Literary Fiction to Read With Your Book Club

Luckily, if you want to read this two-time Oulitzer Prize winner’s latest, you don’t really need to have read the first two books in The Harlem Trilogy it belongs to. It looks at New York City in the ’80s and its explosion of real estate development, which gets juxtaposed with homelessness. We follow Ray Carney as he tries to play it straight (he’s just been named Furniture Dealer of the Month at his job), but gets dragged back to do just one more heist. To his credit, it’s because his wife was unfairly denied a loan by the bank. In any case, Ray and his associates find themselves navigating a new New York City, which is fighting to have a glistening new exterior, while its inner workings maintain the same level of inequity and violence. —Erica Ezeifedi

I’m sure this book will make it to at least a few “Best of the Year” lists. It follows Natalie Heller Mills, who is really good at being a trendy “trad wife” influencer. From the farmhouse she runs (with help behind the scenes) to rearing her six kids, Natalie is a natural at putting on for the camera. But then one morning, everything changes. Well, technically, her kids and husband are there, but something isn’t right about them. Then there’s her house, which has gone from charmingly rustic to being without electricity. Either someone is playing an elaborate trick on her, or she has really been transported to the mid-1800s, where she has to haul firewood and do chores till she bleeds. No matter the truth, one thing is clear: she must get out. —Erica Ezeifedi

Aguda’s latest novel comes right after a National Book Award nomination for Ghostroots. It, like the story collection, takes place in modern Nigeria, where reality teeters on the otherworldly. Yosoye is a young woman with a promising future ahead of her—she’s starting an internship at an architectural firm in Lagos. But soon after she arrives in the big city, she becomes pregnant, and, lonely as she is, she wants the baby. Then the deaths begin: as new land is developed, pregnant women start having watery deaths. And Yosoye, newly pregnant herself, can’t help but become fixated on the dying women and what they mean for her. —Erica Ezeifedi

Rohit is a professor nursing a heartache after falling in unrequited love with his friend Dhruv. You know what they say about getting over people, so he sets off on a string of short-term relationships with men—until he meets the captivating Sayan, who he begins to fall for. But political tensions in India are high, and when Sayan joins a student-led movement, Rohit will have to decide where his loyalties lie. —Danika Ellis

Rare is the novel that is both very smart and very funny. Rarer still is the author who can write a coming-of-middle-age novel that includes a mystery, a hilarious misunderstanding, a globetrotting caper, a sweet romance, and jokes about moral philosophy. Maria Semple can do it all with equal skill. There’s not a single wrong note in this widely recommendable novel that is guaranteed to delight literary types and casual readers alike. Go Gentle is a party in book form, stealthily packed with wisdom, wit, and women who are a lot to handle in the very best way. —Rebecca Joines Schinsky

Sapphic gothic novels are having a moment, and I am here for it. I can’t resist the combination of sapphic longing and a creeping sense of doom. At Briarley School for Girls in 1928, something sinister is spreading, rotting meat and curdling milk. Then the body count begins to climb. Emily is convinced her captivating classmate Violet’s death was not natural, and she intends to prove it. She teams up with rival Evelyn to try to contact Violet from beyond the veil. Through the medium of Evelyn, Violet warns that the danger has only begun. This promises “teenage repression, queer desire, and the everyday horror of coming of age.” —Danika Ellis