Before the coffee gets cold : a novel / Kawaguchi, Toshikazu

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café's time-travelling offer, in order to confront the lover who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has begun to fade, see their sister one last time, and meet the daughter they never got the chance to know. But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold ... Toshikazu Kawaguchi's beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

Well-behaved Indian women / Dave, Saumya.

"From a compelling new voice in women's fiction comes a mother-daughter story about three generations of women who struggle to define themselves as they pursue their dreams. Simran Mehta has always felt harshly judged by her mother, Nandini, especially when it comes to her writing "hobby." But when a charismatic and highly respected journalist careens into Simran's life, she begins to question not only her future as a psychologist, but her engagement to her high school sweetheart. Nandini Mehta has strived to create an easy life for her children in America. From dealing with her husband's demanding family to the casual racism of her patients, everything Nandini has endured has been for her children's sake. It isn't until an old colleague makes her a life-changing offer that Nandini realizes she's spent so much time focusing on being the Perfect Indian Woman, she's let herself slip away. Mimi Kadakia failed her daughter, Nandini, in ways she'll never be able to fix-or forget. But with her granddaughter, she has the chance to be supportive and offer help when it's needed. As life begins to pull Nandini and Simran apart, Mimi is determined to be the bridge that keeps them connected, even as she carries her own secret burden"--

The pact : a novel / Picoult, Jodi

The Golds and the Hartes, neighbors for eighteen years, have always been inseparable. So have their children--and it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. But the bonds of family, friendship, and passion--which had seemed so indestructible--suddenly threaten to unravel in the wake of unimaginable tragedy. When midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the truth. Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris pilfered from his father's cabinet--a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris describes. This extraordinary, poignant novel paints an indelible portrait of two families in anguish ... and creates an astonishingly suspenseful courtroom drama as Chris is put on trial for murder.

The wealthy : chronicle of a Jewish family (1763-1948) / Bar-Yosef, Ḥamuṭal

Bar-Yosef provides rich, colorful descriptions of life in Prussia in the nineteenth century; Jewish life in central Europe; the world of German and English science; the nuances and rituals of British royalty; the political world of Britain before and after the First World War; and the network of hidden ties between Arabs, Bedouins, British, and Jews in Mandatory Palestine.

The impossible resurrection of grief / Cade, Octavia

"With the collapse of ecosystems and the extinction of species comes the Grief: an unstoppable melancholia that ends in suicide. When Ruby's friend, mourning the loss of the Great Barrier Reef, succumbs to the Grief, the letters she leaves behind reveal the hidden world of the resurrected dead. The Tasmanian tiger, brought back from extinction in an isolated facility, is only the first ... but rebirth is not always biological, and it comes with a price. As a scientist, Ruby resists the Grief by focusing her research on resilient jellyfish, but she can't avoid choosing which side she's on. How can she fight against the dead and the forces behind them when doing so risks her home, her life, and the entire biosphere?"--

Night roll / Deluca, Michael J.

"New mother and climate refugee Aileen Dupree has been abandoned by her partner in post-industrial Detroit. Her neighbour, Virgil, comes to her rescue, bringing useful cast-offs and much needed friendship. Virgil is Aileen's only connection to the outside world, a refuge for an insomniac newcomer who is overwhelmed by the turn her life has taken. But then Virgil borrows Aileen's prized possession--a chrome and leather royal blue fourteen-speed bike-and disappears. Aileen doesn't know if Virgil's disappearance is an accident or another abandonment. When she ventures out to look for answers, Aileen finds friendship and support in a vibrant community she didn't expect, surrounding a mysterious figure, the Elf: a timeless being who has always fought the colonizers and capitalists of Detroit, and who now leads Night Roll, a wild race through the city's disintegrating streets. It is up to Aileen to bring Virgil back to his friends and family. But what can the Elf teach her about her new life? And what must she pay for that knowledge?"--

At her will / Brellick, Andrea

"To uncover the truth surrounding her sister's death, Katey Philips gets a job at the public relations firm that employed her sister. Katey must partake in the firm's second and unorthodox line of business to find out what happened to her sister. A year after her sister's death, Katey Philips receives an mysterious message. The message suggests her sister didn't die by accident on the night she hosted a work party. Disguising her identity, Katey moves across the country to work at the public relations firm that employed her sister. Katey quickly learns she doesn't work at an ordinary PR firm. The company runs a second line of business her sister never spoke of. This secret work is dangerous and shameful, and participating in it is the only way Katey can uncover what happened to her sister. Katey must choose how far she'll go to find the truth, even if it means sharing the same fate as her sister"--Back cover.

Awakenings / Arseneault, Claudie

"Despite dozens of apprenticeships with eir city's clans, Horace has never found somewhere to belong to -- not until eir trial run as a guard, when the terrifying, soul-possessing shards that haunt the world broke through the city's protective dome, only t be dismissed to vapor by a mysterious elf through a single phrase: your story is my story. It is eir story, too, Horace knows it in eir guts -- the most trustable part of eir body. After an afternoon of caring for the recovering elf and playing board games in their quiet, sharp-witted company, Horace is ready to follow them across the world, to the forest that haunts their dreams."--Back cover.

This great hemisphere : a novel / Askaripour, Mateo

"From the award-winning and bestselling author of Black Buck: A speculative novel about a young woman-invisible by birth and relegated to second-class citizenship-who sets off on a mission to find her older brother, whom she had presumed dead but who is now the primary suspect in a high-profile political murder"--

Things that cause inappropriate happiness : short stories / Botha, Danila

"Things That Cause Inappropriate Happiness is Danila Botha's third collection of short fiction. In these thirteen brilliant stories, she observes with her signature vulnerability and humour what it's like not to fit in. From a photographer teaching English in the Middle East ("Sometimes I Like to Shoot Kids") to a chalk eating South African immigrant teen, who struggles to fit in ("Nothing My Parents Taught me Turned Out to be True") to a neurodiverse travel agent who is tired of pretending to be like everyone else ("Congratulations on Everything") to a woman who fakes a pregnancy ("All Good Things Take Time") and an artist with a desperate need to communicate during the pandemic ("There's Something I've Been Meaning To Say To You"), these stories pulse with the empathy and originality Botha has become known for. As in her previous collection, the Trillium and Vine nominated For All the Men (and Some of the Women) I've Known, Things That Cause Inappropriate Happiness will make you laugh, and cry but above all, it will make you feel less alone"--