…Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. Or maybe she just channeled the same information we all can read,, since the books came out about the same time last year.

Zhang’s heroine longs for the sunshine and abundance of mouthwatering food growing everywhere in her native Southern California. She is a chef stranded in London, exiled by closed borders in a planet gone gray with an inexplicable sticky smog that has killed crops everywhere.

From the start, her descriptions of certain foods are sensuous, bordering on hallucinatory. A fragrant sun-ripened strawberry as soft and luscious as a woman’s inner thigh. The longing for what is gone, seemingly forever.

The billionaire trying to escape what the Earth has become hires her to be his chef in a far and very secret location.

A haunting and most excellent book.

William Kent Kruger.

Set in a rural town in Minnesota in 1958 following the murder of a local landowner who was hated by not just members of the community but his family as well. The investigation reveals deep seated racism, abuse, ptsd from WW2 and the secrets and lies people cling to.

Runner up: The Girl In The Letter

Although Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka nearly edged it out.

It's still early in the year but I haven't read a book this profound in a long time so I suspect it will hold the title for a while. It is a fantasy where we see Enger's vision of what our country will be like in a few years if we continue to let MAGAt's control things. And it's terrifying, yet totally believable. But it's also a book filled with music and nature. It honors books and writing, reminding us how important these things are. There are happy moments and there are constant surprises. Like the comet, one of which we are actually about to be visited by.

"Enger is a writer to be appreciated by anyone who cares about words." -- Seattle Times