It takes some cheek to write a sequel to Mark Twain's classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. If anyone can pull it off, however, it's Robert Coover (The Public Burning; Noir), whose writing pushes the boundaries of fiction. Despite this oeuvre of challenging reading, Huck Out West is a funny, often rollicking, episodic story that embellishes Twain's sardonic wit with Coover's own trenchant humor and linguistic finesse to prick the Manifest Destiny balloons of United States history.

Coover's Huck is an exuberant pragmatist--exploring the "territory" west of the Mississippi one step ahead of those out to "sivilize" him. To scratch his itch for rambling, he scouts for both Civil War armies, steals horses and cattle, kills "injuns," rides for the Pony Express, stumbles into the Dakota gold rush, and joins a Lakota Sioux tribe. With his truth-stretching best friend Tom Sawyer a lawyer (what else) back east, Huck finds a new wingman in the Lakota outcast Eeteh: "He's a loafer and a drunk like me and he don't fit in with his people no more'n I fit in with mine." When Tom unexpectedly shows up at Dakota Gulch to bring order to its remote anarchy, he exhorts a gathering crowd: "We're making the first ever perfect nation out here and there ain't no damn injuns going to stand in the way." But Huck's learned a thing or two in his years out west and answers with his usual simple insight: "Well, you can live with folks without trying to whup them." Surprisingly perhaps, Huck Out West is very much a book for our times. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Set in a gentrifying neighborhood of an unnamed city, Lucinda Rosenfeld's Class is told from the point of view of Karen Kipple, a woman in her mid-40s who works as the director of development for a small nonprofit dedicated to eliminating childhood hunger in the United States. Karen's husband, Matt McClelland, has abandoned his job as a lawyer for evicted tenants in order to devote his energies to building a website for low-income city dwellers. The pair lavish most of their remaining attention on their only child, eight-year-old third-grader Ruby.

In their own minds, Karen and Matt's progressive credentials are burnished by their decision to send Ruby to a public elementary school where only 20% of the students are white, convinced she'll receive an "invaluable, once-in-a-lifetime education in multiculturalism and class difference." Among her peers who choose to send their children elsewhere, Karen has two goals: "to foster guilt and shame, and to instill doubt about whatever alternative had been secured."

But when one of Ruby's friends transfers to a less racially mixed school after an incident with an African American classmate, Karen begins to question whether she's sacrificing her daughter's well-being to pride in her principles. On a walk through an adjacent neighborhood, she hatches an audacious scheme designed to safeguard Ruby's education, one that becomes ever more daring as she struggles to be equally protective of her own liberal values. With an acerbic wit and insight revealed in the double meaning of the novel's title, Rosenfeld deftly punctures the hypocrisy that's sometimes exposed in the daunting process of trying to be true to one's professed beliefs. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Horror novelist Nick Cutter (The Troop) continues his streak of genre mash-ups with Little Heaven, a nasty epic that grafts Lovecraftian imagery onto a neo-western foundation, throwing in a cult subplot for good measure. The novel bounces back and forth in time between the 1960s (when three guns-for-hire named Micah, Minerva and Ebenezer get roped into a scheme to rescue a young boy from Little Heaven, a Jonestown-like cult in the backwoods of New Mexico) and the 1980s (when Micah rounds them back up to help save his daughter). The 1960s plot has the three gunfighters gradually discovering the horrific supernatural underpinnings of Little Heaven, while the 1980s story is about the trio's reluctant return to a place they've never been able to forget.

Cutter might not be as pithy as Elmore Leonard, but his hardboiled prose is perfect for the flowery unknowability that characterizes Lovecraftian horror: "When humans experience something that challenges their fundamental belief of the world--its reasonableness, its fixed parameters--well, their minds crimp just a bit. A mind folds, and in that fresh pleat lives a darkness that cannot be explained or accounted for." Which is not to say that Cutter is shy with gross-out scares: "It opened its mouth. Its face split in half, pulling its head apart; the top of its skull levered back like a Pez dispenser." The novel even includes grotesque illustrations perversely reminiscent of the charming sketches commonly found in 19th-century classics. Cutter knows horror, and he nails the basics well enough to support ambitious plotting and refreshing genre experimentation. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books

Emma insists to her boyfriend that they can no longer stay in their apartment after her traumatic assault during a break-in. Their realtor mentions a special house: One Folgate Street. It's a fantastic property, but the owner is not your typical landlord.

Jane can no longer afford her current flat. Her realtor mentions a promising option--an amazing place, really. The catch? It's not a typical lease agreement, which is especially fitting since One Folgate Street is not a typical rental.

Each woman is so taken with the apartment she is willing to accept the roughly 200 stipulations of the minimalist covenant--no pictures, no potted plants, no books, no ornaments--and meet with the owner, Edward Monkford, for a face-to-face interview.

The Girl Before is told in alternating points of view, with the chapters rotating between the voices of Emma and Jane, each residing at One Folgate Street, several years apart. The integration of high-end technologies contributes to the eerie atmosphere--the house constantly watches and monitors its inhabitants. The two women are dramatically different personalities, but their experiences in the home--including an affair with Monkford that works to weave a darkly erotic element into their stories--begin to mirror each other's.

Intense and entertaining, this a satisfying read for fans of domestic thrillers, and minimalists may find some new decorating ideas. Either way, shuck off the unnecessary commitments and settle in for a wild stay in an innovative house packed with mystery. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

John W. Campbell Award-winning writer Seanan McGuire (Every Heart a Doorway) has written a thrilling and thought-provoking ghost story about a woman who dies before her time and must deal with unfinished business.

In 2015 Manhattan, Jenna works as a suicide prevention counselor and shares her apartment with terminally ill cats adopted from a local shelter. She drowned in Mill Hollow during a 1972 storm, as she ran away from her grieving family after her sister Patty's suicide, for which she blames herself. For each suicide Jenna prevents, equal time is deducted from the debt she owes for dying early. She receives disturbing news, however, that New York ghosts are disappearing, mirror-bound by a witch with mysterious motives. Jenna teams up with the corn witch Brenda to search for the missing ghosts, but all paths lead back to Mill Hollow, forcing Jenna to confront the very demons that kept her away.

The story has a lot in common with Showtime's Dead Like Me: the dead who coexist among the living in purgatory until they cross over, the touch that bleeds (or gifts) away a life, and dealing with the aftermath of unexpected death. McGuire's mythology digs deeper to explore the issues behind life, death and loss in a way that is natural, believable and life affirming. And Jenna is admirable in her desire to do right. In the end, "Everything that lives can die, and everything that dies can leave a ghost behind." --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

In Carrie Fisher's third collection of essays (following Wishful Drinking and Shockaholic), the actress, writer and humorist looks back four decades to recall the summer of 1976, when she was 19 and spent three months in England playing Princess Leia in the film Star Wars. A sizable portion of The Princess Diarist excerpts from the three notebooks she kept during the filming. Rather than offering behind-the-scenes anecdotes about filming the blockbuster film that spawned a galaxy of sequels and merchandise, Fisher's witty and highly quotable diaries primarily focus on her affair with costar Harrison Ford.

This is no tabloid tell-all. "There are some things that I still consider private," Fisher writes. "Clothes falling away signals a situation that I'll likely avoid putting into words." The Princess Diarist focuses on Fisher's attempts to sort through her raw emotions and self-doubts as a sexually inexperienced young woman falling in love with a charming but aloof married man. "I've got to learn something from my mistakes instead of establishing a new record to break." Even as a teenager, Fisher was acutely observant and used her diary to precisely dissect her feelings about wanting a relationship but fearing vulnerability and exposure of her self-destructive nature. "Heaven's no place for one who thrives on hell." 

Fisher's trademark self-deprecating wit and astute self-analysis are well represented in The Princess Diarist. This is a thoughtful, achingly candid and supremely clever memoir. Sadly, Fisher (1956-2016) died while on tour promoting the last of her seven books. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

Linguistics professor John McWhorter (Words on the Move) has a message in Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths About America's Lingua Franca: he exhorts his readers and the general public to recognize Black English (a term he prefers to African American Vernacular English or to Ebonics) as a language unto itself, not merely a mess of grammatical mistakes and slang: "a development that happens alongside the standard variety, not in opposition to it."

