Fiction

10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world by elif shafak (novel)

In the pulsating moments after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul, Tequila Leila enters a state of heightened awareness. Her heart has stopped beating but her brain is still active — for 10 minutes 38 seconds. While the Turkish sun rises and her friends sleep soundly nearby, she remembers her life — and the lives of others, outcasts like her.
- first paragraph of book blurb

the nightinggale by kristin hannah (novel)

In a quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France… but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs on the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
-first paragraph of book blurb

Americanah by chimamanda ngozi adiche

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post 9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. At once a powerful and tender, Americanah is a remarkable novel of race, love, and identity by the award-winning writer Chimamamnda Ngozi Adichie.
-full book blurb