Kristan Higgins (Life and Other Inconveniences; Anything for You) does a wonderful job encapsulating the messy, mostly loving, complicatedness of family life in Always the Last to Know. Sadie Frost has a pretty good life. She's an art teacher in New York City, she has a boyfriend she thinks she wants to marry and she's fairly happy. Obviously, her life isn't as good as that of her elder sister, Juliet, who is a successful architect with a handsome British husband and two perfect daughters. Juliet has always been the favorite of Barb, their get-things-done mother, while Sadie is much happier being the beloved child of her low-key father, John.

John and Barb have muddled along for 50 years, both bored in their marriage, and each blatantly favoring one of their two daughters, but it's all working well enough--until John has a stroke. Then Barb discovers John was having an affair. Sadie is furious that she has to move home to Connecticut to help care for John when Barb and Juliet won't. Meanwhile, the apparently perfect Juliet is having panic attacks in her closet.

The three Frost women are dynamic characters, and as they each face challenges in their personal and work lives, Higgins explores the knotty nature of modern womanhood. Lighthearted but nuanced, Always the Last to Know is an enjoyable read that is sure to appeal to fans of Susan Mallery or Elin Hilderbrand. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.

Introduced in the U.K. in 1954, Ekwensi's debut novel, People of the City, arrives on U.S. shelves in a handsome new edition. Despite the book's age, the perennial everyman narrative proves equally affecting for contemporary audiences: Ekwensi's (anti-)hero distances himself from his provincial background ambitiously to pursue the rewards of a quickly changing urban life.

Amusa Sango is "a most colourful and eligible young bachelor" who lives, works, plays--and too easily loves--in a "famous West African city (which shall be nameless)" not unlike Lagos. Although he diligently works two jobs, as a crime reporter for a city paper and a dance-band leader at a club, he is rarely solvent. As an only son, what little he earns must also be shared with his widowed mother. While chasing stories of violent deaths and seeking opportunities to make music, Sango's careless choices in companionship do not serve him well. One friend's dangerous shenanigans first get Sango evicted from his modest lodgings, and later cause a detrimental impact to his journalism career. He's long been engaged to a naïve fiancée sequestered in a rural convent, who remains unaware of his reckless affairs. True love eventually catches him off-guard, but a happy ending is hardly guaranteed.

In an introduction both personally revealing and contextually enlightening, Nigerian author, editor and art critic Emmanuel Iduma (A Stranger's Pose) restores Ekwensi's historical literary prominence and underscores Ekwensi's crucial legacy as a progenitor to "any Nigerian writer who has tried to write about Lagos as a city with feeling," including Sefi Atta, Teju Cole and Chris Abani. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

Twelve years after six-year-old Jennifer Kristal disappeared while walking down a New York suburban street to her friend's house, a young woman shows up in town claiming to be Jenny. She's questioned by local police and the FBI, and shares horrifying details of the abuse she suffered from her kidnappers. Eventually they seem satisfied she is who she says she is, especially when Jenny's grateful parents arrive to bring her home. The title of S.K. Barnett's riveting Safe implies Jenny's ordeal is now over, but don't be fooled. Her first night home, Jenny's older brother makes it clear he doesn't believe the young woman is his long-lost sister. Then she receives an anonymous online warning: Be careful.

Is she a cruel manipulator or sympathetic victim? Does she intend to cause harm or is she in danger?

What follows is an exploration of the ravages of grief on families of missing children and the devastating effects of child trauma and abuse, wrapped up as an insidious thriller that twists in surprising directions. Barnett (a pseudonym) layers mystery upon mystery, keeping the central puzzle hidden while tantalizingly meting out clues. Readers who think they can unravel the knots will remain constantly challenged, and at some point, it's best to stop trying to get ahead of the story and enjoy remaining in the dark until the final revelations. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

"In Guatemala, almost everyone has lost someone they love to murder," writes Rosayra Pablo Cruz in The Book of Rosy, a heartrending memoir of her harrowing journey through Mexico and into the United States. "We are a nation whose ghosts hover in the air around us, a country of walking dead."

Rosy first immigrated to the U.S. in 2014, but threats to her family in Guatemala necessitated a return. In 2018, Rosy risked a second border crossing, this time accompanied by her sons, 15-year-old Yordy and five-year-old Fernando. Daughters Britny and Dulce remained in Guatemala. "Among the many things that people don't understand about migration is this: No one wants to leave the people they love." Unaware of the Trump administration's newly enacted and harshly enforced "zero tolerance" policy, Rosy was sent to Eloy Detention Center in Arizona with bond set at $12,000. Yordy and Fernando were taken from her and placed with a foster mother thousands of miles away in the Bronx, N.Y.

Rosy's poignant writing of the struggles facing Guatemalans and her firsthand experience of being in a "literal and psychological prison" are bookended by the powerful advocacy efforts of another mother, Julie Schwietert Collazo. A former social worker, Collazo was horrified to learn of the separations at the border. After contacting a New York City attorney and mobilizing a volunteer network of friends and strangers, Collazo launched a campaign, Immigrant Families Together, to raise thousands of dollars to free several mothers at Eloy Detention Center--including Rosy.

Ultimately inspiring and hopeful, The Book of Rosy offers an intimately detailed and personal account of two mothers' determination and strength. --Melissa Firman, writer, editor and blogger at melissafirman.com

New Yorker staff writer Masha Gessen (The Future Is History) knows something about autocrats. The Moscow-born Gessen has observed the political machinations in their former homeland, as well as the political career of Donald Trump. The result is Surviving Autocracy, a blistering appraisal of a man whose presidency "has been not one but a series of actions that change the nature of American government and politics step by step," and that has left profound damage, even chaos, in its wake.

Gessen explains how Trump's has been the first presidential administration "focused on destruction." Whether it was "waging a war of militant incompetence against expertise" or appointing cabinet secretaries like Scott Pruitt, whose lifelong goal was to undermine the mission of the agencies they headed, "Trump's project is a government of the worst: a kakistocracy." That is, government by the least suitable leaders.

But as Gessen meticulously documents, Trump's most determined, and most frightening, campaign has been his war on the notion of objective truth, and upon the institutions that unearth and report it. Gessen's book is relatively short on any political remedies for Trumpism. What's most critical, they argue, is a reinvigorated journalism. As the U.S. approaches another presidential election, one that will be shadowed by an uncertain recovery from a global pandemic, the manifest flaws in Trump's character and the danger his continued governance poses have been laid bare thanks to Gessen and other fearless journalists. Surviving Autocracy isn't merely important reading for anyone who plans to cast a vote in that election, it's essential. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

"Awe," writes clinical psychologist Jonah Paquette in the introduction to Awestruck, "is the rare sort of experience that can truly transform our lives." But not so rare as to be impossible to encounter and embrace in everyday life, which, Paquette goes on to argue, can make people "less stressed, healthier, happier, and more connected to those around us."

Anything that promises such incredible gains can easily sound too good to be true, but Paquette is thorough in backing up his claims. He first offers an overview of how awe has appeared throughout religious, philosophical and academic texts, then details how the experience of awe affects the human brain and body. This settled, the second half of Awestruck moves on to providing concrete and actionable ways readers can increase the amount of awe they experience on a near-daily basis. Many of these tips are inherently tied to experiencing nature, and many more draw on the same themes of mindfulness and observance that so many self-help books on similar subjects encourage.

While the methods in Awestruck may not be particularly groundbreaking or unusual, they combine with Paquette's scientific context to remind readers that experiencing awe is not an "extravagant luxury," to be enjoyed only occasionally and only by those who can afford over-the-top experiences. Instead, awe is "an essential part of a life well lived," and easy to come by, if one makes the time for it. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Virtually everyone with an e-mail address has received spam "get rich quick" offers, but British comedian and TED speaker James Veitch's solution was to engage the spammers with hilarious ongoing responses. Dot Con reproduces those laugh-out-loud back-and-forth e-mails that sometimes continued for weeks. "I figure any time they're spending with me is time in which they're not scamming vulnerable adults out of their savings," writes Veitch.

Veitch's imaginative and droll e-mailed replies are subtle sucker punches that often seem to fly over the heads of the scammers. One e-mailer asks, "Have I got your attention?" three times in one short e-mail. Veitch's brief first reply is: "Sorry, can you repeat that? I wasn't paying attention." Most of the scams begin with people either finding money or needing to move money to another country and they're willing to share millions with Veitch if he acts as a middle man. Of course, they need his banking information and passwords and eventually he will be asked to pay several thousands of dollars in document processing fees. Another scammer pretends to be a friend who needs money wired to him. Veitch stalls, insisting the friend writes him a blurb for his upcoming novel the scammer supposedly read. "Just 30 words about the main plot twist and the bit with the robots and the milkmaid," Veitch requests. Several e-mails later, the blurb arrives.

