Honor Jones's debut novel, Sleep, is a breathtaking character study of a woman raising young daughters and facing memories of childhood abuse.

Margaret's 1990s New Jersey upbringing seems idyllic, but upper-middle-class suburbia conceals the perils of a dysfunctional family headed by Elizabeth, a narcissistic, controlling mother. Elizabeth overreacts to messes in her immaculate home and to Margaret's perceived infractions. When 10-year-old Margaret is molested by a male relative one summer, she instinctively knows not to confide in Elizabeth, whose history of suicide attempts suggests a failure to cope with life's challenges.

Cut to Margaret in her mid-30s, now a struggling Brooklyn-based editor and divorced mother of two. Every essay submitted for her consideration is #MeToo-themed, and Elizabeth's illness returns her to the family home; it's time to confront her repressed trauma. The sexual assault mostly took place while Margaret was asleep--a passive state during which neither consent nor refusal seemed possible. Sleep should equate to cozy safety ("All in a line were pictures of sleeping children" on her parents' wall), but here it represents vulnerability. "She would be watchful and hopeful at the same time," Margaret vows. "That was basically parenting, right? Joy, and vigilance."

Jones crafts unforgettable, crystalline scenes. There are subtle echoes throughout as the past threatens to repeat. (In particular, pool parties are pivotal.) The author also sensitively tracks Margaret's sexual awakening while she and her ex form new partnerships. Reminiscent of Sarah Moss's and Evie Wyld's work, and astonishing for its psychological acuity, this promises great things from Jones. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

Discover: Sleep is a breathtaking character study of a woman confronting repressed childhood trauma and vowing to raise her young daughters differently.

Domenica Ruta's All the Mothers hits pitch-perfect emotional notes that will have readers laughing and crying in equal measure. Ruta (With or Without You; Last Day) has written a wise and captivating novel that follows a collective of mothers trying to get by and build a life for their children and themselves. The story opens with Sandy, a new mother leaking breast milk in the office bathroom, frantically scouring social media for "the other woman."

It's a desperate, funny, and relatable moment that leads her down an unexpected path to a surprising community of mutually supportive mothers, including a spitfire activist and a young bombshell of a hair stylist. These women come together with electric chemistry and a healthy measure of drama. The relationships between them form the beating heart of the novel, but the narrative primarily tracks Sandy, including her personal history. A hilarious, illuminating, and poignant backstory detour digs into her series of unfortunate relationships, a group of friends she refers to as "the squad," and her grief at losing her own mother.

Ruta writes insightfully about female experiences: "The impulse to best another woman, to win a contest with no prize, is hard to shake even now." These mothers are in so many ways set up to fail--fighting fruitlessly for nothing. But when they find one another, they set out in a new direction, hoping to discover inventive and more fulfilling ways to live. All the Mothers is a gorgeous and laugh-out-loud ode to love and motherhood. --Carol Caley, writer

Discover: Domenica Ruta hits pitch-perfect emotional notes in this novel about three women who form an unconventional collective that will have readers laughing and crying in equal measure.

Don't underestimate the wisdom of court jesters. In The Tempest, Trinculo, King Alonso's jester, said, "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows," a maxim that lesser fools have reconfigured for everything from politics to war. That combination of war and unexpected circumstances is central to The Emperor of Gladness, a deceptively simple fusion of bleakness and mordant humor by MacArthur Fellow Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous). Hai, a 19-year-old Vietnamese American drug addict, lives in East Gladness, a Connecticut town "raised up from a scab of land along a river in New England." Having run "out of ways to salvage his failures," he's about to jump off a bridge during a storm. In a brilliant touch, he's saved by a woman waving her arms from her house, not to get his attention but to catch a bedsheet that's blowing away.

She's 82-year-old Grazina, a Lithuanian with "mid-stage frontal lobe dementia," who fled her war-torn homeland decades earlier. That Hai becomes her live-in caretaker is only one of many elements in this marvelous work. Others include Hai's cousin, Sony, who helps Hai, an aspiring writer fond of Slaughterhouse-Five  and The Brothers Karamazov, get a job at a fast-food place; the restaurant manager, a woman who dreams of becoming a professional wrestler; and a colleague who indulges in crackpot conspiracy theories, such as that "the earth was controlled by reptilians living underground" and that Dick Cheney is a lizard in disguise. Strange bedfellows, indeed. Questions of war and prejudice are sensitively explored in this poetic work. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Discover: Ocean Vuong's marvelous The Emperor of Gladness is the story of a 19-year-old drug addict in Connecticut who becomes live-in caretaker to an octogenarian Lithuanian woman with dementia.

Siblings, right? In some families, they're a pain, an ache that probably would be even more acute if they had arrived not through traditional planning but by drifting into town in a foil-lined barrel. That's the setup of The Boy from the Sea, the first novel by Irish author Garrett Carr. Starting in 1973 and spanning two decades, the story takes place in Donegal Bay, the inlet in northwest Ireland where residents "fish or work in the processing plants or drive the lorries taking our catches across the country and beyond." One day, a man walking along the shore path discovers a baby boy in a barrel the tide brought in. A fisherman named Ambrose, married with a two-year-old son named Declan, offers to take the baby in and persuades his family to adopt the boy. They call him Brendan.

Well, he persuades his wife, anyway. Declan hates having a brother, and that's just one of the conflicts animating this sweet-natured work. As time passes, Declan's resentment grows. Brendan, meanwhile, convinces townspeople that he's imbued with the ability to bestow "blessings," which he transmits by putting a hand on a recipient's shoulder. Then there's tension between Ambrose's wife, Christine, and Christine's older sister, Phyllis, who has a grudge regarding her younger sibling's apparent unwillingness to help care for Eunan, their widowed lobsterman father. Town gossip and other, more consequential tragedies fill out the novel. Carr tells his tale with gentle grace and an in-his-bones feel for coastal, windswept Ireland. It's a treat. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Discover: The Boy from the Sea, the first novel by Garrett Carr, tells the story of a Donegal Bay family that adopts a baby in a barrel the tide brought in, and the resentments his arrival engenders.

An old chocolate tin stuffed with discarded poems is the nostalgic portal to a woman's past in Empty Cages by Fatma Qandil, translated from the Arabic by Adam Talib. An astonishing first novel from the winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, Empty Cages follows the fortunes of a middle-class Egyptian family as recalled by Fatma, the youngest child, who is now in her 60s and, like the author, is an Egyptian poet living in Cairo.

The chocolates are long gone but the tin dislodges long-buried memories and emotions that loosen their painful grip when Fatma writes them down, including the humiliation of her father's public drunkenness and the secret incidents involving her much older neighbor. Her story, lit from within by unexpected humor, is filtered through sepia-toned reflections of parents and brothers undone by thwarted ambitions and "dramatic twists," while flashbacks to summers in Suez evoke a carefree existence before the 1967 Six-Day War.

As she navigates her past, Fatma reveals herself to be prone to falling in love with the wrong man and sabotaging her own future. Her mother was the sole constant amid Fatma's ruinous marriages, insincere relatives, and sibling betrayals. After her mother's death, fate steps in as Fatma's "accomplice," enabling her to discard the remnants of her previous life and pursue tranquility beyond the reach of familial ghosts.

An exceptional storyteller, Qandil exposes the faulty wiring at the heart of an ordinary Cairo family while offering readers a memorable immersion in the city's culture during the second half of the 20th century. --Shahina Piyarali

Discover: In this exceptional first novel by an acclaimed Egyptian writer, an old chocolate tin is the nostalgic portal to a poet's intriguing past and the thwarted ambitions of her middle-class family.

At the start of Carl Hiaasen's outlandishly funny Fever Beach, a dim-witted white supremacist named Dale Figgo drives through a Florida neighborhood and throws antisemitic flyers into the yards of people he believes are Jewish. Instead, his truck hits and injures a Scandinavian agnostic. Dale's legal troubles and misbegotten plans to defend the United States' "white Christian values" have only begun.

Twilly Spree, wealthy due to an inheritance from his "land-raping grandfather," makes it his mission to stop people like Dale, who has formed a militia group called the Strokers for Liberty, whose members also advocate for self-pleasure. The (dis)organization is funded by rich donors to a dirty congressman, Clure Boyette. ("The forty-fifth president... mispronounced Boyette's last name so that it rhymed with 'toilet.' ") Boyette issues a directive for the group to show up with guns at a polling place on Election Day to secure his win. Twilly joins the Strokers to disrupt their plans from the inside, aided by his girlfriend, Viva, who happens to be Dale's tenant/roommate and can leak his schemes to Twilly. It's Viva and Twilly against a bunch of armed goons--what can go wrong?

Those who have previously read Hiaasen (Wrecker) or seen the Apple TV+ series adaptation of his novel Bad Monkey will instantly recognize the author's zany brand of satire. Hiaasen tackles dead-serious issues like neo-Nazism, election interference, and literal gay-bashing, but in a hilarious and satisfying way and with cheer-worthy protagonists. During unsettling times, Hiaasen leans into the chaos, proving with Fever Beach that laughter is the best medicine. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, reviewer and freelance editor at The Edit Ninja

Discover: Carl Hiaasen exposes the dark underbelly of the Sunshine State in another uproarious novel about the misadventures of criminals in Florida.

