In this serenely haunting tale, told in prose at once lyrical and unsettling, a lonely inhuman girl running a magical curing business with her father searches for a way to come alive.

Ada and her father were born of the Ground; though they appear human, not all within is flesh. Vital to their acceptance in town is their ability to cure illness. The Cures, as they call the townspeople, need them to treat their sundry ailments. Ada and her father tease the Cures open, sing away their sickness, and temporarily bury them when necessary while their extracted organs heal. Stifled by the monotony of serving customers, Ada doesn't feel alive until she meets Samson, a Cure her father forbids her to love, believing he's dangerously sick. When Samson suggests they run away, Ada spooks. She won't lose him, but she can't leave. Her solution lies in the Ground--an act that might undo everything she and her father have built, and it rests on the precarious hope that she can have a fulfilling future.

Follow Me to Ground by debut author Sue Rainsford depicts the desperation fueled by loneliness. Tolerated only for her abilities, Ada craves true companionship. As a child, she wanted a sibling, but her father refused to create another. Ada has been "a long time in the desert," and her father's plan to extinguish her only pleasure seems like "sunshine bleaching everything." Visceral in its descriptions and carried by a spellbinding first-person narrative intertwined with lore from fearful Cures, this unworldly story is a well-crafted and eerie exploration of desire. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

In Joseph Finder's nail-biting mystery House on Fire, private investigator Nick Heller infiltrates a big pharma billionaire's backstabbing family to seek justice for the death of a friend.

Nick gets an urgent call from a military buddy's distraught wife. Her husband, Sean, saved Nick's life in Afghanistan, but was wounded and developed an addiction to the opioid drug Oxydone. Sean has just died from an overdose of the painkiller.

At Sean's funeral, Nick is approached by Sukie Kimball, the daughter of billionaire Conrad Kimball, who owns the company that makes and markets Oxydone in the form of an easy-to-use inhaler. Sukie wants to expose her father's company for hiding the truth about Oxydone's addictive properties. Nick poses as her date at family functions to search the Kimball mansion, but Sukie's dysfunctional siblings quickly see through the ruse and will do everything they can to stop Nick--even murder.

Finder (Guilty Minds) delivers tight writing with sharp characters, especially the cast of Kimball family members. There's a pseudo-intellectual about to publish a book--as soon as he can settle on a topic; a theater producer who can't gain any respect due to the family name; an alcoholic lothario turned pyromaniac; two siblings seeking to take control of the company; and Conrad's Russian mail-order bride, who may just become the sole beneficiary of the Kimball empire. Fans of HBO's Succession and dynamic murder mysteries will eagerly inhale House on Fire. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer

Jessica Fellowes (The World of Downton Abbey; The Mitford Murders) explores the dramatic end of the 1920s in The Mitford Scandal, the third entry in her Mitford Murders series. Louisa Cannon, former nursery maid to the Mitford sisters and new ladies' maid to Miss Diana Mitford, is appalled when a young housemaid falls to her death at a large party in 1928. She thinks it's merely a freak accident, until further deaths take place within the illustrious social circle of Diana and Bryan Guinness, her wealthy new husband, over the next few years. Louisa realizes that all these deaths cannot be mere coincidences, and turns to Guy Sullivan, a detective sergeant who has made no secret of his affection for her, to help her discover what is going on.

Meticulously researched, The Mitford Scandal draws on the lives of the six real Mitford sisters, and their roles among the "Bright Young Things" in the late '20s. Moving in exalted and bohemian social circles that included artists, writers such as Evelyn Waugh, and aristocrats, the Mitford sisters were at the top of avant-garde English society. Louisa's position as ladies' maid, which places her somewhere between the upstairs aristocrats and the downstairs servants, affords her excellent opportunities for eavesdropping and investigating, creating a slow-paced but enjoyable mystery. Fellowes, niece of Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, knows the history of this era well, and uses her knowledge and a flair for appealing fiction to create a delightful entry in this historical mystery series. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.

On the list of passions that are as American as apple pie, the game of baseball occupies a prominent place. That's what makes its presence at the heart of Gish Jen's clever dystopian novel The Resisters so meaningful, and so disquieting.

In the middle of the 21st century in the country now known as AutoAmerica, Jen (World and Town) vividly imagines a world that's been transformed into the ultimate surveillance state through the pervasive AutoNet (dubbed "Aunt Nettie" by its detractors), a powerful amalgamation of artificial intelligence, automation and the Internet. Teenager Gwen Cannon-Chastanet and her parents are among the benighted segment of AutoAmerica known as Surplus, who subsist on a government-supplied Basic Income and the produce they grow in their backyard.

Gwen's preternatural talent at pitching a baseball--once a banned sport, but now designated an Official National Pastime--lands her a spot at Net U, an institution otherwise barred to those of her social caste. As a result, the family experiences tension arising from her new life among the Netted. They ponder whether her exposure to its allure will induce her to Cross Over into that privileged social stratum.

Jen revels in creating a fully realized world that's sufficiently recognizable yet infused with enough alien elements to qualify as frighteningly realistic speculation on a potential future. Blending realistic family drama with sly social commentary, The Resisters raises a host of provocative questions about what a ruthless combination of omnipresent technology and economic inequality might look like. George Orwell would be proud. And scared. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

As far as semesters abroad go, few can rival the six months that writer and illustrator Andy Warner (Brief Histories of Everyday Objects) spent in Beirut in 2005. Spring Rain, the resulting illustrated memoir of his time in Lebanon, intertwines the country's violent upheaval in the wake of political assassinations with Warner's struggles to define his sexuality, his creative purpose and, as things progress, his own sanity.

As random car bombings plague the city amid social unrest, Warner's curiosity about his sexual orientation--as well as lingering angst over an ex-girlfriend--compound circumstances to a point where the author must question whether he has begun exhibiting symptoms of mental illness prevalent within his family. He uses a fairly realistic, unembellished drawing style to capture the essence of the friends, family, colleagues and strangers who populate his memoir in subtle but remarkable ways--be it the strategic crease of an eye or the slight slump of a shoulder. In other cases, it's the shading of bullet holes that mark a statue Warner visits in Beirut's Martyrs' Square.

Whether he's depicting the reality of a nation in revolt or the nightmare of a personal break from reality that threatens the possibility of tragic consequences, Warner's skills as a cartoonist serve both to offer the story cohesion and to ensure the (extremely helpful) passages on Lebanon's history aren't too dense. In total, Spring Rain is a timely work that never oversteps itself by narrowing its focus to provide a fleeting glimpse of revolutions both personal and political. --Zack Ruskin, freelance reviewer

Journalist and writing instructor Roy Peter Clark makes it clear from the beginning that Murder Your Darlings and Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser is not a list of the best writing guides. Instead Clark, himself the author of several respected books on writing, including Writing Tools and How to Write Short, shares some of his favorite writing books and what he learned from them.

Clark engages in discussion with each author he introduces, sometimes carrying that discussion across authors or even beyond the subject of writing. (For example, an examination of Dorothea Brande's fascist leanings leads Clark to a rich discussion of good work by bad people.) He begins with On the Art of Writing by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, the source of the often misquoted and misattributed injunction to "murder your darlings"--putting that advice in its original and less draconian context. He distinguishes between books about writing craft and books about living the life of a writer--while pointing out that many of the best books straddle the two categories. Clark distills one or two pieces of advice from each work he considers--sometimes technical, sometimes inspirational. He ends with a piece of advice distilled from all 50 works together: "writers use everything."

Murder Your Darlings is an opinionated, lively and occasionally critical discussion of books that have made Clark want to write and why such books matter. Be warned: readers may be inspired to add new books to their writing bookshelves, or to re-read ones they already own. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins

Fans of Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Mark Harris's Pictures at the Revolution will adore Sam Wasson's (Improv Nation) superbly written history of the making of the 1974 noir classic Chinatown. This Oscar-winning masterpiece was created by combining the talents of Jack Nicholson (in his first romantic leading man role), screenwriter Robert Towne (suffering from writers' block after spending two years writing Warren Beatty's Shampoo), producer Robert Evans (the new head of a floundering Paramount Pictures who brought profits back by producing Love Story and The Godfather) and director Roman Polanski (whose two films post-Rosemary's Baby had tanked).

More than half of Wasson's brilliant book is just a lead-up to filming Chinatown--but what a thrilling first half it is. Wasson backtracks to create full and psychologically insightful biographies of all four men, leading up to their friendships and working partnerships. The murder of Polanski's eight-months pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, in 1969 devastated him and changed Hollywood. "That was the end of the Sixties," said Towne. "The door closed, the curtain dropped, and nothing and no one was ever the same." Wasson's detective work goes beyond juicy tales of Faye Dunaway's alienating behavior. He uncovers several surprises, including Towne's longtime (but secret) writing partnership with Edward Taylor; the disastrous first previews of the film; and the last-minute jettison of the film's musical score to one composed and recorded in 10 days by Jerry Goldsmith.

The Big Goodbye reaches beyond the filming of Chinatown to create a fascinating and superbly reported look at Hollywood in the 1970s and beyond. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

Aaron Shurin (Flower & Sky: Two Talks) dazzles the sense of self in his transportive and indelible poetry collection, The Blue Absolute.

Luscious prose poems populate the four sections of this book. Most entries stand like a single paragraph on the page the reader enters. By the end of each poem, a transformative magic has occurred. Shurin's sentences embrace the poet's surroundings--both pastoral and urban--with zeal and exuberant intelligence, showing how space relates to the self and expands it. These poems "flirt with distances" in a poetic dance, balancing the past, the "cargo of facts," with the depth of the present and possibilities of the future. "The Edge" reveals what the poet uncovers with the force of his imagination: "a perfectly unzipped set of affirmations." Likewise, in "Clear," the ultimate purpose is "seizing the husk of every disappearing hour."

Shurin is a gay writer, and a certain eroticism animates these poems. His attempt to "make the walls sing" reveals a deep well of life force, sexually charged but also reaching heights of universal love, the same way his poetry mixes the sensuous with the abstract, until the whole world seems to be throbbing with life. The end of the collection is a five-part poem called "Shiver"--structured differently than the other poems--dedicated to San Francisco, "to meet the city that made me and that I make."

Taken together, the poems in The Blue Absolute are liberating in the way they lean toward sky, breaking ceilings and conjuring the absolute richness of the moment. Shurin is a bright voice in the wilderness, one that illuminates and builds worlds with words. --Scott Neuffer, writer, poet, editor of trampset

This soaring saga about redemption, loyalty and the folly of war portrays a warrior with the power to wield darkness.

Once highly ranked in the Sky King's army, Enebish is marked as a traitor when she loses control of her Kalima ability to spin the night and accidentally massacres innocents. Her adoptive sister, Ghoa, commander of the Kalima warriors, offers her a bargain: infiltrate the rebellion and locate its leader, Temujin, in exchange for reinstatement. Enebish sets out to prove her fealty but is appalled by treacherous conditions across the tundra. Her people have been "thrown at the battlefront like chaff" while thousands of shepherds risk death from exposure in ice fields the king's Sun Stokers should have thawed. The only aid comes from Temujin, who supports the freezing caravans with stolen supplies and rescues children from the war. When she finds Temujin's rebellion, Enebish is enlisted to ferry soldiers to freedom.

Torn between two causes, Enebish's plight highlights the ambiguity of war. Though Enebish wants the Sky King's war to succeed, she doesn't want victory at the cost of her people, forcing her to slough her insecurities and make a stand. As her "heart aches... for friendship and acceptance and healing," Enebish holds fast to ancestral values as she tries to protect innocent lives. Night Spinner by Addie Thorley (An Affair of Poisons) shows Enebish's internal transformation, seeing herself first as a "whimpering dog, desperate for a master" then, eventually, as "a girl made of flame and smoke and heart" created to "call down starfire like rain." Through a strikingly grim atmosphere of magic battles with bloody consequences, a despised girl's dazzling courage shines as she abandons her need for outward approval and embraces her inner strength. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer