October 20, 2023
New Fiction
The Defector by Chris Hadfield – Israel, October 1973. As the Yom Kippur War flares, a state-of-art Soviet MiG fighter is racing at breakneck speed over the arid scrublands below…and promptly disappears. NASA Flight Controller and former top US test pilot Kaz Zemeckis, watching the scene from the beach in Tel Aviv, is quickly pulled into a dizzying, high-stakes game of spies and lies – part of a secret battle for Cold War supremacy. Inside that jet is a Soviet pilot planning to defect with a prize beyond value: his MiG-25 – the Soviet’s mythical “Foxbat,” the fastest, highest-flying fighter in the world. But trusting any defector is risky, and to take full advantage of this one, Kaz must allow him into the heart of Area 51, the United States’ most secret test site – and hope that, with skill and cunning, the espionage game plays out his way.
The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok – Jasmine Yang arrive in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth – another female casualty of China’s controversial one-child policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she’s forced to make increasingly risky decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter. Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name and the wealth that comes with it, a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. She’s even hired a nanny to help her balance the demands of being a working wife and mother. When an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca’s job but her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and her role in her own family is called into question.
Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice – In the years since a mysterious cataclysm caused a permanent blackout that toppled infrastructure and thrust the world into anarchy, Evan Whitesky has led his community in remote northern Canada off the rez and into the bush, where they’ve been rekindling their Anishinaabe traditions, isolated from the outside world. As new generations are born, and others come of age in a world after everything, Evan’s people are stronger than ever. But resources around their new settlement are drying up, and elders warn that they cannot stay indefinitely. Evan and his teenaged daughter, Nangohns, are chosen to lead a scouting party on a months-long trip down to their traditional home on the shores of Lake Huron-to seek new beginnings, and discover what kind of life-and what danger-still exists in the lands to the south.
My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon – Alison O’Conner has a picture-perfect family life in small-town Vermont with her husband, Mark, and their two daughters, the rebellious teenage Izzy and precocious elementary-schooler Olivia. Everyone is busily putting up holiday decorations around the house when Alison gets the call. Mavis, her estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters. Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and has little desire to relive those traumatic memories, but she reluctantly agrees to Mavis’s last request, hoping that they both might be able to heal and have the relationship she’s always dreamed of. But when mysterious, increasingly terrifying things start to happen upon Mavis’s arrival, Alison begins to wonder if something far more sinister is at play. And as her mother’s final days spiral into a nightmare, she must decide just how far she is willing to go to protect her family.