Detective Mallory Atkinson and Dr. Duncan Gray struggle to see justice done in a jurisdiction where their friend, Detective Hugh McCreadie, has no authority in Death at a Highland Wedding, a twisty and character-driven mystery by Kelley Armstrong (Disturbing the Dead; The Boy Who Cried Bear).

Mallory, originally from the 21st century, where she was a homicide detective, has settled into her decision to stay in 19th-century Scotland in the body of a housemaid. She and Duncan have obtained small fame as the stars of fictionalized versions of their crime-solving exploits--enough to attract notice among those they meet on their way with Hugh to attend his sister's wedding. Complicated history between the families has the potential to make the occasion awkward. A wildcat corpse found in a trap but not killed by it raises the investigators' suspicions. Before long, a guest is murdered and local law enforcement seizes upon a suspect of convenience. Mallory, Duncan, and Hugh must deliver the real killer to exonerate the accused.

With the fourth novel in her Rip Through Time series, Armstrong has delivered a mystery that will keep readers on their toes (with several plausible red herrings along the way) and populated it with endearing characters. Regular readers of the series may want to shake Mallory and Duncan a bit for their utter obliviousness regarding the other's affections, but in a good, can't-wait-for-the-next-installment way. The supporting cast is also well fleshed out, with the groom-to-be in particular proving far more interesting than his cranky first impression suggests. Historical mystery fans will cheer. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

Discover: Endearing characters and an intricate puzzle anchor the fourth novel in Kelley Armstrong's engrossing Victorian time-slip mystery series.

Freya Sampson's witty, warmhearted fourth novel, The Busybody Book Club, follows an ill-assorted group of avid readers with strong literary opinions who are determined to save their beloved community center--and maybe solve a murder (or two) in the process. Sampson (The Last Chance Library; Nosy Neighbors) paints a quirky, nuanced picture of small-town English life, replete with archetypes who turn out to be much more complex than they first appear.

The motley members of a book club in St. Tredock, Cornwall, are stunned when the newest among them, Michael, sprints out of a meeting and then disappears--along with £10,000 in cash meant to fund the community center's much-needed new roof. But transplanted Londoner Nova, the book club chair, may have left the door to the money unlocked. Already juggling work and wedding plans, she's now blamed for the theft.

When a dead body is discovered at Michael's house, the other club members--retired farmer Arthur, shy Star Wars-loving teenager Ash, and cranky Phyllis, who never goes anywhere without her flatulent bulldog, Craddock--begin investigating. The crew must get to the bottom of the case if they're going to salvage Nova's job (and the community center). As the book club members careen around the countryside, making multiple hilarious blunders in their crime-solving (despite Phyllis's encyclopedic knowledge of Agatha Christie), they gradually begin to trust one another with their secrets.

Packed with a range of book references (Bridgerton, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Shakespeare, to name a few), The Busybody Book Club is a testament to the delights of unexpected community and the power of stories to draw people together. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: Freya Sampson's witty, warmhearted fourth novel follows the mystery-solving adventures of a quirky book club in Cornwall, England.

There's nothing more chilling than a psychological domestic thriller set in a possibly haunted manse on the atmospheric "wild and untamed" English moors during the depths of winter; that's where Sarah Pinborough sets the Edgar Allan Poe-infused We Live Here Now. Three narrators (one a raven committed to "forevermore") merge in her template for terror.

Freddie and Emily Bennett have left London for the remote Larkin Lodge, seeking a fresh start. Freddie harbors guilt and shame; Emily is recovering from a miscarriage and lengthy coma after an accidental (or perhaps not) fall from a cliff in Ibiza. Their marriage is also in free fall. Lying to each other doesn't help. Are these facile secret keepers also lying to readers?

The situation quickly goes awry. Solitude, fear, and inexplicable events overtake Emily. That omniscient raven startles her. She cuts her foot on an exposed nail, hears scratching and thuds from the supposedly vacant third floor. Windows open and shut, letting in frigid air. A rank odor permeates rooms. Books whose titles spell out dire warnings fall from shelves. Ledgers hidden in cupboards reveal past horrors.

The couple tries hard to acclimate. They frequent the "proper old-fashioned pub"; ingratiate themselves to previous owners of the estate; befriend the meddlesome vicar. Pinborough's expressive prose adds an edge of squeamishness to the accumulating terrors. It pulsates with the ever-present eerie sense of foreboding, holding the harrowing grotesqueries a heartbeat away.

A macabre resolution underscoring the darkly ironic refrain "Marriage is teamwork" culminates in a properly sinister ending. --Robert Allen Papinchak, freelance book critic

Discover: In Sarah Pinborough's chilling psychological domestic thriller, a couple leaves London for the country but can't escape secrets, lies, and terrors.

The Labyrinth House Murders, the third title in Yukito Ayatsuji's Bizarre House Mysteries series, translated from the Japanese by Ho-Ling Wong, is a high-concept, high-payoff brain buster that could have inspired the phrase "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

Eight guests have been invited to an overnight birthday party for mystery writer Miyagaki Yōtarō at his famous labyrinthine mansion outside Tokyo. Once assembled, the guests are informed by Yōtarō's secretary that their host has killed himself. Yōtarō has left behind an audio recording laying out his wish that the four mystery writers who are present compete to inherit his estate by participating in a writing contest judged by the nonwriters in attendance. Yōtarō's rules: each writer's story must be a murder mystery set at the Labyrinth House, and "every author must be the victim in their own story." But this isn't just the plot of The Labyrinth House Murders. It's also the plot of a published mystery that, in the novel's prologue, is delivered to the home of a man named Shimada for a reason later disclosed.

Not long after the writers have retreated to their rooms, one of them ends up dead. Who is the killer? In the spirit of the fair-play mystery--Ayatsuji's specialty--the answer is hiding in plain sight. Originally published in 1988, The Labyrinth House Murders is a superb locked-house mystery whose intellectual rigors are offset by some gentle ribbing. Among the party guests, the lesser brains seem to be an editor and a critic. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Discover: The Labyrinth House Murders, the third title in the Bizarre House Mysteries series, is a superb, brain-busting fair-play mystery set at a mansion outside Tokyo.

A directionless man uses any means to get closer to his roommate's science fiction writing collaborative in the sly, intricate, genre-hopping Metallic Realms by Lincoln Michel (The Body Scout).

Narrator Michael Lincoln is the author of Memoirs of My Metallic Realms, a companion volume to a series of science fiction short stories and his memories of the people who wrote them. Michael promises to unfold the history and lore of The Star Rot Chronicles, "arguably one of the greatest achievements in science fiction imagination," unrecognized because no one shares Michael's opinion of its brilliance. Its writers are a collective called the Orb 4: Michael's roommate and childhood friend, Taras; their other roommate, Cast ("they/them, lawful neutral, Pisces"); cosplay aficionado Darya; and Jane, an MFA student who usually writes literary fiction. Michael details the friendships and fallouts surrounding their work as well as how their dramas bled into the Star Rot Chronicles stories included in the Memoirs, and the eventual tragedy that ended it all.

The novel opens with Michael purposely misquoting Vladimir Nabokov, signaling readers to brace for maximum absurdity. An intimate portrait of this unreliable narrator emerges over the course of his memoir. He's a judgmental, self-unaware, socially awkward man whose goal in life is gaining access to the Orb 4's stories and lives at any cost. Humor, such as a metafictional turn when Michael accuses Michel of posting erotic Star Rot Chronicles fan fiction online, diffuses the sadness and disquiet of Michael's perspective. Readers who appreciate a clever, winking read should boldly go here. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Discover: An obsessive young man details the inner workings of a science fiction writing group and his manipulations of their lives in this funny, disquieting, genre-hopping novel.

A young woman learns social reformation takes more than assassination when she slays a ruler and gets captured by a mysterious bounty hunter in Evan Leikam's electrifying debut fantasy adventure, Anji Kills a King.

Orphaned laundress Anji didn't plan to kill the ruler who took everything from her, but one conveniently placed letter opener later and she's on the run for regicide. Two days into her flight, justice catches up to her in the person of the Hawk, a member of the Menagerie, a famous bounty hunter collective known for their animal masks and ruthlessness. Anji is shackled, magically tethered, and poisoned. The Hawk's only motivation for keeping her alive is the promise of double bounty for a live prisoner, since the authorities would prefer a public execution. Anji struggles to escape while the pair are tailed by other bounty hunters, attacked by monsters, and ravaged by the elements. The march to Anji's fate takes them across a land where the king's death has solved nothing, and Anji discovers change is not simple when "there's the reality you wish for, and the one which exists." She must work with her captor to survive, but once the Hawk's true motives come to light, all bets are off.

The high-stakes plot and breakneck pacing drive hard from beginning to end, and Anji's emotional growth happens through action-packed danger and grueling physical hardship. Leikam's gritty setting and meditation on sacrifice for the greater good should appeal to fantasy and dystopia fans alike. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Discover: In this fast-paced, electrifying fantasy adventure, an orphaned young woman is simultaneously enemies and allies with the mysterious bounty hunter bringing her to justice for regicide.

A witch must return to her hometown and enlist the help of the man she left behind in April Asher's sexy paranormal rom-com A Simple Twist of Fate. The quirky small Colorado town of Fates Haven is best known for one thing: the Fates Festival Finding Ceremony that guides supernatural beings to their fated mates. Thirteen years ago, Harlow "Harry" Pierce expected to be connected to Jaxon, the cougar shifter she was dating and madly in love with. When the Blue Willow Wisp instead indicated that Jaxon was destined to be with her best friend--a literal angel--Harry left town and cast a spell preventing anyone from finding her. Now the guardian of a struggling shifter teen who keeps accidentally setting things on fire, Harry moves back in with her great aunt. To have any chance of helping Grace control her burgeoning powers, Harry will have to work with Jaxon, who's now Alpha of the local shifter pack, and figure out what's going wrong with the magic in Fates Haven once and for all.

Romance fans will have a great time waiting for Harry to finally learn that Elodie and Jaxon never got together, then mend fences with the people she loved but cut out of her life for more than a decade. Add in some classic high jinks and just the right amount of smoldering, and Asher (Not Your Ex's Hexes) delivers another hit. A Simple Twist of Fate is the perfect pick-me-up for fans of Molly Harper and Juliette Cross. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian and freelance reviewer

Discover: A witch returns to her hometown 13 years after the cougar shifter she loved was declared the fated mate of her best friend in this witty contemporary paranormal rom-com.

Katherine Center's witty, madcap 12th novel, The Love Haters, follows a video producer who heads to Key West, Fla., to save her job but risks losing her heart.

Katie Vaughn has sworn off love after being dumped by her singer-songwriter ex. She's also worried about layoffs at her Dallas-based company, so when her boss, Cole, sends her to Florida for a last-minute gig, Katie feels she has no choice. The catch? The video's subject is Tom "Hutch" Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer and Cole's (ridiculously handsome) brother. And Katie can't swim.

Center (The Bodyguard; Hello Stranger) plunges Katie into a cheerful, colorful Key West setting, including a quirky motel, a group of Golden Girls-esque retired ladies, and a 160-pound rescued Great Dane. As she films Hutch in his element (and learns to swim), Katie finds herself attracted to him, but Hutch isn't a big fan of love, either. Meanwhile, Katie's cousin and best friend, Beanie, is on a mission to help Katie not only tolerate her body but also learn to love it--and herself.

Though readers will root for Hutch and Katie to fall in love, Katie's journey toward self-acceptance is equally engaging and important. When a hurricane threatens the Keys, Hutch and Katie must find the courage to tell some hard truths, take risks, and rewrite the old narratives they've believed for far too long. The Love Haters is a sweet, slow-burn romance and a reminder that the best love stories begin with coming home to ourselves. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: Katherine Center's warm, witty 12th novel sends a video producer to Key West, where she falls in love with a handsome Coast Guard swimmer--and with herself.

Craig Mod's Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir, about his traverses in Japan's rural Kii Peninsula, is striking and deeply felt. Framed as an address to his deceased childhood best friend, Bryan, Mod's memoir intermingles present-tense observations and anecdotes from his life on foot with past-tense memories from a postindustrial U.S. childhood. As he perambulates historic pilgrimage routes and finds "an unexpected peace in these recondite hinterlands," Mod shares bits of Japanese history from longtime friend John, who messages him every morning before he sets out.

Along with marvelous scenes captured through his camera lens, which are reproduced in black-and-white and peppered throughout, Mod charmingly relates the small moments of his encounters. For instance, he meets an innkeeper and his wife who chant "Get fat!" while feeding him a dinner for four, and eavesdrops on a group of girls who speak like truckers. Mod is also an expert at juxtaposing high and low, such as when he arrives at a Shinto shrine and feels "a collision of realities" when his mind jumps to hours spent playing The Legend of Zelda with Bryan.

Incorporated throughout the narrative--cloaked in a comparison between Bryan's tragically shortened life and Mod's own life--is a critique of how the U.S. handles poverty, education, and social services, which Mod positions as starkly different to his experience of Japan. When he does turn his gimlet eye on Japan, he seems a bit blurred by his entrancement with the country. Nevertheless, this layered and profound memoir shines with care and devotion. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator

Discover: Things Become Other Things is an exemplary walking memoir filled with beautiful details alongside heart-hurting truths, all immersed in a close-up view of rural Japan.

