Early in the 20th century, the U.S. government assigned plots of land to American Indians displaced by Oklahoma's statehood. Maud Nail's day-to-day life on her family's allotment is consumed by guns, dirt and chickens. She cares for her men--a dangerous, unruly father, aptly named Mustard, and Lovely, her sensitive, thin-skinned brother--as well as the extended family whose allotments neighbor hers. They recently survived the flood of 1926-27 that covered Oklahoma and much of the Midwest, but the difficulties don't stop there. Margaret Verble's first novel, Maud's Line, details the year in which Maud makes several decisions that will affect the rest of her life.

In her unadorned style, below the violence and hardship on the surface of Maud's life, Verble crafts a story filled with nuance and quiet conflict. She exhibits a talent for characterization: each individual is carefully and distinctly fashioned, so that Lovely's girlfriend and the members of Maud's extended family, for example, shine brightly in even the briefest of appearances. Maud herself is finely wrought, caught between the values she's been raised with--and the people she loves--and a hope for a different life, one with electricity and hygiene in place of dust and blood. One of the greatest strengths of Verble's novel, set on her family's land allotment, is the delicate interior conflicts produced by Maud's deceptively simple life. Propelled by its own momentum, Maud's Line pulls the reader along until, amid daily privations and small tragedies, Maud has the chance for the first time to choose for herself what her future will hold. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Sometimes prison looks like a jail cell, and sometimes it looks like a million dollar beach home. For The Invaders' Cheryl, a 40-something housewife, and Teddy, her 20-something stepson, it looks like the fictional Little Neck Cove, Conn., where community tension over an influx of lower-class outsiders comes to a head during one ill-fated summer. In Believer editor Karolina Waclawiak's darkly humorous, incisive second novel, the lines in the sand define these characters' lives until the privileged few of the beachside hamlet begin to lose their country club decorum.

The chief charm of The Invaders is its wickedness, which seeps into major elements and minute details alike. The novel skewers the ensconced, incestuous community from beginning to end, name-dropping bloodlines (the local bike-riding drunk descends from President Hoover), name brands (Cheryl met her philandering husband when she worked at a Ralph Lauren outlet) and the benzodiazepines on which both Cheryl and Teddy rely. Theirs is an empty world, measured in parties everyone dreads and bodies that fail them with every new wrinkle or atrophied muscle. Why, then, are they so compelled to stay and fight?

Waclawiak (How to Get into the Twin Palms) answers this question by way of rebellion. Faced with the privatization of local beaches and the loss of Little Neck's easy charm, Cheryl and Teddy stand their shifting ground in the face of a storm both literal and metaphorical. In the midst of invasion, these two may not manage a victory, but their fight makes for a keen, transfixing read. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer

In 1952, a young author published his first crime novel, The Evil Sleep!, under the name of Evan Hunter (which he then legally adopted). In 1956, he published it again as So Nude, So Dead using the name Richard Marsten. Such was the world of the pulps in the '50s. In 1986, when the Mystery Writers of America honored him as a Grand Master, readers knew him as Ed McBain, author of the 87th Precinct series. In this first novel, McBain was searching for his voice. As his maiden flight into crime fiction, the book doesn't soar but it does rise with punchy dialogue and a fast pace.

Ray Stone, a young man addicted to heroin, awakes in a seedy New York City hotel bed next to a beautiful naked woman. He notices two small bullet holes in her navel and a "dried river of red across the flatness of her stomach" that runs onto the sheet. Frantic and desperate for a hit, he grabs his now-empty wallet, wondering where his 16 ounces of pure heroin went.

Ray was once a pianist with a future but now he's on the run for a murder he didn't commit. McBain tells the story as if he's looking down at Ray scurrying about furiously trying to find his stuff. The roadblocks are all in place: mobsters, drug pushers, the cops, beautiful women and his addiction. It's a treat for fans to watch a young writer learning the craft he will soon come to master. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Everything about Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day is admirable: its mission, the buy-one-donate-one marketing plan and, of course, the recipes.

