Pack These Books: This Year’s Best Spring Break Reads

To buy: $24, amazon.com, indiebound.org

The protagonist of Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi’s sparkling novel Call Me Zebra is, in fact, called Zebra (and that’s just where her utter originality begins). After her father’s death, Zebra sets out to retrace the journey the two of them made when they fled Iran years before. Along the way, she seeks solace in literature and falls in love. (February 6)

To buy: $26.99, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Add a dose of suspense to your spring break reading plans with this novel, a thrilling mystery that begins when Alice Shipley and her new husband unexpectedly encounter Alice’s former roommate, Lucy Mason, soon after arriving in Tangier. A disappearance forces Alice to revisit the tragedy that caused her to lose touch with her roommate a year earlier. (March 27)

To buy: $25.95, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Will Boast reimagines the Apollo and Daphne myth with this wonderfully textured novel about a young woman who suffers paralysis when experiencing extreme emotion and whose carefully constructed existence is shaken when she meets a charming young man named Ollie. (February 6)

To buy: $16.95, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Set in the middle of a New York City heat wave, Neon in Daylight follows the adventures of Kate, a young woman living in Manhattan who spends her days taking care of a cat named Joni Mitchell, Skyping her boyfriend in England, and encountering strangers who change her life. (January 9)

To buy: $26, amazon.com, indiebound.org

The central character of the poignant new novel How to Stop Time is 41-year-old Tom Hazard, a man who has been alive for centuries, and who moves every eight years in order to avoid detection. As he settles into a new life in London, he realizes that the one thing that would derail his (very long) life—falling in love—might just be worth it. (February 6)

To buy: $28, amazon.com, indiebound.org

This book is a celebration of the life, writing, and legacy of noted cookbook author, chef, and activist Edna Lewis. It’s filled with essays by leading chefs and writers, including Mashama Bailey, John T. Edge, Vivian Howard, and Caroline Randall Williams. (April 13)

To buy: $26, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, Asymmetry, is told in three parts and introduces readers to an American editor named Alice and an Iraqi-American man named Amar. While their stories seem separate, they overlap and intersect in ever more compelling ways. (February 6)

To buy: $26, amazon.com, indiebound.org

This wonderful collection is wide-ranging and immersive, a woven landscape of moving stories about family, loss, and what it means to live a life. It animates characters from the past and present, both historical figures and unnamed Americans, whose stories stay with you long after you turn the last page. (March 20)

To buy: $27, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Joal, the Senegalese port and fishing village, is the subject of Anna Badkhen’s fascinating new book, Fisherman’s Blues. In it, Badkhen sheds light on the realities of overfishing and climate change, which are creating unprecedented change in the West African community. (March 13)

To buy: $15, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Fans of classic romantic comedies will love this story about pediatric surgeon Drew, who enlists the help of mayoral chief of staff Alexa when he convinces her to accompany him to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. Romance and complications ensue. (January 30)

To buy: $26, amazon.com, indiebound.org

In Feast Days, Emma follows her husband (and his career in finance) to São Paulo, Brazil, where her days consist of tutoring, dinners, and assorted hobbies. Those days soon become charged and changed when she begins volunteering and is thrust into a landscape of protest and unrest. (March 13)

To buy: $27, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Leesa Cross-Smith’s debut novel Whiskey & Ribbons is set in present-day Louisville, Kentucky, and tells three deeply connected stories—one is of a police officer named Eamon who is killed in the line of duty, and the other two are of his wife, Evi, and his brother, Dalton, who struggle to heal, to come to terms with their grief, and to raise Eamon’s now-fatherless young son, Noah, in the midst of great loss. (March 6)

To buy: $26, amazon.com, indiebound.org

These exciting and inventive stories from writer Anjali Sachdeva range widely, fusing exquisite, concrete detail with the questions, wonders, and compelling strangeness of speculative fiction. (February 20)

To buy: $16, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Translated by Jhumpa Lahiri, this unputdownable novel by lauded writer Domenico Starnone is set in Naples, Italy, where a grandfather named Daniele is charged with babysitting his four-year-old grandson, Mario, which proves to be more difficult than anticipated. (March 6)

To buy: $25.99, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Jane Harper’s debut novel sees five colleagues embark on a hike during a corporate retreat. When one of the women goes missing and the others’ stories don’t line up, police agent Aaron Falk must find the truth. (February 6)

To buy: $15.99, amazon.com, indiebound.org

In Hurricane Season, childless southern Alabama couple Betsy and Ty Franklin are charged with taking care of their two nieces for a few weeks. When a hurricane threatens the coast, Betsy, Ty, and Betsy’s sister, Jenna, have difficult decisions to make for themselves, their farm, and their family. (April 3)

To buy: $28, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Escape to the beach with Southern writer Kristy Woodson Harvey’s newest book, the second in her Peachtree Bluff series. It’s a story about hope and heartache and the unbreakable bonds of family. (April 3)

To buy: $26, amazon.com, indiebound.org

At turns funny and suspenseful, Leah Stewart’s new book contrasts two actors, newly famous Charlie Outlaw and his ex-girlfriend, Josie Lamar, whose fame has faded since the success of her early twenties. While each is trying to get over the other, Josie soon realizes she must act in order to find her way back to Charlie. (March 27)