Karin Tanabe (The Diplomat's Daughter; A Hundred Suns) takes readers deep into the inner life of a society housewife turned FBI informant in her sixth novel, A Woman of Intelligence. The daughter of Swiss immigrants, Katharina Edgeworth speaks four languages, has a graduate degree from Columbia and is bored stiff spending her days caring for her two young boys in 1950s Manhattan. As the postwar fear of Communism sweeps across the U.S., Rina is recruited by FBI agents to collect information about a former lover suspected of Communist activities. Desperate to find a purpose beyond wiping noses and breaking up her boys' arguments (or schmoozing at gala events with her doctor husband), Rina agrees, barely pausing to debate the ethics of spying on someone she once trusted. Before long, she realizes what her handlers already know: she might be in way over her head.

Tanabe's narrative is full of rich period details, from the gilded world of Rina's Upper East Side apartment and wealthy in-laws to her memories of her former work at the fledgling United Nations. Rina herself is a complicated character. Smart and introspective, she married for love and reluctantly gave up her career when she got pregnant, but finds herself bored and frustrated by the constraints of her current life. As she slips into both passivity and self-harm, the opportunity to do something for her country--and be seen simply as a woman again--proves irresistible.

Taut and thoughtful, A Woman of Intelligence vividly portrays a particular moment in American history while capturing a woman's timeless struggle to create her own life. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

In the witty and compelling The Council of Animals by Nick McDonell (Twelve), humans are nearly extinct following an unspecified disaster ("The Calamity") of their own making. The animals, also sorely suffering in a changed world, gather to debate and vote on the next steps: to allow the humans to live, or to kill and eat them all. This council includes a grizzled, arthritic bulldog; a not-so-bright horse; an underfed grizzly bear; a religious crow; an aloof and possibly turncoat cat; and a bully of a baboon. The belated seventh council member is the source of some trepidation and mystery. When the humans (who mostly remain offscreen) appear doomed, a motley alliance must form, swelling the ranks of animal characters to encompass a trio of moles, a giant lizard that thinks it's a bat, a small but important scorpion and more. To save humanity, these intrepid creatures will travel and go on adventures together, learning interspecies trust and new animal facts, and finding hilarity and danger along the way.

This thought-provoking, captivating story contains both whimsy and life-or-death consequences, charmingly related with humor and sagacity by a narrator, "a humble historian (or animal contextographer)," who conceals their own identity until the very end. The Council of Animals has the feel of a fable, both a romp with sweetly goofy animal characters and a serious and clear-eyed story about the real world and its dangers. Ultimately, this is a tale about community and cooperation. Humans may have something to learn from the animals about communication and mutual responsibility. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Can a wealthy couple in their 40s maintain a lasting friendship with a poor couple in their 20s without jealousy rearing its ugly head? Louise Candlish's The Other Passenger plots how friendship leads to betrayal, fraud and murder in this scintillating suspense novel.

Jamie and Clare, the older couple, live in a coveted London suburb. Clare is a partner in a successful real estate firm; Jamie made money in marketing. Kit and Melia, the younger pair, are former actors. Kit now works at an insurance company, and Melia was recently hired at Clare's firm. Unfortunately, Kit and Melia's combined paychecks don't add up to much and they are drowning in debt.

Clare learns Melia and Kit live nearby and invites them to dinner. Kit and Melia are astounded by Clare and Jamie's palatial house--until they hear it was paid for by Clare's parents. Kit starts an argument over the unfairness of having to pay exorbitant rent for a modest flat while Clare had a whole house given to her. Melia later apologizes for Kit's outburst and tells Clare that Kit would like to be friends with Jamie. The couples continue to get together regularly, managing to skirt the issue of their inequities in favor of maintaining the friendship. Then Kit goes missing and the police suspect Jamie of murder.

Candlish (Those People) acknowledges being influenced by the double-crossing plot of the film Double Indemnity and singer Lana Del Rey's slow-burn cover of "Doin' Time" while writing. And, yes, the plot comparisons and overall pacing are undeniable, but Candlish culls from these sources to create a distinctive and captivating read. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer

English teacher Teddy Crutcher despises entitlement--it has a "particular stench. Pungent, bitter. Almost brutal." But in Samantha Downing's slyly wicked For Your Own Good, the elitist Belmont Academy overflows with those who believe they are better than others.

