Best Books from 2017

Book Summary

Sara was the head housekeeper at a posh London hotel in 1884. Based on her background, this is more than she ever expected and the highest station she could rise to in life. But then she meets American Theodore Camden. He is building the most luxurious residential building in New York, The Dakota, and invites her to come to manage the property. The job brings her to highs and lows she never could have expected.

Sara’s story is told in conjunction with a 1985 storyline of Bailey Camden, who is returning from rehab and gets the opportunity to start fresh with a job overseeing a renovation of an apartment in The Dakota.

The novel goes back and forth between these perspectives, weaving together a story of love, betrayal, and the quest for success within one of NYC’s most famous residences.

Book Summary

The newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty and the wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of World War I.

Across the US, hundreds of girls toiled in the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covered their bodies from head to toe; they lit up the night like industrious fireflies.

With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. This shocking non-fiction book explores the radium craze and its lasting aftermath.

Book Summary

Evelyn Hugo lived a glamorous and scandalous life, but doesn’t like to talk about it and has become reclusive after leaving her career. When the movie icon is finally ready to talk about her time in show business, she picks an unknown reporter to log her personal history, but why?

You’ll slowly unwrap Evelyn’s life from the 1950s – 1980s as she chronicles her past life and relationships, including the seven husbands she had along the way. As the book covers so much of her life, it moves quickly and will keep you engaged and entertained for hours.

Book Summary

The Akha people live in a remote mountain village in China, where, for generations, their lives have revolved around farming tea. Li-yan is one of the few educated girls in the village, and everything begins to change for her when a stranger arrives at the village gate driving a jeep—the first automobile any of them have ever seen. Little by little, Li-yan begins to reject the customs of her village.

When Li-yan becomes pregnant out of wedlock, local tradition calls for her to give her child over to be killed. Instead, she flees to a nearby city, where she leaves her baby at an orphanage. She then remains in the city and puts her experience and education to use by pursuing a career in the tea business outside of the fields.

Li-yan’s daughter is adopted by loving American parents and is raised in a life of privilege in California. As she grows, she continues to wonder about her origins, and back in China, the mother she never knew longs for her as well. The two remain connected across the continents by their family heritage of tea.

Book Summary

Set in the marshlands of upper Michigan, The Marsh King’s Daughter is a thriller about Helena Pelletier, who was raised as a survivalist by her criminal father. 

Helena’s mother was kidnapped as a teen and hidden away in a cabin deep in the marsh. Two years later, Helena was born. She loved her home and even her father until his brutality reached new heights one day. 

Twenty years later, her father escaped prison and disappeared into the marsh. Helena is the only person with a chance to find him.

Book Summary

While 16-year-old Starr attends a fancy suburban prep school, it’s a far cry from the poor neighborhood where she lives. When a police officer shoots her childhood best friend from the neighborhood, Khalil, her two worlds collide and are turned upside down. 

Khalil’s death becomes national news, with everyone making assumptions about what really happened. Khalil was unarmed, but sides are drawn, with some calling him a thug and others protesting in his name. Starr is the only one who knows what happened that night, but what she says could endanger her life.

Book Summary

If you love Emily’s boss, Sylvie, and her season 2 affair with a much younger man, then do we have a book recommendation for you! Meet Solène Marchand, a thirty-nine-year-old French-America art gallery owner living in LA. She reluctantly takes her twelve-year-old daughter to meet her favorite British boy band and finds herself forming a connection with 20-year-old Hayes Campbell, the young star of the world-famous band, August Moon.

What begins as a series of clandestine trysts evolves into a genuine (and very passionate) relationship. Solène begins globe-trotting to meet up with Hayes as his band tours, including time spent in a secluded hideaway in Paris. But when news of their relationship becomes a viral sensation, both Solène and her daughter become targets of the paparazzi and crazed fans.

Book Summary

This debut novel, written by Ruth Emmie Lang, is magical in story and language. 

Instead of growing up in a swamp like Kya, Weylyn Grey was raised by wolves after being orphaned. After surviving on his own in nature, he has developed some supernatural abilities. In Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance, Weylyn’s story is told by those who have encountered him throughout many years.

Even if you’re not usually a fan of fantasy, we think you’ll love this interesting character!

