1. Defending Jacob by William
Landay
NEW
YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban
Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his
community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie,
and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy
is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with
the murder of a fellow student. Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to
protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy
must. He’s his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface,
as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, as the crisis
reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own—between
loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he’s tried to
bury and a future he cannot conceive.
Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an
embattled family in crisis—a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also
a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our
lives can spin out of control.
2. The
Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling Teoh, the
scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the
jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. There she discovers
Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the
enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan. Despite her
hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in
memory of her sister, who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses but agrees to
accept Yun Ling as his apprentice “until the monsoon comes.” Then she can
design a garden for herself.
As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself
intimately drawn to the gardener and his art, while all around them a communist
guerilla war rages. But the Garden of Evening Mists remains a place of
mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan? And is the real
story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of
all?
3. And the
Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
An unforgettable novel about finding a lost piece of yourself in
someone else.
Khaled Hosseini, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Kite
Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about
how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make
resonate through generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents
and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores
the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice
for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest
to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the
ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul
to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands
gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each
turning page.
4. The
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie
Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret
homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January
1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer
Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she
would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of
Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….
As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the
world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment
alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying
their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from
pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.
Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning
about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German
occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail
for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.
Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration
of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most
surprising ways.
5. The Light
Between Oceans by M. L.
Stedman
The years-long New York Times bestseller soon to be a major
motion picture from Spielberg’s Dreamworks that is “irresistible…seductive…with
a high concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page” (O, The
Oprah Magazine).
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to
Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a
day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat
comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years
later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a
baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and
a living baby.
Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a
horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel
insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim
her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to
the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their
choice has devastated one of them.
