by Leigh Bardugo
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows, Ninth House) is a reliable fantasy powerhouse. Her adult historic fantasy The Familiar is set in the Spanish Golden Age, and follows the willful and lovable Luzia Cotado, a lowly scullion, who uses small magics to get by, such as fixing burned bread and lightening heavy loads to be carried. When the status-hungry mistress of the house discovers Luzia's powers, she sets out to exploit them for her own gain.
The world of The Familiar is satisfyingly detailed and all too easy to disappear
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by Leif Enger
Heartbreaking and terrifying, Leif Enger's I Cheerfully Refuse is a dystopian novel of hope, community, and love. Enger (Peace Like a River, Virgil Wander) constructs an equally complex plot and protagonist in a near-future setting where "the End [is] on everyone's mind." But as Rainy travels around Lake Superior, Enger balances despair with characters who are committed to overcoming evil with good.
Part-time musician Rainy lives on Lake Superior's Minnesota shore with his beloved wife, Lark, the owner of
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by Nevin Holness
Nevin Holness's outstanding YA fantasy debut, King of Dead Things, features four teens racing through the secret, magical streets of London to find a fabled weapon that can overcome an evil, ancient power.
Malcolm lives in the shadow of his estranged father, Casper King, who was once "the duppy king of North London" and "orchestrated the dead with a wave of his hand." Malcolm inherited his father's death magic, but Casper abandoned his family when Malcolm was a child and never taught the now-18-year-old how
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by James Patterson, Matt Eversmann
Of all the dreams in the world, becoming a librarian or bookseller is one of the most common. But what is it about these professions that maintains a hold over communities and the imaginations of individual readers? In The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians, coauthors James Patterson and Matt Eversmann take booklovers into the minds of the people across the United States who give their lives to books--not by writing or producing them, but by putting books into readers' hands (though Judy Blume gives
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by Darcie Little Badger, illus. by Rovina Cai
The gritty, luminous Sheine Lende, a prequel to Darcie Little Badger's acclaimed first novel, Elatsoe, features stouthearted Shane (grandmother to Elatsoe's Ellie) who uses the family's ability to raise ghosts to find three people, one of whom is her own mother.
The women in 17-year-old Shane Solé's Lipan Apache family line know how to reach deep into "the world Below" to "raise the ghosts of animals." Shane and her mother, Lorenza, are known for their tracking abilities; they and their two living bloodhounds,
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by Alexandra Fuller
Alexandra Fuller's eighth book, the bereavement memoir Fi, poignantly reckons with the sudden death of Fuller's 21-year-old son and depicts its practical and spiritual aftermath.
Fuller's son, Fuller Ross, whose nickname was "Fi," died in his sleep in July 2018. He had a history of seizures, but Fuller never learned the cause of his death because she refused to read his autopsy report. Fi focuses on the eight months that followed, a period of concentrated, even ritualized mourning during which Fuller moved
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