As per usual on the first Wednesday of the month, it’s time to take a look at the top 5 of new fiction releases. According to Goodreads, this month’s top 5 consists of 4 releases by female authors and 1 by a male author. Let’s take a look at them right now.
- Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (Hogarth Shakespeare)
Publication date: October 11th 2016
When Felix is deposed as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre, his production of The Tempest is canceled and he is heartbroken. Reduced to a life of exile in rural southern Ontario, Felix devises a plan for retribution. Eventually he takes a job teaching Literacy Through Theatre to the prisoners at the nearby Burgess Correctional Institution. With the help of their own interpretations, digital effects, and the talents of a professional actress and choreographer, the Burgess Correctional Players prepare to video their Tempest. His enemies are about to find themselves taking part in an interactive and illusion-ridden version of The Tempest that will change their lives forever. - Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult (Ruth Jefferson #1)
Publication date: October 11th 2016
Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse. The parents of one of her patients are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African-American, to touch their child. The next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and is charged with a serious crime. A white public defender, takes her case. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust. With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn’t offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game. - The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang
Publication date: October 4th 2016
A hilarious debut novel about a wealthy but fractured Chinese immigrant family that had it all, only to lose every last cent—and about the road trip they take across America that binds them back together. Charles Wang is a brash, lovable immigrant businessman ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family’s ancestral lands—and his pride. With Andrew, his aspiring comedian son, Grace, his style-obsessed daughter, and their stepmother, Barbra, they embark on a cross-country road trip from Bel-Air to New York to find his eldest daughter, Saina. Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America—and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could. - Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks
Publication date: October 4th 2016
At 32, Russell Green has it all: a stunning wife, a lovable six year-old daughter, a successful career as an advertising executive and an expansive home in Raleigh. He is living the dream, and his marriage to the bewitching Vivian is the centre of that. But underneath the shiny surface of this perfect existence, fault lines are beginning to appear…and no one is more surprised than Russ when he finds every aspect of the life he took for granted turned upside down. In a matter of months, Russ finds himself without a job or wife, caring for his young daughter while struggling to adapt to a new and baffling reality. Throwing himself into the wilderness of single parenting, Russ embarks on a journey at once terrifying and rewarding-one that will test his abilities and his emotional resources beyond anything he ever imagined. - The Mothers by Brit Bennett
Publication date: October 11th 2016
The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community. Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett’s mesmerising first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother’s recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor’s son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it’s not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a “what if” can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.
I’d love to find out which ones will be ending up on your reading list, because I am having a very hard time deciding! Other new releases of November 2016 can be found by genre right here on Goodreads.
Happy reading,
Loes M.