What defines the times in which we all live? Issues! And how writers’ interpret the world in which we live ultimately produces the literature by which we define ourselves for the future. You’ll want to place on your TBR list these 4 social conscience novels about our times.

1. The Butterfly Prison by Tamara Pearson

via amazon.com

The Butterfly Prison is a tapestry of vignettes that tells the hushed-up, little stories that unfold within a world characterized by diminishment and shame, the stories of the disenfranchised, the stories of Paz and Mella.

2. Mameluke Bath by Andrew Asibong

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Christie Smithkin’s determination to rescue her friend Damon from the  horrors of a zombie-factory hidden deep in the woods, and to come to terms with her own terrifying childhood, reveal a deeper inequity in the spa town of Mameluke Bath.

3. A Week with Fiona Wonder: A Novel by Kelly Huddleston

via amazon.com

Mercy Swimmer  is faced with a decision that will ultimately challenge her own capacity for compassion.  A Week with Fiona Wonder exposes the consequences of social exclusivity and suggests the alternatives of inclusion, empathy and mercy.

4. The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans by David A. Ross

via amazon.com

In response to oncoming environmental collapse, Amy Birkenstock (aka Fizzy Oceans) migrates into Virtual Life in order to document and preserve human culture within the dot matrix world of VL.

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