In The Second Sleep by Robert Harris (Fatherland), a startling spoiler occurs not two dozen pages in, completely upending the expected historical fiction. In 1468, London priest Christopher Fairfax arrives in rural Axford, where the parish priest, Thomas Lacey, died accidentally. Fairfax plans to deliver the eulogy and leave, but soon realizes that Lacey may have been murdered. The priest knows England's history: in the distant past an apocalypse occurred, and the Church now holds complete authority over the country. Lacey, in a shockingly heretical act, owned books published before the apocalypse, and he may have been murdered because of it. Aghast, Fairfax opens one of the books. "He felt as if a hand had reached out of the distant past and brushed its fingers across his face. He wished he could unsee what he had read, but knowledge alters everything, and he knew that was impossible."

Fairfax stays in Axford, both because he's obsessed with the forbidden information he's uncovering and also because, to his shame, he's attracted to a young widow, Lady Durston, whose husband also collected forbidden relics. Her fiancé, John Hancock, is a headstrong "force of nature" whose brawn, initially scorned by the more cerebral Fairfax, becomes an indispensible factor in uncovering the unimaginable past. Hancock doesn't understand how a priest can take part in an investigation expressly forbidden by the Church, but Fairfax says, "Faith that cannot withstand the truth is not a faith holding." In The Second Sleep, Harris has crafted an audacious, genre-bending novel. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.

From the very first sentence comparing protagonist Ramón with an "angry baboon," Jorge Comensal's debut is a caustic yet strangely empathetic portrait of bourgeois and lower-class Mexicans in the grips of modernity. Ramón is a lawyer whose throat cancer costs him the ability to speak and his profession. Meanwhile, his family and caregivers grapple with their own problems. Comensal uses the bleak situation as grist for gleefully cynical tragicomedy. His characters have often hilarious neuroses, and a foul-mouthed parrot fits into the novel's scenery perfectly, but there is also real pathos in Ramón's collapse into despair and the inability of these characters to understand themselves.

The Mutations is not for readers sensitive to darker content. The narrative voice is close to the savagery of the later French crime novelists; it mocks the class structures and repressions that have warped middle-class Mexican society. Nevertheless, moments of grace abound for the subjects of this novel. The brutal, necessary ending is the culmination of that motif of brief serenity in a cruel universe.

But then at least that universe has created Comensal's work. This is a strong first novel (despite one ableist joke that feels like a cheap target) that carries readers with its unpredictability, the speed at which it tosses out blackly funny observations. Any bibliophile with a penchant for Pascal Garnier will like Comensal. He demonstrates a talent for dark comedy that hopefully will continue to be used in a world that may need it. --C.M. Crockford, freelance reviewer

Boratin is "back at zero" since his unsuccessful suicide has landed him in a hospital bed instead of Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait. He's broken a rib but lost his memory. Strangers--even though they aren't--assure him he's "a brilliant singer and songwriter" for a popular band; that not long ago he lived with a woman but wasn't "too cut up about finishing with her"; that he hasn't seen his sister in far too long. "My mind, which hasn't got a single word about myself in it," he realizes, "is bursting with facts about other things"--his own name escapes him, but he can recall "names of ancient philosophers, the colors of soccer teams, the words of the first astronaut who went to the moon."

In the dizzying Labyrinth, Turkish novelist Burhan Sönmez (Istanbul, Istanbul) follows Boratin as he fills his newly blank slate with stories offered by others. He's closely guided (and guarded) by Bek, a devoted friend ("Is he my friend?" Borotin naturally questions), who provides glimpses of a shared past, all the while attempting gradually to reconnect Boratin with his unrecognizable life--friends, family, places, experiences. "Losing your memory has set you free," Bek dares to suggest, challenging Boratin to keep moving forward. A Turkish Cypriot living in Spain, Ümit Hussein is Sönmez's English translator; she efficiently alchemizes his spare punctuation and flowing paragraphs into a provocative examination of memory and loss, of intent and outcome. Resonant rewards await readers willing to pay close attention to conversations without speech tags and to ruminate on Sönmez's elliptical, masterful narrative. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

Blitzed, the third romance in Alexa Martin's Playbook series, is a sweet and steamy romantic comedy set in the world of professional football players and their WAGs--wives and girlfriends. Fans of the series will recognize Brynn, the owner of HERS, the bar at which many scenes in the first two books (Intercepted and Fumbled) take place, and Maxwell, the shy, secretly nerdy football star. While Maxwell plays defense in his career, Brynn plays defense with her heart. She's never had a real relationship before, scared of getting attached when she knows she's just like the mother who abandoned her as a teen. Luckily, Max is the ultimate caretaker hero, committed to building a bond with her, whether that be friendship or something more.

Guest appearances by secondary characters reinforce their previous Happily Ever Afters, while ongoing reality TV and charity events add levity to the otherwise even-keeled romantic arc. As the romance develops, so, too, does a mystery revolving around Maxwell's complicated relationship with his brother, which sets off Brynn's trust issues. She's uneasy with how much she loves his sweet gestures and giving nature, wary of depending on anyone or having them depend upon her. However, supportive friends and an affirming encounter with her mother help her realize that she has a lot more to give than she thought.

Martin's experience as the wife of a professional football player grounds the book with authentic details and immerses readers in a glitzy, dramatic world, while her feminist sensibilities ensure that all of the women are represented as three-dimensional characters with their own goals and motivations. Blitzed is sure to satisfy fans of football, romantic comedy and happy endings. --Suzanne Krohn, editor, Love in Panels

Wilmington's Lie is a remarkable account of a distinctive historical moment: the only violent overthrow of an elected government in U.S. history. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Zucchino (Myth of the Welfare Queen) pierces layers of myth and invented history, built up by the successful perpetrators of the coup and their white supremacist allies, to depict the terrifying violence that set the stage for more than half a century of Jim Crow rule.

At the end of the 19th century, Wilmington, N.C., was a thriving mixed-race community with numerous black officials, including police officers. One of the wealthiest men in the city was a black man, and a sizable black middle class had developed. Republicans actively campaigned for black votes, and rewarded those votes with political appointments. It was a far cry from Southern states where white Democrats had already "redeemed" state and local governments.

The violence in Wilmington has sometimes been portrayed as a spontaneous outburst of racial animus. Wilmington's Lie definitively shows that the coup and the violence used to enforce it had been thoroughly planned by white supremacists. Zucchino describes how racial hatred was used as a tool by practical-minded Democrats who sought a way back into power.

Some of Zucchino's most provocative reflections come in the epilogue, where he draws comparisons between the voter suppression methods of the 19th century and the recent efforts of North Carolina's Republican politicians to limit black, and therefore Democratic, voting. Zucchino never needs to stretch to find connections between the 1898 coup and the present day. The trauma--as well as political and economic consequences--still linger. --Hank Stephenson, manuscript reader, the Sun magazine

The U.S. is obsessed with locking up immigrants, says César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, lawyer and University of Denver professor, who has extensive knowledge about U.S. immigration and imprisonment. Migrating to Prison provides an eye-opening look at the origins of the system and how it operates, with family detention somehow viewed as a humanitarian response to family separation; particularly infuriating when separations result from the targeting of "criminal aliens." These fellow humans range from asylum seekers fleeing hardships to soldiers dealing with PTSD after fighting for the country that now disowns them.

García Hernández presents an abundance of facts and history in a passionate yet credible fashion that should raise the hackles of everyone. The tale isn't a new one. Targeted confinement dates back to anti-Chinese sentiment of 1800s California. It's no coincidence that selective imprisonment escalated following the civil rights movement--a substitution for racism that could no longer be expressed as openly. García Hernández posits that the system isn't broken, but is intended to marginalize minorities for political and financial gain.

