February 7, 2026
Five very different novels address the various ways fictional characters tackle the challenges before them—and change both themselves and the world. They feature such disparate creations as a charlatan vampire-slayer; a newly out trans woman navigating New York City nightlife; a trio of characters seeking to rescue war orphans in a story based on true events; three siblings confronting their differences in the face of death; and a man whose morally ambiguous job is to save an island from an invasion of goats. Conflicts abound, beautifully crafted into memorable stories.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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This Is Not About Us
By ALLEGRA GOODMAN
Published by DIAL PRESS
Goodman is one of our most reliable creators of family dramas. Her new novel is made up of seventeen interconnected stories. (I have loved her writing since she published another set of entwined stories in 1996.) As she said in a recent interview, “All the misunderstandings people have, all the miscommunications, all the wonderful celebrations—you can see a whole society in a family.” Here there are three sisters, the youngest of whom is dying. Goodman reveals long-held grudges (referenced by the cake on the book’s cover), the dynamics of female siblings, the stages of grief, and the complications of parenthood with a warmth and humor that feels effortless but is very hard to achieve.
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She Made Herself a Monster
By ANNA KOVATCHEVA
Published by MARINER
This absorbing debut by a Bulgarian-born writer features Yana, a 19th-century Eastern European con woman manipulating villagers into believing she can eliminate their ills. She enlists a local orphan to assist and together they prey upon the gullible and hopeful residents of Koprivci. In deliciously gruesome prose, the author creates a haunting Gothic story suffused with Slavic legends as she banishes vampires and demons with bricks and iron spikes while the villagers watch in horror. Trained by her mother in these dark arts, she slays the evil monsters that cause the failing crops and dying children. It is a chilling and expertly executed feminist tale.
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Eradication
By JONATHAN MILES
Published by DOUBLEDAY
This spare tale can be read on many levels. At face value, it is a story about a man at a crossroads, grieving the death of his son and the end of his marriage. He takes an unlikely job on an isolated South Pacific island where the population of goats is overwhelming the lives of the other animals and plants. His assignment is to eradicate the goats. Soon enough, his mission causes him to ponder the ethical nature of his task. It is an inquiry into the role of man against nature and the decision to intrude on the natural order of things—a moving, thought-provoking novel.
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Keeper of Lost Children
By SADEQA JOHNSON
Published by SIMON & SCHUSTER / 37 INK
Three lives shaped by WWII intertwine in Johnson’s emotionally resonant new novel. The main protagonist is the childless American wife of a Black soldier in Mannheim, Germany, who is greatly affected by the countless mixed-race children born during the occupation. (The adoption advocate Mabel Grammer, upon whom this novel is based, created the Brown Baby Plan to place these “Mischlingskinder.”) The other two characters are a young Black volunteer in the army in 1948 and, twenty years later, a young woman in Maryland determined to integrate a boarding school. Johnson is a gifted storyteller and has rescued a piece of lost history. She intends her book to “open your heart” to her story of this trio of characters. Easily done.
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Love Story
By AFSANA MOUSAVI
Published by POWERHOUSE BOOKS
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, this is a debut novel about a young woman’s coming of age in New York City. Io has recently transitioned and is excited to experience the underbelly of the NYC night scene as a woman. She is guided by a fellow trans woman, a popular DJ, who introduces her to both the glamour and the challenges of being female in the worlds of music, fashion, and trans culture. Mousavi—editor of Spasm magazine and a recent New School MFA graduate—has written a book that stands alongside the work of Torrey Peters, Imogen Binnie, and Elliot Page in its exploration of trans life and desire.
