Best Books From 2016

Book Summary

Ted is 42 years old and struggling in his writing career and in relationships. His closest companion is his elderly dachshund, Lily. They do everything together. But now Lily has a new condition that Ted is having a hard time accepting.

This quirky novel turns into an adventure, which then spins into magical realism and beautifully written truths of loss and longing. It reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all.

Book Summary

Lucy and Josh are two colleagues who can’t stand each other. They work together at a publishing company, but their rivalry goes far beyond a typical work dynamic. They constantly compete for promotions and recognition, and their animosity is palpable. But when a promotion they both want becomes available, the game changes.

As they spend more time with each other, their feelings begin to shift. The hate they once felt transforms into something else entirely, and they’re left wondering if their animosity was really just a cover for something deeper. The plot is full of delightful twists and turns, keeping readers on their toes until the very end. It’s the perfect blend of humor, romance, and character development, making it a must-read for fans of the hate-to-love trope.

Book Summary

Ruth Jefferson is a 44-year-old labor and delivery nurse with twenty years of experience at a Connecticut hospital. After being reassigned away from a patient, she learns that the parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child.

The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey the orders of her superiors based on the parent’s mandate, or does she intervene?

This story is told from three alternating points of view: Ruth, the nurse; Kennedy, her middle-aged attorney; and Turk, the newborn’s white supremacist father.

Book Summary

Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand luxury hotel across the street from the Kremlin.

Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat, Rostov has never worked a day in his life and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel’s doors.

Book Summary

Born a Crime is the true story of Daily Show host Trevor Noah’s childhood and early adulthood. His rise to success was unlikely based on his beginning. Trevor was born in South Africa in 1984 to a white father and a Black mother. His parents could have been imprisoned for five years – or worse – for conceiving him. He spent his early years largely hidden from life outside because his mother feared (with good reason) that he could be removed from her custody because of the apartheid rules of segregation.

When the era of white rule officially ended in the early 1990s, the family’s troubles evolved with the times. From attempted kidnappings and domestic violence to high school dating, you’ll find a mixture of relatable and shocking stories that keep you engaged with every page.

Book Summary

Nothing in Lily’s life is going as she had planned. Her career hasn’t taken off yet, her boyfriend lets her down, she not sure she can trust her best friend, and she can no longer afford her apartment in the city. To make matters worse, she’s just been reminded that she failed to annul her quickie Vegas wedding… ten years ago!

It’s time for her to get her life together, and at the top of her to-do list is dealing with the fact that she’s still married. She knows this must be dealt with in person, so she sets off to track down Ben Hutchinson—the charming, sexy, and funny man that she connected with a decade earlier.

Ben’s life is much different than it was back then. He’s left his wealthy dot-com lifestyle behind and now lives off the grid in his small hometown of Minnow Bay, Wisconsin. The last thing he expects to upend his quiet life is a wife he didn’t even know existed.

For Lily, Minnow Bay could be everything she has been missing, including a thriving arts community, new friends, and maybe even the love of her life.

Book Summary

To everyone who knows them, Jack and Grace appear to be the perfect newlywed couple. He’s a handsome and wealthy attorney who has never lost a case. She is an elegant and charming wife who keeps a perfect home and garden.

Together, they host elaborate dinner parties. But their guests begin to notice that Jack and Grace are inseparable—so much so that Grace is never available to meet for coffee or even answer the phone. And why does the house have such high-security metal shutters on all the downstairs windows?

Book Summary

When you think of maritime disasters, the Titanic is probably the first that comes to mind. But the deadliest disaster at sea occurred in 1945 when a Soviet submarine sunk the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner, in the Baltic Sea.

As WWII drew to a close and the Red Army advanced on Germany, a massive evacuation effort began to ferry civilians, soldiers, and equipment to safety. The Wilhelm Gustloff, which had a capacity of 1,800, was packed with more than 10,500 passengers. More than 9,000 people lost their lives when the ship sank, including 5,000 infants and children.

This historical fiction YA novel, tells the stories of four passengers – 21-year-old Joana, who is fleeing her native country of Lithuania; Florian, an artist from East Prussia; 15-year-old Emilia from Poland, who is pregnant; and Alfred, a pompous 17-year-old German soldier.

When tragedy strikes, each of them – regardless of country, culture, or status – must fight for their survival.

Book Summary

Cora is enslaved on a cotton plantation in Georgia, where she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans. With womanhood on the horizon, she knows that she’ll soon face even greater problems and pain unless she is able to escape to freedom. When she learns about the Underground Railroad, she decides to take the terrifying risk to escape. In this novel, however, the railroad is not merely a network of secret routes and safe houses. Instead, Colson Whitehead employs an element of magical realism. His Underground Railroad has engineers and conductors operating a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath Southern soil.

Along the way, Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. She is now being hunted as she continues to make her harrowing journey northward, state by state. She encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey, each created by the author to illustrate the unique terrors and dangers for African Americans in the pre-Civil War era.

Book Summary

In this story of love and loss, Emma married her high school sweetheart, Jesse. The two are building a life of adventure together on the West Coast, far from the expectations of their families back east. But on their first wedding anniversary, Jesse’s helicopter crashes over the Pacific Ocean and he is assumed dead. 

Just like that, the book closes on the fairy tale life that Emma thought would be her happily ever after. She moves back home to Massachusettes to rebuild her life. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma finally found love again after reuniting with an old friend, Sam. But when Jesse is found alive after more than four years, Emma will be forced to choose between her husband and her fiance.

