Open Books Challenge 2025: A Cross-Genre Book

Updated December 31, 2024
Rochester Public Library RPL Staff
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Open Books Challenge 2025: A Cross-Genre Book

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Nicked
Anderson, M. T.
Paper Book
The strange
Ballingrud, Nathan
Paper Book
A Locus Award Finalist 1931, New Galveston, Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt's gang who have stolen her mother's voice, destroyed her father, and left her solely with a need for vengeance.
The hexologists
Bancroft, Josiah
Paper Book
The first book in a wildly inventive and mesmerizing new fantasy series from acclaimed author Josiah Bancroft where magical mysteries abound and only one team can solve them: The Hexologists. "Bancroft is a magician." -- Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe<...
Adora and the distance
Bernardin, Marc
Paper Book
Adora and the Distance is a YA fantasy graphic novel following the adventures of Adora, a brave young woman of color who lives in a fantastical world with underground pirates, ghosts, and a mysterious force called 'The Distance' which threatens to destroy it all. Now only Adora can stop it. From...
The ministry of time
Bradley, Kaliane
Paper Book
A short history of nearly everything
Bryson, Bill
Paper Book
THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * One of the world's most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body takes his ultimate journey--into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer. "Brims with...
Soulless
Carriger, Gail.
Paper Book
Buffy meets Jane Austen in the first book of this wickedly funny NYT bestselling series about a young woman whose brush with the supernatural leads to a deadly investigation of London's high society. Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations....
Jukebox
Chanani, Nidhi
Paper Book
Grab some coins for the jukebox, and get ready for a colorful, time-traveling, musical tale about family and courage. A mysterious jukebox, old vinyl records, and cryptic notes on music history, are Shaheen's only clues to her father's abrupt disappearance. She looks to her...
The fox wife : a novel
Choo, Yangsze
Paper Book
Ring shout : or, Hunting Ku Kluxes in the end times
Clark, P. Dje?li?
Paper Book
Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror "A fantastical, brutal and thrilling triumph of the imagination...Clark's combination of...
Cloud cuckoo land : a novel
Doerr, Anthony
Paper Book
On the New York Times bestseller list for over 20 weeks * A New York Times Notable Book * A National Book Award Finalist * Named a Best Book of the Year by Fresh Air, Time, Entertainment Weekly, Associated Press, and many more "If you're looking for...
Gunslinger girl
Ely, Lyndsay
Paper Book
James Patterson presents a bold new heroine -- a cross between Katniss Everdeen and Annie Oakley: Serendipity Jones, the fastest sharpshooter in tomorrow's West. Seventeen-year-old Serendipity "Pity" Jones inherited two things from her mother: a pair of six shooters and...
Dr. No : a novel
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2023 PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD A sly, madcap novel about supervillains and nothing, really, from an American novelist whose star keeps rising The protagonist of Percival Everett's puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by...
Calamity
Fay, Constance
Paper Book
Winter's Orbit meets Ilona Andrews in this sexy enemies-to-lovers romance. "Constance Fay...wildly combines heart-stirring romance with a high-stakes adventure in a wonderfully deep space odyssey. This passionate story is a heady mix of suspense, romance, and intrigue, all set...
Outlander Cross stitch
Gabaldon, Diana
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The first book in Diana Gabaldon's acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series. One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS's The Great American Read!   Unrivaled storytelling....
The echo wife
Gailey, Sarah
Paper Book
"A trippy domestic thriller which takes the extramarital affair trope in some intriguingly weird new directions." - Entertainment Weekly I'm embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the open, right there in front of me, but it...
Coraline
Gaiman, Neil
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal-winning author Neil Gaiman's modern classic, Coraline--also an Academy Award-nominated film "Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house...." When Coraline steps through a door to find another...
The inquisitor's tale, or, The three magical children and their holy dog
Gidwitz, Adam
Paper Book
A Newbery Honor Book Winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award An exciting and hilarious medieval adventure from the bestselling author of A Tale Dark and Grimm. Beautifully illustrated throughout by Hatem Aly! "A profound and ambitious tour de force....
The husbands : a novel
Gramazio, Holly
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA'S APRIL BOOK CLUB PICK * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2024 BY THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, PEOPLE, PARADE, AND BOOKRIOT The Husbands delights in asking: how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of...
The anthropocene reviewed : essays on a human-centered planet
Green, John
Paper Book
"Masterful. The Anthropocene Reviewed is a beautiful, timely book about the human condition--and a timeless reminder to pay attention to your attention." --Adam Grant, #1 bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast Re:Thinking Instant #1...
My Lady Jane
Hand, Cynthia.
Paper Book
Now a streaming series on Prime Video! This comical, fantastical, romantical, New York Times bestselling, (not) entirely true story of Lady Jane Grey is "an uproarious historical fantasy that's not to be missed" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In My Lady Jane, ...
Things in the basement
Hatke, Ben
Paper Book
From New York Times bestselling author Ben Hatke comes Things in the Basement, a young readers graphic novel about Milo, a young boy who discovers a portal to a secret world in his basement. It was supposed to just be a normal basement--some storage boxes, dust, you...
The Cloisters : a novel
Hays, Katy
Paper Book
In this "sinister, jaw-dropping" (Sarah Penner, author of The Lost Apothecary) debut novel from the author of Saltwater, a circle of researchers uncovers a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York's famed Met Cloisters. When Ann Stilwell...
Displacement
Hughes, Kiku
Paper Book
A teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps in Displacement, a historical graphic novel from Kiku Hughes. Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the...
The fervor : a novel
Katsu, Alma
Paper Book
In an internment camp in Idaho in 1944, American-born Meiko Briggs and her daughter Aiko dream of their home in Seattle and the safe return of Meiko's husband who is away with the Air Force. A sickness starts to spread amongst those in the camp and though it starts as a minor cold it triggers...
Gemina
Kaufman, Amie
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller Brace yourself for GEMINA--the highly anticipated sequel to the book critics called "out-of-this-world awesome"--featuring journal illustrations by bestselling author Marie Lu!   Moving to a space station at the edge of...
The Djinn waits a hundred years
Khan, Shubnum
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE "Rich and swoony...an ambitious delight, with rich characters and some exceptionally lovely writing...This is the start of a major career." -- The New York Times Book Review AN INDIE NEXT PICK A LIBRARY...
The legend of Auntie Po
Khor, Shing Yin
Paper Book
A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST Part historical fiction, part fable, and 100 percent adventure. Thirteen-year-old Mei reimagines the myths of Paul Bunyan as starring a Chinese heroine while she works in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885. Aware of the racial tumult...
The spare man
Kowal, Mary Robinette
Paper Book
Hugo, Locus, and Nebula-Award winner Mary Robinette Kowal blends her no-nonsense approach to life in space with her talent for creating glittering high-society in this stylish SF mystery, The Spare Man. A 2023 Hugo Award Finalist!A 2022 Locus...
Station Eternity
Lafferty, Mur
Paper Book
From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But being surrounded by death also makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient...
Lone women : a novel
LaValle, Victor
Paper Book
Disfigured : on fairy tales, disability, and making space
Leduc, Amanda
Paper Book
A CBC BOOKS BEST NONFICTION OF 2020 AN ENTROPY MAGAZINE BEST NONFICTION 2020/21 A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BOOK OF THE DAY (07/23/2022) Fairy tales shape how we see the world, so what happens when you identify more with the Beast than Beauty? If every disabled...
Daughter of Calamity
Lin, Rosalie M.
Paper Book
An irresistibly dark reimagining of 1930s Shanghai filled with glamour, gods and gangsters. Daughter of Calamity is an atmospheric fantasy from Rosalie M. Lin, perfect for fans of S. A. Chakraborty and Fonda Lee. 'I was utterly swept up . . . seductive, sprawling,...
Impossible
Lotz, Sarah
Paper Book
*Shortlisted for the 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction* Discover the love story of the year 'The book we all need right now' SARAH PINBOROUGH 'Funny, thrilling' EMMA GANNON 'Unputdownable' JENNIFER SAINT 'Holy s***'...
Prophet
Macdonald, Helen
Paper Book
YOUR HAPPIEST MEMORY IS THEIR DEADLIEST WEAPON. 'Fabulous... Present-day science fiction that feels like the best sort of spy novel' NEIL GAIMAN, author of Coraline This is Prophet. It knows when you were happiest. It gives life to your fondest...
Sea of Tranquility
Mandel, Emily St. John
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years...
Hooked
McIntire, Emily
Paper Book
From BookTok sensation Emily McIntire comes a dark and delicious fractured fairy tale reimagining of Peter Pan. He wants revenge, but he wants her more... James has always had one agenda: destroy his enemy, Peter Michaels. When Peter's twenty-year-old daughter Wendy shows up in...
Why fish don't exist : a story of loss, love, and the hidden order of life
Miller, Lulu
Paper Book
A Best Book of 2020: The Washington Post * NPR * Chicago Tribune * Smithsonian A "remarkable" (Los Angeles Times), "seductive" (The Wall Street Journal) debut from the new cohost of Radiolab,...
Gideon the Ninth
Muir, Tamsyn
Paper Book
Gideon the Ninth is the first book in the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Locked Tomb Series, and one of the Best Books of 2019 according to NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, BookPage, Shelf Awareness, BookRiot, and Bustle!...
The blind spots
Mullen, Thomas
Paper Book
From the acclaimed author of Darktown comes the most inventive crime novel since Minority Report. 'It's rare to find a thriller with such a fantastic and original concept. I was gripped' --- Anthony Horowitz In a world where a global...
A light most hateful
Piper, Hailey
Paper Book
Three years after running away from home, Olivia is stuck with a dead-end job in nowhere town Chapel Hill, Pennsylvania. At least she has her best friend, Sunflower. Olivia figures she'll die in Chapel Hill, if not from boredom, then the summer night storm which crashes into town with a...
A grandmother begins the story
Porter, Michelle
Paper Book
From award-winning Métis author Michelle Porter, a powerfully funning and moving story told not just by five generations of Métis women, but also by the land, the bison that surround them, and two utterly captivating dogs. Carter is a young mother on a quest to...
The dead romantics
Poston, Ashley
Paper Book
Florence Day is the ghostwriter for a prolific romance author. When her new editor won't give her an extension, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive: she must return home for the first time in a decade to help bury her beloved...
Killers of a certain age
Raybourn, Deanna
Paper Book
They've spent their lives as assassins in a clandestine international organization, but at 60 years old, four women find they can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this book by New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie...
Fuzz : when nature breaks the law
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers...
Arrow heart
Sky, Rebecca
Paper Book
What if you had the power to make any boy fall in love with you? Addictive romance with a fantasy twist for fans of Holly Smale, Ally Carter, and Zoe Sugg. The gods are gone. The people have forgotten them. But sixteen-year-old Rachel Patel can't...
House of Hollow
Sutherland, Krystal
Paper Book
The last murder at the end of the world
Turton, Stuart
Paper Book
The road to Roswell : a novel
Willis, Connie
Paper Book
A delightful novel about alien invasions, conspiracies, and the incredibly silly things people are willing to believe--some of which may actually be true--from the Nebula and Hugo award-winning author of Blackout and All Clear "An absolute blast with abundant...
White horse
Wurth, Erika T.
Paper Book
"This ghost story is a perfect example of new wave horror that will also satisfy fans of classic Stephen King." --Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic Erika T. Wurth's White Horse is a gritty, vibrant novel about an...
Fourth Wing
Yarros, Rebecca
Paper Book
" Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the...
Interior Chinatown
Yu, Charles
Paper Book
Winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction - a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, and escaping the roles we are forced to play-by the author of the infinitely inventive How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.
Find this list online: https://librarian.syndetics.com/syndeticsunbound/lp/359.4407/list/5001

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