The New Girls
Beth Gutcheon
Five girls at a New England prep school in the '60s, growing up as the Vietnam War and the women's movement crash into their sheltered world. It opens on their reunion, where we learn one of them didn't make it.
Buy on Bookshop.org ↗If you liked this, try…
The Pleasing Hour
Lily King
King's debut, about a young American au pair for a family in France with its own quiet fault lines. You can already feel the writer she'd become.
To Die For
Joyce Maynard
A woman who'll do anything for local TV fame, including talk a lovestruck teenager into murder. Maynard makes her chilling and weirdly funny.
★ 5Bel Canto
Ann Patchett
Bel Canto by Anne Patchett is, I think, her masterpiece. (And I’ve read all of her books!) The plot sounds like it’s ripped from an airport thriller: An opera singer is performing at a millionaire’s birthday party when terrorists take the entire mansion hostage. But what happens next is anything but predictable, and the prose is gorgeous. I read it every few years and recommend it to all of my friends.