"I've tried to map the circuitous routes that change takes, the byways and backroads by which movements have been built and ideas have advanced," Rebecca Solnit writes in the introduction to her incisive No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain. The illuminating collection gathers 20 previously published essays that Solnit believes "have something to say beyond the moment," divided into three sections titled Visions, Revisions, and More Visions.

Solnit (The Faraway Nearby; The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness) writes with her signature deployment of myriad sources, combined with fascinating lines of thinking, to link subjects such as violin maker Antonio Stradivari and climate change as in "A Truce with Trees." In "In Praise of the Meander," she begins with an anecdote about mushroom hunting to introduce the central arguments of the piece: that depth can be found through lingering and meandering, that books--and essays--do not have to be linear. She ends by nodding toward the mushroom hunting she began with, a circling back that matches form with content.

While some essays indeed meander, others are calls to arms, such as "Despair Is a Luxury," in which Solnit implores readers not to succumb to the dangerously dulling and indulgent thinking that all hope is lost--especially regarding climate change. She invokes historical examples of solidarity movements overcoming establishments, as in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

One of the delights of reading Solnit is the invigorating sensation of forging new connections between unforeseen topics and ideas. In No Straight Road Takes You There, she absolutely does not disappoint. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator

Discover: No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain is invigorating and full of surprising connections--signature Solnit at her best.

Few tragedies are as unspeakable: the suicides of a couple's two teenage children. The death of Yiyun Li's second son, James, six years after that of her firstborn, Vincent, is the subject she writes about with bracing philosophical clarity in Things in Nature Merely Grow. An earlier work about Vincent, Where Reasons End, was published in the form of a novel. This work, "the book for James," is a memoir that, she warns early on, is "about life's extremities, about facts and logic, written from a particularly abysmal place where no parent would want to be."

Although the act of writing is a default source of comfort for Li (Wednesday's Child), for whom words are "the only way I can make some sense out of this senseless life," one still admires what it must have taken to write this. She confesses multiple times that she is "in an abyss" after the boys' deaths. Personal details, such as that James was insistent on the aesthetics of pancakes, expecting that each one she made would be "formed like a letter not found in the English alphabet," are unbearably poignant. Throughout the book, she turns to works of literature and philosophy by writers such as Albert Camus, Joan Didion, and Rebecca West to help her comprehend her sons' decisions. "Life has stunned me," Li writes, "but I prefer not to give life the pleasure of boasting that it has defeated me." This may not be a comforting book, but it's vital and tenderly written. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Discover: Yiyun Li's Things in Nature Merely Grow is a vital and tenderly written memoir about the suicide of Li's son James, which occurred only six years after that of her older son, Vincent.

Prolific nature writer Craig Childs (The Secret Knowledge of Water; Atlas of a Lost World) takes readers on a journey away from the light with The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light. He's in search of a clear view of the heavens, stars, constellations, planets, galaxies, and beyond--and all that they stand for--and offers a quest narrative with a circular structure, which starts and ends in that bastion of illumination, Las Vegas, Nev.

Childs teamed up with an old friend and fellow adventurer, Irvin Fox-Fernandez, and together the two men rode loaded off-road bicycles north out of the city, which his friend called "Bortle-hopping." Bortle, Childs explains, "is a naked-eye scale for determining a night sky's quality"; in this book, Childs describes moving from Las Vegas's Bortle 9 to the joys and profundities of Bortle 1, "where only stellar light and backscatter from sunshine in space can be seen." He chronicles this trip with lyricism, gentle humor, and an obvious passion for darkness preserved, for the human ability to consider something larger than ourselves: "Beaming overhead, they live their lives regardless of how we see them, and for all I've heard that stars don't care, I disagree. I just don't know what they care about." As environmental causes go, this one entails an easy fix: just turn the lights off. Referring to mythology, biology, archeoastronomy, and more, Childs makes a strong argument.

Beautifully written, fervent, and lavish in imagery both light and dark, The Wild Dark is a moving call to action. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Discover: A longtime nature writer directs his gaze upward with this travelogue and love song for the dark night sky.

In any hierarchy of life's important roles, fatherhood unquestionably sits near the top. And yet, for all its myriad and complex demands, the job doesn't come with an instruction manual. In The #1 Dad Book, famed writer James Patterson does his best to remedy that deficiency. It's a breezy but heartfelt and highly practical guide to navigating the challenges facing fathers at any stage in their journeys.

