May 2021 Adult Top 10 Picks

← Return to Archive Sign up for our mailing list
  1. People We Meet on Vacation
    by Emily Henry
    Berkley
    May 11, 2021
    FICTION / Romance / Romantic Comedy
    Paperback / softback
    People We Meet on Vacation
    by Emily Henry
    Berkley
    May 11, 2021
    FICTION / Romance / Romantic Comedy
    Paperback / softback
    From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers and Beach Read comes a sparkling novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.

    Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

    Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

    Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven't spoken since.

    Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

    Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?


    Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by NewsweekOprah Magazine ∙ The Skimm Marie Claire ParadeThe Wall Street Journal Chicago Tribune PopSugar ∙ BookPage BookBub ∙ Betches ∙ SheReads ∙ Good Housekeeping BuzzFeed Business Insider Real Simple Frolic and more!
    View this title on BNC CataList
  2. Project Hail Mary
    by Andy Weir
    Ballantine Books
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure
    Hardback
    Project Hail Mary
    by Andy Weir
    Ballantine Books
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure
    Hardback
    #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—in development as a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling.

    HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today

    “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.”—The Washington Post


    Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

    Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

    All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

    His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

    And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

    Or does he?

    An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  3. Call Me Indian
    by Fred Sasakamoose Canada
    Viking
    May 18, 2021
    BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Indigenous
    Hardback
    Call Me Indian
    by Fred Sasakamoose Canada
    Viking
    May 18, 2021
    BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Indigenous
    Hardback
    NATIONAL BESTSELLER

    "Fred Sasakamoose played in the NHL before First Nations people had the right to vote in Canada. This page turner will have you cheering for 'Fast Freddy' as he faces off against huge challenges both on and off the ice--a great gift to every proud hockey fan, Canadian, and Indigenous person."
    --Wab Kinew, Leader of the Manitoba NDP and author of The Reason You Walk

    Trailblazer. Residential school Survivor. First Treaty Indigenous player in the NHL. All of these descriptions are true--but none of them tell the whole story.


    Fred Sasakamoose, torn from his home at the age of seven, endured the horrors of residential school for a decade before becoming one of 120 players in the most elite hockey league in the world. He has been heralded as the first Indigenous player with Treaty status in the NHL, making his official debut as a 1954 Chicago Black Hawks player on Hockey Night in Canada and teaching Foster Hewitt how to pronounce his name. Sasakamoose played against such legends as Gordie Howe, Jean Beliveau, and Maurice Richard. After twelve games, he returned home.

    When people tell Sasakamoose's story, this is usually where they end it. They say he left the NHL to return to the family and culture that the Canadian government had ripped away from him. That returning to his family and home was more important to him than an NHL career. But there was much more to his decision than that. Understanding Sasakamoose's choice means acknowledging the dislocation and treatment of generations of Indigenous peoples. It means considering how a man who spent his childhood as a ward of the government would hear those supposedly golden words: "You are Black Hawks property."

    Sasakamoose's story was far from over once his NHL days concluded. He continued to play for another decade in leagues around Western Canada. He became a band councillor, served as Chief, and established athletic programs for kids. He paved a way for youth to find solace and meaning in sports for generations to come. Yet, threaded through these impressive accomplishments were periods of heartbreak and unimaginable tragedy--as well moments of passion and great joy.

    This isn't just a hockey story; Sasakamoose's groundbreaking memoir sheds piercing light on Canadian history and Indigenous politics, and follows this extraordinary man's journey to reclaim pride in an identity and a heritage that had previously been used against him.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  4. Hour of the Witch
    by Chris Bohjalian
    Doubleday
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Historical / Colonial America & Revolution
    Hardback
    Hour of the Witch
    by Chris Bohjalian
    Doubleday
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Historical / Colonial America & Revolution
    Hardback
    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Flight Attendant: “Historical fiction at its best…. The book is a thriller in structure, and a real page-turner, the ending both unexpected and satisfying” (Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the Outlander series, The Washington Post).

