“Ever since her husband—a successful surgeon and her hometown’s golden boy—died in a car crash, Evvie Drake has been in the worst kind of rut. Everyone in her small Maine town chalks up her funk to grief, but as far as Evvie is concerned, the truth is far worse. So much worse, in fact, that Evvie can’t even bear to share it with her best friend, Andy, and has instead resigned herself to a life spent as a young widow, rattling around a house that is now far too big for her, content to lose herself in big books and watch life slowly pass her by.

Everything changes, however, when Andy suggests that Evvie rent out her home’s attached apartment to a friend who also has more than a passing familiarity with life not turning out according to plan. Dean Tenney, once one of baseball’s hottest players, is now infamous for his case of “the yips,” a baffling development that forced him into early retirement after he inexplicably lost his ability to pitch, seemingly overnight. After Dean moves in, a tentative friendship forms between the two that ultimately transitions into something more. Together, Dean and Evvie encourage one another to face their pasts and their present truths, all while discovering that even when life throws you a curveball, it’s never too late to find your happily ever after.”

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“Katherine was raised in a small Midwestern town as the daughter of a Chinese immigrant and a white American veteran of World War II. Already ostracized because of her mixed parentage, Katherine is further scorned by her classmates after her mother abandons the family. Though Katherine is clearly a gifted math student, her teachers don’t acknowledge her abilities, and on the cusp of college graduation, she is brutally tricked by a classmate who claims her work as his own. At the same time, her father’s plans to remarry force Katherine to uncover the tangled truth behind her parents’ relationship.”

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“In Aloha Rodeo, David Wolman and Julian Smith answer these questions with the same engaging, thorough prose that marks their solo work. On the surface, this is a book about the cowboy history of Hawaii, which was a new United States territory in the early 1900s. But this book also explores “identity, imperialism, and race” through the wild narratives of “ranchers, warriors, showmen, cowgirls, missionaries, immigrants, [and] royalty.” The narratives are so wild, in fact, that they often read like fiction.”

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“At the outset, Jennifer Weiner’s new novel pays homage to Little Women: Older sister Jo, a tomboy and athlete, wants to be a writer, while younger sister Bethie just wants to be a sweet, pretty daughter. But in Alcott terms, these two sisters are more like Jo and Amy—sometimes they just don’t get along. Mrs. Everything follows the two sisters from their Jewish girlhood in post-World War II Detroit through the present and into the near future, 71 years in all. With its long timespan and focus on cultural change, Mrs. Everything is a departure for Weiner, but she still delivers flawed but approachable female characters, well-­examined friendships and romantic relationships and often-joyful sex scenes.”

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