Head of Public Services at Abbot Public Library Morgan Yeo recommends this list of fiction titles. She has worked at the Abbot Public Library for years and has been responsible for curating the library’s fiction collection since she started. Many titles on this list, such as “The Lincoln Highway,” “Cloud Cuckoo Land” and “The Maid” have been chosen and enjoyed by the library’s Adult Fiction Book Club. “It Ends with Us” is a personal favorite of Morgan’s as her favorite genre is romance.
“Apples Never Fall” by Liane Moriarty
A family of tennis stars debate whether or not to report their mother as missing because it would implicate their father in this novel that looks at marriage, sibling rivalry, and the lies we tell others and ourselves.
“Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthony Doer
Anna, Omeir, Seymour, Zeno, and Konstance are dreamers and outsiders whose lives are gloriously intertwined. In the besieged city of Constantinople in 1453, in a public library in Lakeport, Idaho, today, and on a spaceship bound for a distant exoplanet decades from now, an ancient text provides solace and the most profound human connection to characters in peril.
“The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah
Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli-like so many of her neighbors-must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life.
“It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover
When Lily feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in her life suddenly seems almost too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan–her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.
“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by Victoria Schwab
Making a Faustian bargain to live forever but never be remembered, a woman from early eighteenth-century France endures unacknowledged centuries before meeting a man who remembers her name.
“The Last Thing He Told Me” by Laura Dave
When her husband of a year disappears, Hannah quickly learns he is not who he said he was and is left to sort out the truth with just one ally- her husband’s teenage daughter, who hates her.
“The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction-to the City of New York.
“The Maid” by Nita Prose
Molly is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and interprets people literally. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, but she died a few months ago leaving Molly to navigate life’s complexities all by herself. No matter–she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. But Molly’s life is then turned on its head when she finds the infamous and wealthy Charles Black dead in his bed. Before she knows what’s happening, Molly’s odd demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect and she finds herself in a web of subtext and nuance she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, a medley of friends she didn’t realize she had refuses to let her be charged with murder–but will they be able to discover the real killer before it’s too late?
“Oh William!” By Elizabeth Strout
Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read. William, she confesses, has always been a mystery to me. Another mystery is why the two have remained connected after all these years. They just are. So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret—one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us.
“The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.