Book Summary

In the Shaker Heights suburb of Ohio, the life of the picture-perfect Richardson family becomes intertwined with the lives of Mia and her daughter Pearl, who rent a house from the Richardsons when they arrive in town.

All four of the Richardson children befriend Pearl and are drawn in by artist Mia. As their relationships become more intertwined, the bonds that tie them will ultimately unravel both families.

This story is about complex family dynamics, small-town politics, and white privilege. When a local family decides to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle divides the town, with Mrs. Richardson and Mia on opposite sides. Mrs. Richardson becomes suspicious of Mia’s motives and digs into her past. The secrets she uncovers will change everything.

Book Summary

Killers of the Flower Moon is a non-fiction tale featuring a plot that seems like it has to be fiction.

Finding oil within their land, the Osage Indian Nation became the richest people per capita in the world. The wealth attracted a whole host of bad characters, leading to murders and other vicious crimes.

This tale also represents the first time we see J. Edgar Hoover show up in the history books, as a young FBI director leading the first major homicide investigation in the organization’s history.

Book Summary

This novel is a retelling of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone, set against the backdrop of the War on Terror and the complexities of modern British life.

The story revolves around the Pasha family, including siblings Isma, Aneeka, and Parvaiz. The oldest, Isma, has been both sister and mother to her younger siblings since the death of their parents. When Isma leaves London to study in America, Parvaiz, in search of his own identity, is lured into joining a terrorist organization in Syria. Aneeka, his twin, is devastated and determined to bring him back.

The plot thickens when the sisters meet Eamonn, the son of a powerful British politician, who becomes romantically involved with Aneeka. Eamonn’s father, however, is a powerful political figure in Britain with controversial views on Muslim immigrants. As Parvaiz’s situation becomes dire, Aneeka’s relationship with Eamonn pits love against loyalty.

Book Summary

In the early 1900s, teenage Sunja meets a wealthy man near her seaside home in Korea and becomes pregnant, only to discover that the man is married. He attempts to buy her off, but she instead accepts another man’s offer and follows him to Japan, where they are discriminated against both for being Korean and Christian.

Sunja’s decision to leave her home, and reject her son’s powerful father, sets the stage for this epic novel that follows four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family in 20th-century Japan. It is a history of one family and a political history of the relationship between Japanese and Koreans throughout the 1900s.

Book Summary

This book is based on the true story of Georgia Tann’s “adoption” agency that claimed to help orphans, but instead kidnapped poor children and trafficked them to wealthy families.

Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings have a wonderful life on the Mississippi River aboard their family’s shanty boat. But on a stormy night when their father has to take their mother to the hospital, Rill is left in charge. Unfortunately, strangers arrive, and the kids are thrown into the Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage. They are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents – but quickly realize the dark truth.

In present-day South Carolina, Avery Stafford returns home to help her father during a health crisis. When she stumbles upon the possibility that her grandmother may be harboring a dark family secret, Avery becomes obsessed with her mission to uncover the truth.

Book Summary

Cyril Avery was born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community before being adopted by a well-off couple from Dublin. His adoptive parents tell him that he’ll never be a real Avery, but if that’s true, than who is he?

As a boy, he becomes friends with Julian, but this is complicated when Cyril realizes he loves Julian as more than a friend. Keeping this secret comes with great costs.

Over the course of 70 years, Cyril struggles to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more. Through his eyes, readers also see the history of Ireland and LGBTQ rights from the 1940s to the 2010s.

Book Summary

The Massachusetts islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard are only 2.5 hours apart on the ferry, but have different vibes and provide for very different lives for identical 40 year old twin sisters who have been estranged for years. 

However, when a family crisis strikes, the women start to remember the importance of banding together and that their bond is stronger than the rivalry that separated them for too many years.

Book Summary

In this 2017 National Book Award winner, you’ll be transported through Mississippi’s past and present. Magical realism is in full effect in this literary fiction novel. The story is told from multiple perspectives, including that of a ghost.

Jojo lives with his grandparents and toddler sister, with their drug-addicted mother making occasional appearances in their lives. Their grandmother, Mam, is dying of cancer, leaving their grandfather, Pop, to run the household. When Jojo’s white father is released from prison, Leonie picks up the children and heads out on a dangerous road trip to Parchman Farm (a notorious, real Mississippi prison).

Book Summary

In 1939, the Kurc family of Radom, Poland, are doing their best to continue with their normal lives. While the talk around the Seder table was of new babies and budding romances, the family is well aware of the looming shadow of war and the growing threat to Jews throughout the region. Soon, however, it becomes impossible for them to escape the horrors overtaking Europe.

Before long, the family is driven apart. One sibling is forced into exile while another attempts to flee the continent. Some family members work long hours in factories in the ghetto, and still others try to hide in plain sight by passing as gentiles.

Despite their fear that they may never see one another again, the Krucs demonstrate hope, ingenuity, and strength, demonstrating that even in the darkest moments, the human spirit can endure and thrive.

Book Summary

Midwestern housewife Gina has two children and a happy marriage. Everything changes when her husband is in a car accident that reveals his horrific secret – he’s a serial killer.

Gina is forced to reinvent herself as Gwen, and with her ex in prison, she’s starting over in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. While internet stalkers still think Gina had something to do with her husband’s crimes, she hopes the rural lake town will bring them peace.

Then, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. But now she knows how to fight evil, and she won’t stop until her kids are safe.

Book Summary

This Canadian novel opens in 1950s Quebec, where tensions run high between the French and English. When 15-year-old Maggie’s parents find out that she’s pregnant and that the father is a poor French boy, they force her to give baby Elodie girl up for adoption.

As the years go by, we follow the lives of both the mother and daughter. Elodie is a bright and determined young girl growing up in Quebec’s impoverished orphanage system. But when a law is enacted that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages, Elodie and thousands of other orphans are declared mentally ill. Elodie withstands terrible treatment until she is finally able to gain her freedom at age seventeen.

Maggie marries and is eager to start a family, but she never forgets the daughter that she was forced to give up. Through the years, the lives of the mother and daughter continue to circle around one another, never quite intersecting. Until finally, Maggie decides to go in search of her long-lost daughter.

Book Summary

Young widow Lili is three years past the car accident that unexpectedly made her a single mom of two small children.

She works as an illustrator and has been chosen to create the drawings for a prestigious boutique vegetable guide. But that means she’s also been assigned to attend a 6-week vegetable gardening class for some real-world veggie experiences. Despite convincing her kids and sister to join her in the class, she’s still not overjoyed with this required course. However, one patient instructor and a cast of quirky classmates later, she’ll realize the class isn’t so bad. 

Book Summary

This atmospheric thriller will take you right to the forests of Oregon, where Madison five-year-old Madison disappeared as her family was choosing a Christmas tree. It’s been three years, and the Culver family is still desperate to find their now eight-year-old daughter.

The Culvers turn to Naomi, a private investigator known as the “Child Finder” with an uncanny talent for locating the lost and missing. She understands lost children because she was a lost girl too. As her search takes her into the icy forest, she has to come to terms with her own past as well.

Book Summary

Set in medieval times at the edge of the Russian Arctic wilderness, this magical fantasy tale draws on the history of Russian fairytales.

Vasilisa spends the long, cold winter nights around the fire with her siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales, and her favorite is that of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon. The nurse teaches them to honor the spirits of the house, yard, and forest to protect their homes from evil.

When Vasilisa’s mom dies, her husband remarries a woman from Moscow who forbids the children from honoring the household spirits. Soon, signs of evil are all around – crops are failing, and misfortune strikes the village. Vasilisa must defy the people she loves and call on her hidden and dangerous gifts to protect her family from a threat as frightening as any in her nurse’s fairytales.

Book Summary

Five female office colleagues are reluctantly on a corporate retreat that is supposed to encourage teamwork and resilience. They all head out on the muddy track through the rugged Giralang Ranges together, but only four come out on the other side of the trail.

Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk arrives to investigate the disappearance of Alice, who knew secrets about her company and co-workers. As he learns more about the days spent in the remote Australian bushland, he discovers stories of fear, violence, and fractured trust.

Book Summary

Pino is a typical Italian teenager who wants nothing to do with the war. He’s much more interested in music, food, and girls. But when his home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, his innocence is lost. He joins an underground railroad helping Jews to escape over the Alps on skis. 

His parents force him to enlist as a German soldier to avoid being drafted. This is a move they think will protect him, but he is injured nonetheless. No longer able to be in combat, Pino is recruited to become the personal driver to one of the Third Reich’s top commanders in Italy. This new role gives him the opportunity to aid the Allies from the inside as a spy.