Not many people know about the World War II battle fought on U.S. soil, but Brian Payton draws upon that story in the novel The Wind Is Not a River.

Canadian freelance journalist John Easley is haunted by the death of his brother in Europe and determined to reveal the truth about the war. He sets out to report on the Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands, which the War Department denies has occurred. Leaving his wife, Helen, in Seattle, John joins a bombing crew headed to the Alaskan Territory. The plane is shot down, and though he and a young airman named Karl survive, they know they will be presumed dead.

Hiding in a cave on the island of Attu, John and Karl endure cold, wet, starvation and mental anguish, but elude the Japanese. Their camaraderie sustains them, but eventually John is alone. Meanwhile, Helen, overcoming her quiet nature, has earned a part in a USO troupe bound for Alaska, where her grit and wiles take her close to John, though their reunion will be further delayed.

While servicepeople take center stage in most "war novels," as civilians John and Helen Easley exhibit the same heroism and loyalty as their military peers. The story of the innocent Aleutian Island natives caught in the crossfire is another prism through which The Wind Is Not a River reminds readers of the tragedies of war. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco

Although she's been writing in English only since 2002, just eight years after emigrating from Russia, Lara Vapnyar is already a prolific author, with two story collections (There Are Jews in My House and Broccoli and Other Tales of Food) and a novel (Memoirs of a Muse). The Scent of Pine, her second novel, is a brief, intense story of sexual awakening, linking the memory of an eventful summer at a Russian summer camp to a contemporary affair.

Lena, an adjunct professor of film at a community college, and Ben, who teaches the history of the graphic novel at Rutgers, meet at an academic conference in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Lena, a Russian immigrant and mother to two young boys, is disappointed in her marriage to a mathematician husband, while Ben, who's divorced, is in a relationship destined to end soon. Their mutual disillusionment leads to an affair.

On their way to Ben's cabin in the Maine woods, and continuing through the weekend the two lovers spend there, Lena spins out her story of the summer 20 years earlier, in the era of perestroika, she spent as a counselor at a children's camp run by the Soviet Ministry of Defense. Between the first stirrings of her sexuality, focused on the soldiers who serve at the camp, and the leadership's determination to tamp down their young charges' urges, the air is thick with sexual tension.

Vapnyar doesn't strive for any grand statement in The Scent of Pine. Instead, the story offers a small slice of life that depends for its appeal on her sharp observational eye and the precision of her characterization, the same talents she's displayed in her previous work. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Bingo is a 15-year-old orphan whose small stature often leads to him being mistaken for a child of 10. He is also the best drug-runner in the slums of Kibera in Nairobi--at least until he witnesses something he was never meant to see and finds himself under the "protection" of the drug gangs for whom he used to work.

Narrating Bingo's Run in Bingo's own voice, James Levine (The Blue Notebook) captures the innocence and confusion of this cunning, distrustful young man, forced to grow up before his time and without benefit of a family to guide him. Little more than a child, he has seen his grandparents burned to death, his mother murdered, his friends raped and his every possession stolen. It is this horrific background, though, that gives insight into the inequalities of Nairobi and Bingo's forced acceptance of them, from the bribery and corruption that steep every institution to the clash of cultures as American and European tourists descend upon Kibera.

All of this, reflecting Levine's own time in Nairobi, is fascinating in its own right, but even more interesting than the portrait of the place is the portrait of the young boy found hidden among all the chaos--seeking, like so many other children, to be loved. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

In Michele Zackheim's The Last Train to Paris, an 87-year-old woman tending her garden in upstate New York decides to go through her notes from the 1930s, when she was a foreign correspondent in Europe.

R.B. Manon (Rosie to her friends) writes a column for the New York Courier until she gets a chance to cover the fear and insanity gripping Paris and Berlin. Rosie is the only woman in the Paris newsroom, and though she was raised by a mother who was determined to deny her half-Jewish heritage, that heritage leaves her vulnerable. Her situation is further complicated by her mother's unexpected arrival and by her discovery of the secrets of her lover, a Jewish engraver controlled by the Nazis. Based on a true-life abduction in 1937, the action centers on Rosie's glamorous, cousin Stella, a Jewish actress who disappears in Paris after dating a handsome German who speaks perfect English.

The Last Train to Paris is a densely populated short novel with dozens of colorful characters crowded into its pages--a vicious managing editor, an alcoholic, suicidal fellow reporter, an exiled Chinese poet, a distressed elderly aunt, a black American saxophonist and even the famous French author Colette.

As it progresses, the novel becomes more and more the story of a mother and daughter given a last chance to connect. In the confusion as the last train for Paris pulls out of Berlin, Rosie will be forced to choose between her mother and her lover. Zackheim's honest and melancholy story about the brutal psychological and physical toll of war leaves a lingering sense of regret and loss. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle, Wash.

In The Harlot's Tale, Sam Thomas returns to 1645 York, England, and the courageous investigations of midwife Bridget Hodgson, introduced in 2013's The Midwife's Tale. With the help of her obstreperous maid, Martha, Lady Hodgson is busy delivering babies--while trying to please the increasingly strict Puritan city government--until her brother-in-law, a York alderman, asks her to look at the body of a woman brutally murdered along with her lover.

Lady Hodgson and Martha discover that the woman had been horribly mutilated; in her hand, they find a slip of paper with a Bible verse referring to whores. They're shocked to realize that the killer seems to be twisting scripture to suit his needs--and they're even more appalled when the bodies begin piling up.

The murders inflame tensions in the city, as Puritan preachers begin speaking of the deaths as God's judgment on the city for its sinful ways. Most of the city leaders are dismissive of the deaths of mere prostitutes, but Lady Hodgson (with the help of Martha and her nephew Will) is determined to find the killer and bring him to justice.

The Harlot's Tale brings the squalid living conditions of 17th-century York to life. The descriptions of the town's primitive medical care and its narrow-minded people are equally appalling. Readers will keep guessing about the mystery until the end as Lady Hodgson, Will and Martha frantically try to find the truth. And the shocking denouement will make the anticipation for the next midwife mystery even greater. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

By the middle of Unremarried Widow, the wish is fervent: please let this be a novel; please let Artis Henderson's husband return from Iraq unharmed. But we know that is not her story.

Eager to be self-sufficient, Artis earned a business degree and was working in Florida when she met Miles, an army pilot from Texas. Her candid sharing of their romance, her decision to live on base as an army wife and their wedding before his deployment to Iraq reveals her frustration with military custom, but above all the depth of their love; the security she'd always sought, she found in Miles. A heartbreaking sidebar to their wedding story: a photo snapped that day was the one she sent to accompany his obituary. They had been married four months.

Miles died in an Apache helicopter crash, leaving Artis, in military parlance, a URW--unremarried widow. The army wives she'd never felt close to were now her support, along with a grief group and a military tragedy assistance program. Although she shared the tragic bond of early widowhood with her mother, she resisted turning to her, but slowly came to recognize the strength and patience her mother offered.

Spanning six years, the memoir includes Artis's eventual move into a successful writing career, but the image that lingers is of the war widow, the sorrow she so eloquently and generously expresses, and the realization that the war that claimed Miles continues. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco

From birth, Angélique Kidjo was surrounded by her mother's theater troupe of dancers and singers. She fell in love with the songs and learned many by heart. When the little girl playing the part of a princess fell ill, her mother threw Kidjo out onto the stage to perform and, as she writes, "I was six years old and I've not stopped singing since."

Spirit Rising brings to life the woman behind the music that has captured audiences around the world. From Benin, West Africa, to Paris and the United States, Kidjo always had one goal in mind: to do what she wanted to do with her life--sing--for "when you feel the music, you forget your worries and discover truths about yourself." Rich in details about life as a black woman trying to make it as a singer, Kidjo's memoir pays homage to the many musicians she's performed and recorded with, as well as two important role models, Miriam Makeba and Aretha Franklin, who inspired her to write and perform her own songs based on her African roots.

