Writing in the voice of a child is a tricky and perilous thing. It's also something Ashley Little (Anatomy of a Girl Gang, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize winner) knocks clean out of the park in Niagara Motel; readers will fall madly in love with Tucker Malone. It's no surprise Tucker is wiser and more world-weary than any 11-year-old should be: his mother, Gina, is a peripatetic, narcoleptic stripper. Yet Little brilliantly blends Tucker's street smarts with his innocence, and his voice never feels anything but authentic.

When Gina's narcolepsy leads to tragedy, Tucker is forced to leave their current residence, the Niagara Motel, to stay at Bright Light, a home for older, troubled kids. A boy forced to deal with a grown-up situation under less-than-stellar circumstances, all Tucker wants to do is find the man he believes to be his father--Sam Malone from the television sitcom Cheers.

Tucker is drawn to fellow housemate Meredith, 16 and pregnant. "We were a strange match as far as friends go, but magnets don't need to understand how magnetism works; they just repel each other or stick together." Stick together this odd duo does, through life's dramas and one of the more fascinating road trips ever. The journey is so wildly inventive it's almost distracting (in the best of ways; go in blind and have Google handy), but the strength of Little's characters and dialogue ensure the story never loses its focus or heart--the inimitable Tucker Malone. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

The Long Room is spy fiction drained of every drop of romanticism, in the storied tradition of John le Carré's understated masterworks and the dark psychological intensity of Coppola's The Conversation. Francesca Kay's novel burrows so deeply into her protagonist Stephen Donaldson's psyche that his warped perspective can be frighteningly persuasive. Stephen works for a secretive U.K. government agency known as the Institute, which seems primarily to engage in domestic espionage. The novel takes place in November 1981, as IRA bomb attacks wreak havoc and the United Kingdom stumbles toward war in the Falklands. The titular "long room" refers to the drab office space where Stephen and his colleagues listen to tapes of tapped phone calls and bugged residences.

Stephen's monotonous, lonely world is interrupted by his increasing obsession with Helen, the wife of one of his surveillance targets. Stephen begins to imagine an exaggeratedly romantic relationship between them: "With her, and only with her, he feels no need to pretend, he is at ease in his own skin, he begins to like himself. She gives him back his truthfulness and when he thinks of her he thinks in poetry." Kay purposefully blurs the line between spook and stalker, raising troubling questions about the ethics of intelligence work.

More than anything else, The Long Room is a deep and absorbing character study. Stephen's self-justifying fantasies and solipsistic outlook can be almost as alluringly deceptive as Humbert Humbert's. The Long Room is a striking and particularly satisfying work of espionage fiction. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books

Fair warning: this mystery includes a clown. He is good and dead, if that helps, and it's Deputy Gemma Monroe's job to figure out who killed him in Emily Littlejohn's terrific debut, Inherit the Bones. When the identity of the traveling circus performer is discovered, the small town of Cedar Valley, Colo., is rocked by secrets that have been buried for decades.

In the summer of 1985, young cousins Tommy and Andrew McKenzie disappeared. That same summer, a woman's body was found dumped on a riverbank. Neither mystery was ever solved. More recently, the mayor's son slipped off a cliff and vanished into the raging water below. The dead clown is simply the newest addition to Cedar Valley's tragic history.

Along with a partner she doesn't fully trust and a freshly minted recruit, a very pregnant Gemma must mine the town's past crimes in order to solve its most recent. There's always danger to be had when digging up old secrets, and the investigation will heap more misfortune on everyone attached to them before it's over.

Inherit the Bones will leave readers wanting more from Littlejohn's impressively diverse cast of characters, each presented with intriguing depth without distracting from the action. Littlejohn's prose deftly moves the investigation forward, yet is often laced with moments of insightful beauty. The story arcs grow worryingly in number, but Littlejohn pulls them together in excellent fashion. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

One morning in 1996 "they gave Reacher a medal, and in the afternoon they sent him back to school." Night school, that is, the title of Lee Child's 21st Jack Reacher thriller. Turns out, it isn't a class but a top-secret mission involving the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Council and Reacher, representing the army's MP division.

