Ariel Courage presents a provocative, hypnotic excursion with her debut novel, Bad Nature, which offers a road trip, a revenge fantasy, and a snarky sendup of American culture.

Courage's mesmerizingly repellent protagonist, Hester, relates early in her narrative: "I was always going to kill my father." This intention shifts from someday to immediate when, just after her 40th birthday, she receives a breast cancer diagnosis. The oncologist tells her that, without treatment, she has six months to live. With characteristic, practiced detachment, Hester quits her successful job as a lawyer and leaves Manhattan in her Jaguar E-type, aiming for her long-estranged father's new home in Death Valley. She will kill him and then herself with the gun in her glove box. Simple.

Hester picks up a hitchhiker, John, who becomes her unlikely companion on a convoluted route toward the eventual destination. John is a principled traveler: eschewing consumerism, he photographs Superfund sites, documenting destruction. Stops along the way include Hester's (only) ex-boyfriend from college and a friend (likewise) from high school, with disappointing if predictable results.

Hester's first-person voice is deeply sarcastic, darkly funny, and almost entirely self-aware. Bad Nature's title offers commentary on Hester's terminal cancer (and her mother's), on the violent impulses of her hated father (and her own), on the environmental devastation John is called to witness. Hester's carefully cultivated cynicism is her final weapon, and its potential loss might be the most painful and surprising part of this madcap expedition. Courage delights and challenges with this mashup of emotions, until readers may be surprised, in turn, to care about Hester after all. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Discover: Bleakly funny, gloomy, and magnetic, this novel's revenge-fueled, terminal road trip will tender surprising truths.

Natalia Theodoridou's debut novel, Sour Cherry, is a lyrical and hallucinatory feminist reimagining of classic fairy tales, most notably "Bluebeard." When Agnes arrives at the castle to serve as wetnurse for the lord's son, she is still grieving the loss of her own child. Soon, the little lord becomes her surrogate son, the boy she commits to raising no matter the darkness she intuits, sees, and even smells coursing through him. As the young lord grows, marries, and leaves to find his place in the world, the world itself withers at his touch. And soon the patterns of destruction that follow him become more a choice than an inheritance, a spiral of violence that leaves a ghostly chorus in its wake.

Theodoridou's brilliant choice to interweave a first-person narrator's dreamlike tale with her experiences of hearing and retelling the story to her own child allows Sour Cherry to comment on the very fairytales it perpetuates. Scattered throughout the novel are reflections on what it means to hear stories, spread them, and be part of them yourself. This awareness of the power of storytelling makes complicity a complicated web in Sour Cherry. Certainly, the little lord is the villain, but "his violence has always been the violence of the world." And that world is shaped by stories, "Stories about young men who were beasts waiting to be turned back into men.... The women in her stories died often, and badly, and beautifully." This is the true cycle of destruction and creation and re-creation. What stories do we choose to tell? Theodoridou asks readers. And how do we choose to tell them? --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

Discover: Natalia Theodoridou's hauntingly beautiful fairytale retelling Sour Cherry is both a breathless work of fiction and a thoughtful reflection on storytelling itself.

Ever wish that a coveted opportunity would just drop out of the sky? That happens to the protagonists in Hot Air, Marcy Dermansky's hilarious novel about second chances and quirks of fate. Accidents don't get more freakish than this one: while two neighbors, each a divorced parent of a young child, enjoy a kiss on their first date in the man's backyard, an out-of-control hot air balloon plummets earthward and crashes into the pool. The basket contains Jonathan and Julia Foster, a "verified billionaire" tech firm CEO and his pampered wife, a former art student who doles out Foster Foundation money and adopts feral cats. Their unintended targets are Joannie, eking out a living as a freelancer now that the advance from her one novel is gone, and Johnny, an architect trying to raise money for a public housing project. For added freakishness: Jonathan was Joannie's first-ever kiss when they were 14.

Contrived? Sure is, but the fun of this lightning-fast read is what Dermansky (Hurricane Girl; The Red Car) does with that setup, starting with Julia's wacky suggestion: How about a partner swap? It would spoil the pleasure to give away more, but among the plot points are Jonathan and Julia's inability to become pregnant; the aspirations of Vivian, the Fosters' Vietnamese assistant; and several characters' uncertainty regarding what, exactly, they want out of life. This marvelous novel is a story about slamming up against one's limitations, but it's also about learning to distinguish intentions that are sincere from those that contain more hot air than the envelope of a balloon. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Discover: Hot Air, a charming novel by Marcy Dermansky, is the story of what happens to two divorced people trying to get to know each other when a hot air balloon crash-lands on them during their first date.

