As we near the year’s end, we’re looking back on a 2017 filled with some stellar books — honored, awarded and raved about by keen readers like you. We’re over the moon that so many people found so much in these books we loved.

Good tidings and good reading wherever you go this season…

Elmet by Fiona Mozley: As rich, wild, dark, and beautiful as its Yorkshire setting, Elmet is a gripping debut about life on the margins and the power—and limits—of family loyalty. The New York Times proclaims, “Beguiling … A lyrical and mythic work … Mozley’s sheer storytelling confidence sends the reader sailing.”

FInalist for the Man Booker Prize. Named to The Guardian Best Books of 2017, December Indie Next Pick, Amazon Best of the Month, Amazon Debut Spotlight and People Book of the Week.

The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers: Inspired by a true incident, this saga conjures the era with uncanny immediacy. Amid the desperation of wartime, Placidia sees the social order of her Southern homeland unravel as her views on race and family are transformed. A love story, a story of racial divide, and a story of the South as it fell in the war, The Second Mrs. Hockaday reveals how that generation — and the next — began to see their world anew.

Finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan: In Hillary Jordan’s prize-winning novel, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband’s Mississippi Delta farm. In the midst of the family’s struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land: Jamie McAllan, Laura’s brother-in-law who is charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat, and Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm who has come home a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.

Now a Golden Globe-nominated movie on Netflix. Winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for fiction that addresses issues of social injustice.

The Leavers by Lisa Ko: Set in New York and China, this debut novel is a vivid examination of borders and belonging. It’s a moving story of how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away, and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of the past. “The Leavers is  my  effort  to  go  beyond  the  news  articles,  using  real-life  details  as  a  template  to  build  from,  not  to  adhere  to,” Lisa said.

Finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction and winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize.

From Algonquin Young Readers:

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill: This epic fantasy introduces us to a young girl raised by a witch, a swamp monster, and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon who must unlock the powerful magic buried deep inside her. The New York Times Book Review raved, “Impossible to put down . . . The Girl Who Drank the Moon is as exciting and layered as classics like Peter Pan or TheWizard of Oz.”

Winner of the 2017 Newbery Medal and a No. 1 New York Times bestseller.

All the Wind in the World by Samantha Mabry: Keep your eyes open . . . your head down . . . and your love secret. Sarah Jac Crow and James Holt have fallen in love working in the endless fields that span a bone-dry Southwest in the near future—a land that’s a little bit magical, deeply dangerous, and bursting with secrets. All the Wind in the World is a breathtaking tale of dread and danger, romance and redemption.

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

(Psst, remember — books make great gifts!)