Leanne Brown's New York University master's capstone project-turned-cookbook was driven by her commitment to offer advice and recipes to those living on a SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, i.e., food stamps) budget of $4 a day. But anyone hungry for an easy, nutritious diet will find Good and Cheap a go-to cookbook. Another benefit of buying the book: for every one sold, a copy will be donated to a person in need, thanks to Brown's successful Kickstarter campaign.

"More than a book of recipes, this is a book of ideas." Brown introduces a novice cook to equipment, pantry basics and versatile spices, with advice on shopping for maximum value and freshness. And for an experienced cook, or one in a rut, her creative recipes are a welcome revitalized approach. Bored with breakfast? Try one of Brown's seven ways to jazz up oatmeal, for example.

Brown is not "slavish to the bottom line." She cooks with butter and suggests buying expensive eggs, both worth it for their flavor. While there is an emphasis on fruits and vegetables, this is not a vegetarian cookbook. Brown avoids meat, but doesn't eliminate it; she includes Half-Veggie Burgers, combining ground meat and lentils.

Each recipe has a price-per-serving notation. "Leftovers" champions the creative repurposing of remainders from the book's recipes, and sidebars offer friendly tips that encourage the cook to be confident and "conjure deliciousness in any kitchen, anytime." --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco

When Sonya Lea's husband, Richard, had surgery to treat his rare appendiceal cancer, they knew there were risks. But they had not considered that Richard would wake up with no memory of his 23 years of marriage and two young adult children, or of his own personality and past. Sonya considers their shared history and difficult recovery in her memoir, Wondering Who You Are.

The details of Richard's medical story are inarguably painful but often sweet. Sonya's changed husband is empathetic, guileless and highly motivated to learn. Alternating chapters cover the trauma of his surgery and aftermath, and the story of their teenage romance and decades of marriage, until the timelines merge into one: Sonya's quest for the husband she lost and her eventual acceptance of the one she's found. This powerful, gut-wrenching narrative negotiates spirituality, hope and despair, sexual experimentation and a dedicated caregiver's tireless research and advocacy. Sonya and Richard's family story wanders geographically as well, from Kentucky to Ontario, Banff, Memphis, Seattle, California, France, India and more. Through assorted, arduous adventures, they learn again to rely on one another, to persist and to accept.

Sonya Lea is a fascinating narrator, by turns vulnerable and fierce, patient and maddened, always devoted. Her writing is contemplative and lovely, and contains just enough scientific detail. The result is a lyrical, intensely candid meditation on memory, identity and the stories we create for ourselves--and a love letter to both the new and old versions of Richard. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Author of five novels, eight prose collections and 18 books of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Up Country, Maxine Kumin (1925-2014) explains how she became a feminist and poet in her short but succinct memoir, The Pawnbroker's Daughter. Her father, a Russian Jew, owned the largest pawnshop in Philadelphia in the 1930s and advertised his business on the free matchbooks given out with the sale of cigarette packs. Her mother was a proud German Jew, embarrassed by her husband's profession, and Kumin learned to tell people her father was a "broker" or "merchant," knowing the word would probably be interpreted as "stockbroker."

While at Radcliffe College during World War II, she met her future husband, Victor, on a blind date; a soldier/scientist, he was sent to Los Alamos to work on the top-secret development of the atomic bomb. Once the war was over, the couple bought a small farm in New Hampshire, and Kumin's poetry career took off. She tells of life on the farm, and shows how its elements worked their way into the many volumes that she produced.

It is through her poetry that her brilliance shines and makes this memoir so worthy. She shows how her childhood and loves influenced her, but her thoughts on being an adult who lived and worked the land and witnessed the good and evil in the world as it unfolded around her are most memorable. Often readers wonder what inspires a poet to write the way she does; readers of The Pawnbroker's Daughter will see firsthand what made Maxine Kumin tick. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

Thanks to Steven Spielberg's movie Amistad, many today are familiar with this aspect of early America's slave trade; John Quincy Adams's argument before the Supreme Court freed the slaves of the Amistad. However, there was an earlier case dealing with a slave ship that helped decide the Amistad case. Jonathan M. Bryant's Dark Places of the Earth is about that case, "one of the most dramatic, important, and unjustly forgotten stories from slavery's traffic history."

In 1820, the Spanish ship Antelope, carrying nearly 300 African slaves--many of them children and teenagers--was seized by the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service near Florida. Slavery was legal in much of the United States, but the Atlantic slave trade was not. Courts would need to determine if these Africans were slaves and, if they were, to whom they belonged.

Bryant (How Curious a Land) traces the history of the ship as it changed hands many times. He then recounts the slaves' experiences in Savannah, Ga., as courts took up their plight while some began dying from plantation work and disease. He meticulously unwinds the years-long, complex legal history that finally led to the case being heard by the six justices of John Marshall's Supreme Court, four of whom were slave owners. Arguing for the slaves' freedom was Francis Scott Key, a great lawyer and superb speaker; the courtroom battle took five days. From the West African shores to Georgia, Washington, D.C., and, finally Liberia, Bryant's riveting history of this case and these slaves is a remarkable one. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Dr. Jessica Vogelsang's memoir begins with a dedication, "To the misfits, the miscreants... and socially inept, and the dogs who love them" and ends with a promise, "I can honor [my dogs] by striving just a little more to live like they did: with joy, unabashed and open, reminding myself and others that our flaws do not make us less, but ever more worthy of being loved just the way we are."

The opening scene introduces the titular Kevin, a dear friend of the author from college who has recently died at the age of 40. The memoir then flashes back 30 years and is organized into three parts according to the family dog at the time: Vogelsang's childhood Lhasa apso, Taffy ("one of those sweet fuzzy faces people found irresistible--and the temperament of a senior with a bad prostate"), the first retriever welcomed into her adult life, Emmett (who "seemed to view himself as a Dickensian ragamuffin, a street urchin who needed to rely on his street smarts for survival"), and the Lab, Kekoa ("She lived in a constant state of extreme remorse, when she was perfectly content"). Each dog provides quiet wisdom and support as Dr. Vogelsang navigates the trials of adolescence, the challenges of vet school, the angst of postpartum depression and eventually the loss of Kevin (comforted by the thought that all of her past dogs are in the same place as her friend). The many humorous stories of Dr. Vogelsang's patients and their guardians ensure that laughs far outweigh the tears. --Kristen Galles from Book Club Classics

Birdie expresses all the worries that can accompany the prospect of starting school, and shows how to get through them in this warmhearted picture book.

The heroine always knows what to wear. But the night before school starts, Birdie can't sleep. In the morning, she can't decide what to wear. And Monster, her little white dog, doesn't help. Sujean Rim uses her watercolors, colored pencils and collage to create clothes and accessories combinations to make a Vogue editor envious. But even after choosing "just the right outfit," Birdie's not confident that she's "really ready for school." She reviews the good and bad things she's heard about it and confesses to Mommy that she's scared. Her mother reassures Birdie, fastening a necklace with a heart locket around her daughter's neck and telling Birdie that "No matter where you are, no matter where you go, Monster and I are always right here." Rim's collage artwork depicts a "beautiful" and orderly classroom where "everything had its place--even Birdie!" She has a cubbie with her name on it and a kind teacher named Mr. Bobbins. Rim takes readers through Birdie's day, and helps preview what youngsters can expect (including a "delicious" lunch). Afterward, Birdie tells Mommy and Monster all about her day.

Rim portrays a close-knit mother-daughter relationship that also allows room for Birdie to strike out on her own. The heroine evinces a healthy independence while also reassuring novice students that it's okay to miss their parents and that they'll still be there when school is over. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness