Inspired by the true story of Maine's largest fire in 1947, Anita Shreve takes readers into the fictional life of Grace Holland; her husband, Gene; their two children; and their respective in-laws. Grace is a stay-at-home mom, content for the most part, despite the controlling influence of her husband and the lack of passion she feels toward him.

Suddenly an out-of-control fire races along the Maine coastline, threatening her family. With Gene gone to fight the flames, it's up to Grace to save herself and her children by cowering in the ocean. When the danger passes, she is homeless, penniless and cannot find her husband, but without his dominance, she finds inner strengths and passions she never knew she had. She learns to drive, gets a job and discovers that life is rich and vibrant, full of open doors she only dreamt of finding when living with Gene.

In this mood-centric, romantic novel, Shreve interweaves Grace's musings about her desires with the day-to-day details of life for a woman with two small children who has few worldly experiences, but must forge ahead if she hopes to live. Authentically set in a postwar coastal town, where the year-round residents and the rich don't usually mingle, Shreve conveys the proper tone of obedience and married obligations while exploring the ambitions, desires and drives of a woman suddenly experiencing freedom and her own strength for the first time. Grace's gradual awakening to her own abilities is deftly depicted and leaves readers haunted by her story long after the last page. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

As a Nepalese native living in the United States, Samrat Upadhyay (The City Son, Buddha's Orphans) has a particular viewpoint on the connections between his former and adopted homes. And while Mad Country takes its title from a story set entirely in Nepal, other pieces in this collection of short works prove that the name could easily describe the United States. Indeed, Upadhyay's writing is best when it blurs the line between experiences, showing how people can conflate cultures as they look for meaning in their own lives.

That conflation is best represented in standout pieces like "Freak Street," in which an American from Ohio identifies so closely with her Nepalese hosts she begins to think of herself as native to a country she's lived in for six months. In the Kafkaesque "Dreaming of Ghana," a young man's dreams of an indistinct African country bleed into his real life, with heartbreaking consequences. And in the final story, "America the Great Equalizer," a Nepalese graduate student loses his sense of identity after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the resulting riots.

A lesser author might use such stories to push a "humans are all the same" theme or, worse, attempt to judge cultures against each other. But Upadhyay is less interested in culture clash than culture shock, and how people's identities can be rewritten in the face of that shock. If anything, that is the unifying theme Mad Country skillfully illuminates: the attempt by the psyche to re-create itself in the face of trauma. --Noah Cruickshank, adult engagement manager, the Field Museum, Chicago, Ill.

When V.I. Warshawski is asked to look for an aspiring filmmaker who has become the main suspect in a break-in, the Chicago private detective follows the young man's trail to Lawrence, Kansas. Apparently August, the filmmaker, was headed there with former Hollywood actress Emerald Ferring, to make a documentary of her early years spent in the area.

But August and Emerald disappeared not long after they arrived in town. When a troubled woman calls V.I. to say she saw them, an attempt is made to silence the woman before she can talk. Then people start dying--residents who might have information about August and Emerald's whereabouts, as well as what happened three decades ago around a missile silo in town. The military says the silo has been decommissioned, but V.I. discovers it may not be as harmless as it appears.

After more than 30 years, V.I. remains an appealing protagonist in Sara Paretsky's Fallout. The private eye's forthright manner and low tolerance for lies are a tonic in an age when falsehoods dominate current events. Her assistant, the golden retriever Peppy, is a joy, as is the humor V.I. shows regarding residents who claim to know nothing about August and Emerald, despite knowing everything about everyone's business.

But Fallout covers deadly matters, too, and tackles social issues, including racial tensions in the South. Paretsky's writing remains relevant while reminding readers of lessons from the past, for as one character says, what's happening now is "just another chapter in a long book." --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

In a viciously delicious thriller, Lee Irby (The Van) introduces a charming, refined protagonist who could be a monster, a deranged jilted lover or simply one of love's losers. From beginning to end, the only thing readers can rely on is that the narrator is a liar.

