With The Bright and Breaking Sea, Chloe Neill (Chicagoland Vampires series) launches a high-stakes-on-the-high-seas historical fantasy series full of political intrigue, naval battles and well-drawn characters.

Neill drops readers directly into the action with a daring escape aided by heroine Captain Kit Brightling's water magic. The world is roughly mapped onto historical Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, complete with a fictional exiled dictator named Gerard. Brightling and her allies hail from the Isles, a fictional Great Britain that appears to have eschewed colonization in favor of international trade and diplomacy. The queen, a Black woman named Charlotte, sends Brightling on a series of missions--to save a spy captured by pirates, to hunt down an enemy ship, and more--in order to thwart Gerard's attempt at a comeback. The action is continuous, with brief stops along the way to repair the ship, re-provision and receive new orders.

As an Aligned person, Kit can tap into the natural magic of the sea. So, when an air-Aligned colleague confirms her sense that something is off, Kit is ordered to solve a mystery only she can: What's happening to the magic? And what does it have to do with Gerard?

While the large cast is a little unwieldy at first, Neill develops her characters well enough that readers will easily be able to tell them apart and appreciate their idiosyncrasies. The Bright and Breaking Sea pits Kit Brightling and her crew against misused magic, cannons and traitors in an adventure that doesn't let up. Readers will be eager for the next installment. --Suzanne Krohn, editor, Love in Panels

In debut novelist Dolores Reyes's Eartheater, translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches, an unnamed, teenaged narrator is compelled to eat dirt after her mother's death. The habit inspires vivid and often violent visions of those whose blood has tainted the soil. After predicting where the decomposing corpse of her missing schoolteacher would be found, the protagonist begins to receive visits from grief-stricken relatives of missing peoples, desperate for a lead. The money she gets from providing these services helps support her and her older brother, alone in an Argentinian slum, but these episodes leave her traumatized and alienated. When a police officer takes an interest in both her and her abilities, the narrator takes an even deeper plunge into the adult world of desire, despair, sex and violence.

Crisp and haunted, Reyes's prose captures the interior life of a girl as she faces the immense passion and devastation of womanhood. Flippant yet evasive, the narrator's voice opposes any romantic or wistful notions of coming-of-age. Instead, she copes with the entangled traumas of gender and class, sex and death, power and submission through the deeply affective compulsion to consume the very earth that compresses and combines it all. Despite the metaphorical element of Eartheater's premise, the violence and emotional heft of the text is anything but figurative. The novel's physicality--its attention to taste, smell and texture--inspires in its readers the same frightening grip of desire and disgust that so entraps its protagonist. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

As World War II grinds on, air warden Poppy Redfern, now a screenwriter with the Crown Films Unit, is dispatched to Didcote airfield to interview several top-notch female pilots for a film project. The "Attagirls" are an impressive group: skilled, glamorous and intelligent. But when two of them meet their ends in fatal crashes attributed to pilot error, Poppy and her American boyfriend, Griff O'Neal, suspect foul play. Tessa Arlen (Poppy Redfern and the Midnight Murders) draws readers into a web of deception on the ground and in the skies in Poppy's second adventure, Poppy Redfern and the Fatal Flyers.

Narrated in Poppy's engaging first-person voice, the case begins with Poppy trying to suss out the Attagirls: friendly Letty, plainspoken Australian June, young mother Annie, enigmatic Zofia (a Polish countess in exile). When Edwina--an accomplished flyer but something of a self-styled femme fatale--dies in a crash, Poppy suspects several of the pilots may have a motive for murder. But why kill Letty, too? Accompanied by Griff and her faithful corgi, Bess, Poppy pokes around the airfield asking questions while trying to keep her script on track. Meanwhile, her attraction to Griff is often at odds with her natural British reserve, and readers get a glimpse of Poppy trying to balance their relationship with her professional responsibilities (and romantic advice from Zofia).

Full of historical detail and red herrings, with a plucky heroine and plenty of witty asides, Arlen's latest is catnip for Anglophile mystery lovers. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Can there be anything more to say about the endlessly analyzed John Lennon 40 years after his death? In The Search for John Lennon: The Life, Loves, and Death of a Rock Star, Lesley-Ann Jones insists that her book isn't "yet another biography for the sake of it in a major commemorative year." Her hope in writing it was that "a new interpretation based on my own research and interviews would be worthwhile." For the most part, it is.

The Search for John Lennon, which proceeds chronologically through the musician's life, is a grab bag of insights, many culled from interviews Jones conducted over the years. Weighing in are those who knew Lennon well (including his first wife, Cynthia) and those who didn't know him at all (psychologists, both professional and the armchair sort). Of particular interest to Jones are the women who cycled through Lennon's life, especially the less familiar ones, like the British singer Alma Cogan, whose death in 1966 apparently devastated the young Beatle.

Jones, the author of biographies of David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, doesn't pretend to have the answers to the questions she poses, but she hazards personal opinions ("My gut tells me..."; "My guess is...") that are, if not always persuasive, never ill-considered. Her book's seriousness isn't particularly well served by the winking mid-paragraph insertions of stray Beatles lyrics. Nevertheless, The Search for John Lennon is a mustn't-miss for those at the advanced beginner stage in their John Lennon studies. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Do Right by Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces by Valerie I. Harrison and Kathryn Peach D'Angelo offers essential, authentic guidance to non-Black parents and caregivers raising Black children through transracial adoption or in multi-racial homes. Crucially, it emphasizes the importance of promoting a strong, positive identity based on a healthy understanding of African history, culture, art, body image and spirituality.

The ethnically diverse authors were friends and colleagues at Temple University long before D'Angelo and her husband, a white couple, adopted Gabriel, a biracial baby. The profound joys of parenthood didn't prevent D'Angelo from grasping a devastating truth: "Our world does not give our son the privilege of acting like us, and moreover, it places on him the burden of managing how others feel about him."

Presented as an informative dialogue between friends, Do Right by Me confronts unreformed education, healthcare and judicial systems that prevent Black children from being judged solely on their merits, and offers bold strategies for overcoming the inherent disadvantages these systems perpetuate. In the context of education, "doing right" means that parents and caregivers must actively work to ensure each Black child receives the benefits expected by their white peers, and that schools affirmatively commit to fostering well-being for Black students. As Harrison says, "passive education environments equalize nothing for Black children."

While tailored to parents and caregivers, Do Right by Me is an authentic, valuable resource for any reader prepared to serve as a critical ally to Black children and their families. --Shahina Piyarali, writer and reviewer

A well-written character in a book can feel like an old friend, and literary critic Harold Bloom delves into a few of his favorites in The Bright Book of Life: Novels to Read and Reread. Bloom died in October 2019, at the age of 89, and this ambitious final book of his career is elegant and insightful; reading it feels like sitting down with a grandfatherly English professor whose knowledge and wit is simultaneously enviable and inspiring, if not occasionally off-putting. (Bloom taught at Yale and Harvard, and it's easy to suspect he writes the way he spoke in the classroom--with a rambling sense of natural authority.)

In a career spanning more than 60 years, Bloom offered his take on some of modern literature's most oft-cited influences--most notably, Don Quixote, Shakespeare and even Sigmund Freud, whose theories on sexuality and human relationships influenced much of Bloom's most controversial criticism. The Bright Book of Life builds on these characters, authors and ideas, alongside deep dives into a total of 52 works by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Joseph Conrad, Ursula K. Le Guin and other literary giants. With loquacious reflection made palatable by thoughtful, meaty prose--underscored by lengthy excerpts from each title--Bloom makes the case for why these timeless works of fiction remain important and powerful. The Bright Book of Life will likely serve as a reminder to add a few of the classics to that ever-growing 2021 reading list. --Angela Lutz, freelance reviewer

Comedian Steve Martin seems to have no impulse to rest on his laurels: not just a household name in movies, he's written fiction, essays, plays and music. In A Wealth of Pigeons, collaborating with artist and writer Harry Bliss, now he's a cartoonist as well. Bliss draws for the New Yorker, so it's no surprise that this book feels much like a collection from that magazine. However, it's distinguished by regular breaks from the one-panel gag format in favor of strips of various lengths, starring the authors themselves, starting with their first meeting (where they're a bit wary of one another, but quickly come to terms).

Martin relates in the introduction that his first cartoon idea arose from a comment his wife made about their dog's lack of opposable thumbs (now come to fruition in this book). It's a good start, as dog gags are a venerable tradition in this format, and the cartoons also make use of other old-school one-panel tropes like the guy stuck on a desert island.

As Martin also reports, he learned from tweeting out some of the cartoons that there will always be someone who doesn't get it, so readers should probably expect that not every comic will hit their personal funny bone. This collection also might be best suited for a cartoon fan of a certain age--there is more than one Woodstock joke. But for fans of this kind of humor, these two eminences in their professions have done a bang-up job. --Linda Lombardi, writer and editor

In Gloria Chao's third YA romance, she skillfully uses dual perspectives to show the very different ways families can bond and break, help and harm.

Jing-Jing (known to all outside her tight-knit California Taiwanese community as Chloe) is desperate to convince her parents that they cannot promise her hand in marriage to the "disgusting, chauvinistic Hongbo." She's tried talking to them, but they are dead-set on their daughter marrying him for his parents' fortune. Chloe chooses to go nuclear: she hires Andrew through Rent for Your 'Rents, a company that specializes in fake boyfriends for young women trying to appease their traditional Asian American parents. Drew, who is estranged from his own family because of his desire to pursue art, excels in his role as Andrew, a University of Chicago student with surgeon parents. But, of course, things become romantically complicated when Jing-Jing and Andrew allow themselves to be Chloe and Drew with each other.

Chao (American Panda) begins with an author's note informing readers the book is "inspired by a real-life practice in some Asian countries where women hire fake boyfriends... to alleviate the pressure from family to find a husband." For readers unfamiliar with this practice, it's important to know that Chao is not messing around--and neither are Chloe's parents. While telling the story of a fake-relationship romance, Chao investigates the emotional ramifications of toxic family relationships. She lays bare the internal experience of both first- and second-generation immigrants to the U.S., making it clear that there are genuine reasons behind painful choices. Ultimately uplifting, Rent a Boyfriend is an entertaining romance that doesn't moralize for its teen audience. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Inspired by the first library bus in Kabul, Afghanistan, this encouraging picture book celebrates the strength, pride and enthusiasm of female Afghan students and the women who teach them.

It's Pari's first day helping her mother on Kabul's only library bus. Together, they visit a village and a refugee camp, where girls without access to schools wait to borrow books, receive supplies and be taught English. A nervous Pari, who "can't even read or write in Farsi yet," asks, "When did you learn A, C, D, Mama?" Her response--"I had to hide in the basement to study"--makes Pari grateful she will be allowed to attend school. Eager to start, Pari practices her alphabet by reading acronyms on tents: WFP and UNHCR. Asked how learning feels, an elated Pari cries, "Free!" In the final pages, mother and daughter curl together, their chadors off, letting their long hair loose, while Pari thinks of the girls she will help tomorrow.

Bahram Rahman, who worked as a gender equality activist in Afghanistan, delicately portrays in his first picture book the continued effects of the Taliban's prohibition on female education. Yet it is with profound hope and drive that Rahman depicts his characters: Pari, motivated to read; her mother, patiently repeating the same lesson; girls spilling over with excitement over a notebook and pencil. With her watercolor illustrations, Gabrielle Grimard (Stolen Words illustrator) evokes natural movement, suggests soft textures and depicts the beauty of dusty landscapes dotted with brightly painted buildings. Closed with an author's note sharing his connection to the story, The Library Bus extols the soaring spirit of those who value learning. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer