Fiction

The Witch’s Orchard, Archer Sullivan’s debut novel, is both an excellent mystery and a study of how a small, isolated community endures a series of soul-shaking events.

In W.M. Akers’ new mystery, To Kill a Cook, set in 1972, a restaurant critic rushes to solve the murder of a chef and simultaneously save her career and her upcoming marriage. Akers will discuss To Kill a Cook at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 4.

George Saunders’ Vigil raises nuanced questions about kindness and what we owe the living — and the dead. Saunders will discuss the book with Ann Patchett at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on January 30.

Brandon Taylor’s readers expect his novels to coalesce around deep philosophical thought. In his latest, Minor Black Figures, ideas about God function as the engine of the book.

In Ben Markovits’ The Rest of Our Lives, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, a middle-aged man embarks on a cross-country journey to rediscover his identity. Markovits will discuss The Rest of Our Lives at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 12.

Three Guesses, the debut novella by Memphian Chris McClain Johnson, offers an epistolary tale of surprising friendship between three very different adults. What begins as a search for the meaning of a painting by one of the three transforms into spirited, platonic exchanges that enrich each character’s life with greater meaning, shared intimacy, and self-actualization.