A stray cat brings together five lonely strangers in the cozy, introspective, slice-of-life novel Cat's People by Tanya Guerrero (Adrift), a middle-grade author making her adult debut.

Cat is no pampered indoor pet. He's lived his life on the streets of Brooklyn and learned to avoid most people. He reveals himself only to a trusted few, those with "kind eyes, soft voices, and hearts that weren't completely made of stone." Career barista Núria has a big heart for stray cats and is struggling with pressure from her mother to find a husband and settle down. Bodega owner Bong has fallen into a lonely life since his wife died. Friendly neighborhood mailman Omar isn't sure what his next step in life should be. New-in-town grocery clerk Lily has an elder half-sister who doesn't know she exists, and she has no idea how to approach her. Bestselling author Collin has a staggering case of writer's block and is too shy and socially awkward to approach the attractive barista who feeds a stray cat near his house. With a few happy coincidences and some creative interference from Cat, connections, flirtations, and friendships grow among the little cadre of strangers. Cat himself becomes invested in their lives, and he may have to accept that humans can be friends, and that friendship can be a home.

The emotional interiority of the characters brings color and depth to their everyday personal struggles. While it includes some darker elements, including an attempted sexual assault, Cat's People is an overall sweet scoop of whimsy for readers who love feline friends, underdog protagonists, and the joys of found family. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Discover: Five strangers form an unlikely community around a street cat in this sweet, introspective slice-of-life novel.

Set in a dilapidated old French country manor, The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla Barnes is a quietly dazzling, sharp-witted generational drama featuring the family of an aging couple from Oxford, England, long settled in rural France. Narrating it all is their daughter Miranda, a theater actress in Paris whose visits home leave her utterly exasperated.

Barnes is a British-French stage writer with a flair for superb dialogue and bitingly clever insight into the baggage-laden relationship between almost-50 Miranda, her sister, Charlotte, and their Mum and Dad. The parents, spectacularly ill-matched, spend much of their time talking at cross purposes. Meanwhile, the siblings must contend with the nagging rivalries that pursued them into adulthood and their parents' "insanely irritating" idiosyncrasies. The cast is rounded out by the Miranda's daughter, Alice, and various animals who play supporting roles in the daily life of Miranda's parents. The erratically furnished family residence, La Forgerie, houses two llamas, ducks, chickens, and a pair of entitled cats.

The novel's structure marks an entertaining departure from convention. Sprinkled in between e-mails from Miranda to Charlotte venting about her trips to La Forgerie are scenes that take the form of a play and old letters Mum started writing when she was an undergraduate student at Oxford. Miranda's mother is clearly the star of Barnes's debut, an intelligent matriarch with thwarted ambitions who doesn't let logic, reality, or her husband's maddeningly circular philosophical arguments get in the way of her agenda.

Relishing this quintessentially English domestic comedy, readers peeking below the surface will be astonished by the complex generational and emotional undercurrents guiding Barnes's memorable characters. --Shahina Piyarali

Discover: A quick-witted, quintessentially English domestic comedy drama set in an old manor in rural France explores the baggage-laden relationship between two sisters and their elderly parents.

Returning home after an unexplained three-day disappearance, robotics teacher Sarai Lilienblum quickly becomes an Internet sensation when a video surfaces showing her using an unplugged vacuum cleaner to turn sand into a rain-producing cloud. That's only the first of a series of hilariously improbable events that make Israeli author Iddo Gefen's wry, wise first novel, Mrs. Lilienblum's Cloud Factory, so enjoyable.

Sarai is an inveterate inventor of devices, like a toothbrush with built-in dental floss. With her husband, Boaz, and 22-year-old son, Eli, who's fitfully contemplating the next stage of his life, she lives in a replica of a Swiss ski village, atop the world's largest erosion crater in Israel's Negev Desert.

Hannah Bialika, widow of a wealthy local businessman, pledges $4 million to fund the manufacture of a working cloud machine; billionaire Ben Gould offers no less than five times that sum if the Lilienblums' startup, Cloudies, is able to produce rain on an entire town in four months. Eli and his hard-driving sister, Naomi, who quits her job with a technology company and returns from her home in Tel Aviv, scramble to produce the required device with their mother.

Gefen, winner of the 2023 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for his short story collection, Jerusalem Beach, deftly balances smart and sometimes hilarious scenes in his warmhearted exploration of one family's tangled dynamics wrapped in a sharp satire of technology startup culture. The climactic, highly public demonstration of Sarai's cloud-making machine is a comic masterpiece. But it's only one of the novel's many savvy moments that reveal its undeniable humanity and make it such a delight. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Discover: In this deft and wise comedy, an eccentric inventor creates a device that turns desert sand into rain, igniting a sensation in the high-tech world and a crisis for her family.

