aren't entirely what they seem in Roth's first novel for adults.

Atlantic City before WWII, with its giant hotels, piers, and hubbub, is the backdrop for this summer in the life of an extended family.

Miller is a beautiful, powerful writer with clear arguments and a compelling story of her own.

Macintyre presents a wonderfully paced and skillfully recounted Cold War-era story of spy intrigue, paranoia, bravery, and twists and turns.

Veronica is a strong and unorthodox main protagonist who finds herself entangled in a dangerous set of circumstances.

Carefully researched and documented by Farrow, with twists and turns that feel so disturbingly outlandish as to seem like fiction at times.

Murderbot shows a reluctant, grumpy ability to care for others and a desire to develop its own sense of duty and sense of self.

A mostly guileless look at stardom, motherhood, alcohol abuse, and finding herself.