The NSC has been keeping tabs on an apartment in Hamburg, Germany, that houses a jihadist sleeper cell consisting of three Saudis and one Iranian. The Iranian is a CIA-run double agent who gets wind of an unnamed American's plan to sell something to a Middle Eastern buyer. The bad news: the asking price of $100 million. The worse news: the buyer readily agrees. What could be worth that much to a potential enemy? Reacher and his colleagues must find out who the players are, what the product is, and block the sale before the mystery item is used against the U.S. and possibly the world.

Reacher Creatures will find the series' staples here: their hero using his analytical skills to dissect situations, annihilating opponents in fights and coupling with a female colleague (though happily not with his sergeant Frances Neagley, who remains a sharp and formidable ally). The familiar aspects make for reliable entertainment, and the 20-years-younger Reacher is little different from his present-day self. No matter what age he is, though, he'll remain head of the class to his legions of fans. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

Ray Kroc, a paper cup and milkshake machine salesman from Chicago, became the force behind the lucrative franchising of McDonald's. When Kroc died in 1984, he left billions of dollars to his wife, Joan. Investigative journalist Lisa Napoli (Radio Shangri-La) sets out to understand shrewd and pushy Ray, and his strong-willed, opinionated third wife, Joan, who eventually gave away the bulk of the fortune her husband amassed.

Napoli details the struggles of hard-up brothers Mac and Dick McDonald, who fashioned a revolutionary roadside restaurant--with a simple menu and quick, assembly-line-style food preparation--in San Bernardino. Ray Kroc's milkshake machines were integral to their restaurant, and in 1954, Kroc suggested that the brothers expand their profitable business. This would launch one of the most complex business success stories in American history. Along the way, Napoli weaves in details of Kroc's personal life--his battle with alcoholism, two failed marriages--and his tumultuous romantic relationship with Joan, a liberal feminist.

In his lifetime, Ray started the Kroc Foundation, funding research on diabetes, arthritis and multiple sclerosis, and Ronald McDonald Houses, which offer free housing for families with children undergoing medical treatment. After Ray's death--and for the next 19 years, until her own death--Joan contributed billions to a host of causes that touched her heart: AIDS research, Greenpeace, the Democratic party, the San Diego Zoo and National Public Radio. Napoli's well-researched, compelling portrayals of Ray and Joan Kroc shed light on a dynamic and influential couple whose generosity continues to improve a world where McDonald's is a household name. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Part of the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series, Octavia E. Butler is an in-depth and accessible study of the acclaimed and influential author's life and work. Professor Gerry Canavan (The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction) based his research on the enormous archive of her papers at the Huntington Library.

Butler (1947-2006) was an internationally acclaimed author drawn to the "wide open horizon" of science fiction, even though it was a genre dominated by white men when the black teenage girl began selling her stories. She was a devoted and prolific daily writer until her death in 2006, with a dark, pessimistic imagination and a controlled, vivid style. Canavan writes that "her fiction exemplifies the complex insights of the Afrofuturist school of science fiction, which notes... that 'black people live the estrangement that science fiction writers imagine.' " Despite her productivity, Butler published only 12 novels and one story collection, in part, Canavan says, because she "was not only a writer but a rewriter and a re-rewriter, and a re-re-rewriter, almost to the point of compulsion." Perfectionistic and intensely self-critical, she explored every avenue of her recurring characters, plot points and themes, keeping everything she wrote but rarely satisfied with any of her versions, including the published ones. With impressive clarity, Canavan traces the intricate networks of Butler's developing ideas across her many works and her private journals and letters. He includes substantial notes, a bibliography, chronology, a decent index and Butler's self-defining 1980 essay, "Lost Races in Science Fiction." This is a biography that will be welcomed by both fans and scholars. --Sara Catterall

In 1980, four United States churchwomen in El Salvador were raped and murdered by members of the U.S.-trained National Guard, calling into question U.S. support for the right-wing military dictatorship and leading to several high-level and international investigations. The four were treated as symbols and martyrs; journalist Eileen Markey wanted to make them individuals again. A Radical Faith: The Assassination of Sister Maura pursues that goal by examining the life of Maura Clarke.

Markey follows Maura from a close-knit Irish Catholic family in Rockaway, N.Y., to a Maryknoll convent at 19 in 1950, part of a staunchly anti-communist Catholic Church. Maura served in the Bronx, and then for 17 years in Nicaragua, where she was horrified by poverty and want. She gradually experienced a massive transformation of worldview, eventually becoming an outspoken activist, even as Markey outlines a parallel if gentler shift at the Church's highest levels. When assigned to El Salvador, Maura worked a few short months before her murder.

