Kirkus Best Fiction 2024

"A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum"--

"How far is love willing to travel in search of its own lost voice. Shadowing the days of Syria's Arab spring, Fadi Azzam's epic novel, Huddud's House--a haunting, contemporary novel rooted in the soil of Damascus, the oldest inhabited city in humanity--is a sprawling tale of love in time of war. Focusing on a quartet of characters torn between leaving and returning to Damascus, it follows intertwining stories of love and violence to their boundaries....

"In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when...

"From the author of the critically acclaimed The Illness Lesson, comes a a page-turning and psychologically penetrating tale about the rules that govern women's bodies and lives. In 1948, Irene Willard, who's had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires and is now pregnant again, comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife team of doctors who are pioneering...

"A time travel romance, a spy thriller, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she'll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish...

"In 1983, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway in the nicest part of Long Island, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse for wear, and the family begins the hard work of trying to move on with their lives and resume their prized places in the saga of the American dream, coming to understand that though their money may have been what put...

"On a cold November night in 1994, a farmhouse burns to the ground. Inside, a young woman is found dead--murdered. To the people in the rural community of Marbäck, it becomes a reference point: a before and after. For ten-year-old Isak Nyqvist, the fire sets in motion something he cannot control, as if a stray spark has found its way inside him, igniting his future into an inferno. The police quickly focus their attention on Edvard Christensson,...

"Hairstylist Jess Greene has spent the last decade raising her younger half-sister, Tegan--and keeping a shocking secret. Ever since their reckless mother ran off with a boyfriend she'd known only a few months, Jess has been aware that he's the same accomplished con man who was the subject of a wildly popular podcast, The Last Con of Lynton Baltimore. Now thirty-one, Jess didn't bargain on Tegan eventually piecing together the connection for herself....

"The Carryx - part empire, part hive - have waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy. Now, they are facing a great and deathless enemy. The key to their survival may rest with the humans of Anjiin. Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team. Then the Carryx ships descend, decimating...

"In Miami, a young man attempts to capitalize on his mother's murky legacy."--