Opportunity knocks for an Iranian immigrant in California when the county offers for sale a seized house at a bargain price. It will serve as a launching pad for his real-estate business. When the county discovers it made an error, the drug-addicted woman who owned the house demands its return, but the Iranian refuses. Unfortunately for him, the woman's lover is a policeman who takes the law into his hands.

"Miami-based The Spirit of Europe, the third largest cruise liner in the world, plows through the Mediterranean every summer, offering its passengers a temporary escape from their everyday lives. But even the bloated tackiness of the ship's much-hyped belly flop competition is not immune to the chaos of the European migration crisis. When a disabled raft nears The Spririt of Europe, the ship's captain is forced to do something headquarters in Miami...

In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, Hans -- a banker originally from the Netherlands -- finds himself marooned among the strange occupants of the Chelsea Hotel after his English wife and son return to London. Alone and untethered, feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with...

An Italian immigrant watches her six children grow up while she searches for her seventh, the product of a love affair who was given up for adoption. In turn-of-the-century Italy, fourteen-year-old Josephine, sheltered and naive, is forced into an arranged marriage to a man she doesn't know or love who is about to depart for America, where she later joins him. Bound by tradition, Josephine gives birth to seven children. The last, Valentina, is conceived...

"One September afternoon, Yosef and Mariam, young Ethiopian immigrans, set off on the road from their new home in Peoria, Illinois, in search of their new identity as an American couple. Thirty years later, their son, Jonas, desperate to make sense of the generational and cultural ties that have forged him, sets out to retrace his parents' trip. In a stunning display of imagination, Jonas weaves together a family history that takes him from the...

"Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer was one of the most widely and highly praised novels of 2015, the winner not only of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the Center for Fiction Debut Novel Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, the ALA Carnegie Medal for Fiction, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the California Book Award for First Fiction. Nguyen's next fiction book, The Refugees, is a collection of perfectly...

"Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in...

"The incandescent story of a 104-year-old woman and the sweet, strange young boy assigned to help her around the house, a friendship that touches each member of the boy's unmoored family For years, guitarist Quinn Porter has been on the road, chasing gig after gig, largely absent to his twice-ex-wife Belle and their odd, Guinness records-obsessed son. When the boy dies suddenly, Quinn seeks forgiveness for his paternal shortcomings by completing the...

Bitter Orange Tree is a profound exploration of social status, wealth, desire, and female agency. It presents a mosaic portrait of one young woman's attempt to understand the roots she has grown from, and to envisage an adulthood in which her own power and happiness might find the freedom necessary to bear fruit and flourish. Zuhour, an Omani student at a British university, is caught between the past and the present. As she attempts to form friendships...

"Kiran leaves her home in Punjab for a new start in Canada after a sexual assualt leaves her pregnant. But overstaying her visa and living undocumented brings its own perils for both her and her daughter, Sahaara. Sahaara would do anything to protect her mother. When she learns the truth about Kiran's past, she feels compelled to seek justice--even if it means challenging a powerful and dangerous man."--Book jacket