With The Visitors, Sally Beauman (Rebecca's Tale) transports readers back to Egypt in the 1920s, when explorers, archeologists and historians searched for uncovered tombs of Egyptian pharaohs and the riches they were thought to contain--a time of mystery and discovery for which no parallel exists today. The Visitors weaves together the imagined observations of Lucy, an 11-year-old girl traveling to Egypt with her guardian, and real historical characters, including Howard Carter and Lord Carnavon, two British men credited with the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb.

Much of Beauman's novel is told in the elderly Lucy's recollections of her childhood travels, combined with her memories of her family life at the time. While the tales of faraway Egypt are far more interesting than the family politics of Lucy's life, the two narratives combine to present a full picture of Lucy and how her life has been shaped by the events she witnessed abroad. Her naïveté as a young girl stands in stark contrast to her full understanding of the enormity of the discovery of King Tut's tomb--and the secrets that surrounded that momentous event--as an adult.

The Visitors is large and ambitious, covering subjects as disparate as the legacy of grave robbers in ancient Egypt and the political tension between the local government and foreign archeologists. Though the great secret to which Lucy's story builds could potentially be lost in the sea of recollections about her family life, keen readers will find suspense, excitement and ambition in Beauman's nuanced, intriguing story. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

The Hour of Lead is the story of growing up in the rugged highlands along the Columbia River in the first half of the 20th century. Raised in the area, Bruce Holbert (Lonesome Animals) knows the rough terrain well. His new novel is like Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove without the twinkle in Gus McCrae's eye or the wide-open plains. Instead, it follows Matt Lawson who, at age 12, loses both his twin brother and his father in a brutal snowstorm that buries the family ranch. When his only friend, his studious classmate Wendy, spurns his awkward romantic advances, he takes off on his own, making his way to Idaho by laboring on whatever ranch needs a hardworking hand. "Like a good skillet, dull and duty-bound," Matt becomes almost a second son to the patriarch of a large ranch whose own son is a disappointment. After a dozen years of hard work, violence, arson and bad weather, Matt returns home to marry Wendy and begin a family--only to have the sins of his youthful past follow him there.

Nothing comes easy in Holbert's version of the Old West. The women are caretakers and breeders who are tough enough to hack off their own afterbirth umbilicus and run a ranch alone. The men hunt, fight, drink--and kill when killing is called for. The primeval world of The Hour of Lead is one where "blood is thicker than water, but dirt trumps both." With rich historical detail and a driving narrative rhythm, Holbert has built a brooding novel of hard work, good luck and redemption. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kansas.

When police officers close in on Malik Williams and his friends as they hang out on the street corner one afternoon, he follows his mom's lessons to a tee. His friends flee, but Malik raises his hands and obeys orders, only to be manhandled, thrown in the cruiser and hauled off to jail under an accusation of murder.

Though Philadelphia law mandates that teens accused of murder are sent to the adult jail for holding, a bomb threat at the facility forces the arresting officer to book Malik into the juvenile detention center. This positions Malik perfectly for human rights attorney Roger Whitford's cause: exposing the criminal justice system's racism.

Whitford's plan is to have the African-American teen male declared "endangered" by extending the Endangered Species Act. He believes they are under threat of extinction because of the biases against them, a defense that ignites a flurry of reactions and puts Malik and his mother, Janae, in the national spotlight.

A quick, engaging story, Endangered explores a serious social injustice through an empathetic character. The language is straightforward and easily accessible for even young-adult readers. Some skeptical readers may take issue with the simplification of this complex issue, and a greater challenge would have been making the argument with a less-sympathetic protagonist. However, debut novelist Jean Love Cush still manages to drive home the mortifying inequality plaguing the system. A stark reminder of the human inside the skin, regardless of color, Endangered has the potential to open up discussions that are long overdue. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

The daughter of Indian immigrants, watchful and quiet Amina Eapen grew up in the shadow of her brilliant but difficult brother, Akhil, until his sudden death left the family reeling. Now a wedding photographer in Seattle, Amina is struggling to enjoy her work while secretly longing to return to her former photojournalism career. When her mother calls, panicked because Amina's father has begun having long conversations with his dead relatives, Amina is only too happy to escape to her parents' house in Albuquerque. But as the days in her childhood home stretch into weeks, Amina realizes her father isn't simply hallucinating: his visions of deceased family members have their origins in an ill-fated trip to India when Amina was a child. As his hallucinations worsen, Amina must figure out how to reassure him as she navigates her own personal struggles.

Debut novelist Mira Jacob weaves a complex, layered saga of the immigrant experience, deftly illuminating the Eapens' ambivalence toward their homeland. Like many immigrant daughters, Amina is frustrated by her parents' expectations: grudgingly proud of her career success, they still hope she'll marry a good Indian man and settle down. Amina also longs to find love, but first she must deal with her lingering grief. Though at times her watchfulness slides into passivity, Amina quietly begins to take control of her life, even as she recognizes there are some things she can't change. Heartbreaking and often surprisingly funny, The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing is a testament to the deep bonds of family and the importance of gaining the courage to move on. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

British novelist Jojo Moyes (Me Before You) examines the different shapes of families and the widening gap between rich people and those who toe the poverty line in One Plus One.

Jess is a single mom and house cleaner for Ed, a tech whiz with his own company and two homes and cars. Suspended from his job while he awaits possible prosecution for insider trading, Ed decides to drive Jess, her two kids and "cow-sized" dog from England to Scotland so Jess's daughter can participate in the Math Olympiad. Tanzie is a 10-year-old math prodigy and if she wins the competition, the prize money would enable her to attend a top private school.

Due to Tanzie's carsickness, Ed has to drive below 40 mph, so the road trip takes several days and includes many mishaps. But the group starts developing deep feelings for one another, and their lives change in a variety of ways.

One Plus One contains a recurring element from Moyes's previous three novels published in the U.S.: a spirited woman with little money (or assets that actually belong to her spouse) meets a rich, successful or powerful man and ends up thawing his cynical heart. While it's admirable that Moyes gives voice to the have-nots, it'd be a nice departure for her next book to feature a female lead who doesn't need a man to provide or buy anything for her. That said, Moyes's characters are always multifaceted and sympathetic, and her plotlines unpredictable. One Plus One will induce chuckles and tears. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

Five years after the accidental death of his young wife, novelist and journalist Francisco Goldman (The Divine Husband) returned to her native Mexico City to walk the streets where they had once been happy lovers and stare down the high-speed chaos of the Mexican capital--and in so doing, wrestle with his grief. He had tried to shake his gloom by seeking professional therapy, drinking, spending time with friends and even writing an autobiographical novel about his loss (Say Her Name), but none of these could chase his profound funk. Remembering that he had vowed to live the rest of his life in her honor, he left New York City for el DF (the Distrito Federal, Mexico's equivalent of Washington, D.C.), where death seemed better understood amid the city's urban ambience of la ligereza (a kind of easy-going lightness) and "nobody, once, ever said anything about 'moving on.' "

The Interior Circuit is partly Goldman's chronicle of overcoming his sorrow in the young and hip neighborhoods of Condesa and Roma and getting his journalistic mojo back, but it is even more his take on the politics, complexity, romance and vibrancy of one of the great megacities of the world. He plugs straight into its "mysterious energy [that] seems to silently thrum from the ground, from restless volcanic earth... so much energy that in the late afternoons I don't even need coffee." It's no wonder he left New York to find his fresh start south of the border. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Kev Reynolds has tramped through the Himalayas, the Atlas mountains in Morocco, the Pyrenees and the Alps, and he hopes you'll follow him. Reynolds has written more than 50 guidebooks on hiking, trekking and mountaineering, including the five major trekking regions of Nepal. Now, with half a century of exploration under his belt, Reynolds looks back on his life in the rarefied mountain air.

In a little under 200 pages, Reynolds provides 75 short vignettes of his adventures in the crags of mountains and in the company of people he met along those snowy flanks. Upon finding a monk in the Himalayas, he notes, "The old man swayed gently to the rhythm of his prayers, which filled the room." The gentle nature of the title is a clue; readers shouldn't expect the harrowing alpine adventures of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air or Joe Simpson's Touching the Void. Instead, these are simple tales of a man on foot quietly exploring the world and, in doing so, discovering a little about himself.

