PEOPLE Picks the Best New Books of the Week

Author Carcaterra looks back at the extraordinary women who shaped his life—and his stories: Raffaela, his mother, whose refusal to leave her abusive husband fueled her son’s determination to escape; his heroic grandmother Nonna Maria in Italy, who endured WWII and showed him love, family and community; and his wife, Susan Toepfer (a former PEOPLE editor), who spurred him on to become a writer. As nourishing as a three-course Italian feast, this is a fierce, moving tribute to the ties that bind. — Caroline Leavitt

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In an Italian city, an unnamed woman moves through one year, observing the world around her and those who populate it — friends, strangers, former lovers. As she interrogates the life she’s constructed for herself, cracks in her facade begin to appear. A poignant meditation on the everyday moments that can devastate. — Emma Dries

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Everything is not fine: At 23, in the grip of schizophrenic delusion, the author’s brother murdered their mother. This heartbreaking account can be tough going. But if you want to know how a family endures a tragedy beyond imagining, Granata bravely and soulfully lights the way. — Marion Winik

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In 1985 the author’s 2-year-old daughter Caitlin was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. The years that followed were a constant punishing battle the family ultimately lost when she died — while awaiting a lung transplant — in 2016. This emotional account of surviving loss and celebrating life features blog posts and emails from "beautiful and smart and fiery" Caitlin; moments of "synchronicity" feed O’Hara’s desperate yearning to believe consciousness lives on after death. Bracingly honest and deeply comforting. — Robin Micheli

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Fantasy and reality intermingle when a twin returns to her childhood home to search for her estranged sister. As Cat roams the creepy house, memories of an imaginary world the twins created spring to life. An unnerving thriller that proves the scariest stuff lies right between our ears. — Ellen Shapiro

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The murderer is revealed straight away, yet this debut vibrates with mystery. Why would a teen kill his friend, then himself? Why does the victim’s dad take in a pregnant stranger? As the dots slowly connect, the characters reveal their complex humanity and help us touch our own. — Ellen Shapiro

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Fern and Rose are twins harboring a dark secret. Fern is a librarian with a sensory-processing disorder; Rose is the higher-functioning one, with a husband and a laser-like focus on her sister’s well-being. Excerpts of Rose’s diary — reflecting on their traumatic past and a childhood murder — are interspersed with Fern’s account of current-day life, including the twins’ plans for a baby. A stunningly clever thriller made doubly suspenseful by not one, but two unreliable narrators. — Claire Martin

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Charming and sly, these 12 far-flung stories — from a Texas water park to a rugged Scottish island — share McCracken’s tender appreciation for flawed people (struggling lovers, a grieving mother, a puppeteer) just trying to communicate, trying to cope. — Helen Rogan

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Second-grade teacher Jane sleeps with handyman Duncan hours after meeting him. He’s amiably noncommittal and has been with half the women in her new home of Boyne City, Mich., so the romance of this wry novel lies in the community Jane creates around her. — Mary Pols

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Anna Hart is a missing-persons detective who is on the run herself. When an intolerable tragedy shatters her family, she flees to her hometown of Mendocino — where she immediately becomes obsessed with the hunt for a missing girl. A total departure for the author of The Paris Wife, McLain’s emotionally intense and exceptionally well-written thriller entwines its fictional crime with real cases — including Polly Klaas’s 1993 kidnapping — and is enriched by her own experiences as a survivor of trauma. — Marion Winik

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Flora and Julian have the perfect L.A. life: enviably happy marriage ("Florian"!), charming daughter, successful TV careers. Then, looking through a drawer, Flora finds Julian’s wedding ring — supposedly lost years ago while he was swimming. Sweeney takes us on Flora’s heartfelt search for truth and a relationship far deeper than good looks. — Anne Leslie

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From his first drink at age 8 to living with a homeless addict at 46 and cooking his own crack at 48, the President’s son vividly depicts a descent into addiction far darker than anything Donald Trump could have envisioned when he taunted all through 2020, "Where’s Hunter??" A gritty and shocking Biden family portrait that proves you never really know the burdens another person carries. — Sandra Sobieraj Westfall

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From the head of content development at Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, advice on how to do just that using "microsteps" to improve sleep and nutrition, build better relationships, unplug and recharge, and more. — Kim Hubbard

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When Shay, an African American academic studying abroad, marries Senna, an Italian businessman, he builds her a villa on the island of Madagascar as a wedding present. There they will return every year to spend holidays among a kaleidoscopic cast of locals, expatriates and travelers. This transporting history of their imperfect marriage braids together dramatic episodes, island history and fable, all infused with Lee’s sharp insights into human nature. — Marion Winik

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A multigenerational novel of women struggling for safety and fortitude, from Maria Isabel rolling cigars in 19th-century Cuba to her great-great-granddaughter selling makeup at a Miami store and thinking about her next fix. Unsparing yet hopeful, this is an impressive debut. — Mary Pols

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In 2001 Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone had a massive stroke, losing her career, family finances and her identity. Now 63, she has recovered and found deeper meaning: healing a traumatic past, advocating for brain health and, with this memoir, showing us it’s never too late for transformation. — Caroline Leavitt

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Like a hot water bottle for grief, these honest, beautiful essays and stories take on the death of a beloved animal, a friend’s illness, getting dumped by a partner and other tragedies few escape. Two unforgettable pieces spotlight a man who escaped a deadly fire and a woman’s long, slow dance with cancer. They’re intimate, intelligent, intense — and ultimately comforting. "Every moment of your life," Beard reminds us, "brings you to the moment you’re experiencing now. And now. And now." — Marion Winik

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When Kaiser left Toronto for Poland "on a mission of memory" to reclaim the home his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, grew up in, he couldn’t predict what he would find. His rabbit-hole quest leads to wild encounters with Nazi treasure hunters, a lawyer named Killer and plenty of questions. Fascinating. — Richard Eisenberg

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Multiple perspectives, both adult and tween, enrich this novel about the dramas of middle school. Centered on Alice Sullivan, a suburban mom who’s juggling work, kids — and family secrets — it’s a breezy yet affecting read filled with struggle and hope. — Rennie Dyball

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When children begin dying in an African village devastated by an American oil company, the local madman leads a revolt that shapes villagers’ lives for generations to come. The fallout is told from the perspective of the affected children, most of all Thula, a girl who goes off to school in the U.S. and returns to ignite a battle against her country’s dictatorship. Mbue (Behold the Dreamers) has written a brilliant exploration of modern colonialism and capitalism — and the fight for justice. — Claire Martin

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When her #metoo complaint backfires, jobless Florence gets an offer to be personal assistant to "Maud Dixon" — a popular novelist whose real identity is known only to her agent. Dark comedy meets twisty thriller when "Maud" and Florence head to Morocco to research a novel. Couldn’t be more fun. — Marion Winik

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Coster weaves together two seemingly disparate fractured families in a saga that begins with a newly integrated southern high school and addresses racism, colorism, drug addiction and homophobia over decades. The complex characters will stay with you — maybe even change you. — Benilde Little

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Cape Haven, Calif., is a pretty town of broken souls. Its chief cop clings to the past as his body fails. A drunk former beauty can barely care for the kids she loves, and her fierce 13-year-old daughter Duchess Day Radley imagines herself an outlaw willing to do anything to defend her little brother. A murder roils the town, setting in motion an intriguing mystery. But what lingers after the scores are settled is Duchess, in all her defiant, heartbreaking glory. — Ellen Shapiro

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Part memoir, part feminist treatise, Allende’s latest rejects the "machismo" she says has always surrounded her. Filled with astute observations about the struggles of women everywhere, it also celebrates female sensuality, aging and what it means to love. — Sam Gillette

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Kooky Irish octogenarian Millie is saddled with a home caregiver to help curtail her shoplifting habit just as her hell-raising granddaughter is banished to a boarding school. Each falls prey to a questionable new friend, careening toward calamity — and each other. A witty, exuberant debut. — Claire Martin

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Klara’s story begins in the display window of a store that sells "Artificial Friends" for the children of a future world whose disturbing features are slowly revealed in this utterly captivating fable. Klara, surely the smartest and sweetest robot in all of literature, studies the people around her with an intelligence that sheds light on our deepest questions. What is love? What makes us human? Is there a God? Nobel Prize winner Ishiguro spins a tale to delight all ages. — Marion Winik

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Beginning with teenage Talia escaping a Colombian correctional facility to join her family in America, Engel movingly captures the shadow lives of undocumented migrants. Weaving Andean myths with the cold realities of dislocation and "the phantom pain of a lost homeland," this is a profound, beautiful novel. — Ellen Shapiro

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In the 1960s and '70s, Pan Am stewardesses changed a sexualized job requiring weigh-ins and retirement at 26 into a forum for serious work. They became ambassadors, transported traumatized soldiers, rescued Vietnamese children in Operation Babylift. A fascinating history of a bygone era. — Caroline Leavitt

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As the Nazis overwhelm France, Vera and Max, Russian Jews in exile, must report for internment. Fearing the worst, they escape from the camp, leaving their daughter Lucie with her nanny. She’ll be safely hidden — or so they believe. Settled in Los Angeles, Vera is consumed by guilt and loss that tear at her marriage, and she aches to return to Lucie after the war’s end. Sweeping and lyrical, this novel is a gripping story of a mother’s unyielding love. —Helen Rogan

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Martha Friel, the narrator of this improbably charming novel about mental illness, will have you chortling and reading lines aloud. Martha is almost 40, and nothing — not the love of her husband, not a parade of doctors and meds — has ever stopped the pain. Fortunately, that’s just the beginning of this story. —Marion Winik

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Decades after her cousin Karen is murdered, Johnson — a crime-show writer — wrestles with whether to help free Karen’s killer. To decide, she investigates what really happened and painful truths about her dad, a parole officer. A powerful memoir painting a portrait of one family’s “grief that would never end.” —Richard Eisenberg

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After fleeing Nazi Germany, Fox’s grandmother received increasingly desperate letters from her mother back home. Using snippets from those actual missives, this incandescent novel tells the story of three generations of women connected by sacrifice, courage, the comforting aroma of baked goods and the indelible impact of words on a page. Send for Me reads like a memoir but has the kind of intimate detail born in the imagination of a novelist at the top of her game. —Kim Hubbard

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Arriving at their exclusive prep school in August, students pass by signs announcing "a rapist works here." Is it true? The #metoo-era mystery permeates every aspect of the year as Layden's novel serves up a full menu of girls, from gossips to strivers, legacies to loners, all with secrets of their own. —Mary Pols

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Borrow names and plot elements from Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome. Satirize progressive parenting and education à la Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Then light it all up with the feminist fire ignited by the Brett Kavanaugh hearings — and what do you get? A fun, timely novel that’s unexpectedly full of hope. —Marion Winik

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