Edwin Stith is a mild-mannered, unassuming English professor at a "leafy liberal arts school" in Ithaca, N.Y., whose failed writing career, recent divorce and sexual impotency provide ready fodder for sympathy. A dutiful son, he's headed home to Richmond, Va., for his mother's wedding. However, he's aware this story in and of itself has no teeth, so he mentions to the reader that he may also be on the run for murdering his ex-wife, Bev. Or maybe he didn't. Or maybe he killed a waitress at a truck stop--or maybe not. Maybe Eddie himself is the murder victim. "It doesn't much matter," he devilishly assures us. "Mine, hers, his. You want a body and I want to give you one."

To find out, readers must come along for the ride as Eddie reconnects with his wealthy, aging mother, who's marrying a man Eddie's age; his long-lost high school sweetheart, Leigh Rose; and a handful of old school nemeses and acquaintances who mean Eddie and his rekindled romance no good. Riding shotgun with Eddie will have even the doughtiest reader feeling claustrophobic, hostage to a man who will say anything to keep an audience. Irby sculpts every thrill of terror out of pure psychological manipulation, adeptly batting the reader around like a catnip mouse. Unreliable is tense, hypnotic and elegantly assembled. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Cory Doctorow--Internet doyen and successful author in a range of genres, from YA novels like Little Brother to the nonfiction manifesto Information Doesn't Want to Be Free--returns to adult fiction with Walkaway. The novel opens in a dystopia where bantering malcontents Seth, Natalie and Hubert, Etc. (so nicknamed for his 20-odd middle names) meet at a "Communist party"; they flirt with counterculture ideas while dodging the watchful eye of the establishment. When the party ends in tragedy, the trio is inspired to drop out of society and join the "walkaways," a group of people resembling technophilic hippies in their idealism and revolutionary lifestyle. Each character finds his or her place among the dreamers after making the harsh adjustment to a society organized in direct counterpoint to the dog-eat-dog, wildly unequal capitalist norms of what they come to refer to as Default.

The walkaways' idealism is supported by nearly miraculous technological achievements--they live in a "post-scarcity" society where questions of food and shelter are more or less solved by printers capable of manufacturing almost anything at a moment's notice. They even seem to have cracked a problem that Default's hyper-rich "zottas" have failed to solve for years: how to live forever. That discovery prompts a vicious crackdown from Default, escalating quickly into a war pitting hacktivist egalitarians against tyrannical robber barons.

Walkaway is awash in unrestrained nerdery. Doctorow is teaching, but he's also having fun, and it's a pleasure to watch him twist the two together. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Tatiana de Rosnay is the author of 10 contemporary novels, including A Paris Affair and The Other Story, whose themes often deal with the dark underpinnings of love, romance and secrets. In Manderley Forever, she explores the life of Daphne du Maurier, who made an indelible impression on de Rosnay from the time she was 11 years old, when she read Rebecca, du Maurier's most popular novel. Published in 1938, Rebecca is psychological suspense about secrets, old flames, jealousy and the looming manor Manderley. Like her subject, de Rosnay hails from a British and French bloodline, a factor that contributed to her fascination with du Maurier and ignited her quest to write a comprehensive biography and uncover the secrets of du Maurier's life, work and inspirations.

Du Maurier was a shy, observant, sensitive child who was largely shaped by patriarchal influences, as well as her two, equally creative sisters, an often aloof mother who was chronically neglected by her wandering, limelight-seeking husband. Du Maurier would later fall in love and marry Major Thomas Browning, 10 years her senior. The demands of his decorated military career--along with the pressures of marriage, motherhood and war--posed significant challenges to her freedom, aspects of which were often reflected in her work, which included dark, gothic romances as well as biographies.

The narrative is distinguished by de Rosnay's esteem and empathy. This deep and thoroughly researched biography offers riveting drama while presenting compelling reasons as to why du Maurier--whom many claimed was funny and cheerful--produced such a gloomy oeuvre, beloved by legions of fans but often scorned by the critics. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

When David Letterman retired in 2015, after 33 years hosting his late-night comedy talk show, "he received a send-off befitting a secular saint," writes Jason Zinoman, comedy critic for the New York Times. Letterman's two TV series (CBS's Late Show and NBC's Late Night) were wildly inventive, outrageous, combustible and influential. But backstage they were a hotbed for dysfunction, with Letterman the nucleus of it. Described as "a spectacularly committed hypochondriac," Letterman "never enjoyed the successes and scrutinized every failure, musing darkly about the implications and pivoting from self-criticism to despair in a blink," writes Zinoman (Shock Value).

His uncompromising and eye-opening biography is a love letter to the magic created on both shows, but never ignores the hostile and combative atmosphere behind the scenes with a "difficult, fascinating and self-lacerating character who hated revealing himself in his work but couldn't help doing so." Zinoman's knowledge is encyclopedic and his insights are perceptive. Letterman is filled with surprisingly candid recollections culled from Zinoman's interviews with the comedian, his writers (including co-creator and ex-girlfriend Merrill Markoe), producers, directors, production staff and frequent guests like Steve Martin and Sandra Bernhard.

This biography offers a fascinating look at how David Letterman's comedy and personality evolved over the years, and how his TV shows mixed absurdist, conceptual, satirical, slapstick, silly and sophisticated humor--and somehow made it cohesive. Letterman is a frank tribute to the painful process of creating comedy. Fans of TV, comedy and celebrities behaving badly will find it irresistible. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

As editor Paul Hawken (Blessed Unrest) writes in the introduction to the immensely compelling Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, "reversing global warming requires a change in how we think and what we do." To help initiate these changes, Hawken--who's written seven books on ecological business solutions--and more than 120 scientists formed Project Drawdown, a think tank designed to draft, model, fact-check, review and validate scientific data surrounding climate change and the solutions proposed to end it. Drawdown contains 100 of the most viable solutions they found.

The collection comprises a variety of approaches, including the installment of more green energy generators like wind turbines and solar panels, and the repopulation of land above the Arctic Circle with grass-grazing mammals. The scientific reasoning that supports each solution is offered in layman's terms, and important numbers--such as a plan's total cost, cost per capita and predicted total reduction of carbon from the atmosphere--are highlighted for easy comparison.

Impressively, each strategy also includes a discussion of its inherent challenges. In the section devoted to wave and tidal energy, for example, scientists explain that saltwater damages equipment over time and that waves are less predictable than wind and sunlight--making their energy more difficult to harness. By acknowledging these challenges, the Project's scientists have collated a highly persuasive collection that world leaders--and community activists--can discuss frankly and with the intent of further improvement. Drawdown is not only comprehensive, it's crucial to our world's conversation about climate change. --Amy Brady, freelance writer and editor

When Michael sees Mina, it's love at first sight. Unfortunately, they're on opposite sides of an immigration protest at the time. Michael is with his father, the founder of an anti-immigration, anti-Muslim group called Aussie Values. Mina, who escaped Afghanistan with her mother, is holding a sign that says "It's Not Illegal to Seek Asylum." The next day, Michael sees her again, because Mina has moved to the North Shore of Sydney to attend 11th grade at the same private school he does. Though they clash in their first shared class and argue each time they see each other, a crush develops as they spend more time together, confusing both of them. Their arguments inspire Michael to question his family's beliefs, but Mina remains protective of her family and hesitant to trust him. Although their conversations are serious, a healthy dose of humor and their cautious romance brings both Michael and Mina to life. "Can you actually die of a brain aneurysm through overanalyzing whether your date is, in fact, a date?" asks Mina, and Michael is equally unsure.

In alternating chapters, Australian author Abdel-Fattah (Does My Head Look Big in This?; Ten Things I Hate About Me) provides two thoughtful points of view, avoiding cliché or easy answers. As Mina relives flashbacks from her arduous journey to Australia and Michael confronts his parents, Abdel-Fattah's writing brings their struggles to life with compassion. Teen readers will learn from Mina and Michael's experiences even as they swoon over the sweet love story at the book's heart. --Stephanie Anderson, assistant director for public services, Darien Library (Conn.)