Select language, opens an overlay
  • General Recommendations
  • Staff-Created List

Seattle Picks: Book Group Best Bets

Looking for fiction that will spark conversation? Try one of these recent novels from a variety of genres for your next book group discussion. Annotations from NoveList, unless otherwise noted. (Updated February 2024)

The Seattle Public Library

30 items

  • Twin sisters Amira and Lina, who live in a Muslim neighborhood in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, are graduating from high school. But their excitement is dimmed by their troublesome older brother's return from prison, a police raid on a local…
    BookNew York : Doubleday, [2023] — FIC ABDEL GAWA 2023
  • The star of a popular, but controversial for-profit program in the private prison industry that basically turns prisoners into gladiators contemplates freedom.
    BookNew York : Pantheon Books, [2023] — FIC ADJEI-B 2023
  • From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her…
    BookNew York : Marysue Rucci Books, 2023. — FIC AWAD 2023
  • A woman in upstate New York who works transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach becomes infatuated with one of his clients, a repressed married woman from Switzerland who has a refreshing attitude towards trauma.
    BookNew York : Scribner, 2023. — FIC BEAGIN 2023
  • A tenacious Māori detective, Hana Westerman juggles single motherhood, endemic prejudice, and the pressures of her career in Auckland CIB. Led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man ritualistically hanging in a secret…
    BookNew York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023. — MYSTERY BENNETT 2023
  • Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an…
    BookBrooklyn : Melville House, 2023. — FIC CHONG 2023
  • Masterfully exploring what constitutes a meaningful life in a violent world, this startling work of realism and invention examines the passage of time and how we mark it, reckoning with human survival amidst history's brutality as well as…
    BookNew York : Random House, [2023] — FIC COLE 2023
  • Former FBI agent Titus Crown returns to his hometown and decides to run for sheriff to fight a bigoted police force and must trust his instincts when a serial killer appears to be hiding in plain sight.
    BookNew York : Flatiron Books, 2023. — FIC COSBY 2023
  • After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He…
    BookNew York, NY : Soho Crime, [2023] — FIC CRANOR 2023
  • A new novel that gives voice to the diverse residents of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore—from young activists in conflict with their traditional parents to the poor who clean for the rich—shows lives which intersect across…
    BookNew York, NY : HarperVia, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2024. — FIC DARRAJ 2024
  • Two queer men who hit it off during their university's drag night begin a relationship and eventually plan a life together face a momentous challenge when one of them announces an intention to transition.
    BookToronto, Ontario, Canada : Hanover Square Press, 2023. — FIC DINAN 2023
  • In 1981, a young father and son set out on a road trip across Argentina, devastated by the mysterious death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travels to her family home near Iguazú Falls, where they must…
    BookLondon ; New York : Hogarth, [2023] — FIC ENRIQUE 2023
  • In 1940, a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, Adam Paskow joins a secret group of archivists working to preserve the truth of what is happening inside these walls, which leads to unexpected love, but when he discovers a possible escape from…
    BookChapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2023. — FIC GRODSTE 2023
  • Giving up her future as a pianist to take care of her parents, the narrator starts working at a high-end beauty and wellness store in NYC, which affords her entry into a new world of privilege where she discovers, beneath the fancy creams…
    Book[New York, New York] : Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, [2023] — FIC HUANG 2023
  • Coming-of-age drama meets suburban thriller in a debut novel driven by the question: What happens when people’s best intentions threaten to cause more harm than good? (Kirkus)
    BookNew York : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2023] — FIC JAIN 2023
  • Mia isn't initially concerned when her family fails to return from a walk, until her mute brother Eugene, who suffers from a rare genetic condition, returns bloody and alone and is unable to describe what happened to their father.
    BookLondon ; New York : Hogarth, [2023] — FIC KIM 2023
  • After the death of her literary rival in a freak accident, author June Hayward steals her just-finished masterpiece, sending it to her agent as her own work, but as emerging evidence threatens her success, she discovers just how far she’ll…
    BookNew York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2023] — FIC KUANG 2023
  • In 1915, Adelaide Henry, after her secret sin killed her parents, sets out for Montana, dragging an enormous steamer trunk that's locked at all times, to become one of the "lone women" taking advantage of the government's offer of free…
    BookNew York : One World, [2023] — FIC LAVALLE 2023
  • A woman must reckon with her past when new details surface about a tragedy at her elite New England boarding school.
    Book[New York] : Viking, [2023] — FIC MAKKAI 2023
  • Exploring the many ways we're connected to our environment and to one another across time, language and space, this sweeping collection of stories about a single house in the woods of New England is told through the lives of an…
    BookNew York : Random House, [2023] — FIC MASON 2023