Books from United States

In a world choked by smog, where crops are disappearing and food is becoming scarce, an unnamed young chef accepts a job at an isolated mountain estate reserved for the wealthy elite. Behind its borders, the sky is clear, rare ingredients flourish, and extravagant meals offer a taste of a world that no longer exists. Working for a mysterious benefactor and his enigmatic daughter, the chef discovers unexpected pleasures, forbidden desires, and unsettling truths about the people determined to survive at any cost. Sensuous and quietly dystopian, C Pam Zhang’s novel explores the morality of privilege, the politics of appetite, and the question of who deserves pleasure when the world is falling apart.

Can a woman nurture both her children and her creative ambitions without sacrificing part of herself? Blending memoir, biography, and art criticism, Catherine Ricketts explores the complicated relationship between motherhood and artistic expression. Through her own experiences and the lives of remarkable women—including Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, Ruth Asawa, and Alice Neel—she examines how pregnancy, caregiving, grief, and domestic responsibilities shape the creative process. Thoughtful and deeply compassionate, this book challenges the idea that motherhood and ambition must compete, celebrating the women who continue to create despite the limitations imposed on their time, bodies, and freedom.

In a near-future America where loneliness has supposedly been eliminated from society’s vocabulary, Lee expects her academic success to secure her a prestigious job at a leading technology corporation. Instead, she finds herself in a struggling, half-abandoned New York City, working for an obscure company with an unusual mission: training an artificial intelligence named Vicky to understand friendship. Initially, Lee approaches the task as a research problem, studying human interactions and observing the lively social life of her roommate, Veronika. But when she discovers that her employer is part of a secret government project designed to combat a mysterious resurgence of loneliness, her ambition takes over. Determined to produce results, Lee begins pursuing increasingly risky experiences to teach the algorithm what genuine human connection looks like. As her research becomes entangled with her own emotional life, she must confront the limits of technology and her understanding of intimacy. With wit and unsettling imagination, Dyroff explores isolation, ambition and the human need to belong in an increasingly technology-driven world.

Natural Beauty follows a talented young pianist whose promising musical career is interrupted when an accident leaves her Chinese immigrant parents unable to care for themselves. Forced to abandon her ambitions, she takes a job at Holistik, an exclusive beauty and wellness store in New York City that caters to wealthy customers seeking increasingly extreme forms of physical perfection. As she becomes immersed in this glamorous world, she discovers an industry where experimental treatments promise to reshape bodies, erase imperfections, and transform people’s appearances. Her growing fascination with Helen, the niece of the store’s charismatic owner, further draws her into a world of privilege, desire, and manipulation. Yet beneath the seductive promises of self-improvement lies something deeply disturbing.

Set in 1918 Miami, House on Biscayne Bay follows two women whose lives become intertwined within a grand mansion overlooking the water. When Carmen Acosta moves into the luxurious estate with her husband, she hopes to begin a new chapter, but unsettling events and whispers of the house’s dark past soon disturb her dreams. Decades later, another woman becomes connected to the property, uncovering secrets that refuse to remain buried. Through shifting perspectives and atmospheric storytelling, Chanel Cleeton explores ambition, betrayal, marriage, and the hidden histories behind outward appearances. Blending historical fiction with mystery and suspense, the novel reveals how the secrets of a place can shape the lives of generations.

In Happy Land, Dolen Perkins-Valdez uncovers a remarkable chapter of African American history through the story of a family whose identity is deeply rooted in the legacy of a forgotten kingdom. Nikki Berry has been estranged from her grandmother, Mother Rita, for years. When her grandmother unexpectedly summons her to the mountains of western North Carolina, Nikki hopes to understand the family conflict that has separated generations. Instead, she discovers a story that transforms her understanding of her ancestry: her great-great-great-grandmother, Luella, was the queen of the Kingdom of the Happy Land, a real community established by formerly enslaved people after the American Civil War. As Nikki learns more about the kingdom and the lives of those who built it, she discovers how her ancestors created a place of independence and belonging in a society that continued to deny Black Americans equality. But the family’s connection to the land faces a new threat when outside interests seek to take it away. Nikki must confront both the secrets that have shaped her family and the responsibility of protecting its inheritance. Moving between Nikki’s present-day struggles and Luella’s nineteenth-century experiences, Perkins-Valdez weaves together two generations of women whose lives are shaped by the pursuit of freedom, dignity, and self-determination. The novel explores the importance of ancestral memory, the lasting consequences of racial injustice, and the deep connection between land and identity. Inspired by the historical Kingdom of the Happy Land, the novel celebrates the courage of people who dared to imagine a different future and asks what it means to preserve a legacy for generations to come.

A disgraced English professor, separated from his wife and forced out of his job, visits an idyllic country house for sale, hoping to begin again. The realtor introduces him to the mysterious Helen, the former owner who built a life close to nature and outside conventional expectations. As the evening unfolds, the viewing becomes a surreal journey through the professor’s resentments, regrets, and carefully constructed sense of self. Philosophical, darkly humorous, and formally inventive, Helen of Nowhere questions the fantasies we build around happiness, freedom, and starting over—and what we must surrender to find a more meaningful life.

A brilliant Iranian-Indian American scholar has a PhD from UCLA, an underwhelming academic career, and a growing fear that she has failed to achieve the comfortable life her immigrant parents worked so hard to build. When her best friend jokingly suggests she marry rich, she takes the idea seriously, embarking on a summer of one hundred dates with wealthy Angelenos. Armed with spreadsheets and intellectual confidence, she approaches romance as another problem to solve. But when a family emergency takes her to Tehran, an unexpected queer attraction challenges her carefully constructed plans and forces her to reconsider what she wants from love, family, and her future. Witty, provocative, and deeply perceptive, Liquid explores the contradictions of ambition, the pressures of cultural expectations, and the search for belonging between different worlds. With sharp humour and emotional honesty, it turns the familiar romantic comedy into a thoughtful examination of identity, desire, and the lives we imagine for ourselves.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, three young Black American Muslims find themselves confronting the losses, choices, and secrets that have shaped their lives. Fatima returns to the city she fled after the murder of her fiancé, reluctantly taking on the care of his dying mother. Tahani, a single mother who has struggled to reconcile her independence with her religious upbringing, longs for a life that leaves room for her own ambitions. Meanwhile, Saif must face his troubled past and the role he played in his cousin’s death. As their lives intertwine once more, all three must reckon with grief, faith, and the possibility of a different future. A tender, thought-provoking novel about community, belonging, and the courage to reclaim your own story.

In 1856, Lieutenant Henry Aaron Bird, an aging officer in the United States Navy, makes an extraordinary discovery on a remote Pacific island: a young, speechless girl living alone in the aftermath of a shipwreck. Naming her Alice, Bird takes her aboard his ship and eventually brings her to San Francisco, where he presents her to the public as the “Wild Girl of the Pacific.” To the crowds, Alice is a scientific curiosity and a spectacle; to Bird, she is both a responsibility and an opportunity to restore his fading reputation. But Alice is not content to remain an object of fascination or a prisoner of someone else’s ambitions. As she struggles to reclaim control over her life, she must navigate the unfamiliar world of nineteenth-century America, where freedom can prove as elusive as it was on the island. Blending historical fiction, maritime adventure, dark humour, and social satire, Liska explores exploitation, loneliness, and the power of storytelling. The novel asks who has the right to define another person’s identity—and whether true independence is ever entirely within our grasp.

Homeseeking follows Suchi and Haiwen, childhood sweethearts whose lives are transformed by the political upheavals of twentieth-century China. They first meet in Shanghai, where Haiwen’s violin draws Suchi into his world. Their young love is interrupted when Haiwen joins the Nationalist army in 1947, leaving Suchi behind with little explanation. Over the following decades, war, migration, and changing political circumstances carry them through Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, shaping their lives in different ways. Sixty years later, they unexpectedly encounter one another again in Los Angeles. Chen moves between their perspectives to explore memory, sacrifice, and the meaning of home. The novel examines how historical forces can separate people while emotional attachments continue to endure across distance and time.

Exit Zero is a collection of twelve surreal and imaginative short stories that explore the strange, often unsettling experiences of ordinary people. Blending magical realism, dark humour, and reflections on mortality, Marie-Helene Bertino creates worlds where the boundaries between everyday life and the extraordinary begin to dissolve. In the title story, Jo returns to her estranged father’s home after his death and discovers that she has inherited an unexpected companion: a unicorn living in the backyard. Elsewhere, former lovers fall mysteriously from the sky, gardens become sites of communication between the living and the dead, and familiar objects take on uncanny significance. Beneath the collection’s fantastical premises lies a thoughtful exploration of loneliness, family relationships, grief, and the difficulty of navigating an unpredictable world. Bertino’s stories invite readers to look beyond the apparent absurdity of everyday existence and consider the connections, losses, and moments of wonder that give life meaning.