May’s Top Picks in Fiction

A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson
A God in Ruins is the companion novel to Atkinson’s astonishing Life After Life, which follows Ursula Todd from birth to death again and again, tracking the progression of her soul as she lives out her life in countless iterations. Now Atkinson turns her focus to Ursula’s beloved brother, Teddy, whose safe return from World War II was one of the first novel’s emotional high points. The focus is on his postwar life, which Teddy, as a former RAF pilot, didn’t really expect to be granted. In telling his story, Atkinson again bends time and tests the boundaries of traditional narration; she’s a master storyteller, and A God in Ruins is not to be missed.

I Take You, by Eliza Kennedy
Reluctant bride-to-be Lily is many things: a lawyer, a New Yorker, a party girl who can drink you under the table. What she’s sure she won’t be, though, is a model wife. In the weeks leading up to her wedding to the perfect man, Lily questions everything, from her tendency to cheat to her willingness to give up her freewheeling life of no-strings-attached fun and bad decisions. When her future mother-in-law threatens to tell her secrets and spoil her chance at marital happiness, Lily must figure out—fast—if promiscuity can exist side by side with conjugal love.

Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread, by Chuck Palahniuk
When it comes attached to a collection of Palahniuk stories, you can’t take this subtitle lightly. The author is known for his power to disturb, but his ability to delight and engross are equally on display in these 21 tales plus a novella. Fight Club‘s Tyler Durden makes an appearance in “Expedition,” and “Cannibal,” true to its title, takes its place beside Palahniuk’s more difficult-to-shake grotesqueries. The stories are ripe with the twisted and the macabre, with strange magic and humor, and with passages that are difficult to bear.

Our Souls at Night, by Kent Haruf
Haruf returns to Holt, Colorado, in his final novel, a tender tale about a widow and widower using each other as a balm against loneliness, and the love that blooms once they’ve dropped their defenses. Despite gossiping neighbors and disapproving family members, Addie Moore and Louis Waters start spending their nights together, in a not-quite-plantonic, not-yet-romantic way. As they talk the late-night hours away, they discover an intimacy that infuses their twilight years with an unforeseen joy, one that’s worth fighting for.

The Scarlet Gospels, by Clive Barker
Two of Barker’s most iconic characters face off in this follow-up tale to The Hellbound Heart and Barker’s Hellraiser films. Long-suffering detective Harry D’Amour and Pinhead, king of hell, finally reach their final chapter together, in a gory grand guignol that will thrill old fans and win a score of new ones. To save a kidnapped friend, Harry must follow Pinhead into his underworld domain, where their last stand plays out against an epic background of monsters, violence, and the landscape of hell itself.

The Last Bookaneer, by Matthew Pearl
In this rollicking page-turner, Pearl shines light on the shocking and little-known historical practice of stealing authors’ work, publishing it without their permission, then selling it for cheap, wrapping it up into an imagined account of crafty “bookaneer” Pen Davenport. At the end of the 19th century, just as the law was cracking down on these manuscript thefts, Pen races to reach a dying Robert Louis Stevenson—and steal what might be his final book—before his nemesis does. This grand literary adventure will sweep you off your feet.

The Sound of Glass, by Karen White
Maine widow Merritt Heyward finds her life upended by an unexpected inheritance: her late husband’s aunt has left her the family home, in Beaufort, South Carolina. Once there, Merritt’s outsider status is complicated further by the arrival of unwanted houseguests, a brother-in-law who’s too charming for Merritt’s own good, and a web of Heyward family secrets that have more to do with Merritt than she ever would have guessed. This atmospheric Southern story pairs best with summer heat and a tall glass of iced tea.

Beach Town, by Mary Kay Andrews
Disgraced location scout Greer Hennessy knows her latest assignment just might be her last shot: she must find the perfect untouched beach to serve as a backdrop for a big-budget movie. But when the beach she has in her sights—an idyllic stretch of Florida sand—puts her in direct opposition to environmentalist mayor Eben Thinadeaux, sparks, good and bad, start to fly.

The Guest Cottage, by Nancy Thayer
Two bruised people—Sophie, left reeling by her husband’s announcement that he’s leaving her, and Trevor, a newly single father following his wife’s death—make a fortuitous error when they rent the same summer guest house at the same time. Against the backdrop of the Nantucket shoreline, Sophie comes to terms with her husband’s betrayal, and attempts to relocate her center after a marriage spent putting his needs ahead of her own. In the meantime, Trevor tries to imagine a life in which he raises his sensitive, closed-off son on his own. As the families blend and a romance grows, readers will settle into this well-wrought tale as comfortably as they would a seaside hammock.

The Knockoff, by Lucy Sykes
In this dishy modern riff on All About Eve, fashion magazine editor Imogen Tate is in danger of being pushed out of the picture by ambitious, backstabbing assistant Eve Morton. On returning from a six-month medical leave, Imogen is confronted with evil Eve’s youthful team of tech addicts, who’ve turned her magazine into a website. We’re already fantasy casting the film adaptation of this fresh, funny satire, which follows technophobe Imogen’s attempts to claw her way back to the top of the heap.
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