2024 Massachusetts Book Awards - Fiction

"A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family's displacement across four countries, Kantika--"song" in Ladino--follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way--a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood....

"For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist's heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams....

"The year is 1909, and Artie Quick--an ambitious, unorthodox and inquisitive young Bostonian--wants to learn about crime. By day she holds down a job as a salesgirl in women's accessories at Filene's; by night she disguises herself as a man to pursue studies in Criminal Investigation ... Artie ... [is] joined by her pal Theodore, an upper-crust young bachelor ... Together, their journey into mystery begins on Boston Common ... but soon Artie and Theodore...

"When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding New Orleans community are thrust into chaos. Patience is a virtue, but punk rocker turned nun Sister Holiday isn't satisfied to just wait around for officials to return her home and sanctuary to its former peace, instead deciding to unveil the mysterious attacker herself. Her investigation leads her down a twisty path...

"The third book in the Dardan Trilogy, following The Sojourn and The Signal Flame."-- Provided by publisher. Rooted in the small, mountain town of Dardan, Pennsylvania, where patriarch Jozef Vinich settled after surviving World War I, Like the Appearance of Horses immerses us in the intimate lives of a family whose fierce bonds have been shaped by the great conflicts of the past century. After Bexhet Konar escapes fascist Hungary and crosses the...

In 1938, Dr. Ho Fengshan, consul general of China posted in Vienna, whose instructions are to maintain amicable relations with the Third Reich, risks his life, along with his American wife, to help Viennese Jews escape the Nazis before World War II explodes.