McWhorter worries that academic linguists have relied too long on scholarly arguments in making this point. He does review some of those arguments--for example, Black English's systematicity, meaning it has a grammar of its own--but then turns to global language patterns. Many cultures and language groups speak both a formal and a casual language in different settings, e.g., Standard Arabic and the local colloquial form (Egyptian Arabic, Syrian, etc.). While he acknowledges that racism partly underlies a general resistance to Black English as a legitimate language, he quickly moves on to what he sees as the larger problem: a misunderstanding of the value of diglossia, or speaking two languages. Along the way, McWhorter cites the relationship between modern Black English and the lingo of minstrel shows, makes the case for a recognizably black way of speaking (or "blaccent") and examines usages such as "baby mama," "who dat?" and what he perceives as two versions of the N-word.

Linguistics fans will be enthralled by McWhorter's fascinating and logically presented study of two forms of English spoken in the United States. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

University of Washington professor Anita Verna Crofts has assembled a warm and thought-provoking collection of essays about food and the people with whom she's enjoyed meals around the world. The pieces are rather short, roughly three pages each, but they're packed with provocative meditations on the power of food to transform mere acquaintances into friends and foreign lands into something like home.

The title essay exhibits strengths found throughout the collection: lyricism, fascinating descriptions of cultural traditions and an awareness of the history behind those traditions. In Kunming, China, in 1992, recent college graduate Crofts is seeking coffee in the "land of tea." She finds it in a small shop, whose "white-tiled walls resembled a subway platform" and whose patrons were elderly--a far cry from the hip java joints she was used to in Seattle. In "Feeding the Neighborhood," Crofts walks through the cobblestone streets of Rome, amazed by the city's smallness (little pastries, tiny apartments). That sense of amazement sticks with her, and when she's back in the States, she sells her car and downsizes to a condo. These essays are more than loving memories of food--they're instructions for living life.

They also address Crofts's privileged status as a tourist. In "A Common Language of Meat," she ruminates on her outsider status in Namibia's inner cities and considers the ethical dilemma of gaining access to a community that she did not earn. Crofts's sensitivity to cultural differences and loving descriptions of the communities she visits make Meet Me at the Bamboo Table a compelling collection of writing on food, travel and memory. --Amy Brady, freelance writer and critic

In teacher-librarian Dan Gemeinhart's (The Honest Truth; Some Kind of Courage) thrilling and darkly comedic third novel, Scar Island, 12-year-old Jonathan Grisby is sentenced to 10 weeks at Slabhenge Reformatory School for Troubled Boys. Sixteen juvenile offenders and eight adults occupy Slabhenge, an Alcatraz-like former insane asylum "surrounded on all sides by the foaming sea." Presiding over the island is the Admiral, a tyrannical warden with a penchant for chocolate, full naval dress and excessive corporal punishment. The Admiral believes that through work and necessary discipline, he can rehabilitate the "[b]loody, disgusting little scabs" in his charge. He never gets that chance with Jonathan.

During "Morning Muster," a deadly lightning storm leaves the Slabhenge students devoid of adult supervision and the boys are left to fend for themselves. They reluctantly rally around Sebastian, an older boy with a violent, authoritarian streak and the longest tenure at Slabhenge: "He called us scabs right?... You know what you get when you keep picking at a scab?... You get a scar, idiots... scars are tough... This ain't Slabhenge anymore!... It's Scar Island... Say it!" As the boys revel in their newfound freedoms--eating gluttonously, exploring hidden corridors, reading Robin Crusoe aloud--tensions rise among them. The stakes intensify further when the storm of the century threatens to wipe out the entire school.

With a nod to William Golding's Lord of the Flies and other survival tales, Scar Island delves deeply into the guilt, regret and shame that can consume a person's life. Friendship, however, can be the antidote to many hardships, and redemption may be just within reach. --Casey Stryer, publishing assistant, Shelf Awareness