Heller McAlpin

The success of Sigrid Nunez' The Friend sparked the reissue of this early work, also about a beloved pet — but Mitz the marmoset was real, and she belonged to Leonard and Virginia Woolf in the 1930s.

R.L. Maizes' new story collection is a quirky mix of humor, gravity and warmth. She's drawn to outsiders who yearn for connection and who display behaviors and feelings they're not proud of.

Marcy Dermansky's new novel is a tart lemonade of a summer read, full of outspoken characters, libidinous activity — much of it unwise — around a swimming pool, and a beautiful standard poodle.

Claire Lombardo's sweeping family drama — fueled by power plays between spouses and between sisters — is a wonderfully immersive read that packs more heart and heft than most first novels.

Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a painful but extraordinary coming-of-age story, about a young Vietnamese American writer whose fractured family was torn by their experiences during the Vietnam War.

The final volume in Graeme Simsion's Rosie trilogy — about an adorably dorky, autistic scientist and his wife and family — will enlighten readers about life on the spectrum, but may not charm them.

Max Porter's propulsive, original new novel is set in a small, seemingly idyllic English village that quickly turns darker when the whimsical young son of a newly-arrived couple goes missing.

The latest volume in Smith's seasonal quartet revisits some of her familiar themes — the bleakness of contemporary politics, loss, fractured families, nature and art — yet still feels spring-fresh.

For decades, Quindlen has been channeling Baby Boomers' concerns, from motherhood and life-work balance to aging and downsizing. Her new book comes with a stern warning: Grandparents, know thy place.

Ian McEwan imagines an alternate, technologically-advanced 1982 England in his new novel, in which the development of lifelike, artificially intelligent cyborgs leads to some uncomfortable questions.

Amid disquisitions on the importance of thank-you notes and a hilariously graphic description of a mammogram, Ellis occasionally ventures into more weighty territory in her first work of nonfiction.

Sally Rooney avoids a sophomore slump with Normal People, a will-they-won't-they love story with sympathetic protagonists whose lives are complicated by economic uncertainty and class differences.

Susan Choi's new novel is set at a performing arts high school in the 1980s, as students navigate the line between adolescence and adulthood, student-teacher relationships and the drama of first love.

Rajeev Balasubramanyam's fourth novel follows a cantankerous yet sympathetic economics professor whose life is upended after he fails yet again to win a Nobel Prize (among other, lesser catastrophes).

"Comma Queen" Mary Norris is an uncommonly engaging, witty enthusiast with a nose for delicious details and funny asides that makes you willing to follow her anywhere.

Nell Freudenberger's new novel is a bittersweet love story — about a lost friend, a missed romance, and an all-consuming career — that uses dense scientific concepts to illuminate everyday emotions.

Andrew Ridker's sharp, compassionate first novel follows a family of flawed but sympathetic bumblers whose efforts to do good more often end up causing harm — to themselves and others.

Valeria Luiselli's twist on the great American road trip novel follows a family with two children on a grim odyssey through the Southwest, a vision of a country blighted by industry and prejudice.

Elizabeth McCracken's new novel — a multigenerational saga centered around a Massachusetts bowling alley and its crew of misfits — will grab you from the very first line.

Very little actually is sacred — at least to begin with — in Amanda Sthers' lively new novel about a Jewish pig farmer in Israel, his fractious family, and their voluminous correspondence.