Given there are potentially a finite number of ways to describe a beautiful vista from a chilly summit, the stories can be slightly repetitive. But Reynolds has an undeniable love of the world's peaks and this infatuation is infectious: "We shared a common delight in the slumbering mountains and their gullies, the valley, the chaos of boulders at the foot of the screes...." It just may make readers want to strike out on their own, perhaps with Reynolds's new slim volume shoved in their pack. --Jonathan Shipley, freelance writer

The digital age has unleashed a new breed of amateur detective: a dedicated group using the Internet to match missing people with unidentified human remains. These civilian volunteers comb vast databases for physical identifiers, dates and locations, hoping to match a body with a missing-persons report. The remains are often decades old, eluding identification despite law enforcement's best efforts or because of the insular, patchwork nature of the U.S. system of medical examiners and coroners. The Internet allows remains that might otherwise languish in storage to be seen in a new light and by fresh eyes; sometimes, through the work of cyber-sleuths, they can regain the human identity lost in often-horrific deaths.

Journalist Deborah Halber's debut book, The Skeleton Crew, explores these eccentric men and women who spend so much time and effort seeking justice for strangers. They are often compelled by a personal hunt for their own missing family members or because they were involved the discovery of human remains. Take rural Tennessean Todd Matthews, whose father-in-law discovered the badly decomposed body of a young woman dubbed "Tent Girl" in 1968. Matthews became obsessed with the girl's identity, sacrificing much of his time off from factory work to scour databases in his trailer's cramped computer room. In 1998, he finally matched Tent Girl with a missing woman, ending decades of uncertainty for her family.

Halber follows stories of other volunteers through a handful of exceptional cases, most still unsolved. Many of the details are gruesome and the search for justice inconclusive, but the journey is fascinating. Mystery and true crime readers will especially enjoy this book. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer

Jude Watson's (the 39 Clues series) middle-grade tale about a group of 12-year-olds determined to carry out a conman's final wish is by turns funny and suspenseful.

The novel opens with a flashback of a jewelry heist of cursed gems gone terribly awry. Two of the three thieves die, and the third gets a cryptic curse: "Before the passage of thirteen years, the two birthed together will die together." That surviving thief and conman is Alfred "Alfie" McQuinn. Flash forward to the present, and his son, March, watches Alfie fall off the roof in a botched burglary. Alfie lives long enough to give March a final clue: "Find jewels.... Stick. Rag." It doesn't take March long to discover that "jewels" is actually "Jules," the twin sister March never knew he had--Alfie had intentionally separated them to try to avoid the curse. Once March finds her, the twins get shipped off to a foster home where they meet bully Darius and tiny Izzy. If the skeptical March falls in too quickly with this crowd, readers will forgive him, as the quartet sets out to complete Alfie's life's work--and avenge his death.

Plot twists--such as the victim in that opening jewel heist becoming an unwitting ally--and dramatic backdrops (e.g., the blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History) make this a page-turner. Can the twins reverse the curse? Watson's nail-biting thriller takes readers through New York's diverse neighborhoods, and her likable heroes redeem their dark errands. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

In Hooray for Hat!, an act of kindness turns grumpy elephant into a friend who pays it forward.

Elephant wakes up very grumpy. Debut author-artist Brian Won indicates his hero's unpleasant mood: his light gray blanket and brown headboard, and a dark cloud over his head. Everything around him looks dull and dreary. When the doorbell rings, Elephant says, "Go away! I'm grumpy!" On the doorstep, he finds a box with a red ribbon, and inside is a multicolored, towering headpiece. "Hooray for hat!" Elephant cheers, with a smile on his face and rosy cheeks. The towering hat extends upward in many layers and holds a drink and a bird that pops out of a crown. Zebra, also grumpy with the telltale black cloud overhead, also cheers up when Elephant removes the top tier of his hat and places it on Zebra's head. "Let's show Turtle!" And on it goes until, one by one, Owl, Lion and Giraffe each receive an uplifting gift, and the cheer turns from "Hooray for hat!" to "Hooray for friends!"

Brian Won's colorful use of type (for "Hooray") emphasizes the celebratory mood and the infectious good spirits that move from one friend to the next. His animal characters look soft enough to cuddle. Children will be moved by Elephant's example to think about how they, too, can bring a smile to friends who may be having a "grumpy" day. Hooray for Brian Won, an author-artist to watch! --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness