By Kim Fay (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $24)

Sometimes, you just need a book that’s short and sweet. Two women — 20-something Joan, and Imogen, a generation older — begin a friendship over correspondence in 1962, inspired by a mutual interest in cooking and writing. Life unfolds throughout their letters, along with some delicious-sounding recipes.

By Grant Ginder (Henry Holt and Co., $28)

Ginder’s hilarious fifth novel has a similar satirical zip to the show “Veep.” Nancy Harrison, an ambitious New York congresswoman running for Senate, is faced with a crisis she can’t finesse her way through: her resentful 20-something daughter Greta falls under the spell of a handsome French nationalist and makes headlines at radical demonstrations in Paris. Her brother Nick is dispatched to France to bring her home.

By David Guterson (Knopf, $27)

“The Final Case,” in its opening pages, seems to be setting up to be a literary legal thriller, based on the real-life death in 2011 of an Ethiopian teenager abused by her adoptive parents. And yet, fiction and reality delicately entwine throughout this novel. The narrator marvels at his father, an elderly public defender who ends up representing one of the accused parents.

By Lan Samantha Chang (W.W. Norton & Company, $28)

Like the glorious Chinese dinners served within its pages, “The Family Chao” is a little bit of everything: multigenerational family story, immigrant saga, coming-of-age tale, whodunit mystery, literary pastiche (it takes inspiration from “The Brothers Karamazov”). Each element contributes to a hugely satisfying whole. At its center is a restaurant in a small Wisconsin town — Fine Chao, run by the immigrant patriarch Leo Chao and his three sons, Dagou, Ming and James. I was utterly engrossed with Chang’s intricate world of a complex family. We see much through James’ eyes, the sweetest of the characters.

By Xochitl Gonzalez (Flatiron Books, $28)

Olga Acevedo, a Manhattan wedding planner, “allowed herself to become distracted from the true American dream — accumulating money — by its phantom cousin, accumulating fame.”

By Kellye Garrett (Mulholland Books, $28)

Every fiction roundup needs a good mystery — and this one delivers a heady mixture of secrets, red herrings and shadows, told by a narrator who instantly becomes a friend you root for. Grad student Lena Scott is devastated when her half-sister Desiree, a reality TV star, is found dead. Law enforcement assumes it’s an overdose, but Lena is certain it’s foul play. And off we go, through the hip-hop universe of Lena and Desiree’s mogul father, and Desiree’s flashy circle of hangers-on.