Fans of Don Novello's The Lazlo Letters or Ted L. Nancy's Letters from a Nut will find an outrageous and wry new outlet for hilarity in James Veitch's Dot Con. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

This clever, satisfying and well-researched retelling of the 150-year-old novel Little Women reimagines the relationship between literary, nontraditional second sister Jo March and the charming and wealthy boy next door, Laurie. Jo & Laurie should bring sweet peace to the legions of fans who have despaired over Louisa May Alcott's authorial decisions regarding the love lives of the March girls in the original novel.

In the spinoff, Jo herself--not Alcott--is struggling to produce a sequel to her surprise smash "collection of domestic moments." (The original novel was published in two parts.) Money, family and relationship concerns alternately drive and paralyze the 18-year-old "authoress," who feels pressure from her editor and fans to prettily wrap things up for the (barely) fictional sisters. Everyone must be married off, they say, but Jo resists even as she grapples with her own feelings about love.

Authors Margaret Stohl (Icons; the Beautiful Creatures series) and Melissa de la Cruz (The Queen's Assassin; Alex & Eliza trilogy) masterfully blend historical language and familiar Little Women details into Jo's hilarious and poignant attempts at rewrites, ultimately creating a parallel world where things might have gone a little differently for the March family. Readers with a contemporary feminist bent will appreciate Jo's fury at the occasional dismissive, trivializing attitudes toward women that several of the characters exhibit, as when her editor reminds her that readers "want their little whalebone-corseted hearts set afire." Traditionalists may balk, but romantics will swoon at the conclusion of the highly entertaining Jo & Laurie. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

L.C. Rosen (Jack of Hearts (and other parts)) successfully captures the fleeting feelings of first love and explores identity in his sophomore YA novel, set at a queer summer camp.

Every summer since 16-year-old Randall came out four years ago, he's attended Camp Outland, "a four-week sleepaway summer camp for LGBTQIA+ teens." Randy and his best friends George and Ashleigh always sign up for the camp musical, but this summer Randy's exchanged his purple wheely bag with cat stickers for a big military surplus bag, cut short his chin-length, wavy hair and requested everyone call him Del. This transformation is all part of "the plan" to make the camp playboy, Hudson, fall in love with him. Hudson is known for serial-dating only guys like himself--"masc" fantasies--but Del is going to be the boy who finally gets Hudson to commit. Del's friends express concern over his choices, but he brushes them off with, "Once we're in love, I'll gradually turn back into Randy."

Whether it's a camp providing a "who-cares-if-your-wrists-are-loose freedom" or a summer show "unrestrained by gender or sexuality," Camp unashamedly celebrates queerness through Del and his friends' representations of a variety of sexual identities. Rosen explores these identities without ever making them feel like stereotypes or ignoring prejudices in the community, such as how there's always one kid who argues that "being ace and aro isn't queer." This broad inclusion feels organic and is the perfect backdrop for Del's self-discovery. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader

Justice warriors like Malala are often born with their fighting spirits; much harder is turning a highly embarrassable 11-year-old into an activist. A galvanizing transformation can be found in Supriya Kelkar'smiddle-grade novel American as Paneer Pie. It's narrated by sixth grader Lekha Divekar, an Indian American girl who's trying to be a "good Desi kid" at home while blending in at her nearly all-white school.

For Lekha, whose parents emigrated from Mumbai and are raising her outside Detroit, attending middle school means regularly fielding belittling questions: "Why do you guys have dots on your forehead?," "Why does your food smell so funny?" and so on. When Avantika, a Desi girl Lekha's age, moves into the neighborhood, Lekha is euphoric: now she won't be the only one who knows "what it's like to have two lives, your Indian life at home and your American life at school." But Avantika intends to live one life, and she talks back, her Indian accent undisguised, to the school's premier bully. Lekha starts to wonder: Could it be that keeping her mouth shut isn't necessarily the best way to get by?

American as Paneer Pie has some cardboard villains, but the novel succeeds valiantly at exposing the conflicted loyalties felt by many children of immigrants. While Kelkar (Ahimsa; The Many Colors of Harpreet Singh) is generous with details of Desi culture, readers won't lose sight of the fact that Lekha is a typical, sympathetic tween determined "to be normal, like everyone else." --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author