The Boy Who Escaped Paradise is the extraordinary story of a math savant, told from a prison hospital where he's being held by U.S. officials on suspicion of murder and 11 international crimes. The son of an esteemed physician in North Korea, Ahn Gil-mo attends an excellent school catering to his mathematical gift until officials arrive at their home and drag Gil-mo's parents away.

His father returns long enough to collect him, and the two are banished to a prison camp because, as the boy learns, his father was discovered practicing Christianity. He never sees his mother again, and his father, like many others, dies from the hard labor and lack of food, leaving the son at the mercy of those who want to take advantage of his innocence and valuable skills. Gil-mo's affinity for numbers lands him an easier job with Mr. Kang, working with foreign currency. It is here that Gil-mo makes the promise he spends his life fulfilling, no matter the cost: looking after Kang's daughter, Yeong-ae.

With regular allusions to Homer, J.M. Lee (The Investigation) takes his modern-day Odysseus on a journey of epic proportions after he escapes the camp in order to keep his promise to Kang. The characters Gil-mo encounters as he follows Yeong-ae's trail from Asia to North America rival the complexity of Homer's. The novel is a reminder of the power of numbers, but one doesn't need to be a math fan to appreciate the brilliance of this work. To say any more would spoil the plot. An exciting adventure added to rich characters, all multiplied by stunning language, equals an unforgettable novel. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

Set in 1962 in Dublin, Ireland, The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander revolves around three girls from different families committed by their parents to life at the Sisters of the Holy Redemption convent. Teagan Tiernan is accused of seducing a priest, Nora Craven is believed to have thrown herself at the boys, and Lea is a bit odd and had no place to live with her stepfather once her mother died. Denied contact with the outside world, forced to work in the hot and humid laundry with the other Magdalens or repair torn lace, the girls form an alliance and plot to escape their holy prison, but their keepers are diligent in their endeavors to flush the sins from these new charges.

Filled with authentic details, Alexander's story evolves through multiple voices, including that of the Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has her own past sins to atone for and who believes punishment is the best way to show love. As the girls' friendship progresses and their desperation to escape grows, the story quickens, racing toward an ending that is both incredibly sad and hopeful. Because the novel is historically accurate (the last Magdalen laundry closed in 1996), the events depicted are particularly distressing, and readers will be engrossed and horrified by what the Catholic Church and other entities did to rehabilitate "fallen" women, who needed the grace of God to be saved from their sinful lives, no matter how true or untrue. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

A woman is found dead on the shore of the Thames in central London, chained to a pillar, with one set of footprints leading to the spot where she drowned in the tide. It's another case for detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. The irascible Bryant, with his encyclopedic knowledge of London history, is full of theories. Lately, though, he's been wandering the city, confused as to which decade he's in. May, always the straight man, wonders if senility hasn't finally caught up with his old partner. Yet his mental lapses might be the very thing that helps them solve the mystery.

English author Christopher Fowler (Bryant & May and the Burning Man) has been heaped with awards and plaudits, and his popularity in North America is growing. Strange Tide, the 13th novel in his Bryant & May series, is written to stand alone, as are most of the others.

The plotting is tight, the pacing fast and the story conventional enough to feel like a comfortable new pair of slippers. The dialogue is snappy, with occasional metafictional nods ("This isn't an Agatha Christie. Criminals don't leave annoying little puzzles for you to unravel"), and Fowler's prose is both literary and unpretentious. Bryant's mental deterioration may pack more of an emotional punch for longtime readers, and several of the secondary characters may seem more rounded to those familiar with the other books, but on its own, Strange Tide feels complete and satisfying. --Zak Nelson, writer and bookseller

Twelve years after leaving Stillwater, Ill., where gossip grows alongside the corn and beans, emergency room nurse Frankie Stapleton reluctantly returns home to help her sister through a dangerous pregnancy. When Frankie arrives, the hospital is overloaded with accident victims and she finds a man suffering alone outside the ER. Unable to ignore her instincts, Frankie saves his life before proceeding to her sister's bedside.

