Bookshop Santa Cruz staff recommendation:

In 1857, a child was convicted of murdering his mother after her body was found decomposing in their home. This lurid point of entry belies a fascinating and surprisingly compassionate examination of a crime that gripped Victorian London. Like the best crime narratives, its focus is not on the crime itself, but on the extraordinary ways it shaped the lives left in its wake. - Katherine

After the four Skinner siblings’ father suddenly dies, their mother retreats to her own world during a 2-year span that they call The Pause. The children run wild and in the process forge unusually close bonds. The book starts when the youngest Skinner Fiona is a 102-year-old famous poet in the year 2079 and in it she tells the story of the Skinner family. This novel is a rich family epic full of love and heart, grief and challenge, and ultimately redemption.

You will find compelling fiction in this excellent twenty story collection.   The introductions from the series editor, Heidi Pitlor and this year’s editor, Roxane Gay are valuable.  The authors’ contributions explaining the thinking behind each story are useful if read after each story.  Roxane Gay has selected stories from diverse authors, varying locations, and themes. You will be in an immigration detention center looking for your son or a man with Alzheimer’s left alone with his grandson or an Iranian immigrant who struggles to connect with his daughter and more.

Seedfolks is one of those books that leaves you wishing you could be part of the community garden around which it revolves. Told through the eyes of multiple characters, this slim novel tackles issues of belonging, judgement, and acceptance. How does a community form? What and who sustains it? I found it hard to not love each character equally, but Curtis became my favorite.  Knowing little about gardening, he knows his estranged girlfriend loves tomatoes. A choice for young adults and grown-ups this book may make you want to reconnect with the earth, or a neighbor down the road. Community grows where it is planted.