May Matters

A Walk in the Park is the horrifying, hilarious and awe-inspiring tale of two men who walk 750 miles through the Grand Canyon. From the first mishaps that assail the men through to the end of their journey this is one epic read you will not want to put down. New York Times bestselling author Kevin Fedarko has written a spiritual and moving love letter to his favorite National Park with enough history and drama to satisfy adventure lovers everywhere.

Girls are not valued in Eve J. Chung’s Daughters of Shandong set in 1948 China. The Ang family has no male heirs, but four sisters are considered useless. The sisters and their mother are abandoned by the family when the Communist army suddenly appears. The eldest sister, Hai, is condemned to be held accountable for the family “crimes” as announced by the army. Eventually the women escape, making their arduous way to Taiwan where they find freedom and an opportunity to confront the family that has left them to their fate. A breathtaking debut, historical and riveting. 

Lisa Barr’s Goddess of Warsaw spares no horrific detail in her moving, passionate account of a gorgeous woman, Bina, living in the Warsaw ghetto. Married to one man and in love with his brother, their worlds crumble with senseless death after death as the Nazis take everything they have loved and cherished. Because Bina can pass as Aryan she manages to escape to relative safety and begins working for the resistance. This is Barr at her finest, grabbing the reader’s heart and pulse until the very last page.

Long After We Are Gone by Terah Shelton Harris took me by surprise. When the powerful King Solomon dies, he leaves 200 acres, the family home, and four children in disarray. The land has been in the Solomon family for generations and a real estate development company is after the valuable waterfront land. Junior, Mance, CeCe, and Tokey have a world of hurt and secrets to deal with as they abruptly see their world torn apart and their inheritance threatened. This one is powerful and rich and heartbreaking.

Crazy Rich Asian fans will delight in Kevin Kwan’s latest romp amongst the top one percenters in Lies and Weddings, which starts off with a spectacular gory mishap. There are a lot of designer names, parties, and the shenanigans we expect from Kwan’s world, and he only gets better with each book.

Yukiko Tominaga novel See: Loss. See Also: Love. is a sparse, moving debut about a young Japanese widow, Kyoko, who raises a son between Japan and San Francisco with the sometime help of her wry mother-in-law, Bubbe; a blunt Jewish woman who is herself hitting the online dating scene.

Vivien is fighting censorship and the past in Natalie Jenner’s Every Time We Say Goodbye. Hired as a script doctor, Viven travels from the UK to Rome to not only work at the storied Cinecittà Studios but to find out what happened to her fiancé who perished during WWII. Jenner populates the glamorous world of cinema with appearances by Peggy Guggenheim, Ava Gardner, and even the Pope. In a dueling storyline, a “schoolgirl assassin” is knocking off Nazis in 1943, a tale so powerful Vivien tries slipping it past censors to make into a hit movie.