In just three novels, Edgar finalist Downing (My Lovely Wife; He Started It) has carved a niche with sharp plotting and subversive, unethical characters whose nastiness makes them riveting. Despite that Teacher of the Year plaque on his chalkboard (he eschews smartboards), Teddy abhors almost all his students and their wealthy, conceited parents, whose antics make the celebrity college scandal seem like kindergarten. Teddy believes he needs to teach them to be better people by showing them failure. A bright but "smug" student gets a B on a report worth an A, and if his parents complain, a heavier assignment. Colleges receive letters accusing a girl of cheating because Teddy considers her "an arrogant snob," even though she aces every assignment. A little poison from plants he grows can cause colleagues' uncontrollable vomiting or diarrhea in public. And if people die--well, it won't be the first time.

The "morally bankrupt" Teddy thrives on a casual cruelty that he hides in plain sight with his affable personality. But Teddy isn't the only teacher with hatred in his heart as the growing body count turns the once stellar Belmont Academy into the trending #HomicideHigh.

Downing invests For Your Own Good with a delicious dark wit that well serves her realistic, quirky characters. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer 

Although the Western concept of grief paints it as a private, individual process with distinct "stages" heavily influenced by the Kubler-Ross model, the reality is much messier, and it is often communal. Activist, social worker, yoga teacher and devoted daughter Michelle Cassandra Johnson explores the impact of collective grief and offers some tools for healing in her second nonfiction book, Finding Refuge.

Through personal stories--including her mother's long struggle against a racist health-care system that marginalized her experience as a Black woman--Johnson explores how grief builds up in the body and spirit, continuing to affect individual and communal wellness until it is acknowledged and released. Each chapter offers meditation resources, journaling prompts and other suggestions for facing, naming and even embracing grief, as opposed to hiding from it or denying it. With deep compassion, raw honesty and flaring anger at the systems that seek to bury grief, Johnson (Skill in Action) points toward a new way of dealing with sorrow. She discusses the ongoing racial trauma of living as a Black American, her experience as a novice beekeeper and her journey of tapping into various spiritual practices to nourish herself and move forward. The end goal is not denial or "perfection," but wholeness: an emergence into a stronger place where people can make space for their pain and then grow past it. Both challenging and comforting, Finding Refuge seems particularly apt for the current moment of racial unrest, widespread disease and political change. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Leigh Patel's No Study Without Struggle insightfully explores the role of colleges and universities in maintaining the colonial structure of the United States. Patel (Decolonizing Educational Research) is a professor of education at the University of Pittsburgh and presents real-world examples for all levels of university staff, students and faculty working toward dismantling systemic racism within their institutions.

Through extensive research and interviews with social activists from the Black Panther Party and Black Lives Matter, Patel examines the university system through the lens of settler colonialism, which she states is the basis of society in many nations, including the United States, Australia and Canada. "Unlike a system based on extracting resources, goods, and human subjects from 'other lands,' settler colonialism is based on the logic of owning land" and explains how racism, property accumulation and gender binaries for example, are used to maintain "extractive power dynamics in education."

Patel argues that this settler colonialism is a direct cause of the disconnect between the ideal scenario of education being a path to betterment and the harsh reality that wealth is accessible only to a select part of society. She writes that settler colonialism explains "why marginalized populations experience distinct yet deeply connected forms of harm and barriers to higher education," and she cites many historical and contemporary examples to support this.

Throughout the book, Patel urges readers to acknowledge both the existence of settler colonialism and the importance of social struggle in higher education, and calls for universities to implement real changes instead of focusing on the superficial optics. For only then, she suggests, can true study occur. --Grace Rajendran, freelance reviewer and literary events producer

If turning scraps of ancient papyrus into an enthralling true-crime escapade takes a miracle, consider Ariel Sabar a miracle worker. In 2012, Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King shook the foundations of the Christian church when she announced in Rome the discovery of what she called "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife." Sabar, who had been following the story first for Smithsonian and then for the Atlantic, was the only journalist in the room for the presentation.

The discovery had the potential to unravel millennia of church dogma surrounding sex and gender. Furthermore, King's reading of the torn, nigh illegible text suggested that Jesus valued women's leadership far more than his church has. But as soon as the bit of inked papyrus saw the spotlight, its provenance drew far more scrutiny than its original proponents could handle. Clumsy handwriting, horrid syntax and unsubstantiated dating set off a chain reaction of queries, criticisms and suspicions of forgery, spurring Sabar to dig far deeper than he might have imagined when he first took the assignment.

The National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of My Father's Paradise transforms top-notch research skills into riveting suspense. And even as he closes in early on his prime suspect, method and motive prove to be the more baffling questions, at increasingly bizarre turns. Engrossing as the forgery thread becomes, the underpinnings for why a respected historian such as King, and a fair few of her colleagues, would so audaciously pursue a flimsy excuse for authentic scripture drive at a far more unsettling conclusion.

Veritas--a Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year and nominee for an Edgar Award for Best True Crime Book of the Year--is an extraordinary and mind-bending adventure into ancient traditions with modern consequences. --Dave Wheeler, associate editor, Shelf Awareness

A K-pop idol and a classical cellist help each other find balance in this sweet, uplifting YA romance from Korean American author Axie Oh (Rebel Seoul).

Seventeen-year-old Korean American cellist Jenny Go dreams of going pro, but a recent critique that her playing lacks "spark" makes her worry that she won't get into a top music school. Her mom feels she should work harder, but free-spirited Uncle Jay encourages her to find out what "lights that fire within you." When she impulsively challenges gorgeous stranger Jaewoo to a karaoke battle, their playful animosity blossoms into a magical night at a Los Angeles Korean cultural festival. But Jaewoo departs suddenly and then doesn't answer texts, leaving Jenny confused. Soon after, she and her mother temporarily relocate to Seoul to care for her ailing grandmother. Jenny is astonished to find Jaewoo also attends her new performing arts school--and flabbergasted to learn he's a member of trending K-pop boy band XOXO. Their chemistry grows into love, but pop-idol life comes with strict schedules, potential scandals and paparazzi ambushes. As career pressures mount and her return to the U.S. looms, Jenny fears their relationship may drop off the charts.

K-pop and K-drama fans should love Oh's fandom-friendly setup, while juicy boarding school drama and mother-daughter tension add even broader appeal. Although the worthy message of work-play balance occasionally gets lost amid multiple subplots, this delightful comfort read is BTS: bound to satisfy. --Jaclyn Fulwood, youth services manager at Main Branch, Dayton Metro Library

In veterinarian and television host Jess French's contribution to the DK Kid's nonfiction Nature series, amazing mysteries that lurk beneath the blue waves of Earth's oceans take center stage. French explores oceanic geography, water, plants and, of course, wildlife. Her fascinating facts are accompanied by stunning photographs and bold, colorful illustrations by Claire McElfatrick, all providing a glimpse into this astounding, watery world.

French turns learning about the ocean and its inhabitants into an adventure as she takes her readers from the water's surface down to the ocean floor, with full-page spreads that invite interaction, making readers turn the book from its landscape format to portrait to see the full scope of the illustration. Light and temperatures drop off the further down one travels, but French's tour is infused with her own giddy attraction for it, illuminating the smallest of creatures and the most delicate of plants. Mammals, fish, birds and reptiles all populate her section on ocean animals, while reefs, meadows and forests are explored in ocean habitats. Combined, these two subject areas offer readers insight into animal movements (like the spiny lobsters marching across the ocean floor), family matters ("When sperm whales dive into deeper waters, they leave their calves at the surface with other mothers"), even safety, such as the stonefish's ability to hide in plain sight by remaining still on the floor of a reef.

French's love for the ocean and all the life that inhabits it is contagious, and McElfatrick's bright, detailed art is mesmerizing. Earth's Incredible Oceans should leave readers of all ages with an appreciation for the value and fragility of this extraordinary part of the planet. --Jen Forbus, freelancer