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Adult Fiction

Spotlight On: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

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Kaliane Bradley | Photograph by Robin Christian

I was watching a TV show called The Terror. It aired in 2018, but I was watching it in lockdown 2021. And I was struggling to follow what was going on. It’s a great show, but I had lockdown brain. I just thought, “I’m not quite sure what’s going on. There are a lot of people that are all talking, they all look the same — they’re all white guys with mutton chops and big, arctic coats…” So I looked at the fan wiki. And under the bloopers section they referred to a guy called Graham Gore. I went to his Wikipedia page and read about him. And as I was reading it, I just thought, “My God, this man sounds so competent and chill and nice.” It was April 2021. I had just started a new job in January. And I hadn’t met any of my colleagues because we were still isolating, and I couldn’t get the VPN to work. And it was very stressful. I was like, “I bet Gore could get the VPN to work. I bet he wouldn’t cry. He’d just handle this lockdown. He’d have no problems and be fine.

So that’s why I kind of latched on to him.

― Kaliane Bradley, Bookweb

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

What booksellers are saying about The Ministry of Time

  • What if time travelers had tour guides to help them adjust? Maybe they would find things they like along the way – TV, pre-rolled cigarettes, the tour guide? Loved this books mixing timelines and people from a variety of eras and social classes. The history feels genuine and well researched (had to look up a picture of Graham Gore to see if he really was that cute) Time travelers trying to live a normal life, slowly discovering that things aren’t as simple as getting a job and taking care of your apartment. Just the right tone for the requisite love interests between historical and contemporary characters. Mowed right through this in a weekend.
      ― Doloris Vest, Book No Further in Roanoke, Virginia | BUY

  • I can’t remember the last time I was so charmed by a novel ― or more particularly, by a character in a novel. Lieutenant Graham Gore alone is worth the read, but thankfully he’s just part of an immensely satisfying reading experience. Time travel, espionage, explorations of climate change and colonialism, romance ― this book has it all. I highly recommend this book ― you will grin all the way through!
      ― Chelsea Bauer, union ave books in Knoxville, Tennessee | BUY

  • A “time travel romance, spy thriller, workplace comedy and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and potential for love to change it all”. I didn’t know how it would all work but it does. And it does it well. I instantly became invested in the characters and their journey. Highly recommend this “genre bender.”
      ― Kelley Barnes, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina | BUY

  • One part Bill Ted’s Excellent Adventure, one part James Bond, and two parts Kate and Leopold and you have this charming, engaging adventure that can not be put down! Bradley’s writing is a magic trick; the romance scintillates, the comedy delivers, and her discussion on identity is brilliant. Don’t miss this one!
      ― Dominic Howarthm, Book & Bottle in St. Petersburg, Florida | BUY

About Kaliane Bradley

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor based in London. Her short fiction has appeared in Somesuch Stories, The Willowherb Review, Electric Literature, Catapult, and Extra Teeth, among others. She was the winner of the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize.

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The Mother of All Things by Alexis Landau

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The Mother of All Things by Alexis Landau
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A lovely book about a woman leaning to find herself after losing her moorings in motherhood and marriage. This book is good. The suggestions of Greek Myth woven into the story are interesting but the story is much more about the marriage and motherhood than it is about Goddess and Greek Myth. The selected sources in the back are of great interest to anyone interested in those subjects and the story stands strong on its own as one woman reckoning with her choices in the past and every day.

The Mother of All Things by Alexis Landau, (List Price: 29, Pantheon, 9780593700792, May 2024)

Reviewed by Kimberly Daniels, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina

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The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang

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The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang
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This is a long book and took me forever to read, but I really fell in love with the bandits of Liangshan, and the second half of the book is packed with action. Worth a read for sure, especially if you like Chinese martial arts!

The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang, (List Price: $18.99, Tordotcom, 9781250847980, May 2024)

Reviewed by Candice Huber, Tubby & Coo’s Traveling Book Shop in New Orleans, Louisiana

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Green Frog by Gina Chung

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Green Frog by Gina Chung
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This short story collection sparkles in its deft explorations of womanhood, identity, and family. Gina Chung interweaves the fantastical with the mundane throughout these stories that invite you to contemplate girlhood, womanhood, and motherhood in new and unique ways. I am taken with “Attachment Processes,” a meditation on grief, motherhood, and AI and “Mantis.”

Green Frog by Gina Chung, (List Price: $17, Vintage, 9780593469361, March 2024)

Reviewed by Mikey LaFave, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy

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Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy
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“On her eightieth birthday, Helen spent the day moving things in the kitchen cupboard. Three years pass with nothing to fill their pockets. Then, early one morning, something happens.” Helen Cartwright is waiting to die. Her husband and son have passed, and she is ready to go. She has returned to her childhood town in an English village and she has been living a quiet life. This love story begins with her finding a mouse in her house and as the love grows with the mouse Sipsworth, so does Helen’s contacts. This is such a loving, moving story told with such skill and heart. This reviewer can’t wait to reread this tiny tale perhaps many times. Anyone who reads it will never look at a mouse or an octogenarian the same way.

