Second paragraph of third chapter:

The department secretary/courier glanced back at the envelope he had tossed onto my desk. ‘How would I know?’

I’ve only read one of Karen Lord’s books before, but was inspired to get this after meeting her at Eastercon (we were part of a big group that went out for dinner one evening, and ended up sharing a massive baked camembert between the two of us).

I really enjoyed this. It’s a very humane story of a nearly-human race whose world has been destroyed, and of the government agent whose job it is to settle refugees from the genocide onto a new planet. We end up touring the new planet which itself turns out to be pretty diverse, with different social structures and beliefs in different regions, while the two protagonists sort out their own relationship while observing the other personal dynamics in their team. The book was published in 2013, so just before the refugee crisis really hit, but was very timely for all that. Lord pulls off the trick of vivid alien planetary settings and vivid yet comprehensible almost-human characterisation.

The book came fifth in the 2014 Locus Awards but rather surprisingly didn’t get any other nominations. It was my top unread science fiction book, before the Hugo packet landed; top of that list now is The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi. You can get The Best of All Possible Worlds here.