Book Summary

Two babies are born during a blizzard in a two-family brownstone in Brooklyn. They arrive only two minutes apart, and the mothers, Rose and Helen, are sisters by marriage. Their spouses, Mort and Abe, are Jewish brothers who not only share the house but also own a business together. This moving family drama opens on that fateful night of the births in the late 1940s and spans the two following decades.

Over the years, cracks begin to form in the sisters-in-law’s relationship, and their friendship begins to unravel. The book is described as an “emotional but dreamy novel” that will have you sobbing and smiling.

Book Summary

Lilac Girls crosses three continents and follows three women whose lives are on a collision course. 

Caroline is a New York socialite working at the French consulate, Kasia is a Polish teenager and a courier for the underground resistance movement, and Herta is an ambitious young German doctor who finds herself trapped in a male-dominated world of Nazi secrets and power.

The book alternates between the three stories, each providing thought-provoking insights into uniquely difficult situations as the war progressed.

Book Summary

The book follows two significant periods in the life of Lily Bloom. As a teenager, she notices one of her classmates, Atlas, sleeping in the unoccupied house behind hers. When she begins sneaking him food, they develop a friendship that leads quickly to a deep first love. Lily’s life at home isn’t perfect, but everything feels right with Atlas. When they are separated, they vow to find each other again as adults.

Years later, on the day of Lily’s father’s funeral, she has a chance encounter with a gorgeous neurosurgeon, Ryle Kincaid. Despite Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships, he has a total soft spot for Lily. From the first time he sees her, he can’t get her out of his mind. Lily is busy trying to set up her own business, but when they run into each other again, she’s intrigued.

Book Summary

Martha “Patsy” Jefferson was the oldest daughter of our founding father and eventual second president, Thomas Jefferson.

Patsy grew up knowing that her father loved her dearly, but sensing that he loved his country even more. After her mother died, Patsy became her father’s protector and constant companion, even traveling with him to Paris when he became the American minister to France. In Paris, during the early days of the Revolution, Patsy learns of her father’s liaison with a young enslaved girl named Sally Hemings, who is the same age as Patsy. Meanwhile, Patsy has fallen in love with her father’s protege and staunch abolitionist, William Short.

Torn between family loyalty, love, and her principles, can Patsy make a life as William’s wife while remaining a devoted daughter? The choices she makes will follow her back to Monticello in Virginia and even to the White House. Time and again, through scandals and tragedies, Pasty will be forced to decide how much she is willing to sacrifice to protect her father’s political legacy and that of the country he helped to found.

Book Summary

Nadia is a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty in her senior year of high school. Luke is the pastor’s son in a contemporary black community in Southern California. He’s 21 and waiting tables after an injury sidelined his promising football career.

While Nadia and Luke’s relationship doesn’t start as a serious one, everything changes with a pregnancy and cover-up that follows them for years. The possibility of the road not chosen continues to haunt them into adulthood.

Book Summary

Journalist Lo Blacklock scores a dream assignment when she’s sent aboard a super-luxury cruise ship, the Aurora, which only has a few cabins. As they set off across the North Sea, everything is perfect. However, as the weather becomes dreary, so does the mood on the ship when Lo witnesses a woman being thrown overboard. 

However, the crew confirms all passengers are accounted for and the vacation continues. Lo knows what she has seen and must get others to understand that something sinister has happened.  The book is often named one of the best modern locked-room mystery novels. 

Book Summary

When Jende and his wife Neni immigrate to the US from Cameroon, they expect to work hard but be rewarded for that work with a better life than they left behind. In 2007, he began working as a chauffeur for Clark, a Lehman Brothers executive who appears to have achieved the American Dream.

Jende is an exceptional employee, and his dedication leads to his wife’s job working for Clark’s family at their Hamptons house. With two incomes, the family can finally begin to see the possibility of their brave move to America paying off.

However, all is not as it seems with their employers. As they learn more secrets, the world is about to learn some secrets as well. Lehman Brothers is collapsing, and Jende’s job is no longer certain. He needs this job to get his permanent green card, so their entire future is at risk.

Book Summary

Dill’s father is a Pentecostal minister, who first drew attention for his extreme beliefs and then for a scandal. His friend Travis has his own demons in the form of an abusive father, so he escapes into a book series called Bloodfall. Dill has secret feelings for friend Lydia, a free spirit, sarcastic, fashion blogger who dreams of leaving rural Tennessee and heading to New York. 

Woven into this story of three unlikely friends trying to navigate the end of high school are stories of small-town life and themes of courage. But you’ll also need a box of tissues handy! 

Book Summary

In 1888 New York, the streets were still lit by gas lamps, but the promise of the light bulb looms. However, the switch to electric light came with an additional complication – both George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison claimed to have invented the lightbulb.

A young lawyer, Paul Cravath, is thrust into the world of New York high society when he agrees to defend Westinghouse in a lawsuit brought by Thomas Edison. Edison has spies and vast resources, including the backing of J.P. Morgan. How can they fight against such a force?

When Paul meets Nikola Tesla, he may have found the secret to defeating Edison. But winning requires risks.

Book Summary

Jason is walking home one chilly night, looking forward to relaxing in front of the fireplace with his wife and son. Suddenly, he hears “Are you happy with your life?” before being knocked unconscious.

When he wakes up, he’s surrounded by strangers in Hazmat suits. His life is no longer his own. His wife is different, he doesn’t have a son, and instead of being a professor, he’s a celebrated genius.

Which is his real world, and which is a dream? And how can he return to his son?