In her adult horror debut, Emily M. Danforth (The Miseducation of Cameron Post) offers an indulgent greenhouse of grotesqueries shadowed by gothic elements and pepped up with metafiction and mystery, illustrated with deliciously unsettling black-and-white line drawings by cartoonist Sara Lautman.

In 1902, at Brookhants School for Girls in Rhode Island, student Clara Broward falls into a vast subterranean nest of eastern yellow jackets while fleeing from her cousin and toward her sweetheart Flo Hartshorn. The insects sting both girls to death. Their deaths mark the beginning of a disastrous time for Brookhants, as a malignant force, tied to a red-bound book, targets students and tears at the already strained bond between principal Libbie Brookhants and her life partner, Alexandra "Alex" Trills. 

In the present day, Brookhants is known as one of the U.S.'s most haunted sites. High-profile horror film The Happenings at Brookhants is set to begin production at the old school, starring current it-girl Harper Harper and the normcore Audrey Wells. The film's writer, Merritt Emmons, is invited to join the preproduction team. Sparks of romance and conflict fly among the three 20-somethings right away, their chemistry intense and volatile. Each woman has her own dreams and her own agenda. Strange occurrences befall each of them, and the buzzing of yellow jackets follows them to Brookhants, where a labyrinth of suspicion, betrayal and malevolence awaits.

Danforth delivers her narrative in an urbane, droll voice akin to a Victorian novelist writing for BuzzFeed. And the brooding atmosphere and careful characterization make Plain Bad Heroines an easily cultivated obsession. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Irish author Eithne Shortall (Grace After Henry) has created a delightfully gossipy, suspenseful little world in Three Little Truths. Perfect for fans of Desperate Housewives or Liane Moriarty's novels, Three Little Truths explores the varied secrets that even the friendliest neighbors may be hiding.

The story is set in Dublin, where the closely terraced houses mean that everyone knows everyone else's business. Pine Road seems like an ideal place to raise a family, but three women, all new to the street, are facing a variety of problems. Martha's family has recently moved to Dublin after a home invasion in Limerick, and she and her teenaged daughters are still struggling with the aftermath. Edie, who inherited her house, is hopeful that she and her husband, Daniel, will be starting a family soon. Robin, who seemed to be destined for great things, somehow has become nothing but the girlfriend of a small-time crook. She finally left her boyfriend after he endangered their son, and they are reluctantly back in her childhood bedroom.

As the weeks elapse, Martha, Edie and Robin, and the rest of the women of Pine Road, will find their lives intersecting in unexpected ways. And their WhatsApp text thread, woven between chapters, helps document the school scandal, neighborly drama and the women's devotion to their families and to the goings-on of Pine Road.

Hilarious and heartwarming, Three Little Truths explores reality in the wake of trauma, new love and the delicate complications that make up a marriage. Shortall may not be well-known to an American audience yet, but Three Little Truths is sure to be widely appreciated. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.

In the sharply written linked stories of Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, contemporary takes on Japanese folktales lift a veil from a world where the living and the dead work side by side. Strikingly feminist slants on otherworldly creatures figure strongly. A woman who was told all her life that she was "just a girl" discovers one day that she might be a fox. A woman responding to a breakup through a regimen of hair removal is paid a visit by a deceased aunt who urges her to cultivate the power of her hair.

Although this collection is full of spirits, it focuses more on the challenges of connecting with one's self and others than on chills. Otherworldly women may confound a man with their unorthodox approach to door-to-door sales. Another one will babysit for a single mother. Several ghosts who knew each other in life come to work for the mysterious Mr. Tei, who hires people with special talents, living or dead. A woman discovers that some incense left behind by her late father has unusual properties, and comes to a realization about how she wants to use it. No knowledge of the source material is required, however interested readers will find a list and summary at the end of the collection. These stories are sometimes charming, sometimes surreal, and always intriguing. This first full collection of Matsuda's work to appear in English will leave readers eager for more. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian, Dayton Metro Library

With They Never Learn, Layne Fargo earns high marks for a cerebral plot about female rage that centers on a college professor who thoughtfully plans to--without hesitation--murder men she believes deserve to die.

Fargo's highly entertaining standalone novel takes a similar tack as her incisive 2019 debut, Temper--women taking revenge on men who've gotten away with bad behavior. For Gorman University English professor Scarlett Clark, that retaliation takes the form of murders she disguises as suicides or accidents. Her victims are rapists and domestic abusers whom the college refuses to take action against or whose victims are too afraid to press charges.

Scarlett's 16-year pastime goes undetected until her latest casualty--starting quarterback and alleged rapist Tyler Elkin. Scarlett poisons him, then posts a suicide note on his Instagram account. She doesn't expect that Tyler's star status will prompt the Pennsylvania college to begin reviewing previous suicides. Despite that scrutiny, Scarlett moves forward to murder her department head, who has a reputation of seducing students and who is after a fellowship she wants. They Never Learn also follows Carly Schiller, a shy freshman who is overly protective of her roommate.

Fargo, co-creator of the podcast Unlikeable Female Characters, realistically draws together Scarlett's and Carly's stories while skillfully keeping the surprises coming. Scarlett's unflinching penchant for dispatching predatory men emerged from growing up in an abusive home. Even when her vigilant nature crosses the line with overt violence, Scarlett remains an empathetic character. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer

"Yes, it was good opsec," the hacker narrator/hero of Cory Doctrow's alarming digital-security thriller Attack Surface muses about a colleague's hand-soldered, key-encrypted USB sticks, before offering this caveat a couple lines later: "But it was such boy-spy-adventure-novel stuff."

Doctorow's latest, a smart standalone set in the near-future world of his earlier books Little Brother and Homeland, aspires to liberate the globetrotting tech potboiler from the genre's longstanding boyishness. Attack Surface offers clutch-your-throat suspense, especially when its tech surveillance companies seize control of self-driving cars, and in vivid scenes detailing the process of espionage and surveillance, but its story of a spy coming in from the cold is ultimately warm, communal and committed to social justice rather than heroic violence. Much of the story is set in Northern California's East Bay, at protests or at planning sessions powered by vegan soul food, and the camaraderie and idealism prove infections. "Spy Adventure Novel" doesn't cover Doctorow's achievement: this is a Radical Tech Cozy.

The plot follows Masha, a San Francisco whiz kid, out of the shadowy realm of government and private surveillance. She's an engaging protagonist, her seen-it-all jadedness buoyed by the hope she feels in her friends' political organizing--a hope threatened by techniques Masha herself pioneered. Doctorow's depiction of reckless tech companies surveilling, harvesting data and spreading misinformation on behalf of client nations and police departments rings all too true. The book is terrifying, especially because--to borrow a term from the blurbs on a thousand paperback thrillers--it's all so plausible. But its hopefulness is, too. --Alan Scherstuhl, freelance writer and editor

In Snapped, Alexa Martin (Intercepted; Blitzed) continues to write with amusing flair about professional football players finding love. Her novels can all stand alone, but as each wife or girlfriend becomes part of the Lady Mustangs who support their players, the cast of quirky, hilarious side characters just keeps growing.

Elliot Reed, who is biracial, is thrilled to have gotten her dream job. She's the communications manager for the Denver Mustangs, her father's favorite football team. Elliot is determined to honor her father's memory by promoting the Mustangs to the best of her ability. But then, Black quarterback Quinton Howard Jr. starts kneeling during the national anthem, in protest of racism in the NFL and of the organization's refusal to acknowledge how dangerous football can be.

Elliot is horrified, because she thinks Quinton is going to cost her her job. But as Elliot meets with Quinton, she begins to realize that Quinton not only may be right, he's also extremely attractive. As a friendship blossoms between them, Elliot can't help wondering if maybe it could turn to more. But the team management is still furious with Quinton, and she's not sure how to both save her job and protect her feelings for Quinton.

Less breezy than the other books in the Playbook series, Snapped deals with some heavy topics: systemic racism, chronic traumatic encephalopathy and the loss of a parent. But Quinton and Elliot's friendship also has some funny, lighthearted moments, and altogether Alexa Martin has written a lovely romance, perfect for fans of Jasmine Guillory or Alisha Rai. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.

A book full of an author's poignant childhood diary entries sounds like a vanity project; blessedly, We Saw Scenery: The Early Diaries of Merrill Markoe is not that. The multiple Emmy Award-winning comedy writer has augmented some of her youthful jottings with drawings and snappy, bewildered and trenchant present-day observations, and the result is a marvelously oddball coming-of-age memoir with laughs and a talking hippo.

The entries begin in 1958, the year Markoe's parents moved the family, which included her brother, Glenn, from New Jersey to Miami. Several wittily vexed entries call to mind a Lynda Barry comic ("MARCH 3, 1961/ GLENN IS AN IDIOT and I can not live a good life without him teasing me every minute of the day..."). Other entries seem at first blush like the usual kid stuff. But as the entries accumulate, a picture emerges of a child negotiating more than typical tweenage insecurity about fitting in: Markoe's parents and teachers seem to delight in cracking down on her clowning. Her diary becomes a refuge where she can write the lines that the grown-ups in her life don't want to hear.

Markoe the child couldn't have known that her diary entries would put in stark relief the way that the unladylike behavior of girls of her generation was all too often discouraged. Readers of We Saw Scenery will probably be nearly as overjoyed as Markoe when, in 1966, her parents drop her off at UC Berkeley, where she finally finds a crowd that wants to hear her jokes. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Based on the Peabody Award-winning middle-grade podcast series of the same name, The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel uses a dynamic multi-platform approach to tell the story of a too-smart-for-his-own-good 11-year-old who suspects a nefarious connection between missing kids and a charismatic billionaire inventor named Oliver Pruitt.

In the opinion of South Asian American Mars Patel, Oliver Pruitt is one of the only grownups who "gets" kids. The podcaster at times even seems to speak directly to Mars: "Hey there! Yeah, you! Are you searching for adventure?... Something BIG is happening soon." It's not long before sixth graders from H.G. Wells Middle School begin to disappear. Though the adults in Mars's life are strangely unconcerned, he is unwilling to let it go. As one, then two, then three of Mars's group of friends vanish, it becomes clear that the remaining three pals are on their own. Is this the BIG adventure Pruitt was talking about? To find their friends and figure out what's happening, the tweens will need to access their best qualities and most powerful skills.

Readers of this fast-paced mystery do not need to have listened to the serial podcast to become utterly absorbed in the action on the pages. Throughout the book, Sheela Chari (Finding Mighty) includes text messages, images and podcast "screenshots" with listener comments. Alternating points of view give a glimpse into each child's struggles and dreams. This terrific start to a book series contains intriguing characters, conspiracy theories, customized drones, holograms and a tantalizing mystery that could be leading readers anywhere in this world... or beyond. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

Talk about a story with a big buildup. In On Account of the Gum, Adam Rex's divine comedy of errors, a kid who falls asleep chewing a bubble-tastic blob awakens to a rude surprise: "That's the gum. Right there. That you got in your hair."

The kid's family members have a go with the scissors, only to lose them in the sticky pink morass. No problem: the kid's family consults the Internet, which yields advice on how to get scissors and gum out of hair. Unfortunately--and who could have seen this coming?--the prescribed two sticks of butter get stuck in there too. On it goes, thanks to a sabotaging surfeit of well-meaning family members and community helpers--e.g., "Your grandpa, who said that your aunt was mistaken, is mostly to blame for the noodles and bacon." Not that the omniscient narrator is without culpability: "Because of the grass that you got in your hair, I assumed that your rabbit could help us in there?"

Rex (School's First Day of School; Nothing Rhymes with Orange; Unstoppable), a master of meshuggaas, hastens along the humor with caricaturish illustrations in a fruity palette perfectly suited to the asimmer-with-irritation kid's hair wear, which comes to resemble a Carmen Miranda hat gone berserk. But underneath the silliness, On Account of the Gum harbors a substantive, empowering message. To borrow the book's idiom: There's a point to all of this rat-a-tat rhyme/ It turns out the kid had the cure the whole time. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author

I Am a Capybara is debut author Michaela Fabbri's fun and fanciful portrait of one particularly self-aware capybara, who sees life as a series of small delights--including the joys of dressing like a whale!

This charming story begins with an explanation of what a capybara is not: "not a mouse... not a beaver... not a bear, nor a marmot." But, apparently, a capybara is the biggest rodent in the world. And the capybara narrating this particular story is a thoughtful soul, a lover of poetry and the opera, a capybara who wants to watch "the world go by, to play, to explore, to stroll, then to rest and look around again." This singular rodent (who admits to a tendency toward laziness) takes pleasure in connecting quietly with other animals. Though the capybara has a serious expression, "I laugh a lot under my bristles... and amuse myself with things that I never thought could amuse me." This includes dressing up as a whale for laughs and wearing a bowtie to go out. Furthermore, as a self-professed tough guy, this capybara nevertheless knows how--and when--to enjoy a really good "cuddle clump" with its fellow capybaras.

Fabbri's subtle art in gentle earth tones is ideal for her wholly charismatic subject. Fabbri uses body language and spare, well-chosen details to make her deadpan rodent--even with its "eyes always half open"--thoroughly charming. The abundant white space gives a clean, uncluttered feel to the art, and the scratchy, broken line is superb. The delicate drawings invite readers to get to know this diverting capybara, one among many, who looks at life differently, and might make an especially good friend. Gently reassuring, I Am a Capybara is a sweet and unconventional appreciation of the small wonders that surround us all. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI