The Atomic Weight of Love, Elizabeth J. Church, Algonquin Books) – Meridian loved studying birds and hoped to get her Masters in ornithology. She also loved Alden, a brilliant professor of physics.

Born on a Tuesday, Elnathan John, – When Dantala leaves his Quranic studies and falls in with a street gang, he experiences firsthand the violence of Nigerian politics.

The Alaskan Laundry, Brendan Jones, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – Grieving her mother’s death and her father’s rejection, Tara leaves her Philadelphia home for an uncertain Alaskan future with only a promised job in a fish hatchery.

The Queen of the Night, Alexander Chee, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt –Tragedy throws a young Minnesota farm girl with an incredible voice and equestrian skills in with a circus bound for Europe.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, Katrina Bivald, Sourcebooks – Sara and Amy are pen pals – Amy in small town Iowa, Sara in Sweden. Across the seas, they share their love of books and Amy’s stories of the inhabitants of Broken Wheel.

This is Why I Came, Mary Rakow, Counterpoint – A woman waits to go into confessional after decades of being away. She carries a small volume of Bible stories as she has embellished them, filling in the blanks.

Esther, Rebecca Kanner, Howard Books – Esther is a teenage Jewish orphan when she is rounded up by King Xerxes’ Immortals and brought to the royal harem.

Mrs. Engels, Gavin McCrea–Lizzie Burns and her sister, Mary, were textile factory workers in Manchester when the owner’s son, Frederick, came on board. Of all the girls who were swooning over him, he chose Mary

After the Parade, Lori Ostlund, Scribner–Aaron Englund’s life is divided – before and after the parade, before and after his mother leaves and before and after he leaves Walter. Trying to make it on his own in San Francisco, he finds he has to make sense of his years of growing up in small-town Minnesota . . .

Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan Stradal , Penguin Publishing — Lars Thorvald got teased a lot growing up, smelling like the lutefisk his family prepared for the Scandinavians in Duluth. His daughter, Eva, also was tormented by her classmates, but her passion was growing chocolate habaneros, powerful enough to be a weapon.