Like much of Patterson's fiction, The #1 Dad Book is served up in compact, easily digested chapters. As he offers tips that include being liberal in hugging your children, not being afraid to say no, and taking time to read to them, Patterson--father to a millennial-generation son--adopts the tone of a trusted friend sharing his own experience over a beer. Indeed, he hopes to encourage men to be more open about comparing their parenting experiences and learning from others' failures and successes.

Patterson supplements his gentle, amiable prescriptions with anecdotes and tips from fathers both anonymous and famous. He also includes lists of favorite children's books to encourage reading together, and books for fathers who want to go deeper into the subject of parenting. He concludes with a summary of his recommendations--17 in all--that's suitable for taping to a refrigerator or slipping into a wallet. And while he admits that not every one of his ideas will land for every reader, any father will walk away from this book both with feelings of reassurance and some useful hints about how to do a vital job just a bit better. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Discover: James Patterson delivers an easy-to-read but highly useful collection of tips for doing the critical work of fatherhood.

If Wild Things was Bruce Handy's case for the nutritional value of kids' books for grown-up readers, then Hollywood High: A Totally Epic, Way Opinionated History of Teen Movies argues persuasively that screen candy can sometimes be healthy.

Handy offers up an unapologetically subjective and admittedly inexhaustive look back at Hollywood films about teenagers. Proceeding chronologically across eight decades, he uses each chapter to either anatomize a specific film (Rebel Without a Cause, Boyz n the Hood) or examine a cluster of related films (beach party movies, John Hughes's greatest hits). Handy begins with the empathy-generating Andy Hardy series, which found Hollywood's first recognizably modern teen weathering "the serial mortifications of growing up," and he concludes with the existentially fraught speculative series phenomena Twilight and the Hunger Games. How did teen movies get from Andy Hardy to the hard stuff?

In pursuit of answers, Handy explores evolving attitudes toward adolescents, touching on headlines, scholarship, and literature. A Handy specialty is finding common threads in teen movies over time--e.g., the Hunger Games series is "the battlefields of The Breakfast Club and Mean Girls made literal." When the lofty statements arrive ("I would argue that teen movies have become an essential American genre, rivaling the western as a vehicle for national mythmaking"), they're earned and often leavened with humor (some Hunger Games costumes "look like they were designed by Alexander McQueen, working in fondant"). Hollywood High delivers a multiplex's worth of serious-minded fun. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Discover: Bruce Handy's look back at Hollywood movies about teenagers delivers a multiplex's worth of serious-minded fun.

Titan of the Stars by E.K. Johnston (Aetherbound; The Inevitable Victorian Thing) is a tightly plotted, carnage-filled YA sci-fi horror tale that deftly marries the social commentary of Titanic with the visceral horror of Alien.

Celeste and Dominic are both survivors of the "Rupt," a massive earthquake that decimated Canada's Ottawa Valley. Dominic was adopted by an upper-class family, while Celeste grew up in a group dormitory. Now both are aboard the Titan, a spaceship "modern at the core and gilded with early-20th-century affectations" on its maiden voyage to Mars--Celeste as an apprentice engineer and Dominic as a guest whose father designed display cases to hold the "crown jewel" of the ship. Ten years ago, government scientists discovered extraterrestrial life-forms in the melting permafrost of the Canadian Arctic, and now the Titan is home to an alien exhibit. The beings, "dead for millennia," pose no threat to the passengers--until a containment breach releases the actually-very-much-alive creatures and Celeste and Dominic must rely on each other to survive.  

This thrilling duology opener is told from both Celeste's and Dominic's first-person perspectives. This shifting POV--combined with cliff-hanging chapter endings and free-verse vignettes that provide mysterious extraterrestrial input--ratchets up suspense and tension. Johnston masterfully infuses the narrative with bone-deep dread and grotesque carnage; phrases like "splash of gore" and "pile of her own sludge" are haunting. It's not all body horror, though: Johnston also effectively intertwines themes of class, privilege, and self-determination. An unsettling, pulse-pounding exploration of societal structures and survival. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader

Discover: In this tightly plotted, carnage-filled YA sci-fi horror tale, an apprentice engineer and a privileged guest on a spaceship to Mars must work together to survive an alien outbreak.

Hans Christian Andersen Award-winning Argentinian author María Teresa Andruetto transforms personal history into an inspiring tribute to living courageously in Clara and the Man with Books in His Window. Fellow Argentinian artist/muralist Martina Trach's glorious double-page spreads create a sense of place and time.

