Magical Realism Fiction

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend's future is destroyed in an accident while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor filled with emotion, from dark suffering to true happiness - a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world.

The next step in Ellie Baker’s marriage: divorce. She and her husband, Jonah, are heading to Florida to break it to the family. No great drama to share. After twenty years of marriage, they’ve just fallen out of love. Simple. Not to their college-age daughter, Maggie, who is devastated. Or to Ellie’s father, Frank, who grows as cold as a retiree can get in Orlando. As for Ellie’s mother, Bunny: no, no, no. She doesn’t want to hear it. After a dreadful weekend, Ellie and Jonah return home to New Jersey with hearts and minds still set on a split.

In 1820s Venice, world-renowned magician Oscar Van Hoff confounds sold-out crowds with his astounding manifestations. Even his beautiful wife and assistant, Olivia, is mystified. Her job is to smile and recite her lines—onstage and in society. But the thankless routine is bringing out her rebellious side. Then, on the eve of what promises to be Oscar’s greatest performance yet, Olivia uncovers a secret with the power to shatter all her husband’s illusions. Now the finale belongs to her.

In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends. Nainoa’s family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods - a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities.

Irene Beltrán is a force to be reckoned with. As a magazine journalist, an unusual profession for a woman with her privileged upbringing, she is constantly challenging the oppressive regime. Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés. Together, they are an inseparable team and - despite Irene’s engagement to an army captain - form a passionate connection.

Seventeen years after falling from a stolen car into a remote northern town, Billie Jean Fontaine is still an outsider. She may follow the stifling rules of this odd place, but no one will forget that she came from elsewhere. When Billie Jean vanishes one cold October night in her bare feet and track suit with only her truck keys, those closest to her begin a frantic search. Her daughter, Pony, a girl struggling against being a teen in the middle of nowhere; her killer dog to whom she cannot tell a lie; her husband, The Heavy, a man haunted by his past; and more....

A ship. A garden. A library. A key. In Kaleidoscope, the incomparable Brian Selznick presents the story of two people bound to each other through time and space, memory and dreams. At the center of their relationship is a mystery about the nature of grief and love which will look different to each listener. Kaleidoscope is a feat of storytelling that illuminates how even the wildest tales can help us in the hardest times.

When Harlow Estrada is abruptly fired from her dream job and her boyfriend proves to be a jerk, her world turns upside down. She flees New York City to the one place she can always call home—the enchanted Hacienda Estrada. The Estrada family farm in Mexico houses an abundance of charmed flowers cultivated by Harlow’s mother, sisters, aunt, and cousins. By harnessing the magic in these flowers, they can heal hearts, erase memories, interpret dreams—but not Harlow.

Eva Luna is a young woman whose powers as a storyteller bring her friendship and love. Lying in bed with her European lover, refugee and journalist Rolf Carlé, Eva answers his request for a story "you have never told anyone before" with these 23 samples of her vibrant artistry. Interweaving the real and the magical, she explores love, vengeance, compassion, and the strengths of women, creating a world that is at once poignantly familiar and intriguingly new.

A new threat arises, stirring the beasts in its wake. A primordial beast so powerful all the gatherers in the nation have little hope of defeating it. Aiden must find a way to stand and prevent the destruction of Craesti City, the capital of the Kingdom.

Kelsey Willoughby doesn’t have time to pursue her dream of writing a novel. Imagination doesn’t pay the bills, and she’s busy saving her beautiful bookshop from online competition, hotel developers, and the sneaking suspicion that nobody reads anymore. Not to mention all those voices telling her she doesn’t have talent. But then the vacant lot of weeds next door starts to shimmer.

Whale, set in a remote village in South Korea, follows the lives of many linked characters, including Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. Brimming with surprises and wicked humor, Whale is an adventure-satire of epic proportions by one of the most original voices in international literature.

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like any other, but something strange is happening out at the cemetery. Still Meadows, as it's called, is anything but still. Funny and profound, this novel in the tradition of Flagg's Can't Wait to Get to Heaven and Thornton Wilder's Our Town deals with universal themes of heaven and earth and everything in between, as Flagg tells a surprising story of life, afterlife, and the mysterious goings-on of ordinary people.

Fiona Farrow is ignoring her destiny. She has no interest in guarding the Sacred Scrolls from the evil Shadow Order; not after the same job took her parents away. But when a powerful demon mage from the Shadow Order steals one of the Sacred Scrolls and starts hunting down Protectors of Light, Fiona will have to put on her magical suit of armor and face her fears. If she doesn't, the Shadow Order will destroy humanity and banish Fiona to an obscure dimension for the rest of her nightmarish eternity.

Mysterious murders, shadowy figures, and high school. Life can be hard, death can be harder. Cole Harper is dead. Reynold McCabe is alive and free. Mihko Laboratories has reopened the research facility and works to manufacture and weaponize the illness that previously plagued Wounded Sky. People are missing. The community has been quarantined. What deal did Eva strike with Choch? Who will defeat Reynold and Mihko? Time is running out.

In Temporary, a young woman’s workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness, connection, and something, at last, to call her own. Whether it’s shining an endless closet of shoes, swabbing the deck of a pirate ship, assisting an assassin, or filling in for the Chairman of the Board, for the mythical Temporary, “there is nothing more personal than doing your job.”

For generations, the Olivares women have sought to control their daughters’ destinies, starting with their names. In life, Olvido constantly clashed with her carefree daughter. Then teenage Angustias discovered she was pregnant and left her mother’s home in search of her own. Ten years later, Felicitas finally meets her estranged grandmother and is terribly disappointed when Olvido is nothing like a grandmother should be. She is strict, cold, and…dead. Now, Olvido is convinced the only way her spirit will cross over is if she resolves her unfinished business.

By a riverbank in Africa, two lovers meet for the first time. They make a promise to meet again the next day, same time, same place, but only one of them shows up. This sounds like the beginning of a love story, but it's more than that, for this breath-taking tale takes the listener into the heart of a vibrant world, a complex and intriguing civilization of warriors and kings, philosophers and artists, parents and lovers. A world and culture which is about to end, for glimpsed on the horizon, seen but unsuspected, beautiful ships with white sails are waiting.

Irreverently juggling magical realism, film noir, hip hop, and chicanismo, Tropic of Orange takes place in a Los Angeles where the homeless, gangsters, infant organ entrepreneurs, and Hollywood collide on a stretch of the Harbor Freeway. Hemmed in by wildfires, it's a symphony conducted from an overpass, grandiose, comic, and as diverse as the city itself - from an author who has received the California Book Award and the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award, among other literary honors.

In Kentucky, back in 1933, Carol's daddy lost his 13-year-old daughter in a game of cards. Award-winning author Simon Van Booy's spellbinding novel spans decades as he tells the story of Carol and the people in her life. Incidents intersect and lives unexpectedly change course in this masterfully interwoven story of chance and choice that leads home again to a night blessed with light.