Short stories, affairs, secrets, Judy Blume for grown-ups and — finally — a sequel to ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’
In the Country
Stories
Mia Alvar
Alfred A. Knopf, $26.95
The nine stories in this debut collection follow Filipinos living in their native country and abroad, all in search of a place to call home. (June)
Saint Mazie
Jami Attenberg
Grand Central, $25
The author of “The Middlesteins” returns with a novel about Mazie Phillips, the “Queen of the Bowery” who opened her theater to homeless New Yorkers during the Great Depression. (June)
The State We’re In
Maine Stories
Ann Beattie
Scribner, $25
The short-story master returns with a collection set mostly in the Pine Tree State and featuring a sarcastic, world-weary teenager named Jocelyn. (August)
In the Unlikely Event
Judy Blume
Alfred A. Knopf, $27.95
Set largely in the 1950s, Blume’s novel for adults follows residents of Elizabeth, N.J., whose town is wracked by three airplane crashes in a short space of time. (June)
Enchanted August
Brenda Bowen
Pamela Dorman/Viking, $27.95
Four stressed-out New Yorkers spend a month on a New England island to relax but find it hard to leave their problems in the city. (June)
Confession of the Lioness
Mia Couto, translated by David Brookshaw
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25
Young women in a small Mozambique village are being killed by what the townspeople believe is a lion, but the truth is much more complicated. (July)
Sofrito
Phillippe Diederich
Cinco Puntos, $16.95 paper
A New York restaurant owner hopes to turn his imperiled eatery around by stealing a chicken recipe that also happens to be a Cuban government secret. (June)
The Sunlit Night
Rebecca Dinerstein
Bloomsbury, $26
A young artist going through a painful breakup and a teenage boy whose father has just died form a friendship on an island north of the Arctic Circle. (June)
Summer Secrets
Jane Green
St. Martin’s, $26.99
A journalist in England, struggling with alcoholism, must come to terms with a longburied family secret and one painful, drunken mistake. (June)
Death and Mr. Pickwick
Stephen Jarvis
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30
This sprawling historical novel follows the creation of “The Pickwick Papers,” featuring its author, Charles Dickens, and the artist who may have originated the Mr. Pickwick character. (June)
Loving Day
Mat Johnson
Spiegel & Grau, $26
A biracial man moves from Wales to Philadelphia after he inherits his late father’s haunted mansion and soon encounters two people at a comic book convention who will change his life. (Out now)
The Festival of Insignificance
Milan Kundera, translated by Linda Asher
Harper, $23.99
Four friends in Paris discuss topics including sex and politics in the Czech-French writer’s first novel in more than a decade. (June)
China Rich Girlfriend
Kevin Kwan
Doubleday, $26.95
This sequel to the successful novel “Crazy Rich Asians” follows the trials and tribulations of extremely wealthy, young social climbers in China. (June)
Go Set a Watchman
Harper Lee
Harper, $27.99
Probably the most anticipated American novel in years, this sequel features Scout and Atticus Finch in Maycomb, Ala., 20 years after the events in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” (July)
The Rocks
Peter Nichols
Riverhead, $27.95
Told in reverse, this tragic and sprawling novel chronicles three generations of troubled British expatriates living on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. (Out now)
The Beautiful Bureaucrat
Helen Phillips
Henry Holt, $25
A young woman takes a data entry job at a mysterious facility and starts to get suspicious of her employer after her husband temporarily disappears. (August)
Among the Ten Thousand Things
Julia Pierpont
Random House, $26
A philandering artist’s secret life is discovered by his two children; the revelation stuns his ex-dancer wife and throws their family into a tailspin. (July)
Kitchens of the Great Midwest
J. Ryan Stradal
Pamela Dorman/Viking, $27.95
This debut by an L.A. writer is the story of a young woman raised by a single father who grows up to become a
celebrated chef. (July)
How to Write a Novel
Melanie Sumner
Vintage, $14.95
A precocious 12-year-old Georgia girl thinks she can find a husband for her single mom and money for their family by writing a novel. (August)
A Hanging at Cinder Bottom
Glenn Taylor
Tin House, $15.95 In 1910, a poker shark and his girlfriend, a brothel madam, face the gallows for allegedly murdering a West Virginia mayor. (July)
Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness
Jennifer Tseng
Europa Editions, $16
A 41-year-old librarian, stuck in an unhappy marriage, is drawn into a passionate affair with a high school boy. (Out now)
The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty
Vendela Vida
Ecco, $25.99
After her backpack is stolen, a woman on vacation in Morocco assumes another person’s identity and befriends a famous actress shooting a film. (June)
The Dying Grass
A Novel of the Nez Perce War
William T. Vollmann
Viking, $55
The fifth installment in the author’s “Seven Dreams” series, this nearly 1,400-page novel chronicles the 1877 war between Native Americans and the U.S. Army in the American Northwest. (July)