FICTION
1. The Guardians, by John Grisham. (Doubleday) Cullen Post, a lawyer and Episcopal minister, antagonizes some ruthless killers when he takes on a wrongful-conviction case.
2. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens. (Putnam) In a quiet town on the North Carolina coast in 1969, a young woman who survived alone in a marsh becomes a murder suspect.
3. The 19th Christmas, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. (Little, Brown) In the 19th installment of the "Women's Murder Club" series, detective Lindsay Boxer and company take on a fearsome criminal known only as "Loman."
4. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. (One World) A young man who was gifted with a mysterious power becomes part of a war between slavers and the enslaved.
5. The Institute, by Stephen King. (Scribner) Children with special talents are abducted and sequestered in an institution where the sinister staff seeks to extract their gifts through harsh methods.
6. Olive, Again, by Elizabeth Strout. (Random House) In a follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Olive Kitteridge," new relationships, including a second marriage, are encountered in a seaside town in Maine.
7. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett. (Harper) A sibling relationship is impacted when the family goes from poverty to wealth and back again over the course of decades.
8. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday) In a sequel to "The Handmaid's Tale," old secrets bring three women together as the Republic of Gilead's theocratic regime shows signs of decay.