Elise Hooper's spellbinding fifth novel, The Library of Lost Dollhouses, takes readers deep into the world of intricately crafted miniatures and the secrets they contain. Through the connected stories of Belva Curtis LeFarge, an art collector and philanthropist, and Tildy Barrows, a librarian and curator who runs the San Francisco museum founded by Belva, Hooper examines the layers that often lie behind polished, public narratives--especially for women.

Tildy has devoted her life and career to Belva's library and museum, known locally as "the Bel." As she learns that the Bel is facing deep financial trouble, Tildy stumbles on a secret room in the museum containing two large, ornate dollhouses. Both pieces bear the maker's mark "CH"--and, astonishingly, one holds a miniature portrait of Tildy's mother. Stunned and intrigued, Tildy embarks on a quest to uncover the dollhouse maker's identity and save the Bel's finances by mounting an exhibit showcasing the miniatures.

Hooper (Angels of the Pacific; Fast Girls) shifts between Tildy's present-day search for Cora Hale and Cora's own experiences, a century before. Sent to Paris in 1910 after a scandal in New York, Cora crosses paths with Belva, who quickly becomes benefactor and friend. Commissioned to create a dollhouse for Belva, Cora throws herself into the project as World War I creeps ever closer to Paris. Meanwhile, in 2024, Tildy's research takes her to rural New Hampshire, where she meets a handsome man connected to Cora--and stumbles on a manuscript that could change everything.

Constructing a narrative as finely detailed as these dollhouses, Hooper builds a world of brave women, complex artistry, and long-buried family secrets. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: A museum curator discovers a pair of elaborately crafted dollhouses containing family secrets in Elise Hooper's finely detailed fifth novel.

What could be a hard, unhappy hostage story is anything but in Jane and Dan at the End of the World, a wild, witty romp of a novel from Colleen Oakley (The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise). Jane has not necessarily fallen out of love with Dan, her husband of 19 years, but she's fallen out of love with their life together. Her teenage kids ignore her, her one published book was a total flop, and she carries the mental load of everything and everyone in her household. As Dan plans an over-the-top anniversary dinner at the fanciest restaurant in California, Jane plans to ask him for a divorce--both plans that go horribly awry when the restaurant is taken over by people armed with guns. But these gunslingers are not very good at taking hostages, it seems, and slowly, Jane realizes they are using her not-bestselling novel as a playbook of sorts. Which means she knows what comes next, and even if Dan doesn't believe her (she's not even sure he's read her novel, after all), she'll need his help to try to stop this chaos.

Jane and Dan are lovable in their relatability, bickering and bantering across the well-worn paths of their marriage even as they face down a group of bumbling idiots with guns (and possibly bombs). Oakley is a master at dark humor, and she bakes truly laugh-out-loud lines seamlessly into a fast-paced, gripping novel of suspense. Packed with twists, turns, absurdities, social commentary, helicopters, climate angst, cliff jumps, and a whole lot of heart, Jane and Dan at the End of the World is a delight from start to startling finish. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Discover: The sharply funny novel pits a bickering couple against an armed but inept crew in a hostage situation in one of California's fanciest restaurants.

What's a better world to live in: the real one or an imagined one lived in one's head? The Swiss author Peter Stamm (Agnes; The Archive of Feelings) brilliantly plays with these and other philosophical concepts in his sly novel In a Deep Blue Hour, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann. Andrea, a 40-something filmmaker whose credits include "one or two little films for museums," travels to Paris to make a documentary about Richard Wechsler, a Swiss writer. He's a slippery character, often failing to show up at the agreed-upon shooting location. That's annoying but not surprising, given that he says the best way out of bad situations is to leave: "As long as you stay on the move, not much can happen to you."

Wechsler ends up torpedoing the project by backing out of it, even though he and Andrea had developed a close bond. But Stamm is too crafty to leave the story there. Andrea tracks down Judith, a 60-ish married minister who was Wechsler's romantic partner when they were around 20 and who, in various guises, has appeared in Wechsler's novels. After Wechsler dies, the remainder of In a Deep Blue Hour documents Andrea's further investigations into his life. Ever the filmmaker, she concocts fictitious scenes involving Wechsler, including a romance between them. All of this is in keeping with Stamm's exploration of the nature of art and the motivations of artists who co-opt the world around them. Can a work of art ever capture the truth? Wechsler asks. Who knows, but Stamm tries in this impeccable work. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Discover: Peter Stamm's In a Deep Blue Hour asks whether art can ever capture the truth via the story of a fledgling filmmaker and a famous writer, the elusive subject of the documentary she's trying to make.

Krysten Ritter--who starred in the Netflix series Jessica Jones--devises a deliciously devious con in the invigorating Retreat, which follows a woman who believes she's found paradise by assuming the identity of a megawealthy woman.

Con artist Liz Dawson has reached her limit with posing as an art consultant in Chicago to gain entry to luxurious homes. A chance meeting with a philanthropist at a gala event leads to a job overseeing an art installation at the new mansion belonging to Isabelle Beresford and her venture capitalist husband, Oliver, in upscale Punta Mita, Mexico. The timing is perfect, since Liz's hotel is about to kick her out for unpaid bills, a romance has become overbearing, and the Chicago winter is oppressive. When she uses the community membership card left for her by the Beresfords and a staffer calls her "Señora Beresford," Liz seizes the opportunity to slip into a new identity and enjoy an opulent lifestyle. The ruse is simple: Liz resembles Isabelle in the few photographs she's able to find. No one in her new community, neither residents nor employees, has ever met Isabelle. And Isabelle and Oliver are off the grid in Bali. Liz's plan to leave once her job is finished stretches into months as she gets closer to her wealthy neighbors, whom she plans to defraud. But the Beresfords' continued absence causes problems when Oliver's business partners become concerned.

Using steady pacing and humor to show how easily Liz fools others, Ritter (Bonfire) leads Retreat on a merry chase as Liz's love for scams and her new lifestyle forces her deeper into deception. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer

Discover: A con artist assumes the identity of a megawealthy woman no one has seen in this invigorating thriller.

A ship's detective is rudely awakened to a plot to kill not only peoples' bodies but also the minds backed up in the ship's library in Murder by Memory, a charming science fiction mystery by Olivia Waite (The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics; The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows).

Dorothy Gentleman was supposed to be taking a break before being decanted into a fresh body. Instead, she wakes in a body that belongs to someone else. The book in the interstellar ship's library into which her memory had been copied was destroyed, so to protect her, the ship loaded her backup into the nearest body. Also, the ship informs her, someone is dead.

Waite weaves a twisty new take on the classic detective yarn with a delightful cast of characters. Dorothy has a shrewd mind honed over multiple lifetimes and uses it not only for keen detecting skills but in the playful turns of phrase in her narration. Some members of the crew quickly realize that she is not Gloria Vowell, whose body she inhabits, but others take her for who she appears to be--which is sometimes an advantage, but very much not so when dealing with Violet, Gloria's stunningly beautiful, sharply observant, and repeatedly wronged partner. A ship where death need not be permanent offers intriguing possibilities for murder plots; the fact that it can be when a memory book is destroyed keeps the stakes appropriately high. Readers will be eager for more from Dorothy. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

Discover: A detective on a generation ship awakens suddenly in a new body and in the middle of a murder case in this charming science fiction mystery.

To engage with Ignatz Award winner Anders Nilsen's visually arresting Tongues, Volume 1 is to do more than simply read. This brilliant graphic novel, a collection of the series' first six issues, uses full-color realism and design-heavy layouts to invite uncommonly close attention. Its narrative and art will leave readers awed, both by the hand capable of rendering such vivid images and by the mind that was able to conceive of them.

Nilsen (Big Questions) draws on the mythology of Prometheus, the creator and protector of humanity, but there are no flowing robes or white beards in the depictions of these gods. Instead, each page features stunning geometric panels filled with talking animals, desolate landscapes, and a riveting look at humanity through eons of development, as well as the stories of a girl named Astrid and a young man walking through the desert talking to a stuffed bear.

As the plot moves between and across time, generations of eagles form a symbiotic relationship with the god chained on an isolated mountainside, who sees the good in his beloved creations despite the destruction they have wrought. Their reckless disregard cannot be forgiven, however, by the prisoner's brother Epimetheus, who argues for their elimination: "They are dismantling the very systems of the planet. The weather, the air, the oceans... the stain of their heedlessness now covers the planet." Though humanity is threatened, this volume offers no resolution to these dangers, presenting instead a hopeful arc sure to cement anticipation of the next installment. Demonstrating a wide-ranging intelligence and an innovative style, Tongues stretches the boundaries of traditional comic arts to create something freshly compelling. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian

Discover: With Anders Nilsen's reimagining of the traditional panel format, rich use of color, and a narrative that bends time and space, everything about this graphic novel is arresting.

The practical, easy-to-follow Cook Once, Eat Twice takes inspiration from Nadiya Hussain's television series of the same name to offer home chefs "a cookbook that is stripped back and has all the essentials anyone would need." Hussain, a past winner of The Great British Bake Off, delivers on that promise--and then some--with approachable recipes and instructions.

Organized into seven sections, Hussain (Nadiya's Everyday Baking) invites readers into the kitchen regardless of skill level. "Cook once" is reflected in how-to basics such as poached eggs or simple roasted chicken, while "eat twice" comes to life with inspired ideas for reusing leftovers and batch cooking that specifically call for repurposing a double batch of food. Hussain's eye for practicality is brought forth with an abundance of ideas for food that too often goes to waste, including dairy nearing its expiration date and garlic skins peeled for another dish. Even banana peels are transformed into a hearty curry. Fans of Bake Off will be delighted to encounter an entire chapter called "Easy Bakes." (Peach pecan crumble promises to be "like a hug in a crumble.")

Hussain writes that she hopes this cookbook might make readers "happier in the kitchen," a characteristically humble desire from this home chef turned beloved food celebrity. With dishes that are as warm and inviting as Hussain seems on screen, Cook Once, Eat Twice is sure to encourage anyone looking to creatively use and reuse common ingredients for maximum flavor and frugality. --Kerry McHugh

Discover: This collection of inviting and approachable recipes for home chefs of all skill levels encourages creative use and reuse of everyday ingredients for maximum flavor and frugality.

Nina Mukerjee Furstenau's The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook is a delectable tribute to the bright, tart vegetable whose uses are far more varied than popular crisps and pies. Furstenau (Biting Through the Skin; Green Chili and Other Impostors) takes readers on a tour of rhubarb's many variations, providing a plethora of sweet and savory recipes along with tips for growing, preparing, and preserving the plant.

Furstenau, a Midwesterner with roots in India, begins with a brief history of rhubarb, a common ingredient from church potlucks to ancient remedies. She provides an overview of varieties, plus advice for tending and harvesting. But the recipes are the book's zingy heart. Beginning (as one should) with pies and cobblers, Furstenau expands her repertoire to breakfast breads, muffins, and cookies before turning to savory mains. She goes far beyond the typical pork tenderloin and adds a dash (or a dollop) of rhubarb to lamb stew, curries, lentil dishes, and even barbecued ribs. Subsequent chapters cover drinks (including lemonade and lassi), jams and other preserves, and a wide variety of sauces (even ketchup). Furstenau's instructions are clear and concise, with short headnotes offering a hint about a recipe's origin or her favorite variation.

Lively, bold, and bursting with unexpected flavor notes, Furstenau's rhubarb compendium will have even novice cooks scooping up armfuls of pink stalks at the farmers market. Like the plant itself, The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook will add springtime zest and freshness to any table. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: Nina Mukerjee Furstenau's zingy rhubarb compendium is a delectable tribute to the bright, tart vegetable.

Vanity Fair magazine offers readers a way to feel highbrow (esteemed writers! Long-form journalism! Artistic elegance!) while consuming celebrity profiles. During his 25-year editorship, which concluded in 2017, Graydon Carter refined this winning highbrow-middlebrow blend, which is also present throughout his light-shedding, self-effacing, and tastefully dishy memoir, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines.

Carter grew up middle class in the 1950s, mainly in Ottawa, Canada; books and movies suggested that glamour awaited him elsewhere: "I wanted an adult life of cocktails, cigarettes, bridge games, witty banter, and clothes that weren't tartan." After getting his feet wet at the Canadian Review, Carter finagled a writing job at Time and moved to New York in 1978. In 1986, he cofounded the satirical magazine Spy; following a pit stop at the New York Observer, he landed at Vanity Fair. Carter likens this three-magazine hop to "moving from a youth hostel to a five-star hotel."

Despite Carter's gadabout image--he needs two chapters to cover Vanity Fair's annual Oscar party--When the Going Was Good reveals that he's less of a party animal than a family man. Another surprise from the mind behind the withering Spy: Carter's overall warmheartedness. He largely reserves his malice for the odd bad hire and for the 47th U.S. president, with whom Carter has had a famously testy relationship. As he regales readers with tales of a bygone era in magazine publishing, Carter calls to mind someone holding forth at a leisurely expense-account lunch. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Discover: Graydon Carter, who edited Vanity Fair magazine for 25 years, has produced a tastefully dishy memoir that calls to mind someone holding forth at a leisurely expense-account lunch.

Laurie Woolever's Care and Feeding is a gripping memoir spanning the food service industry, addiction, motherhood, and more, held together with humor and sharply insightful prose. Early in her career, Woolever (Bourdain) had the good fortune to work for two of the biggest names in the food world: Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain. Her life and career benefited from and was overshadowed by these superstar mentors in complicated ways.

As Woolever moved through Michelin-starred restaurants and struggling food publications, she experienced the fraught dynamics of power and gender even as those industries moved toward the #MeToo era. Her life was full of drama on scales large and small. Woolever doesn't sweep anything under the rug, instead laying out her addictions to alcohol and marijuana, infidelities, and struggles around marriage and parenthood with admirable frankness. Although readers of memoir must always acknowledge that the subject is someone's actual life, the intensity of the tension makes Care and Feeding read like a thriller. And there's a lot that can go wrong in a fast-paced world of food, drinks, and powerful men.

But there's so much more here than big names. Woolever's depiction of being a wife and mother is raw, expressing obvious care for her husband and child but also deep conflict with how much of her time and identity belongs to them, and what is left as her own. Care and Feeding is worth reading to see someone wrestling with the small boxes one is expected to fit into as a professional, a wife, and a mother while trying to make a littl (or a lot of) room to be a flawed human being. --Carol Caley, writer

Discover: Care and Feeding is a gripping memoir spanning the food service industry, addiction, motherhood and more, held together with humor and sharply insightful prose.

In A History of the World in Six Plagues, historian and culture writer Edna Bonhomme demonstrates with irrefutable detail and narrative skill the historical relationship between the continued spread of disease and the subjugation of racial groups. A great strength of the book is the structure suggested by its title. The chapter-by-chapter focus on six plagues--cholera, HIV/AIDS, the 1918-19 flu epidemic, sleeping sickness, Ebola, and Covid-19--allows Bonhomme to chart recurring patterns of inequity across different time periods and geographical locations. She shows how these patterns are not coincidental but rather the result of systemic forces and individuals within them that have consistently marginalized and oppressed certain groups.

Bonhomme's writing is incisive as she leaves little doubt that epidemics are not simply biological events but the result of social and political decisions, such as when the scientific research into sleeping sickness in 1902 was rooted in "maintaining German imperial power" so that they could continue to extract natural resources from their African colonies. Bonhomme brings into sharp relief the ways in which plagues themselves are used to justify discrimination, segregation, and even violence against marginalized communities, such as the demonizing of gay men and Haitian immigrants during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States in the 1980s.

This is critical reading for readers interested in history, public health, and social justice. Bonhomme has created a thought-provoking analysis of pandemics as a lens through which readers might learn from the past to create a healthier and more equitable future. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash

Discover: A History of the World in Six Plagues is a brilliant, detailed examination of how existing inequities worsen the most devastating pandemics and make them more likely to persist and recur.

Mallory McMorrow, a state senator from Michigan, went viral in 2022 with a speech declaring that she would not let hate win while she stood by and watched. The closing words of McMorrow's speech are now the title of her first book, Hate Won't Win, in which she combines memoir and personal narrative to expand on her clear, action-oriented plea to readers to get--and stay--involved in the messy world of politics.

McMorrow saw "running for office as the only remaining solution for problems that needed to be fixed because, for some infuriating reason, no one else seemed to be fixing it." But running for office was just the start. In Hate Won't Win, she recounts instances of sexual harassment in the state house, becoming a mother and taking maternity leave as an elected official, accidentally going viral, and coordinating a progressive coalition in Michigan's government. What becomes apparent in these anecdotes is that running for office is, in fact, not the only solution. Amid the "constant barrage of noise" are many ways to stay informed, connect with elected officials, and become civically engaged. Rather than overwhelming, McMorrow's kind and direct guidance offers readers ideas for how and where to start, and a workbook collects action items at the end. There's a lot of bad news in the world, and it can be easy to feel helpless. But Hate Won't Win encourages readers to find their voices--and, in so doing, find their power and their hope. It's hard to imagine a more timely, important, and inspiring book. --Kerry McHugh

Discover: This important and inspiring book expands on Mallory McMorrow's 2022 viral speech in the Michigan state senate and encourages readers to get civically engaged.

When gregarious immersive journalist and Iraq War army veteran Will Bardenwerper read about Major League Baseball's "contraction of the minor leagues" that would eliminate 42 teams, he asked himself if this was "the set of values we, as a country, were fighting for." He calculated that the savings would equal "one major league minimum salary," and his outrage led to a quest: to explore one town's relationship to its team and determine what the U.S. "risked losing, and whether there was any chance it might be saved."

Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America chronicles the 2022 season of the Batavia, N.Y., Muckdogs; Bardenwerper (The Prisoner in His Palace) follows the team from their Memorial Day opener through the August playoffs. In a fast-paced narrative that alternates between snappy game coverage, heartwarming small-town traditions, and grim analysis of deindustrialization's impact on American communities, Bardenwerper introduces the Muckdogs, many of them college players who pay around $1,500 to work on their skills and play summer ball for their adoring fans, including the octogenarian couple with season tickets (and their great-grandsons) and a writer who knows visitors see his hometown as "a charmless Thruway stop on the Rust Belt's fringe." Unsparing in his disdain for baseball's "corporatized ownership," which he believes is destroying "the long-term health of the sport," Bardenwerper nevertheless finds joy in western New York, where he savors baseball in historic stadiums that still offer "a genuine slice of Americana." --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

Discover: This homage to minor league baseball and its small-town fans balances heartwarming traditions with the reality of the corporatization undermining the sport.

Deadstream by Mar Romasco-Moore (I Am the Ghost in Your House) is an addictive, anxiety-provoking YA thriller in which livestreamers mysteriously die after an entity that is visible only on-screen shows up in their videos.

Seventeen-year-old Teresa suffers severe agoraphobia after surviving the car wreck that killed her best friend. Now, she locks herself in her bedroom for days at a time, going live online as Replay, an "entirely genderless" gamer ("the way she'd like to be"). She is compelled to investigate when her fellow livestreamers start falling prey to a frightening phenomenon. The incidents begin with a command in chat: "open the door." Freaked-out viewers type warnings that go unheeded, and a mysterious being appears behind the livestreamer--not physically, but on the screen. Brick, one such victim, subsequently goes catatonic. Then Ozma, a trans friend who best understands and supports Teresa, succumbs to the same sinister syndrome. To stop the shadow entity and save Ozma, Teresa will have to act outside the safe confines of her home.

This unsettling third-person narrative includes mixed media (livestream transcripts, text messages, online forums), creating a fully immersive, incessantly creepy experience that allows for startling jump scares. Romasco-Moore convincingly portrays a teen whose persistent trauma warps her perception of reality; her anxiety, "a faint but persistent hum," rings true, as does her connection with Ozma. Teresa's love of streaming is beautifully rendered (it "feels almost like the viewers are there with her, like they are all one big organism"). Other teen worries, small and large, like view counts and online death threats, also feature in this frightening, queer-centric tale. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

Discover: This pulse-pounding supernatural thriller follows a teen streamer who must face her agoraphobia to stop an invisible entity from killing her online friends.

Sara Holly Ackerman's plain-spoken, simple picture book biography Woods & Words: The Story of Poet Mary Oliver gives young readers an approachable account of the life of a writer who drew inspiration from nature.

Ackerman (Challah for Shabbat Tonight) outlines Oliver's life while always keeping the emphasis on the poet's art. As a child, Oliver would escape the indoors to sit "in clusters of coltsfoot and violets" and fill "stacks of notebooks" with her poems. Her first job out of high school was at Steepletop, famed poet Edna St. Vincent Millay's house, where Oliver lived and met her longtime partner, photographer Molly Malone Cook. All the while, Oliver "wrapped herself in woods and words." Some of Oliver's "poems appeared/ in magazines./ Others were bound and sold in/ the bookshop Molly opened." Oliver eventually won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, despite many editors believing she was "ordinary" and "humdrum."

The text's language is down-to-earth, mimicking Oliver's belief that "poems were for everyone,/ best served plain." A humorous example: when Mary won "the biggest poetry prize," she hung up the phone then "went to the dump./ Prize or no prize, her roof needed shingles." Naoko Stoop's multimedia illustrations show the quotidian words Oliver collected swirling around her; others focus on the natural world with which Oliver surrounded herself. A one-page biography in the backmatter augments this clean, spare picture book. Ackerman and Stoop (Sun and Moon Have a Tea Party) have combined their talents to show how simple words and experiences can speak to all kinds of people. --Melinda Greenblatt, freelance book reviewer

Discover: This spare, winsome picture book biography narrates the life of a shy young woman, enamored with the natural world, who became a beloved 20th century poet.

The energetic French graphic trilogy Magda, Intergalactic Chef, by Belgian creatives Nicolas Wouters and Mathilde Van Gheluwe, kicks off with the high-flying adventure The Big Tournament, translated by Ann Marie Boulanger.

Tween chef Magda is not watching the time while foraging with Grandma in the verdant forests of their planet, Azuki. Luckily, her father appears to remind her that "today's the big day!" In just 10 minutes, one of Azuki's "most important cultural events" will commence: a cooking competition for nine- to 13-year-old chefs to create vegan menus using only local ingredients. The winner among the 20 contestants will advance to the great intergalactic tournament, held every four years on planet Tamaris. Despite difficult (dishonest) opponents, Magda levels up. She discovers, though, that the next challenges are less about the food and more about potentially preventing "an all-out economic war [already] raging behind the scenes."

Wouters is an ingenious storyteller, inserting mysteriously provocative hints throughout: who's the "cherished heroine, Broccoli?"; what's the 60-year-old "tragic Banshi incident?"; why does Grandma have beef with celebrity food journalist Minga Verde?; and why is the IG77 intergalactic summit so interested in cooking? Most will be revealed, but an "every man for himself"-cliffhanger cleverly preps readers for book two. In explosive full-color images, Van Gheluwe creates worlds bursting with imaginative flora and fauna. Characters are enhanced with striking wardrobes and chronic idiosyncrasies (Hector really needs a tissue). Author and artist embolden tenacious Magda, a vegan force of nature poised to save the whole galaxy. --Terry Hong

Discover: The galaxy-hopping French graphic trilogy Magda, Intergalactic Chef debuts Stateside with a dynamic first installment.

Forget the lions and tigers and bears. Brooke Hartman (All Aboard the Alaska Train) will have readers gasping "oh my" over owls and otters and frogs in her nonfiction picture book Cute Animals That Could Kill You Dead. The title is slightly misleading since not every creature described is capable of hurting humans, but they do all have some kind of killer instinct. Illustrator María García enhances the cuteness of each deadly critter with her adorably cartoonish art.

Hartman's array of creatures spans the animal kingdom: insects, mammals, fish, reptiles. And each subject includes a rating on two scales: an "aww-dorable level" and an "aaaah!-some level" (though there's no indication how the ratings are determined). Readers learn each animal's scientific name, size, habitat, favorite food, and conservation status in a text box that is followed by a humorous, pun-filled description of its deadly nature. Every page is packed with fascinating details that animal lovers will devour, like the fact that sea bunnies are covered in papillae, "which are sensory organs like the taste buds on your tongue. That means sea bunnies are constantly tasting the water around them to see if it contains something yummy."

Accompanying all the playfully intriguing information is García's sweetly cute Photoshop artwork in predominantly pastel colors. Starry eyes and innocent smiles adorn the faces on each species' first page, while the second page reveals more of their killer emotions. Cute Animals That Could Kill You Dead is entertaining and informative, giving young animal lovers and future biologists plenty to explore. Hartman and García have produced a book that makes learning about killers a delight. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

Discover: The deadly behaviors of some of the planet's cutest creatures make for captivating and funny reading in this beautifully illustrated nonfiction picture book.

This spirited biography by Susanna Isern (The Voice of the Forest), translated from the Spanish by Cecilia Ross, pays tribute to changemaker Luisa Capetillo (1879-1922), who dared to challenge convention and gender norms by fighting for women's right to wear pants.

Readers meet Capetillo, born in Puerto Rico to a French mother, as a child: "She was a restless, curious girl who loved to learn." Luisa reads in French and Spanish, and thrills in the "new worlds and new ways of thinking" introduced to her. She also loves playing outdoors but resents how her skirts restrict her movement. When she asks her mother why girls don't wear "more practical clothes," the "absurdity" of her answer--it is a social custom--leaves Luisa perplexed. The next morning, she boldly resists these norms by running in a pair of her father's old pants ("Luisa felt free!"), scandalizing the community. Text and illustration seamlessly transition to Luisa as a young adult, advocating for women's rights by reading to illiterate factory workers.

Isern explores Capetillo's groundbreaking "bravery and her unconventional clothing" in a direct and straightforward style, effectively conveying Luisa's determination: "She could only think about that annoying skirt that made it difficult for her to move freely." Esther Gili's illustrations, filled with calming earth tones and vibrant bursts of teal, rose, and marigold, capture Luisa's joy in being skirt-free. Isern's story is a solid introduction to a woman who dared to defy expectations and paved the way for greater freedom and equality for women. --Julie Danielson

Discover: This dashing biography of women's rights pioneer Luisa Capetillo tells the story of a woman who fought for her right to lead her life on her own terms.