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Lake Effect is a must-read for fans of family drama and character-driven stories. Spanning the 1970s to the 1990s, two families deal with the fallout of an affair in a vividly described Rochester, New York. When Nina Larkin, a food writer and mother to two teenage daughters, is given a copy of The Joy of Sex from a newly divorced friend, she realizes how unfulfilling her own marriage is and soon embarks on an affair with her neighbor Finn Finegan.

I stumbled upon the novel Shy Creatures (2024), by Clare Chambers, while browsing Libby for my next audiobook listen. I am so glad I added it to my library--the writing was lovely and insightful, and the plot, setting, and characterization, which are loosely based on a true story, interested and moved me.

Pachinko (2017), by Min Jin Lee, follows multiple generations of a Korean family from living in Korea to Japan.

In 1938, Ellie is stunned when her husband, Lionel, tells her he is in love with someone else and wants a divorce. With their two sons grown, Lionel expects that Ellie will move out of their home and into a small cottage in the village or move to London. Ellie instead decides to travel to France with Mavis, her former housekeeper, and Dora, an older woman that she's known for many years. With the South of France as their destination, the trio end up in Saint-Benet, a small fishing village near Marseille.

In this historical WWII fantasy, a British witch joins the war effort to help track down a dangerous magical relic before a coven of Nazi witches find it and bring it to Hitler. After a Nazi witch infiltrates the Royal Academy of Witches with devastating consequences, Lydia Polk wants to join the fight, but meets resistance from the elder members of her coven, who do not want to sacrifice any more lives in the service of a government that has forced them into hiding for generations.

At Vassar in 1946, Anne Bishop hides that she is Jewish because she doesn't want to be socially ostracized. She develops a friendship with another Jewish girl, Delia, in secret. Delia is unabashedly herself and doesn't care that she has no friends at the university. At times, Anne, is in awe of how self-confident Delia is. One day Anne betrays Delia and their bond is fractured.

Katherine Arden's most recent novel, The Warm Hands of Ghosts (2024), expanded my understanding of what a novel dealing with an actual historical event can do.

In 2023 Dublin, after Saoirse has an argument with her boyfriend about whether or not to have children, she meets an older woman, Maura, on a train platform, who turns out to have been instrumental in the founding of the 1970s Irish Women’s Liberation Movement.

Zadie Smith became a famous author at the ripe old age of twenty-four, with the publication of her first novel, White Teeth (2000). Since that time she has published numerous books of fiction and nonfiction, all of which deal with issues of race, class, and politics.

I really enjoyed Emilia Hart’s debut novel Weyward and was excited to read her next book, The Sirens (2025).

Shy Creatures (2024) takes inspiration from a true event to bring us the story of a ‘hidden man’. In 1964 William, a man in his late thirties, is found secluded in a house, mute and disheveled, after his last remaining relative dies. No one knew he lived there; he hadn’t left the house in decades, and neighbors never even knew he existed.  

Kaia Alderson writes historical fiction inspired by real people. Her sophomore effort, In a League of Her Own (2024), tells the fictionalized story of powerhouse Effa Manley. In 1930s Harlem, independent Effa works hard toward her dream of opening a hat shop. A chance meeting at a baseball game brings Abe Manley into her life.