A Radical Faith is not an objective inquiry: it assumes that Maura had few flaws and that missionary work in cultures abroad is good work. Markey nevertheless powerfully establishes Maura as an individual, and animates the story of her death. Her work brings an extraordinary level of detail, from Maura's own journals and correspondence as well as redacted government documents, to a decades-old crime with higher-level instigators who have not been brought to justice. Though not impartial, A Radical Faith is a carefully researched and flattering portrait, moving and evocative. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Suffering from bouts of anxiety, depression or loneliness? How about that nagging feeling that there is never enough time in the day to finish tedious responsibilities, yet there's always time to check Facebook or another social media platform? Psychotherapist Nancy Colier (Inviting a Monkey to Tea) noticed these symptoms in her patients as well as their shared compulsive need to check the phone. Colier promotes wellness and a calm center of self by learning to unplug.

Richly informative yet personable, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World teaches readers how to take time for themselves. Colier describes the need to stay "plugged in" as creating the expectation that everyone must be available and at each other's disposal always. As a result, she notes, many have been pushed to live in a constant state of angst and readiness without any reprieve. The consequences of this altered state has manifested in compromised mental and physical health, including the risk of depression, high blood pressure and emotional instability. Colier offers fun and interactive techniques to demonstrate that technological dependency is an addiction, and how it can be broken. She offers personal anecdotes, advice and exercises to be performed as one reads. With so much encouragement, readers may be convinced to leave their smartphones and keep up with the energetic journey toward "me time."

Those seeking guidance on how to limit their time on social media and the Internet in general should pick up Power of Off! --Carol H. Hood, writer, graphic novelist, social commentator

Poor Stick Man! Out for a jog one spring day, he's nabbed by a dog that believes he's a stick to fetch. Then a swan decides he's a twig for her nest. Come winter, a boy thinks he's an arm for his snowman. Over the course of four seasons, in one case of mistaken identity after another, Stick Man is taken farther and farther from his "Stick Lady Love and their stick children three." Eventually, on Christmas Eve, chilled and weary, he winds up on someone's fireplace grate. Is there anyone who can save him now? "Oh-ho-ho," there sure is!

Author-illustrator pair Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (Room on the Broom; The Gruffalo) update their quirky rhyming classic with a brand-new Christmas-y cover. Donaldson's catchy verses will still have young readers chiming in for the chorus:

"I'm not a stick! Why can't you see,
I'm Stick Man, I'm Stick Man,
I'M STICK MAN, that's me,
And I want to go home to the family tree!"

Every page is packed with details demanding the attention of readers who are willing to slow down for the rewards. Scheffler's bright, cartoony illustrations are full of lively touches: The stick children's toys are made out of acorns and chestnuts. Stick Man's eyes are squeezed shut as a girl stretches him as a bow for her arrow. Look closely... there's even a Gruffalo ornament on a tree!

Stick Man is a holiday odyssey that, even with its unusual protagonist, will ring true as sleigh bells for any reader who loves stories about overcoming obstacles to succeed. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

In the charming picture book Paul & Antoinette, the title characters are sibling pigs who live alone in a cozily furnished stone house.

Fastidious Paul is a "toast spread neatly with butter" kind of pig, while ebullient Antoinette "piles jam and chocolate on her special Two-Taste toasts." Paul prefers to stay inside and tinker with intricate ship models, while Antoinette can't wait to drag her brother outside to embrace, quite literally, the delicious chaos of nature. Once outdoors, however, her brother adapts nicely: "When Paul sees beautiful gold button flowers in the meadow, he's inspired to think deeply about Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging." Antoinette licks a snail.

Paul is not a complete killjoy. He is intellectually curious about nature, and even as Antoinette is splashing in the mud, "Paul joins in, leaping elegantly over each puddle." But by the end of their outing, Paul has clearly had enough, and the dirt-and-berry-smeared Antoinette worries that he is angry with her. She tries to smooth things over at home by concocting "her famous Everything Tart," and, indeed, the hilariously enormous and ornate pie does put a smile on Paul's face that lasts into snuggly bedtime. With warmth and humor, Paris-based Kerascoët's expressive watercolor illustrations capture both the friction and the love that coexist where Paul's orderly-but-not-too-rigid nature meets his sister's joyful entropy. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness