List: 2023 Reading Challenge: Books with Two Authors or More
We Are Not Like Them
Told from alternating perspectives, an evocative and riveting novel about the lifelong bond between two women, one Black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event--a powerful and poignant exploration of race in America today and its devastating impact on ordinary lives. Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia. But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen's husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband's freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend.
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First Girl Gone
Private Detective Charlie Winters never thought she'd find herself back on Salem Island, but she's forced home to re-open the wound that never healed: her sister was abducted from the small town when they were teenagers. For Charlie, her sister's voice in her head--pushing her to risk everything to seek justice for the innocent--is a painful and constant reminder of what she lost. And never has that voice been louder than when a family friend comes to Charlie begging for help to find her missing daughter, Kara. Searching Kara's messy, poster-covered bedroom, Charlie finds more questions than answers. Did Kara run away, or was she snatched? She's clearly been keeping secrets from her family--but don't all teenagers? A little black matchbook hidden in a jewelry box is Charlie's only lead, but the seedy nightclub it comes from proves to be nothing but a dangerous dead end. Until Charlie is approached by a second distraught mother whose daughter has also vanished. Forced at every turn to relive the trauma she ran away from, Charlie's blood runs cold when a girl's body is discovered in the exact spot on the water's edge where the last trace of her sister was found. It's clear someone is taunting Charlie, but with other innocent girls' lives at risk, she has no choice but to take the bait.
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All the Ways We Said Goodbye: A Novel of the Ritz Paris
An heiress, a resistance fighter, and a widow are all joined by one legendary hotel: the Ritz in Paris.
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You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism
Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism. Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey. From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.
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The Bucket List
After surviving a brutal attack and with a price on his head, undercover FBI Agent John Adderley investigates a high-profile cold case involving a young heiress. He is determined to solve this case while hiding-out and until he can testify against the drug cartel he infiltrated back in the States.
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Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda
"The first mainstream superhero of African descent, the Black Panther has attracted readers of all races and colors who see in the King of Wakanda reflections of themselves. Storytellers from across the African Diaspora--some already literary legends, others who are rising stars--have created for this collection original works inspired by the world of the Panther and its inhabitants. With guest stars including Storm, Monica Rambeau, Namor, and Jericho Drumm, these are stories of yesterday and today, of science and magic, of faith and love. These are the tales of a king and his country. These are the legends whispered in the jungle, myths of the unconquered men and women and the land they love. These are the Tales of Wakanda.
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Reunion Beach: Stories Inspired by Dorothea Benton Frank
Inspired by the title Dorothea Benton Frank had planned for her next book--Reunion Beach--close friends and colleagues pay tribute in stories and poems that celebrate Frank, a prolific author who had a love for the Lowcountry of her native South Carolina.
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The Favor
It's a simple enough favor. Jude hasn't seen Liam in years, but when he shows up at her work asking for a favor, she finds she can't refuse. All Jude has to do is pick Liam up at a country train station--without telling anyone. So what if she has to lie to her fianÄ? Jude is still committed to him and their imminent wedding, even if she and Liam were in love once. She owes him. After the car crash that changed everything years ago, bright, ambitious Jude went to medical school, back on the path she had planned before meeting moody, artistic Liam. Meanwhile, he never fully recovered from the dark stain the accident left on his record. Now he's gone. When the police show up at the station instead of Liam, Jude realizes that she knows nothing about the man he's become. Now she's tangled up in his life, the last person to have seen him, and maybe the only one who can uncover the truth about what went wrong--even if she destroys her own life in the process.
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The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There
An intimate, behind-the-scenes, richly illustrated celebration of beloved The Office co-stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey's friendship, and an insiders' view of Pam Beesly, Angela Martin, and the iconic TV show. Featuring many of their never-before-seen photos.
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The Stranger in the Mirror
Hiding the fact that she has no memory of her past from her fiancé, Addison, a survivor of a tragic accident, cannot shake the notion that she may have done something very, very bad.