    A
    young Puritan woman—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soulplots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive novel of historical suspense.


    Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life.

    But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary—a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony—soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows.

    A twisting, tightly plotted novel of historical suspense from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.

    Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!
    View this title on BNC CataList
  5. China
    by Edward Rutherfurd
    Doubleday Canada
    May 11, 2021
    FICTION / Historical / General
    Hardback
    China
    by Edward Rutherfurd
    Doubleday Canada
    May 11, 2021
    FICTION / Historical / General
    Hardback
    The “unparalleled master of the historical saga" (Newsweek) and internationally bestselling author of Paris and New York takes on an exhilarating new world with his trademark epic style in China: The Novel

    Edward Rutherfurd has enthralled millions of readers with his grand, sweeping historical sagas that tell the history of a famous place over multiple generations. Now, in China: The Novel, Rutherfurd takes readers into the rich and fascinating milieu of the Middle Kingdom.

    The story begins in 1839, at the dawn of the First Opium War, and follows Chinese history through Mao's Cultural Revolution and up to the present day. Rutherfurd chronicles the rising and falling fortunes of members of Chinese, British, and American families, as they negotiate the tides of history. Along the way, in his signature style, Rutherfurd provides a deeply researched portrait of Chinese history and society, its ancient traditions and great upheavals, and China's emergence as a rising global power. As always, we are treated to romance and adventure, heroines and scoundrels, grinding struggle and incredible fortunes.

    China: The Novel
    brings to life the rich terrain of this vast and constantly evolving country. From Shanghai to Nanking to the Great Wall, Rutherfurd chronicles the turbulent rise and fall of empires as the colonial West meets the opulent and complex East in a dramatic struggle between cultures and people.

    Extraordinarily researched and majestically told, Edward Rutherfurd paints a thrilling portrait of one of the most singular and remarkable countries in the world.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  6. The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba
    by Chanel Cleeton
    Berkley
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Hispanic & Latino / General
    Hardback
    The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba
    by Chanel Cleeton
    Berkley
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Hispanic & Latino / General
    Hardback
    Named one of 2021’s Most Anticipated Historical Novels and Best Beach Reads by Entertainment WeeklyOprah MagazineTravel + Leisure ∙ BuzzFeed ∙ Parade PopSugarBustle ∙ SheReads ∙ Brit + Co and more!

    “An exciting and inspiring read that shows us how womanhood, courage and revolution are three words that often mean the same thing.”―NPR

    At the end of the nineteenth century, three revolutionary women fight for freedom in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton's captivating new novel inspired by real-life events and the true story of a legendary Cuban woman—Evangelina Cisneros—who changed the course of history.


    A feud rages in Gilded Age New York City between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. When Grace Harrington lands a job at Hearst's newspaper in 1896, she’s caught in a cutthroat world where one scoop can make or break your career, but it’s a story emerging from Cuba that changes her life.

    Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women's jail, eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, proclaiming her, "The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba," she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence.

    With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, Grace and Hearst's staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  7. Ariadne
    by Jennifer Saint
    Flatiron Books
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback
    Ariadne
    by Jennifer Saint
    Flatiron Books
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback

    A mesmerizing debut novel for fans of Madeline Miller's Circe.

    Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up greeting the dawn from her beautiful dancing floor and listening to her nursemaid’s stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echo the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice.

    When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne’s decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind?

    Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne forges a new epic, one that puts the forgotten women of Greek mythology back at the heart of the story, as they strive for a better world.

    View this title on BNC CataList
  8. A Master of Djinn
    by P. Djeli Clark
    Tordotcom
    May 11, 2021
    FICTION / Fantasy / Historical
    Hardback
    A Master of Djinn
    by P. Djeli Clark
    Tordotcom
    May 11, 2021
    FICTION / Fantasy / Historical
    Hardback

    Included in NPR’s Favorite Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books Of The Past Decade (2011-2021)
    A Nebula Award Winner
    A Ignyte Award Winner
    A Compton Crook Award for Best New Novel Winner
    A Locus First Novel Award Winner
    A RUSA Reading List: Fantasy Winner
    A Hugo Award Finalist
    A World Fantasy Award Finalist
    A NEIBA Book Award Finalist
    A Mythopoeic Award Finalist
    A Dragon Award Finalist
    A Best of 2021 Pick in SFF for Amazon

    A Best of 2021 Pick in SFF for Kobo

    Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark goes full-length for the first time in his dazzling debut novel

    Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.

    So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world forty years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.

    Alongside her Ministry colleagues and a familiar person from her past, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city—or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…


    Novellas by P. Djèlí Clark
    The Black God's Drums
    The Haunting of Tram Car 015
    Ring Shout

    The Dead Djinn Universe contains stories set primarily in Clark's fantasy alternate Cairo, and can be enjoyed in any order.

    View this title on BNC CataList
  9. Little Victories: Autism Through a Father's Eyes (Graphic Novel)
    by Yvon Roy Canada
    Titan Comics
    May 25, 2021
    COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Nonfiction / Biography & Memoir
    Paperback / softback
    Little Victories: Autism Through a Father's Eyes (Graphic Novel)
    by Yvon Roy Canada
    Titan Comics
    May 25, 2021
    COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Nonfiction / Biography & Memoir
    Paperback / softback
    THE AWARD WINNING GRAPHIC NOVEL AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FATHER, AND THE CHALLENGES HE FACES RAISING HIS AUTISTIC SON.

    A beautiful visual exploration of the highs and lows experienced by a parent learning how to adapt to his son's autism. Faced with a challenging road ahead, the author uses creative flair and ingenuity in order to connect with his son, enabling him to reach his fullest potential and prepare him for the transition into adulthood.

    This stunning insight into the nature of autism and the daily struggles of a parent uses humor and compassion to convey its message. This is the perfect creative outlet for anyone - from parent to teacher - looking for detailed information on the subject with a more personal touch.

    Yvon Roy won the Best Biography Award from the Disability Fund and Society, as well receiving the INSPIREO High School Students Award for the most inspiring youth book, and the Literary Award for Citizenship from the Maine Teachers' League.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  10. The Quiet is Loud
    by Samantha Garner Canada
    Invisible Publishing
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Occult & Supernatural
    Paperback / softback
    The Quiet is Loud
    by Samantha Garner Canada
    Invisible Publishing
    May 04, 2021
    FICTION / Occult & Supernatural
    Paperback / softback

    Shortlisted for the 2022 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize

    The perfect marriage of literary and speculative fiction for readers of Kazuo Ishiguro and NK Jemisin.

    When Freya Tanangco was ten, she dreamed of her mother's death right before it happened. That’s when she realized she was a veker, someone with enhanced mental abilities and who is scorned as a result. Freya's adult life has been spent in hiding: from the troubled literary legacy created by her author father, and from the scrutiny of a society in which vekers often meet with violence.

    When her prophetic dreams take a dangerous turn, Freya finds herself increasingly forced to sacrifice her own anonymity—and the fragile safety that comes with it—in order to protect those around her.

    Interwoven with themes of Filipino Canadian and mixed-race identity, fantastical elements from Norse and Filipino mythology, and tarot card symbolism, The Quiet Is Loud is an intergenerational tale of familial love and betrayal, and what happens when we refuse to let others tell our stories for us.

    "Garner wears her spec fic, geek, and SF influences on her sleeve, and The Quiet Is Loud is a warm welcome to the more literary part of that universe."Understorey Magazine

    "A deeply thoughtful book about identity and the quest for true acceptance."—Stacey May Fowles

    View this title on BNC CataList

Sign up for our mailing list!

Sign up for the latest top 10 lists and other news about Loan Stars. You can unsubscribe at any time.


Sign up!