Best Fiction Books

Rupert Sent Leger inherits a fortune and travels to a Balkan land called the Land of the Blue Mountains, where he encounters a mysterious woman in a shroud who may be a vampire — or a princess in disguise. Gothic horror merges with Ruritanian adventure in Stoker's politically ambitious late novel.

Michael Crichton's satirical thriller weaves together multiple storylines involving biotech corporations, genetic patents, talking transgenic animals, and the researchers, lawyers, and patients caught in the commercialization of the human genome. It is a darkly comedic indictment of an industry racing ahead of its own ethics.

Four north Londoners — each shaped by the same council estate — navigate adulthood differently. Smith's most formally adventurous novel abandons the warm sociability of White Teeth for fragmented, pressured prose that tries to catch consciousness in the act.

Sophie Honeywell inherits a house on Scribbly Gum Island from her great-aunt Connie — an island famous for the unsolved Munro Baby Mystery of 1932 — and finds herself drawn into a community of women keeping secrets that have lasted for generations.

In a near-future America where women are restricted to 100 words per day by government-issued wrist counters, neurolinguist Dr. Jean McClellan must rediscover her voice when the regime suddenly needs her expertise.