The Tiny Slice

“It’s harder to find a good coffee table than it is to fall in love.”

—From Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead (July 21)

Land by Maggie O’Farrell (June 2) The author of Hamnet sets her absorbing, atmospheric novel in Ireland in the wake of the Great Hunger—as the Irish call the Famine—and centers it around a struggling family, each member’s trauma and their dreams of escape.

Whistler by Ann Patchett (June 2) Middle-aged Daphne encounters her beloved former stepfather after decades apart and reckons with the accident that tore him from the family when she was a child. By the best-selling author of, among others, Tom Lake.

Daughters of the Sun and Moon by Lisa See (June 9) See (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan) portrays three Chinese women, Dove, Petal and Moon, making their way in the dusty Wild West of 1870s Los Angeles.

The Children by Melissa Albert (June 2) YA author Albert goes for a grownup fantasy in this story about the adult children—estranged siblings—of a famous fantasy author as they contend with their bizarre childhoods and legacy as characters in her books. Stephen King dubs it “a page-turner … dusted with magic.”

Lost in the Summer of ’69 by Eliza Knight (June 9) Former musician Eleanor Bell hits the road with her guitar for a California music festival and a last blast before her dementia ties her down, with her daughter and granddaughter hot on her heels. Feel-good, nostalgia-steeped fun.

Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer (June 9) In this sunny novel by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Less, a young man is hired to assist an eccentric Italian widow (Coco) in her Tuscan villa; his job includes trying to find her long-lost love.

Red Sheet by James Ellroy (June 9) The author of L.A. Confidential plunges us into 1960s Los Angeles, where police investigator Freddy Otash is tasked by the feds with rooting out Communists. The noirish tale includes cameos from figures like Richard Nixon and Hugh Hefner.

The Frenzy by Joyce Carol Oates (June 16) Oates’ fiction is as dark and brilliant as ever—as evidenced by her engrossing new short stories, which dive unblinkingly into the minds of troubled characters struggling with destructive impulses and desires. —Christina Ianzito