Waiting on Wednesday

(First paragraph from wishfuledings.com blog)

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted here, at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released. It's based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine. If you're continuing with WOW, feel free to link those up as well! Find out more here.

So here I am doing Waiting on Wednesday for the third straight week. I have to say that doing book memes is fun, especially seeing the comments on my blog from my fellow bloggers. Thank you everyone! For awhile, I have been thinking of what kind of books I'll be featuring on Waiting on Wednesday, and have figured that until 2020, I will feature two 2020 books (hopefully I will be able to do it) that will have some common threads. From week of January 1st, 2020, I will feature one book, or maybe focus on one book per week. 

The first book to excite me is titled These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card which is being compared to one of my top favorite novels: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. (I might have read it few years ago, but I still end up thinking about it.) This definitely sounds interesting and the first few pages I checked out can really suck the reader in. I sincerely hope it will earn awards. 

The second book is titled A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler which explores racism in depth, especially when living side by side. The writing promises to be thoughtful, beautiful and poignant. What is also interesting is that this story is contemporary (the author wrote two historical novels previously), and I'm definitely picking up Celeste Ng vibes within it. 

These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card

Published Date: March 3rd, 2020

(From goodreads:) A transporting debut novel that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Stanford Solomon has a shocking, thirty-year-old secret. And it’s about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley, a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend.

And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.

These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the house boy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions.

These Ghosts Are Family explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is an engrossing portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret. This electric and luminous family saga announces the arrival of a new American talent.

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler 

Published Date: February 4th, 2020

(From Goodreads:) In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son. Xavier is headed to college in the fall, and after years of single parenting, Valerie is facing the prospect of an empty nest. All is well until the Whitmans move in next door―an apparently traditional family with new money, ambition, and a secretly troubled teenaged daughter.

Thanks to his thriving local business, Brad Whitman is something of a celebrity around town, and he's made a small fortune on his customer service and charm, while his wife, Julia, escaped her trailer park upbringing for the security of marriage and homemaking. Their new house is more than she ever imagined for herself, and who wouldn't want to live in Oak Knoll? With little in common except a property line, these two very different families quickly find themselves at odds: first, over an historic oak tree in Valerie's yard, and soon after, the blossoming romance between their two teenagers.

Told from multiple points of view, A Good Neighborhood asks big questions about life in America today―What does it mean to be a good neighbor? How do we live alongside each other when we don't see eye to eye?―as it explores the effects of class, race, and heartrending star-crossed love in a story that’s as provocative as it is powerful.

Which of these do you find exciting and are more likely to get?