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On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library
Glory Edim launches her Well-Read Black Girl Library with this vital anthology celebrating stories from such luminaries as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Since founding the Well-Read Black Girl Book Club in 2015, Glory Edim's profile has skyrocketed. From her roots in a Brooklyn-based community to a massive online following, she has been heralded as the literary tastemaker for a new generation. With On Girlhood, Edim has beautifully curated a canonical work centering around the voices of young Black characters as they contend with innocence, belonging, love, and self-discovery. These short stories illuminate the power and the precariousness of Black girlhood. Highlighting both iconic and lesser-known authors--Edwidge Danticat, Amina Gautier, Jamaica Kincaid, Dorothy West, Paule Marshall, Dana Johnson, Shay Youngblood, and more--this is an indispensable compendium that will instill readers with "the nerve to walk [their] own way" (Zora Neale Hurston)."
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State of Terror
Ellen Adams, a novice Secretary of State, has joined the administration of her rival, a president inaugurated after four years of American leadership that shrank from the world stage. A series of terrorist attacks throws the global order into disarray and the secretary is tasked with assembling a team to unravel the deadly conspiracy, a scheme carefully designed to take advantage of an American government dangerously out of touch and out of power in the places where it counts the most. This high-stakes thriller of international intrigue features behind-the-scenes global drama informed by details only an insider could know.
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How to Be Fine: What We Learned from Living by the Rules of 50 Self-Help Books
Are self-help books really any help? From diet and productivity to decorating to social interactions, Greenberg and Meinzer tried it all, and then share what they've learned. They started for a laugh, but discovered that reading and following each book's advice has actually changed and improved their lives. Here they synthesize the lessons and insights they've learned: practices that have worked, real talk on those that didn't, and a list of philosophies they want to see explored in-depth.
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A Game of Fear
Scotland Yard's Ian Rutledge is faced with his most perplexing case yet: a murder with no body, and a killer who can only be a ghost.
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Three Words for Goodbye
Two estranged sisters fulfill their dying grandmother's final wish by traveling across Europe and delivering three goodbye letters to those who she has not seen since leaving Europe four decades earlier.
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The Golden Couple
If Avery Chambers can't fix you in 10 sessions, she won't take you on as a client. Her successes are phenomenal--she helps people overcome everything from domineering parents to assault--and almost absorb the emptiness she sometimes feels since her husband's death. Marissa and Mathew Bishop seem like the golden couple--until Marissa cheats. She wants to repair things, both because she loves her husband and for the sake of their 8-year-old son. After a friend forwards an article about Avery, Marissa takes a chance on this maverick therapist, who lost her license due to controversial methods. When the Bishops glide through Avery's door and Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it's no longer simply a marriage that's in danger.
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Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other
From their faithful camper van to boats, kayaks, bicycles, and motorbikes, join stars of Outlander Sam and Graham on a road trip with a difference, as two Scotsmen explore a land of raw beauty, poetry, feuding, music, history, and warfare. Unlikely friends Sam and Graham begin their journey in the heart of Scotland at Glencoe - the site of a great massacre and major clan feud - and travel from there all the way to Inverness and Culloden battlefield, where along the way they experience adventure and a cast of highland characters. In this story of friendship, finding themselves, and whisky, they discover the complexity, rich history and culture of their native country.
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Heat 2
Michael Mann, four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker and writer-director of Heat, Collateral, Thief, Manhunter, and Miami Vice, teams up with Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner to deliver Mann's first crime novel--an explosive return to the world and characters of his classic film Heat--an all-new story that illuminates what happened before and after the iconic film.
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Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices
Featuring stories by a bestselling, cross-genre assortment of some of the most exciting writers working today, an anthology of gender-bent, queered, race-bent, and inclusive retellings from the vast lore surrounding King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. The stories are so iconic that just a name, a word, conjures romance and betrayal, chivalry and magic. These are legends so embedded in our culture that they feel real; that as early as the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Thomas Malory, and Edmund Spenser were like, "I gotta get to writing fanfic of that." Indeed, from their very earliest incarnations, these stories were waiting to be reinterpreted and retold; they have lived through the centuries because they were transformed. Sword Stone Table marks a continuation of that tradition and the start of a brand-new one. Here you'll find the Lady of the Lake reimagined as a Ugandan sorceress and the Lady of Shalott as a wealthy, isolated woman in a futuristic Mexico City penthouse spying on Lancelot via advanced technology; you'll discover Excalibur reformed as a baseball bat that grants a washed-up minor leaguer a fresh shot at glory and as a lost ceremonial drum that returns to a young First Nations boy the power and the dignity of his people. There are stories set in turn-of-the-century Chicago, '80s New York, twenty-first century Singapore, and space; there are lesbian lady knights, Arthur and Merlin reborn in the modern era for a second chance at saving the world and falling in love--even a coffee shop AU. Brave, bold, and groundbreaking, the stories in Sword Stone Table will bring fresh life to beloved myths and give long-time fans a chance to finally see themselves in their favorite legends.
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Tiki: A Very Ruff Year
In the midst of a quarantine, Fred buys Tiki, a puppy, to help bring a little joy to his family's life in isolation. What no one anticipated is that Tiki would turn their lives completely upside-down. Alternately humorous and tragic, this fictionalized autobiographical story questions that moment we decide to adopt a pet and the beautiful mess that we're often left with.
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Something Wilder
Growing up the daughter of notorious treasure hunter and absentee father Duke Wilder left Lily without much patience for the profession . . . or much money in the bank. But Lily is nothing if not resourceful, and now uses Duke's coveted hand-drawn maps to guide tourists on fake treasure hunts through the treacherous and storied red rock canyons of Utah. It pays the bills but doesn't leave enough to fulfill her dream of buying back the beloved ranch her father sold years ago. Treasured land wasn't her only loss that fateful summer, and when the man she once loved walks back into her life with a motley crew of his friends ready to hit the trails, the usually self-reliant cowgirl is thrown. Frankly Lily would like to take him out into the wilderness and leave him there. Leo Grady knew mirages were a thing in the desert, but they'd barely left civilization when the silhouette of his greatest regret comes into focus in the flickering light of the campfire. Ready to leave the past behind them, Leo wants nothing more than to reconnect with his first and only love. But Lily Wilder is all business, drawing a clear line in the sand: it's never going to happen. Unfortunately, emotions won't be led like a horse to water, and even out in the desert it's impossible to ignore the heat of attraction. But when the trip goes horribly and hilariously wrong, the group realizes the idea of hidden treasure wasn't so crazy after all. Finding themselves alone in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they trust Duke's maps--and each other--enough to risk their lives and hearts for the adventure of a lifetime.
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Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
Anderson Cooper chronicles the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty--his mother's family--the Vanderbilts.
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In Case of Emergency
Charlotte, a midthirties Long Island woman, has felt so alone since her promising career in neuroscience imploded. But she has an online support group for trauma survivors; she has Rachel, a friend who has seen her through the worst of it; and now she also has Peter, a mysterious new boyfriend who has asked that their budding romance remain a total secret. That is why she is too scared to report his disappearance to the authorities when he vanishes without a word. Weeks later, police contact her to make an ID on a body and she fears the worst for her missing beau. Instead, she arrives at the morgue and feels a terrible relief when she sees a woman she has never met before on the table in front of her. But relief is replaced by confusion, then terror, when Charlotte realizes she has become a person of interest. Why did Jane Doe have Charlotte listed as her emergency contact? Was it revenge or a warning? And where exactly does Peter factor into all this? As Charlotte becomes the prime murder suspect, she enters into a race against the clock to find truth about the dead woman and the connections they shared. But what she discovers is beyond anything she could have ever imagined.
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How to Save a Life
Dom is having a very bad day--one he literally can't escape. When Dom bumps into Mia, his ex-fiancée whom he hasn't seen in almost a decade, he believes they've been given a second chance and asks her out. When Mia dies tragically on their date, Dom makes a desperate wish: to be given the chance to save her life. And when he wakes the next morning to the shock that she's alive, he thinks his wish may have been granted. But day after day, no matter what he changes about their time together, she still meets a terrible fate. Dom frantically searches for answers to save his beloved Mia and rekindle their former love. But the further he digs, the more obsessed he becomes, making him realize that slowing down time may be the only way to see things clearly. As he's forced to confront the truth about himself and those he's closest to, Dom vows that he'll watch Mia die a thousand times if it means he can save her once.
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