‘The Favorite Sister’, by Jessica Knoll

Jessica Knoll has a knack for delivering a quick read that casts a long shadow, one you want to linger in even as the darkness raises the hairs on the back of your neck. (Knoll’s first novel, “Luckiest Girl Alive,” is one of the few I’ve read in both hardcover and paperback — and I got more out of it the second time around.) “The Favorite Sister” takes us to the set of “Gold Diggers,” a supposedly empowering reality TV show where millennial women face off as they attempt to build successful careers. The stakes are high and the secrets are ugly, but Knoll gets to the thorniness of human relationships in a way “The Bachelor” never quite manages.

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‘Warcross,’ by Marie Lu

Emika Chen is a teenage hacker who makes ends meet as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet illegally on the virtual-reality video game Warcross. She gets herself into trouble when she hacks her way into the internationally televised opening game of the Warcross Championships and finds herself at the center of the action. Our reviewer wrote: “The book is as visual, kinetic and furiously paced as any video game; Lu, a former art director for video games as well as the author of the best-selling Legend series, has quite the way with otherworldly action scenes. … There’s romance, a lost sibling, spying, a diverse cast of gamers and nifty tattoos. It’s ‘Gleaming the Cube’ meets ‘Strange Days’ meets ‘Blade Runner,’ and it’s a lot of fun. If the cliffhanger ending seems irksome, never fear, this one’s a series opener.” The book was written for young adults but has crossover appeal for mature ones.

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‘Lost and Found,’ by Carolyn Parkhurst

I jokingly asked my daughter if she would want to go on a reality TV show with me. Her mirthless response: “That is literally my worst nightmare.” Carolyn Parkhurst went there in “Lost and Found,” where a mother and daughter travel the world as part of the cast of a clever hybrid of “The Amazing Race” and “Survivor.” The grand prize is a million dollars, the real goal is for the two of them to patch up their fractured relationship, but both prove elusive. The challenges they endure and the competition they face are powerful disincentives for anyone attempting to outrun family history. Wherever you go, there you are — and having an audience only makes things more complicated.