Books like The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan

In the unforgettable Le Cirque des Rêves, two young magicians, Celia and Marco, are locked in a nocturnal duel of wonder and will—an impossible game where love and magic collide on a stage of breathtaking spectacle.

Set in a Southern California black community, The Mothers follows 17‑year‑old Nadia Turner as she navigates grief, a forbidden romance, and an unplanned pregnancy that shapes her and her friends' futures for years to come.

In southeastern Nigeria, the enigmatic death of a young man sets a family on a desperate quest to grasp his mystery, confronting love, identity, and the fragile bonds that hold them together.

A nine‑year‑old’s perspective in 1990s Akure, Nigeria, where four brothers’ forbidden fishing trip leads to a fratricidal myth that reshapes their lives.

Miri Ammerman returns to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to commemorate the worst year of her life, 35 years after a series of aircraft crashes devastated her community in the early 1950s.

In 1970s western New York a group of idealists establish the Arcadia commune, a utopian experiment that rises and falls as its members, led by the charismatic Handy, navigate love, family, and the promise of a world beyond the decaying mansion.

Jende Jonga’s dream of a new life in New York turns into a struggle as his family faces the rigors of immigration law and the hidden dangers of working for a powerful executive.

After being adopted by a quirky Dublin couple who treat him only as a house‑guest, Cyril embarks on a life‑spanning quest to discover his origins, his place in Ireland, and the meaning of true belonging.

After his friends die in a small bomb attack in Delhi, 17‑year‑old Mansoor Ahmed is drawn into a turbulent friendship with a charismatic activist, forcing him to confront violence, loyalty and his own identity.

Lila, a homeless woman rescued as a child, finds unexpected hope when she marries an Iowa minister and must reconcile her rugged past with the gentle faith of her new life.

Three brothers struggle to grow up amid family turmoil in a lower‑income New York household, navigating their parents’ volatile relationships and financial strain.

A New York Times–reviewed novel set in Montana, where a social worker races to aid a young boy in the wilderness while confronting a paranoid father, a looming FBI investigation, and his own crumbling family life.

A 14‑year‑old boy grapples with grief and family ties after a brother’s death, finding solace and adventure in the Appalachian hills of Medgar, Kentucky, during a summer with his grandfather.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of New York City, Angie Cruz’s *Dominicana* follows a young Dominican woman’s coming‑of‑age journey and the immigrant experience, highlighting family, romance, and self‑discovery.

At thirteen, Eli McCullough is taken captive by the Comanche, rises to the chief’s adopted son, and later struggles alone as frontier tensions and disease strip his people—an epic of survival and identity.

Jill Tinsley, a determined house‑painting entrepreneur, discovers that letting someone else in can bring more joy than independence alone. When her path crosses Chip Chandler’s, he lifts her hopes, but doubt clouds whether love can make her dream of art real.

"Project Sunlight lets us see through the vehicle of a story the One who loves each one of us supremely and how He waits for us to turn to Him. Here truly is a book you will never forget, one that will change your life if you will let it."

In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them. When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she'd been told about herself and the habits and defenses she'd developed over years of trying to meet others' expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs. Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny. Written with Febos' characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.

Like everyone else in the Panopticon, 15-year-old Anais Hendricks has been in and out of foster care practically since birth. "[B]orn in a nuthouse to nobody that was ever seen again," she had her only successful foster placement with a prostitute later stabbed to death (Anais found the body). She's been sent to this facility, where the inmates are under constant surveillance, because she had a bad history with a policewoman who has been bludgeoned into a coma, and Anais--almost permanently whacked on whatever drug she can lay her hands on--can't explain why she has blood on her skirt. Amid the institution's crescent-shaped buildings and all-seeing watchtower, Anais befriends a group of ragtag ruffians and delves into her past, endlessly stoned and concerned she's being watched by an entity she calls "the experiment."