Books like Modern Gods by Nick Laird

In Oyinkan Braithwaite’s sharp, darkly comic debut, Korede must navigate life in Lagos when her beloved sister Ayoola repeatedly claims new boyfriends as victims of her murderous streak.

A son writes an unabridged, eloquent letter to his ill‑literate mother, uncovering her Vietnamese‑American family history and confronting themes of race, class, masculinity, trauma and LGBTQ identity.

A sweeping narrative of diverse characters linked by trees, exploring how they learn to see the hidden world of forests and join a fight to preserve the last virgin woodlands.

Two lovers flee a war-torn city through mysterious doors, carrying hopes and memories into a world of uncertainty.

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.

Marnie and her sister Nelly conceal their parents’ death while living alone in Glasgow’s Hazelhurst estate, but the neighbors’ growing suspicions threaten their fragile secrecy.

Two novels by Neil Gaiman: American Gods and Anansi Boys.

A Bengali woman finds love and a new beginning in Rochester, NY, after an online encounter leads to marriage and a journey into family life, cross‑cultural challenges, and contemporary romance.

In a contemporary Southern kitchen, a twenty‑thous‑year‑old Minotaur works as a line chef, trying to conceal his mythic past while confronting everyday human deception and emotional turmoil.

Archaeologist Nina Wilde struggles to rebuild her life while investigating mysterious statues stolen before her husband, ex‑SAS soldier Eddie Chase, vanished—now accused of murder—and discovers a deadly conspiracy that threatens everything she holds dear.

Rebecca Stone wrestles with motherhood, privilege and identity when her white, single mother of a newborn meets the black nanny, Priscilla Johnson, whose death forces her to adopt a black son and confront race in her family life.

A contemplative portrait of two sisters growing from the 1950s to today, charting their quests to find purpose and authenticity amid America’s social shifts.

A woman who once helped a Soviet star defect in 1975 must confront the past when her son’s talent drags her back into the dangerous world of ballet and unresolved secrets.

Practical Gods is the eighth collection by Carl Dennis, a critically acclaimed poet and recent winner of one of the most prestigious poetry awards, the Ruth Lilly Prize. Carl Dennis has won acclaim for "wise, original, and often deeply moving" poems that "ease the reader out of accustomed modes of seeing and perceiving" (The New York Times). Many of the poems in this new book involve an attempt to enter into dialogue with pagan and biblical perspectives, to throw light on ordinary experience through metaphor borrowed from religious myth and to translate religious myth into secular terms. While making no claims to put us in touch with some ultimate reality, these clear, precise, sensitive poems help us to pay homage to the everyday household gods that are easy to ignore, the gods that sustain life and make it rewarding.

Molly Arnette, a San Diego adoptions hopeful, struggles to keep her guarded past hidden while facing the scrutiny of the adoption process and the looming reveal of a family secret from her North Carolina upbringing.