Literary Fiction

List of trending literary fiction books.

The Handmaid’s Tale

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.

The Paper Palace: A Novel

It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace”—the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn’t forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.

The Vanishing Half: A Novel

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

Where the Crawdads Sing

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.

Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The Paper Palace: A Novel

It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace”—the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn’t forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.

Billy’s Search for the Healing Well

Billy runs away to Ireland when his mum falls ill in search of the healing well from his Gran’s stories. Stowing away on a ferry his adventure begins when he accidentally smashes the precious pot belonging to his gran that he’s taken as a reminder of home. Billy is befriended by many colourful characters along the way, incuding Patsy, the Leprechaun, and Tia, the Tree Spirit. As well battling with the evil Rat boy Nimrev and his army of Rat boys who thwart his attempts to find the well. A fast paced adventure story ..little adventurers will be cheering Billy on every step of the way.

The Personal Librarian

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s complexion isn’t dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths she must go to—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.

Wolf Harvest

Coda is a hybrid coyote/wolf living on the outskirts of downtown Pittsburgh, encountering enemies and allies while struggling to survive.
When someone close to him is taken, he leads a band of misfits to Northern Canada.
Sam and Amy, two college students, drop everything to follow him on this unexpected exodus during the worst blizzard in decades.

Speaks for Itself: A Commodity of Musings from My Life

“Speaks for Itself: A Commodity of Musings of My Life” by Jeff Bailey can be be described as breaking the literary mold. Just when one thinks life’s fleeting moments – from the mundane to the surreal – often have no words, Bailey shows what is gleaned from the indifference, the pain and pleasure can yield lessons that transcend the incident which provoked the intimate reflection.

At the same time his poetry embodies the notion that we are more than than the sum our experiences – that there is a measure of gravity to our lives that is timeless and never duplicative, as is a treasured commodity.

Impossible Knots

Life in Sycamore is numbingly predictable until a tornado hits and the town falls suddenly dark during a heatwave. Damien, a young, struggling writer, starts to flounder while his love for Violet, along with his war with addiction, begins to rage in the abrupt darkness. When Violet takes off on the run, Damien is left in another menacing spiral, this time of his own mess. Finding comfort in the rain, and in the company of Alina, he attempts to piece himself back together. As the sweltering summer rolls on, Damien’s world unravels further when he’s urged to question reality on his path to getting clean. Impossible Knots explains the fragility of the mind when moments in life go haywire.

The White Colossus

The White Colossus evinces nature and cosmic energies, the relationship between gods and humans, the annoying essentials of life, and the exploration of death through chilly imaginations. The twenty poems in The White Colossus make up Baker’s first collection and present refined craftsmanship in their imagery and vast meanings.

Raising Hell

Patricia Landrum always thought that she had everything in her life under control. She is never afraid to speak her truth, and she has always said what she meant and meant what she said and was ready for whatever with whoever. Patricia soon comes face to face with several life-changing moments, she faces death head-on and finds herself questioning her faith while she battles depression and anxiety. Her primary focus in life has always been family, her three teenage sons that she had at an early aged, raised alone, and managed to keep alive on the streets of Atlanta, Ga and out of the system. Patricia has to face the harsh reality that no matter how much you instill in your kids to do what’s right, the final decision is up to them. Forced to put her life back together after hurdling so many obstacles, Patricia straightens her crown and reclaims her throne.

Swordpoint

Eugene Francois Vidocq was a thief, an adventurer, and a duelist who searched for his place in life with wit, sword, and passionate love affairs. Hunted by the police agents of revolutionary France and later the agents of Napoleon, he is forced to make the most important decision in his life to survive and become a man of respect. To achieve that, he must transform himself into a new man, an outlaw hunting the outlaws in the name of justice. The road to salvation is hard, but for a man like Vidocq, failure is not an option. David Crane’s historical novel, Swordpoint, transports the reader to late 18th-century France, a country gripped with the chaos, blood, and terror of the French Revolution. The novel will entertain you with its realistic settings, interesting historical references, passionate love affairs, duels, battles, betrayals, and narrow escapes.

Bimini Deep

Adventure erupts around a boating couple, after they stumble upon drug runners and mystical ancients in the Bahamas Islands.

The Heretics’ Revenge

Condemned as heretics by the Catholic Church, the 13th-century Cathars are persecuted, tortured, and finally burned alive at Montségur. But according to legend, they hide their riches and relic beyond the castle walls on the eve of their demise. In the 1930s, Otto Rahn dedicates his life to recovering the long-forgotten relic, and coerced by Himmler joins the SS to find the ‘Holy Grail’ for the Nazis. Exposed as both Jewish and homosexual, Rahn commits suicide. But not before he entrusts his notes to his niece. – Notes that have never been found.
Seeking a challenge after retiring early, businessman Steve Jackson embarks on a modern-day search for the fabled Cathar cache. With French girlfriend, Manon Lubin, they locate Rahn’s abandoned clues in the Black Forest. The notes become a key to locating a religious discovery even greater than the Dead Sea Scrolls, and unleash a 750-year old time-capsule of revenge that threatens to shake the Church of Rome to its foundations.
The massacre of the Cathars and the true story of Otto Rahn are interweaved and then continued with the fictional search for the treasure and relic. Rich in historical detail, this fascinating and absorbing story, set in France and London, climaxes with a thought-provoking and controversial conclusion that brings The Heretics’ Revenge.

Brothers in Arms

The colour of your skin or where you come from should never affect how people look at you.

The world changed after September 2001, when the twin towers were downed by two hijacked aircraft crashing into them and into the Pentagon. People of all creed and colour condemned the attacks and the murder of innocents in the name of religion.

