A trio, and not quite done in March.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng was deep and strange and intimate. It’s mostly about two families that tangle into each other – Mia and Pearl rent a house from the Richardsons – Trip, Lexie, Moody, Izzy, William and Elena. It spirals out to a web of friends and a custody fight over a daughter — each character true to themselves, limited in their knowing.
The relationships are messy and constantly evolving; a bit of upstairs/downstairs at first, soon melting away into strange intimacies and the warmth sought – parental, romantic, comfort – a vision of futures unfolding, very differently at different points in the book.
The Collected Short Fiction of C. J. Cherryh was a fascinating fix; lots of short stories in a few settings. Sunfall, is a collection of stories from a weary end of days setting in the hearts of great cities; darkly fantastic and moody. Visible Light is less connected, but Companions is a very strong story about adaptation and survival on a foreign world — with odd powers/influences. There’s also a collection of 15 or so short stories from elsewhere — The Scapegoat stuck in my mind as an excellent construction of aliens — close enough that you can communicate, but a deeply different culture that makes frictions in understanding and fundamental assumptions.
The English Girl by Daniel Silva is next.