Every year we ask our staff across the system for their favorite books published in a given year. Our staff are such voracious readers that we needed two parts for adult fiction this year! Enjoy this variety of fiction staff favorites, with annotations by staff members or as noted. (Created November 2024)
The Girls
"This was published in late November last year AFTER the Staff Faves list closed for suggestions, so I am going to put it on here because I was ROBBED of my chance to rave about this amazing reprint -- lesbian cottage core murder mystery with a cover by Edward Gorey! SO GOOD"--Abby B.
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The Ministry of Time
A time travel romance, a spy thriller, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all. (NoveList Plus)
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The Book of Doors
A debut novel about a bookseller who discovers the real power of books—if they’re magic. (Kirkus)
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Headshot
Eight teenage girl boxers from different backgrounds travel to Reno, Nevada to compete against each other in a tournament to be named the best in the country in a series of raw, intense face-offs. (NoveList Plus)
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Banal Nightmare
Margaret Anne “Moddie” Yance had just returned to her native land in the Midwestern town of X, to mingle with the friends of her youth, to get back in touch with her roots, and to recover from a stressful decade of living in the city in a small apartment with a man she now believed to be a megalomaniac or perhaps a covert narcissist. When her friend Pam invites a mysterious East Coast artist to take up a winter residency at the local university, Moddie has no choice but to confront the demons of her past and grapple with the reality of what her life has become. (NoveList Plus)
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Rough Trade
Washington Territory, 1888. With contacts on the docks and in the railroad, and with a buyers’ market funneling product their way, Alma Rosales and her opium-smuggling crew are making a fortune. They spend their days moving product and their nights at the Monte Carlo, the center of Tacoma’s queer scene, where skirts and trousers don’t signify and everyone’s free to suit themselves. Then two local men end up dead, with all signs pointing to the opium trade, and a botched effort to disappear the bodies draws lawmen to town. (NoveList Plus)
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The Fox Wife
In 1908 Manchuria, Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the identity of a dead courtesan, while a secretive woman named Snow, seeking vengeance for her lost child, navigates the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits to find a murderer. (NoveList Plus)
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Your Utopia
Science fiction blends with pointed social critique in these short stories from South Korea. (Kirkus)
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The Dead Cat Tail Assassins
Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. When the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen’s newest mission brings her face-to-face with a past she isn’t supposed to remember and a vow she can’t forget. (NoveList Plus)
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Here We Go Again
Logan and Rosemary were childhood best friends—until a devastating falling out. Now they’re adults, and even though both women followed in the footsteps of their beloved mentor, queer English teacher Joe Delgado, and came back to teach at their former high school, they still aren’t speaking. When Joe’s cancer becomes terminal, he demands they help him fulfil his final wish of driving from Oregon to his cottage in Maine. (Publishers Weekly)
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