Brothers in arms do not care about the colour of your skin; for them, it is about the loyalty you have for one and another. When you are in heat of the battle, who cares if the person fighting next to you is from a different religion; he is your brother, he has your back and will die and fight with you.

What 9/11 did was paint a red target on every person of colour as a potential threat. All religions preach happiness, peace, and love.

Aman, a young British Asian, fights for these very reasons’ loyalty, love and honour is his backbone. His brothers in arms do not look at him because he is Asian but just as another soldier doing his job and being there as a unit.

The valour shown by these young soldiers can only be admired; most of them, if they return, will never be the same mentally and physically. Many will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, proud men with deep scars of the theatre of war.

Pianist in a Bordello

Pianist in a Bordello What would happen if a politician decided to tell the truth—the whole truth? Richard Youngblood, aspiring Congressman, is about to find out. He’s running on a platform of honesty and transparency—and against the advice of his friends and advisers he’s decided to start with himself. His autobiography will lay his entire life bare before voters just days before the election. And what a life he’s had. Born in a commune and named Richard Milhous Nixon Youngblood as an angry shot at his absent father, Richard grows up in the spotlight, the son of an enigmatic fugitive and the grandson of a Republican senator. He’s kidnapped and rescued, kicked out of college for a prank involving turkeys, arrested in Hawaii while trying to deliver secrets to the CIA…Dick Nixon Youngblood’s ready to tell all. He’ll even tell his readers about the Amandas—three women who share a name but not much else, and who each have helped shape and define the man he’s become. Are voters really ready for the whole truth? Are you? Pianist in a Bordello is a hilarious political romp through the last four decades of American history, from a narrator who is full of surprises.

Atlantic Rue

1903. The South Atlantic. HMS Roanoke steams deeper into the southern hemisphere’s winter, bound for the sparsely populated Cranmer Island. A chance encounter at sea has fateful consequences for her demoralized crew and presents a growing mystery they must resolve while they struggle to reconcile with their pasts.

The Life and Times of Angie Bardot

Setting out on her adventures, Angie is best described as endearingly tragic as she gives a truly laugh-out-loud account of what could possibly go wrong when her long-term marriage comes to an end. Extolling the many pitfalls of being single is no laughing matter and being thrown into the dating arena is even worse.
When curiosity to view a certain piece of the male anatomy takes priority, bedlam unfolds. Angie’s journey will leave you in fits of laughter while raising your eyebrows in absolute disdain.

Taking you from “Hell No” to “Hell Yes,” this two-part true story taps into a range of emotions as you travel along with Angie on her voyage of self-discovery. A captivating exposé of courage and raw honesty in finding a new beginning when life takes a nosedive, this compelling portrayal of compassion gives insight into the weakest and strongest moments of what it is to be human.

You will fall in love with Angie and won’t be able to stop turning the pages to see what she will do next. To err on the side of caution is not Angies strong suit. Heart wrenching, yet hilariously funny in the unique style of telling her tale, it’s never a surprise when she ends up on several occasions with her tail between her legs!
Does she ever learn?

This book is one of a kind, and better still, so is Angie Bardot.

The Enemy (Jack Reacher, Book 8)

Jack Reacher. Hero. Loner. Soldier. Soldier’s son. An elite military cop, he was one of the army’s brightest stars. But in every cop’s life there is a turning point. One case. One messy, tangled case that can shatter a career. Turn a lawman into a renegade. And make him question words like honor, valor, and duty. For Jack Reacher, this is that case.

New Year’s Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall is coming down. The world is changing. And in a North Carolina “hot-sheets” motel, a two-star general is found dead. His briefcase is missing. Nobody knows what was in it. Within minutes Jack Reacher has his orders: Control the situation. But this situation can’t be controlled. Within hours the general’s wife is murdered hundreds of miles away. Then the dominoes really start to fall.

Two Special Forces soldiers—the toughest of the tough—are taken down, one at a time. Top military commanders are moved from place to place in a bizarre game of chess. And somewhere inside the vast worldwide fortress that is the U.S. Army, Jack Reacher—an ordinarily untouchable investigator for the 110th Special Unit—is being set up as a fall guy with the worst enemies a man can have.

But Reacher won’t quit. He’s fighting a new kind of war. And he’s taking a young female lieutenant with him on a deadly hunt that leads them from the ragged edges of a rural army post to the winding streets of Paris to a confrontation with an enemy he didn’t know he had. With his French-born mother dying—and divulging to her son on

River Twin

Poetry in this collection courses ahead observing life in entirety, like a river, winding back and forth along slopes; gushing down mountains; and making way through valleys. The poems, in long and short forms, explore deeper meanings in mundane sights and sounds and are not confined to any geographical place. One can connect with the poems due to their universality. The ubiquitous influence in the writing is because the poems tend to veer more towards the core of things than what meets the eye.

Dear Wife: A Novel

For nearly a year, Beth has been planning for this day. A day some people might call any other Wednesday, but Beth prefers to see it as her new beginning—one with a new look, new name and new city. Beth has given her plan significant thought, because one small slip and her violent husband will find her.

Sabine Hardison is missing…

A couple hundred miles away, Jeffrey returns home from a work trip to find his wife, Sabine, is missing. Wherever she is, she’s taken almost nothing with her. Her abandoned car is the only evidence the police have, and all signs point to foul play.

As the police search for leads, the case becomes more and more convoluted. Sabine’s carefully laid plans for her future indicate trouble at home, and a husband who would be better off with her gone. The detective on the case will stop at nothing to find out what happened and bring this missing woman home. Where is Sabine? And who is Beth? The only thing that’s certain is that someone is lying and the truth won’t stay buried for long.