The author argues that immigration law is like "a bouncer at a trendy nightclub" and Americans have "always used fear and race to imprison those we see as threats," allowing "white racists [to] find comfort against the prevailing winds of change." García Hernández makes a solid case for the situation as a "humanitarian catastrophe." By any stretch, "the promise that the United States welcomes 'anyone with the will and heart to get here' is flat out false." --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

It's not surprising that Nancy Davis Kho "has a Pollyanna streak a mile wide"--her first book, The Thank-You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time, is a heartfelt effort to encourage readers to send written thank-you notes to those who have enriched their lives.

Kho, author of the Midlife Mixtape blog and podcast, commemorated her 50th year by writing 50 letters--to "see, say, and savor" the people, places and things that made her life richer. During her year of selecting recipients and writing the letters, she also researched "the restorative power of deliberate gratitude," and cites research confirming the emotional and physiological benefits of focusing on positive feelings, described in one study as "counting blessings versus burdens." She acknowledges the stumbling blocks of embarking on a Thank-You Project, from accepting the challenge of sticking with a year-long effort to admitting a weakness when thanking a friend who offered help. "Maybe what we need to heal the divisive and fractious times in which we live is an 'Interdependence Day,' " she muses, noting the need for sustaining friendships.

For anyone open to embracing a formal Thank-You Project, Kho's step-by-step handbook provides inspiring guidance. And readers looking for a feel-good memoir emphasizing the benefits of appreciation (with detailed playlists) will be grateful to her for sharing her story. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, former bookseller and freelance reviewer

Michael Eric Dyson's book of interwoven essays on the importance of rapper and mogul Jay-Z is a triumph of rap academia. For far too long, Dyson (The Black Presidency) has been forced to justify his motivations for teaching university-caliber classes on hip hop (and several of its most enduring figures) to a skeptical public. Jay-Z: Made in America should put that debate to rest.

Fandom for the "Empire State of Mind" rapper is not required to appreciate Dyson's work, which focuses on three facets of the artist's oeuvre: hustle, poetry and politics. Starting with hustle, Dyson mines Jay-Z's lyrics and annotates his career to establish his thesis: that the rapper's career can be viewed as an extension of the mentality he has relied on since he was a kid in Brooklyn's Marcy housing project, selling crack "to those who couldn't take the pain." Later, Dyson's argument expands as the book's focus pivots to examine the rapper's arguably unparalleled use of language, as well as his interest and involvement in politics and justice reform. Within this overarching framework, Dyson also finds time to eulogize the life and work of the late Nipsey Hussle, to analyze the posthumous reputation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to center the career and legacy of Jay-Z in a larger conversation of black artistry and excellence. As more serious critics finally welcome (albeit tacitly) hip-hop into the pantheon of serious cultural critique, Dyson's Jay-Z: Made in America will be embraced as one example of how to do it right. --Zack Ruskin, freelance reviewer

Solar physicist Shadia Habbal travels the world to study the sun's corona. When a solar eclipse is going to occur, she and a team of scientists with specialized equipment set out for a previously scouted location that has been determined to be an optimal place for viewing the event. This is "one of the few times scientists can get a good look" at the corona. With a window of only a few minutes, the team's work is calibrated down to fractions of a second, and everyone has a specific role to play. But even if the team is spot on with their responsibilities, weather and other environmental factors can impede their efforts and ruin months of preparation. In her contribution to the Scientists in the Field series, writer Ilima Loomis uses Habbal's preparation for the 2017 eclipse in the United States to illuminate all the intricacies of the meticulous operation to study the heart of the solar system.

Loomis's descriptions of the complex science are accompanied by supplemental sections that make the book highly accessible, offering explanations of concepts like solar wind or illustrating the tools the scientists use. Amanda Cowan's photographs bring readers closer to the action of the eclipse chase. Her images vividly capture mood and emotion, adding a truly human element to the adventure: the event is more than data in a textbook, it's hopes and dreams built on a few precious minutes. Readers will surely feel invested in it all, hoping for a successful result. Budding astronomers should find much to enjoy in these pages, and the Eclipse Chaser herself is likely to spark a light of interest in others as well. --Jen Forbus, freelancer