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy, (List Price: $26.95, David R. Godine, Publisher, 9781567927948, May 2024)

Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

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The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

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The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
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I am a former diplomat who worked on immigration to the U.S. for years, and this book spoke to me on so many levels. I haven’t been so moved by a fantasy novel since The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab, maybe even Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, both of which I will use as a basis of comparison while handselling the hell out of this book. The premise is not simple, but this world is incredibly easy to enter. The UK government of the near future has discovered time travel and is testing its impact on the bodies and minds of five “expats,” rescued from certain deaths in large-scale calamities of history. Each expat is assigned a “bridge,” a civil servant who will help them acclimatize to modernity (while reporting on their every move to the Ministry). At its heart, this novel is an often hilarious romance between one bridge and her expat. But the depth of world-building around their relationship, the back stories of each character, and the tremendous emotion on display through Ms. Bradley’s exquisite way with words make this anything but your run-of-the-mill love story. Come for the Bond-like moments of adventure. Stay for the pearls of wisdom Ms. Bradley drops on how our futures are truly built, one sealed door of possibility, hope, and forgiveness at a time.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, (List Price: $28.99, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 9781668045145, May 2024)

Reviewed by Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Salisbury, Mississippi

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Swiped by L.M. Chilton

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Swiped by L.M. Chilton
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What a fun read! It is a good thing I had a long car ride and nothing else to do because I couldn’t put it down. Swiped is a delightful rom-com murder mystery. Romance may be stretching it a little as the “Rom” part was Gwen trying to get over a breakup by swiping right on a dating app to hook up with six different dates, none of whom rated a second date. Comedy, definitely, as the dialogue was smart and witty, and definitely a murder mystery as Gwen’s dates were being murdered one by one and she soon became the prime suspect. I thought I had this one figured out at least three different times, but boy was I wrong.

Swiped by L.M. Chilton, (List Price: $27.99, Gallery/Scout Press, 9781668045701, May 2024)

Reviewed by Nancy McFarlane, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina

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Exhibit by R. O. Kwon

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Exhibit by R. O. Kwon
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Sexy sentences, startling images, and complicated and unexpected characters flesh out Kwon’s impressionistic peek inside the art world and the people who inhabit it. I kept finding myself picking up this book and flipping back to sections, re-reading them, and feeling like they were perfect little arias. Two women, with different art forms, brush up against one another at just the right time and form something larger than the sum of their parts. Not for those who need fast-paced, plot heavy action – but this book 100% rewards the lover of graceful language and intricate interiority. Loved, loved, loved.

Exhibit by R. O. Kwon, (List Price: $28, Riverhead Books, 9780593190029, May 2024)

Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida

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Spotlight On: Worry by Alexandra Tanner

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Alexandra Tanner | Photo by Sasha Fletcher

When you have a sibling, you can have a relationship with almost no boundaries. You can say anything to me; I can say anything to you, and because we’re bound by all of these things—the structure of our family, the understanding we have of one another’s issues, the love we have for each other; we’re always going to be connected. At the same time, it’s a delusion to think that you know a person so entirely because you grew up together—because you have the same parents; because you were raised in the same way. Every person has secrets. Everyone has a complete internal world that you know nothing about.

― Alexandra Tanner, The Columbia Journal

Worry by Alexandra Tanner

What booksellers are saying about Worry

  • Do I love to hate these characters, or hate that I love them? Worry is so funny, and also so bleak – Girls meets Shiva Baby meets Curb Your Enthusiasm if Larry David used organic tampons and worked for an astrology app start-up. These two sisters who find themselves in close quarters and under a specifically 2019-style emotional duress made me laugh and appreciate my own (mostly) functional family. Shoutout to Helen Glaser, this audiobook’s narrator, for absolutely committing to the bit!
      ― Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida | BUY

  • I loved this! For fans of Halle Butler and Elif Batuman, if you love slice of life and “no plot just vibes” reads, add this one to your list. This book is at its best with its dialogue. You will see yourself in both of its main characters as they fluctuate between being vulnerable and caring for each other and then switching to subtle insults and manipulative power plays.
      ― Maddie Grimes, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee | BUY

  • Worry is brilliant. Jules and Poppy’s characters could be your sister, your friend, or even, you. The storyline time placement is genius. All Jules and Poppy appear to want is to move their lives forward – together and apart. But with setting this story a year before the pandemic, the reader knows it really doesn’t matter what they are planning. The family dynamics is pure chaos. The struggle with mother-daughter-sister relationships felt true and unbelievable at the same time. I felt so many emotions during the interactions between Jules and Poppy, Poppy and Mom, and Jules and Mom that I’m officially on Team Poppy. Tanner’s writing style is direct and doesn’t linger, which felt natural and relatable the entire time. (Not recommended for readers who need a plot device to move the story forward.)
      ― Jenny Gilroy, E. Shaver, Bookseller inSavannah, Georgia | BUY

  • Start with a large portion of sibling rivalry, add in anxiety, internet theories, a set of codependent parents and you have Alexandra Tanner’s debut novel, Worry. Sisters, Jules and Poppy, become antagonistic roommates when Poppy unexpectedly moves in to job hunt in Brooklyn. Set in 2019, the sisters plow through both the job and relationship markets always looking for the golden ticket of fulfillment. Tanner rounds out the family with a three-legged dog named for a failed Presidential candidate and Jewish parents living in Florida who are only too happy to share advice. Worry is full of dark humor and sarcasm that will leave you laughing as you wonder if you would have been half as good as Jules and Poppy at navigating life’s worries.
      ― Mary Jane Michels, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina | BUY

About Alexandra Tanner

Alexandra Tanner is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. She is a graduate of the MFA program at The New School and a recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, The Center for Fiction, and Spruceton Inn’s Artist Residency. Her stories, essays, and reviews appear or are forthcoming in Granta, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Baffler, The New York Times Book Review, and Jewish Currents, among other outlets. Worry is her first novel.

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Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin

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Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin
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I read Crow Talk very slowly not wanting the words to ever end. Between the beauty of Beauty Bay and the cozy caretaker cottage and the facts about birds and especially crows, the story of Frankie was a touching tale of nature and love. Frankie has suffered a set back with her dissertation on spotted owls and sadly doesn’t know what to do next except escape to her family’s old summer home on the bay. Every page glows with the breathtaking view of the natural world and when Frankie rescues a young crow, the healing begins for Frankie and the neighbor Anne with her son Aiden. Besides the wonder of nature, this story dwells on family and healing and love and will be remembered by all who luckily read these words.

Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin, (List Price: $28, Dutton, 9780593473887, April 2024)

Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

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The Z Word by Lindsay King-Miller

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The Z Word by Lindsay King-Miller
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King-Miller’s The Z Word captures the same cackling, DIY, gory energy of the first time I ever watched Return of the Living Dead. Set during the sweltering energy of small-town, Southwestern Pride, Wendy finds herself experiencing the start of the zombie apocalypse in the midst of Pride festivities. There’s found family, betrayal, and evil corporations, all centered around the fun bonding activity of hitting zombies with your car.

The Z Word by Lindsay King-Miller, (List Price: $16.99, Quirk Books, 9781683694076, May 2024)

Reviewed by Mikey LaFave, Avid Bookshop in Savannah, Georgia

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The Band by Christine Ma-Kellams

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The Band by Christine Ma-Kellams
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Anyone who has an idol has dreamed of finding them, alone and down on their luck, and becoming the only person they can trust. In many books this is the start of a daydream romance. In The Band, it is the start of dizzying, darkly humorous nightmare. Ma-Kellams’ fiction debut is an incisive examination of stardom, fandom, and parasocial relationships, both in K-pop and in ways applicable to a wide array of cultural phenomena, and it goes deeper than the hand-wringing to be found on social media. This book lays bare what drives real people to adore, and ultimately strive to possess, the projected “selves” of celebrities: dissatisfaction with reality that stems from loneliness, unhappiness, and the desire to adore and be adored at a level impossible to truly achieve. Our elusive narrator does not step fully into the frame until chapter seven, but she relates the interlocking histories of two Kpop groups with intimate knowledge that suggests either that she is omniscient or practicing the stan’s art of investigating and projecting what goes on behind the scenes of fame. As brutally honest–or at least blunt–as she can be, the narrator hardly touches on the most emotionally charged moments of her life, the roots of her own discontent. She breezes past them with (feigned?) nonchalance or elides them with footnotes and hints about her “next novel.” She appears to bare all while dodging true vulnerability–and isn’t that the point? She, like so many, is standing on the precipice of relinquishing herself to fantasy. Ma-Kellams’ prose is arch and clever, studded with research and footnotes, but it never feels overdone or gimmicky. The style is true to the novel’s heart. Her turns of phrase alternately made me laugh out loud and marvel at the depth of insight in a handful of words. While white American celebrities get special treatment, Korean celebrities in LA do not: “If said talent hails from some other part of the world, on the other hand, everyone gets treated as an equal, meaning, a nobody. The opposite of a somebody is an egalitarian.” It is ultimately this book’s compassion that allows its cultural critique to land. We see real sadness and human need in our narrator and her wayward celebrity houseguest. We see the real human cost of the system that entices and entraps idols and their idolators. I devoured this book in a few sittings, but I will be thinking about it for much, much longer.

The Band by Christine Ma-Kellams, (List Price: $27, Atria Books, 9781668018378, April 2024)

Reviewed by Luca Rhatigan, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin

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Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin
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A beloved family lake house, a lonely ornithologist, and a heartbroken mother trying to communicate with her young son come together in this beautiful story of family, love, and overcoming grief. Eileen Garvin does such a solid job weaving characters’ stories as they grow together. Just as in her previous novel, the reader gets a cohesive, heartwarming story while Garvin shows how nature helps heal our hearts. A delightful, fulfilling read!

Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin, (List Price: $28, Dutton, 9780593473887, April 2024)

Reviewed by Mary Patterson, The Little Bookshop in Midlothian, Virginia

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Spotlight On: Real Americans by Rachel Khong

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Rachel Khong, photo by Andria Lo

I know I was technically an adult when I wrote my first book, but Real Americans feels, to me, like the first book I’ve written as an adult. What I mean is that I worked at it diligently and devotedly. It felt more like a marriage—something I committed to, that I worked at—whereas Goodbye, Vitamin felt like flings, stolen moments. Even when I was at my busiest I made sure to carve out an hour in the mornings to write. On mornings I did the opening shift at The Ruby, I would make the communal pot of coffee, then place myself in the “podcast room” (this tiny dark closet hung with egg cartons and moving blankets) and write. For the first couple years, I only had those daily hours. And in the last years of writing the book it required more: three to four hours, artist residencies. I mean that in the best way, though. I got married a few months before Goodbye, Vitamin was released, and I think I learned a lot about writing a novel by being in my committed relationship. To both marriage and novel writing, there are challenges, annoyances and frustrations, but also really deep satisfaction, joy, belonging, intimacy, transcendence.

― Rachel Khong, The Rumpus

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

What booksellers are saying about Real Americans

  • Rachel Khong has spun a tender and intimate multigenerational family portrait that’s simultaneously a trenchant commentary on the contemporary faces of manifest destiny and the American dream. Real Americans plays with language in delightful and provocative ways, with its multiple narrators unknowingly echoing each other, skipping back and forth through time, and at times swapping between first and second person. The result is a gorgeous novel that hits the reader in so many different ways, one of those rare books that makes you think as much as it makes you feel.
      ― Akil Guruparan, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia | BUY

  • Basically I opened Rachel Khong’s Real Americans on a Friday afternoon and was annoyed with every distraction–feeding my baby, answering emails, sleeping!–until I closed it, finished, the following Sunday night. What do I love in a novel? Fascinating research, intergenerational conflict/questions/challenges, surprising plot twists, and exquisitely developed characters. Real Americans has it all.
      ― Laura Cotten, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama | BUY

  • There are moments in life when choices must be made and most make decisions to the best of their ability. Rachel Khong’s highly anticipated Real Americans tells the story of three generations whose crucial choices, made out of love and best intentions chart courses that are life-changing and at times hurtful. At once a cautionary tale on potential genetic editing as well as a grand family story contemplating what it means to truly be American, Real Americans is filled with characters who are almost too brave who deny their truth to protect others.
      ― Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia | BUY

  • What initially appears to be a modern-day fairytale – Chinese-American girl meets rich white boy and falls in love – quickly becomes so much more in this nuanced, multi-generational family saga. Spanning more than 60 years and two continents, and told from three distinctive viewpoints, Real Americans is a powerful novel that raises questions about wealth, ambition, love, genetic engineering, and to what extent it’s possible to shape someone else to be who you want them to be.
      ― Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi | BUY

About Rachel Khong

Rachel Khong is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR; O, The Oprah Magazine; Vogue; and Esquire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and Tin House. In 2018, she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. She lives in California.

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Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash

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Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash
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I know it’s still early in the year, but Rainbow Black is going to be on my Top Ten of 2024! Lacey is only thirteen when the Satanic Panic sweeps through her life, leaving her family in shambles. Despite the legal firestorms, the conniving therapists, and the loss of her entire support system, Lacey finds a way to survive, and years later, she’s living in Canada as Jo, a smart, capable lawyer with more secrets than she can stand. But America hasn’t forgotten her, and soon she’s the target of another witch hunt, but this time for a crime she did commit. This book will leave you outraged and weary of a legal system that abuses its power for nothing more than public appeasement. Five rainbow-colored stars for this one!

Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash, (List Price: $18.99, Harper Perennial, 9780063286870, 2024-03-19)

Reviewed by Kate Towery, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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