When the man dies unexpectedly, Frankie has a lot more trouble heaped on a plate already overflowing with everything she abandoned when she fled town: her scared, angry sister; her cool, critical mother; her childhood flame (the first of three fiancés for the serially engaged Frankie); and a troubled family business. When a surprising plaintiff files suit, the hospital administration targets Frankie, jeopardizing her all-important career. 

In Time of Death, Lucy Kerr creates a trio of strong and irresistible characters in the Stapleton women. Although this super debut mystery is focused on Frankie's fight to prove her innocence, there is no lack of small-town family drama fortified by a supporting cast intriguing in their own rights.

The investigation is imbued with just the right amount of medical details--challenging and written with authority while still engaging. Frankie's specialized knowledge allows Kerr's plotting to avoid the pitfalls that often come with amateur sleuth protagonists. But nurses don't often deal with murder, and Frankie may have more to save than her license, and must face her lifelong demons to get the job done. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

Books on craft beer and the craft beer movement abound, and readers may feel underwhelmed at the prospect of another. But Frank Appleton's memoir, Brewing Revolution: Pioneering the Craft Beer Movement, is different. For one, his focus is on British Columbia, rather than the much-discussed scene in the United States. And Appleton's unapologetic, lively personality communicates a story both personal and national, even global, in scope. Brewing Revolution also expands into an impassioned indictment of mass-market adjunct lagers, as well as a manual for the next generation of brewers.

Appleton, a native of Manchester, England, applied his studies in microbiology to food science and later, after immigrating to Vancouver, B.C., to brewing. He began in one of Canada's "Big Three" brewing conglomerates, where he developed a scorn for adjunct ingredients (or "added junk") like corn, rice and corn syrup, where traditional, quality brews use only malted grains like barley. When an article he wrote comparing adjunct lagers with "tasteless white bread and the universal cardboard hamburger," and calling for a do-it-yourself response, drew the attention of an ambitious pub owner, Appleton's career as a consultant began.

He tells the story of a country's craft beer movement and of his life work, but it doesn't stop there. In his enthusiasm, Appleton can't help but offer troubleshooting advice for ambitious brewers and a healthy review of brewing techniques, including the niceties of equipment, yeast cultivation and malting. As a history of a movement and a personal memoir brimming with zeal, Brewing Revolution is educational, entertaining and, perhaps most of all, thirst-inducing. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Public policy wonk Neil Gilbert calls into question almost every comfortable assumption of modern progressivism in his well-structured and well-argued treatise, Never Enough: Capitalism and the Progressive Spirit.

Gilbert, author of numerous books, including A Mother's Work: How Feminism, the Market and Policy Shape Family Life, is a professor at the Berkeley School of Social Welfare and a senior research fellow at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. His expertise becomes apparent as he navigates thorny issues of poverty, inequality, capitalism, public spending and income redistribution, specifically in the United States.

Whether addressing broad political concepts or nuances of complex data, Gilbert writes deftly, with clear analysis and factual authority. At the crux of his argument is what he deems "institutionalized discontent"--the ingrained presumptions in progressive circles that capitalism is the root of all social ill, even in modern welfare states. With careful comparative analysis of public spending and changing demographics over the years, Gilbert shows the incredible gains in living standards in first-world countries. He addresses methods of measuring poverty, inequality and social mobility, and argues that prevailing approaches focus on incomes and consumerism relative to richer peer groups, rather than on actual material deprivations associated with chronic poverty. Furthermore, he exposes a disconcerting trend of welfare spending going to middle-class families rather than to society's most needy.

Besides making progressives question their own data, Gilbert offers a new approach that he calls "progressive conservatism." He proposes graduated public assistance at the family level, including home-visiting services that assist struggling single parents. Likely to produce plenty of critical discussion, Never Enough is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in public policy. --Scott Neuffer, freelance journalist and fiction author

In his introduction to The Wisdom of the Middle Ages, lawyer and writer Michael K. Kellogg (The Roman Search for Wisdom) notes that "the Middle Ages were a time very much like the present, and we have a great deal to learn from the efforts of medieval thinkers and writers to give shape and meaning to their experience." Europeans were struggling with the disintegration of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Catholic Church and the founding of nation-states. Kellogg offers a clear, competent summary of the origins of Christianity, the history of the European Middle Ages and the period's great literary, theological and philosophical works. He organizes this around his reading of the New Testament and a selection of significant authors: Saint Augustine, Boethius, the Beowulf poet, Abelard and Héloïse, Chrétien de Troyes, Saint Francis, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Boccaccio and Chaucer.

Kellogg chose these examples, as in his previous books, because they are "works that enrich our lives through their intellectual distinction, beauty of expression, and implicit or explicit wisdom." This is a lot of material to cover in one short volume. Kellogg does not go into great depth and his quotes from the works are brief. For readers who are inspired to read more about the Middle Ages or these works, he provides substantial notes, a chronology and suggestions for further reading organized by author. Anyone looking for an overview of the period or concise summaries of the major works that Kellogg considers will find this useful. --Sara Catterall

As a single mother of two young girls, native of Baltimore and veteran White House correspondent, April Ryan (The Presidency in Black and White) has spent much of her adulthood juggling the complex issues of race and race relations in both her personal and professional lives. In her second book, At Mama's Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White, she draws on that experience--as well as those of other mothers and children--to present a new and multifaceted interpretation of the important role that mothers play in both understanding and defining race relations in the United States today.

Ryan uses her journalistic background to great effect in At Mama's Knee, most notably through extensive conversations with others. Interviews with prominent politicians, such as Hillary Clinton and Valerie Jarrett, combine with the stories of mothers who have been thrust into the news cycle, such as Gwen Carr (mother of Eric Garner) and Sybrina Fulton (mother of Trayvon Martin), to fully flesh out Ryan's ideas of race and motherhood. The sheer number of interviews can be overwhelming at times, and there are points throughout At Mama's Knee when the argument can be lost in cumbersome language. But at its heart, Ryan's work is an important reminder of the place of mothers in the ongoing conversation about race and racial tensions in U.S. "We must teach our children," she urges, "whether with words or actions, about race in America." The words in At Mama's Knee are an important part of that teaching. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Seventeen-year-old Ruby Otrera is a Fireblood from a remote mountain village, born with the ability to conjure "a river of heat"--and even fire. Her skin is unusually hot, and she has to be careful not to ignite things when her temper gets the best of her. The ruling class of Frostbloods, under the reign of the tyrannical Frost King, has all but killed off the Firebloods they despise. Sure enough, the king's soldiers do find Ruby, murder her mother, destroy her village and lock her up in Blackcreek Prison.

Two Frostbloods from an abbey dedicated to the north wind Fors want the Frost King dead, and they want the imprisoned Ruby, perhaps "the most powerful Fireblood left in the kingdom," to kill him. For sanctuary, eventual freedom and the chance to avenge her mother's death, she warily accepts the challenge. Arcus and Brother Thistle begin training Ruby to master her gift so she can complete her task. In the process, Ruby and Arcus's teasing banter heats up. The sparks that fly between them may not be unexpected, but they are fun to witness, especially as Ruby keeps glimpsing the handsome features of the "conceited icicle" beneath his monk's hood, and his nicknames for her ("Lady Firebrand, "my raging inferno") begin to escalate.

At its core, Elly Blake's exciting fantasy series debut is the story of a young woman's struggle to understand herself, her power and her role in a world that loathes her. Ruby's first-person voice is powerful and passionate, and readers will want to know what's next for her in the Frostblood Saga. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI