Books: Best Books 2020: The Washington Post Notable Fiction

When her Irish-theater-legend mother succumbs to alcohol and instability, Norah draws on her experiences of surviving a crime and growing up in the wings of her mother’s career to rediscover herself as a wife, mother and writer.

Description:Fleeing west to find a safe haven in a world vastly transformed by a pandemic that has killed nearly all men, a mother disguises her son as a girl to escape dangerous adversaries, including her own sister.

A warm, funny, and keenly perceptive novel about the life cycle of one family--as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes.

A masterful collection of stories that showcases one of the country’s most beloved and acclaimed writers—award-winning author, Walter Mosley.

A woman confronts the dynamics of friendship and forgiveness while visiting Cape Cod to attend an old friend's increasingly disastrous wedding.

A first collection by an award-winning Cherokee writer traces four generations of Native American women as they navigate cultural dynamics, religious beliefs, the 1980s oil bust, devastating storms and unreliable men to connect with their ideas about home.

The Pulitzer-winning journalist’s first novel captures the lives of four generations of women in a hardscrabble Ohio town.

A 12-year-old lone survivor of a plane crash investigates the stories of his less-fortunate fellow passengers before making a profound discovery about his life purpose in the face of transcendent losses.

Dolan’s debut has echoes of Sally Rooney with its tale of a 22-year-old Irish woman who moves to Hong Kong to teach English and finds herself in the middle of a love triangle.

Coming of age with the support of the women in her Ugandan village, a girl struggling with abandonment seeks answers at the side of a local witch who shares stories about their culture's heritage of female strength.

Sheltering in a New York beach house with a couple that has taken refuge during a massive blackout, a family struggles for information about the power failure while wondering if the cut-off property is actually safe.

From the author of 'Station Eleven' comes a captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it.

Presents the story of an Italian teen who searches for a sense of identity and clear perspectives when she finds herself torn between the refinements and excesses of a divided Naples.

A reimagining of the classic gothic suspense novel follows the experiences of a courageous socialite in 1950s Mexico who is drawn into the treacherous secrets of an isolated mansion.

A mother desperate to save her dying daughter in a world ravaged by climate change joins a hunter-gatherer initiative to test humanity's capacity to survive in the wilderness without destroying it.

A historical novel based on the life of the author’s grandfather traces the experiences of a Chippewa Council night watchman in mid-19th-century rural North Dakota who fights Congress to enforce Native American treaty rights.

The award-winning author examines race, grief and apology in a history-inspired anthology that complements the title novella.

Living in a labyrinthine house of endless corridors, flooded staircases and thousands of statues, Piranesi assists the dreamlike dwelling's only other resident throughout a mysterious research project before evidence emerges of an astonishing alternate world.

Follows the release of a best-selling book about an early 20th-century New England boarding school where gender-diverse students died under suspicious circumstances.

A novel set in 1918 Dublin offers a three-day look at a maternity ward during the height of the Great Flu pandemic.

From the award-winning, best-selling author of Chang & Eng and Half a Life, comes a new novel about Lucille Ball, a thrilling love story starring Hollywood's first true media mogul, and an epic multi-layered look at America's most fascinating era.

Enduring life on the margins in a near-future world ruthlessly divided between the employed and unemployed, a once-professional couple give birth to an athletically gifted child, whose attention by the government compels her mother to challenge society’s foundations

This powerfully imagined tour de force of fiction of what-might-have-been follows Hillary Rodham as she takes a different path, blazing her own trail – one that unfolds in public as well as in private – and one that crosses paths again and again with Bill Clinton.

By: Yoon, Paul
Three children orphaned in 1960s Laos meet a dedicated doctor who enlists them as motorcycle couriers in his effort to rescue civilians and find medical supplies in a novel from the award-winning author of Snow Hunters.

Conscripted into the Confederate Army after nearly escaping the American Civil War, an itinerant fiddle player joins a ragtag regimental band playing for both sides of the conflict before falling in love with an indentured Irish governess.

A story about race and privilege is centered around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.

The members of a music band in 1967 London navigate the era's parties, drugs and politics as well as their own egos and tragedies while exploring transformative perspectives about youth, art and fame.

Hired by her famous podcaster mentor to answer letters from increasingly polarized fans, a librarian who has acquired her education from a lifetime spent reading struggles between the limits of her knowledge and growing crises in the outside world.

Years after she is sent away from Boston to China for shoplifting, a conflicted Chinese-American woman reconnects with her golden-boy childhood crush before a ghost from the past threatens her ambitions.