Interspersed with color photographs and reflections on the evolution of her albums and live concert hall performances, Spirit Rising delights readers with details of Kidjo's family life. For any reader who has enjoyed  her music, this exciting and inspirational memoir is a perfect complement. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

The quest to understand the mysterious universe likely began as soon as there was intelligent life on earth. In Our Mathematical Universe, MIT physics professor Max Tegmark delves into a mind-enriching cornucopia of past scientific discoveries and present theories concerning our state of existence--including the possibilities of multiple universes or multiverses. Through careful analysis of current research and some semi-mind-boggling leaps of understanding, Tegmark uses physics, astronomy and mathematics to show readers the complexity of the universe we see around us, while speculating about the ones we still can't see due to time and distance.

From the Big Bang to the more controversial "Inflation" theory, Tegmark explains in abundant detail how our part of the universe evolved to what we know today. Readers will take away a fair understanding of dark matter and dark energy, then proceed from the cosmic to the microscopic into the world of up quarks and down quarks, pions, kaons, tauons and W-bosons and Z-bosons, the building blocks of protons, electrons and neutrons. Quantum physics and quantum mechanics, "the illusion of randomness" and the deceptive qualities of time all play into Tegmark's theory that mathematics is at the root of our physical reality.

Although non-scientific readers may have trouble understanding some theories, the prose is generally accessible throughout and Tegmark's enthusiasm for the subject will keep readers intrigued, spurring them to reconsider the meaning and purpose of the heavens all around us. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

As she did with her magnificent Looking at Lincoln, Maira Kalman here creates a singular biography of our third president through portraits, artifacts and salient quotes from the wordsmith himself.

This is as much a tribute to Monticello as it is to its architect. "The house was a museum of his mind," she writes, panning a room with maps, a human bust and an array of mounted antlers. Jefferson's bed divides his chambers into "two rooms"--one with his reading desk, the other with boots at the ready for jumping into and going outside. Kalman then segues outdoors, where a garden awaits, and includes Jefferson's favorite vegetable: peas. (An elegant inset lists a half-dozen pea varieties.) But the author-artist does not paint a saint. She includes not only the accomplishments of this "monumental man" but also his "monumental flaws." A reproduction of a page from Jefferson's farm book lists his slaves ("Our hearts are broken," Kalman writes), and she adds, "It is strongly believed that after his wife died, Jefferson had children with the beautiful Sally Heming."

Grown-up fans of Kalman's blog And the Pursuit of Happiness for the New York Times (later published as a book) will recognize a few favorite pictures: the wonderful pink chair piled with reading material accompanying the quote "I cannot live without books"; a portrait of Benjamin Franklin; and Washington's teeth, among them. The author-artist's electric colors and personal asides make this an intimate biography sure to pull in young readers and inspire them to further study. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Joelle Charbonneau melds coming-of-age themes with the suspense of a detective story in this second installment of a planned trilogy, with an intellectual narrative more complex than most dystopian literature.

Malencia "Cia" Vale continues her quest for knowledge, and her life in the dystopian United Commonwealth, a future U.S. that is rebuilding after worldwide political and environmental upheaval. Now a student at Tosu City University in the capital, Cia can't remember the trauma and betrayals that befell her in the previous novel because her memories were erased. But an innate distrust of university officials keeps her cautious. "While my classmates are concerned about the test affecting the years ahead," she thinks, "I worry I will not survive the day." An aptitude test sets Cia on a course of study in government, earmarking her for leadership, despite her strong interest in mechanical engineering. But why groom her for leadership and then set her up for failure, by scheduling her for nine courses when everyone else has five? Cia confronts both physical and emotional challenges with a brilliant analytical mind. In her flashes of memory, she is haunted by the feeling that to fail is to die.

Charbonneau's skillful use of Cia's measured and calculating internal dialogue to maintain nail-biting tension is a literary step above the action and gore that propel other series. Fans will be waiting impatiently for the conclusion of Cia's journey later this year. --Jessica Bushore, former public librarian and freelance writer