The Great Wherever — Shannon Sanders

Four ghosts narrate the parts of the story the living have agreed to forget. Sanders' first novel turns on a deed: a Tennessee farm bought by Thomas Lamb, one of the first Black landowners in his community, inherited a century later by a thirty-two-year-old gig worker in Washington with debt to clear. The room caught this one correctly. Starred reviews at Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and Booklist, a Book of the Month pick, summer lists at NPR, Esquire and People. What earns it is the voice rather than the premise. The dead are petty, funny and specific, passing judgment on romantic and sartorial decisions alike, which is exactly what keeps an inheritance saga from setting into a thesis. Published July 7 by Henry Holt — 416 pages.