Best Pop Fiction 2019

by Liz French, Jane Jorgenson, Lynnanne Pearson
Nov 18, 2019 | Filed in Reviews+

Read on the plane, train, beach, and with your book club. The best pop fiction published in 2019.

See all of our 2019 Best Books lists.

Attenberg, Jami. All This Could Be Yours. Houghton Harcourt. ISBN 9780544824256.
When abusive patriarch Victor suffers a heart attack, his wife, grown children, and others whose lives he’s touched and tainted consider the damage he’s done. Everyone but the man in the hospital bed gets a turn at the mic in Attenberg’s soaring family saga.
 
Estes, Kelli. Today We Go Home. Sourceboks Landmark. ISBN 9781492664185.
Women have been serving in combat for centuries. Many, like Emily Wilson, disguised themselves as men in order to fight. The discovery of Emily’s diary allows Larkin Bennett to recover from her own PTSD in this moving story of the effects of war and misogyny.
 
Kim, Angie. Miracle Creek. Farrar. ISBN 9780374156022.
An explosion rocks a community and the lives of the seven people who were present. Kim’s debut is a masterfully told story of family and the striving parents who will do anything for their children. A layered, suspenseful legal thriller.
 
Moyes, Jojo. Giver of Stars. Pamela Dorman: Viking. ISBN 9780399562488.
Moyes’s trademark ability to draw on the heartstrings is matched here by her fictional shaping of real events to tell the story of five women who become horseback librarians in rural 1930s Kentucky. The message about the role books can play in a reader’s life resonates powerfully today.
 
Prescott, Lara. The Secrets We Kept. Knopf. ISBN 9780525656159.
At the height of the Cold War, Irina and Sally work for the CIA as secretaries, then more, helping to bring Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago to “The West.” In “The East,” Olga, Pasternak’s mistress and muse, spends years in a gulag, paying for the author’s alleged crimes. A well-researched, knockout debut.
 
Shortall, Eithne. Grace After Henry. Putnam. ISBN 9780525537861.
After the tragic loss of her fiancé, Grace has to pick up the pieces of her life. With the help of friends, family, and an unexpected connection, she starts to recover. With ample humor, Shortall writes a poignant and touching story of what it takes to move on after a loss.
 
Toews, Miriam. Women Talking. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781635572582.
Toews pens a powerful, fictional exploration of the effects of years of abuse on an isolated group of women living in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. They express their pain, fear, and resolve in a wide-ranging discussion about what path to take: forgive, fight, or leave the only home they’ve ever known.
 
Wall, Cara. The Dearly Beloved. S. & S. ISBN 9781982104528.
In the 1960s, copastors at a New York City church work and clash. Blueblood Charles is a firm believer married to Lily, a fierce atheist. Firebrand James wants to right the world’s wrongs from the pulpit, while his wife, Nan, is comfortable with church traditions. Wall examines four people and their relationships with one another and their own faith in this touching debut.
 
Wiggs, Susan. The Oysterville Sewing Circle. Morrow. ISBN 9780062425584.
Caroline Shelby returns to her small, seaside hometown to heal and reset after tragedy, finding comfort and connection at a local sewing shop. Contemporary fiction master Wiggs pens one of her best books to date in this story of survival, trauma, and sisterhood.
 
Winslow, De’Shawn Charles. In West Mills. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781635573404.
In a tight-knit Southern black community, secrets are kept and slowly revealed. At the heart of the town (and the book) is the decades-long friendship between the wholly unique Azalea “Knot” Centre and Otis Lee Loving. This debut is assured, poetic, and epic in scope.
 
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Del Howison

Did they not read any westerns? A lot of goood westerns came out this year. Seems like a weird prejudical overlook

Posted : Nov 19, 2019 12:17

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