"This is the story of my mother and her friend, Juan," Andruetto prefaces her narrative, "about how she discovered books and he, the light of day." Young Clara is her laundress mother's delivery service. "DON'T GET DISTRACTED," her mother reminds Clara as she sets off carrying a laden basket. At Juan's home, she leaves the laundry and collects the payment left under the doormat: "He never goes out. He always stays inside." But one day, pushing the curtain aside, Juan asks Clara if she can read. "My grandmother taught me how," she responds. On her next delivery day, a book appears under the doormat. And then another. Eventually she's invited inside, where Juan divulges how he became "afraid of the light." He tells Clara his meaning of courage: "being brave enough to live the way... you believe." Clara declares: "I'm going to have courage!" Bolstered by her exuberance, the man exits his fortress to hand Clara the book she almost left behind.

Originally published in 2018, Clara is Andruetto and Trach's English-language debut, eloquently translated by Guatemalan Canadian Elisa Amado. Trach sets Andruetto's spare narrative in a rural landscape populated with simple homes (colorful albeit faded). Trach cleverly underscores the infinite power of books through saturated primary colors--the red, blue, and yellow of Clara's reading material stands out against the dim, neutral colors of their setting. Together, author and artist provide a galvanizing reminder that books are conveyers of immense knowledge, enjoyment, and empathy. --Terry Hong

Discover: Hans Christian Andersen Award-winning author María Teresa Andruetto turns her mother's memories into a gorgeously inspiring story about books and connection.

A Festa for Luana is a splendid picture book by Brazilian American Joana Pastro (Lucas and the Capoeira Circle) that enthusiastically celebrates Festa Junina, a month-long Brazilian holiday commemorating St. John and the harvest. Latin American artist Duda Oliva makes his U.S. picture book debut featuring traditional food, decorations, clothing, and games in painterly illustrations.

Luana and her parents arrive at her grandparents' house from the U.S. just in time for the June festa. When her vovô (grandfather) introduces her as his "American granddaughter," she immediately feels that she is not Brazilian enough. First, Luana thinks her dress doesn't have the right "pretty little details"--Mamãe tells her everyone dresses "up in plaid, flowers, and frills"--so her mother plaits her hair and gives her a few aesthetic freckles. This is not enough for Luana, so the artistic girl enhances her blue-and-white July 4th dress with showy gold ruffles and a patterned apron, creating a dress that is "just like me, American and Brazilian!"

Pastro scatters Portuguese words throughout the text and includes context clues (and a glossary) to help young readers interpret anything with which they are unfamiliar. Her text is sometimes poetic, as when the family dances the "swirling. Twirling" quadrilha. Oliva's soft pastel and colored pencil art is impressionistic and focuses on feeling and tone while still highlighting specific details of the celebration and traditional clothing. An author's note and recipe for bolo de fubá (a fluffy cake) close out this endearing exploration of a girl's dual identity. --Melinda Greenblatt, freelance book reviewer

Discover: This tempting picture book celebrates the Brazilian Festa Junina as well as a girl's innovative spark and investment in her culture.

Beth Ferry (Prunella) crafts a quirky modern fantasy chapter book ideal for younger readers in Growing Home, with whimsical illustrations by brothers Eric and Terry Fan (Lizzy and the Cloud).

Aspiring botanist Jillian Tupper and her antiquarian parents live at Number 3 Ramshorn Drive. The humans, though, are the least interesting residents of the "modest, respectable-looking" home: perpetually hungry goldfish Toasty overlooks the entire first floor from his "eight-sided antique fish tank." From this height, he grumbles at and splashes Ivy, a potted plant that lives on the kitchen table. When more creatures arrive at Number 3 Ramshorn Drive--first Arthur, a broken-legged spider, and then Ollie, an anxious and sad violet--they realize that Toasty's tank is more than a home for fish. It's magical. At the same time, the Tuppers, unaware of the conversations and budding relationships taking place in their home, are struggling with a mountain of "never-ending bills." When somebody tries to buy the tank and the Tuppers refuse on principle, the creatures realize it's up to them to stop a potential theft and keep their humans safe.

Growing Home's core cast of magical creatures can be grating as they shed their selfish habits and build kinder relationships with each other. But children will likely be drawn to the details of each creature--Toasty's love of soccer and cheese puffs; Ollie's fondness for singing--as reflections of themselves. The black-and-white spot art from the Fan Brothers heightens the endearing whimsical elements and helps make the text more accessible to younger readers. Ferry's attempt at a modern-day children's fable lacks enchantment, but the endearing characters make it an ideal cozy family read. --Nicole Brinkley, bookseller and writer

Discover: A grumpy goldfish, a self-confident ivy, a curious spider, and an anxious violet come together to love and protect their human family in this whimsical modern fantasy ideal for family readalouds.