Serena Singh is, in her own words, "Creative Director. Badass Brown Girl. Advertising Ass-Kicker." In a new role at boutique ad agency in Washington, D.C., Serena has everything she's ever wanted: a busy and important career, a younger sister who doubles as a best friend and not much time for anything else. When the career proves a little bumpy, and the sister gets married--and then pregnant--Serena is left longing for something she can't quite identify. "What did people see when they looked at Serena Singh? A busy, career-driven woman, sure, but what else?" This is the question that teases Serena's mind throughout Sonya Lalli's Serena Singh Flips the Script.

In many novels, that "something more" would be romance, marriage, then children. But Serena is deeply mistrustful of marriage and does not want children of her own. As Serena flips the script on what happily ever after means for her, Lalli (The Matchmaker's List) turns the tables on the contemporary romance genre. The book is rife with relationship drama, but these relationships are not solely romantic ones. Instead, the novel probes the seemingly impossible challenge of adult women making--and retaining--friends. Serena also muddles through romantic ups and downs, but the central question at the book's heart is: "What did I want for myself?" It is in answering that question that the rest of the pieces start to fall into place for her: career, friendships, family, romance. But the happily ever after that Lalli has imagined in this smart, well-paced novel is not dependent on any one of those things. It is dependent on Serena herself--becoming herself. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Tender moments add levity to Jennifer Dupee's appealing first novel, The Little French Bridal Shop. Larisa Pearl is pushing 40 years old when she loses her job in Boston, breaks up with her boyfriend and learns that her 96-year-old aunt--her father's unmarried sister--has died and left her house, "Elmhurst," to Larisa and her father. Larisa's parents live in a New Hampshire retirement community, where her mother is battling dementia and her devoted father is lovingly committed to her daily care. This leaves Larisa to set off on her own to Elmhurst, located in the small seaside town of Kent Crossing, Mass. Elmhurst is in need of repair. Thus, she enlists the help of Jack Merrill--a disillusioned, married father of triplets, in his late 30s--the part-time caretaker of the estate. Larisa and Jack were friends who grew up together, spending memorable summers at Elmhurst.

While grappling with her mother's deteriorating health and re-acquainting herself with the allure of small-town life, Larisa decides--on a lark--to try on a beautiful wedding gown displayed in the window of the local bridal shop. To Larisa's surprise, the shop owner is one of her former teachers, now retired, who happily presumes Larisa is finally getting married. Not wanting to disappoint, Larisa gets roped into the assumption. This choice escalates in ways that challenge Larisa's perceptions of happiness and love.

Dupee successfully combines the pull-and-tug of romance with family drama to deliver a more serious message about facing up to the often harsh realities of life. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Prolific author and historian Lauren Willig (The English Wife; the Pink Carnation series) "smelled drama" when she read about Smith College alumnae who volunteered to aid civilian victims in World War I France. Band of Sisters, based on letters from these 18 women, pays faithful homage to their bravery as well as their friendship.  

"It was like college again--college with the threat of impending destruction, that was," Kate Moran thought as the Smith College Relief Unit left a war-weary Paris for the rubble of the French countryside and their assigned village, Grécourt. Memories of July's festive dockside sendoff in New York had faded as fast as their smart gray uniforms soiled in the mud. With Kate and her former roommate Emmie Van Alden as the novel's lead protagonists, the women's talents and personalities emerge. They contend with shortages, illness, weather and German shells, but as their planned six-month stay continues, their stamina grows. Reminders of kinder times lighten the circumstances--they banter, quote poetry, savor letters from home--as they come to understand and rely on each other. Brief respites come from British and Canadian soldiers who offer camaraderie and become dancing partners for makeshift social events.

By March, and the German advance, they're shepherding refugees while defying orders to evacuate, because "they were the Smith Unit and they were here, and that was what they did." A harrowing denouement leads to a postwar epilogue, a well-deserved farewell to the brave "Smithies." --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

Come on Up by Catalan writer Jordi Nopca, translated by Mara Faye Lethem, collects 11 stories that feature people wounded by Barcelona's economic downturn of the 2010s. These stories movingly illustrate the human shame of financial insecurity, with multidimensional characters that give life to sterile government jobless reports. Nopca excels at inserting tragicomic elements to keep his stories from becoming depressingly grim. In "Àngels Quintana and Fèlix Palme Have Problems," Felix, frustrated and hopeless, secretly shoves bananas into tailpipes throughout the city, causing chaos. "Is this banana battalion another silent way of saying 'We've had enough,' from a highly qualified generation of those who still haven't found their place in a job market that's turned its back on them?" a TV journalist asks, completely oblivious to Felix's category of unemployed: those who have no particular skills and "felt more lost and more useless with each passing day."

Even characters with jobs fear that any day could be their last. In "Swiss Army Knife," Octavi sells coffee pots door to door, and is constantly worried about keeping his job. Speaking about his boss, he says, "I couldn't believe that after twenty years at the company he still couldn't pronounce my last name correctly." Nopca's under- or unemployed characters have no time for introspection: "Having lost the possibility of imagining grand plans, they all pretty much lived from day to day."

This collection convincingly illustrates the stressors of life in modern cities and the weight that hopelessness carries. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.

Acts of Desperation, Megan Nolan's raw and riveting debut novel, explores the dark and often taboo depths of abusive relationships. The novel's unnamed narrator, a bright but self-destructive young woman, falls in love with an enigmatic older writer, Ciaran. As their relationship escalates through the years, she descends into addiction, isolation and self-loathing, while nevertheless being drawn back to Ciaran as her center of gravity and her source of self-identity. By the time the tensions in their relationship reach a breaking point, the narrator no longer knows what he made her do and what she might have done by choice.

Blistering and visceral, Acts of Desperation pulls no punches when it comes to exploring the interior life of a young woman coming of age under the gaze of men. With a riveting, undeniable first-person voice, the narrator hypnotically leads readers into a world that is eerily easy to identify with and submit to. The story of her relationship with Ciaran may seem a familiar one, but the narrator's willingness to push past familiar tropes and explore the ugly underpinnings of such relationships and their effects on one's emerging sense of self make this story stand out not as a straightforward cautionary tale but as a revelation of the darkness that lingers in many contemporary romantic relationships. Rather than regurgitating overly simplified mantras about consent and abuse, Nolan crafts a story that puts the complexities of its characters first and forces readers to consider the unclear boundaries of choice, one's own desires and the desires of another. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

In Forget Me Not, Alexandra Oliva (The Last One) introduces a strong, damaged protagonist in a near-future world. It's been six years since the pandemic. Everyone wears a Sheath around their forearm that links them into social networks, maps, business reviews and details about the people they pass on the street. But Linda didn't grow up in this world: she was 12 years old when she climbed over the walls that circumscribed the only world she'd ever known. Twelve years old when she was thrust into a never-ending spotlight, because of where she's come from and who she is.

Now, as an adult, she lives alone in an apartment in Seattle, terrified to step outside, to make eye contact, to interact. "People bemoan the inhumanity of her childhood, but the outside world is so much worse." That childhood remains an enigma for much of the book, but Linda remembers running barefoot and relying on herself, a life that seems more natural and straightforward than the one she knows now.

Then an unusual woman moves in down the hall. Anvi seems open, forthright; Linda knows better than to trust anyone, but Anvi captivates her. And when Linda's past resurfaces, Anvi accompanies her back to the place where she grew up, to search for answers she may regret finding.

Forget Me Not explores humans' relationships with the natural world, with technology and with each other. It is far from polemic, however, with affecting characters, a real sense of urgency for their various plights and a thriller's racing plot. This is a poignant novel of isolation, terror, misperceptions and, ultimately, empathy. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better is a harrowing, psychologically deft thriller about a series of terrible crimes and the protagonist's struggle to live with their aftermath. When Daniel Hardesty was 12 years old, a road trip with his father descended gradually into horror. The story of the road trip takes up most of the novel, and it unfolds slowly, patiently, gradually filling in details about Daniel's strained relationship with his father and building an impressively detailed psychological portrait of the characters. When the inevitable happens--the road trip is related by a much older Daniel who makes it clear that the trip will have a shocking end--the ground has been laid so thoroughly, motivations and personal dysfunctions so intricately established, that the shocking acts of violence seem perversely comprehensible.

The novel builds incredible tension in its gradual progression from discomfort to horror, only made more excruciating by the protagonist's age and his innocent belief that his estranged father might not let him down this time. A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better is spectacularly successful as a work of suspense, but it might be even better as an examination of trauma. By allowing the reader to hear the adult Daniel's thoughts on the events as they progress, Wood cleverly reveals a parallel story about surviving the unthinkable. Decades later, Daniel still endlessly revisits the road trip, seeking answers that can't be found, yet Wood dares to leave readers with glimpses of a path forward. --Hank Stephenson, the Sun magazine, manuscript reader

Farah Heron's second novel, Accidentally Engaged, is a fun and warm contemporary romance full of heart and humor. When she meets her new neighbor, Nadim, Reena Manji is adrift. She's just been laid off from a numbers-crunching job she hated. Her parents are pushing her to marry the son of a business partner, but Reena's already had 12 failed relationships and doesn't want another foisted upon her. And her once-popular food blog was tanked by her health-obsessed sister, leaving avid baker Reena to pursue her passion only as a hobby.

It turns out that Nadim is actually the man her parents had intended to set her up with, but--after promising never to marry each other--the two soon bond over beer and bread. One night, after a little too much alcohol, they video themselves making late-night comfort food and enter a contest to be on a Toronto cooking show. Despite their chemistry and easy camaraderie, nothing is simple: Nadim and Reena pretend to be engaged for the competition while keeping their relationship secret from their families and developing real feelings for each other in private.

Full of food so lovingly described that the scents nearly waft up from the page, Accidentally Engaged is not to be consumed on an empty stomach. Like Reena, Heron (The Chai Factor) is an East African Indian Muslim Canadian woman, and she uses food and the act of cooking together to illustrate the deep sense of home and belonging that Nadim and Reena find with each other. It's a steady theme throughout the book: home is where you make it--with the people you love. --Suzanne Krohn, editor, Love in Panels

Elizabeth Miki Brina claims her voice with resounding clarity in her memoir, Speak, Okinawa. As the daughter of a U.S. soldier with Jamestown ancestry and an Okinawan immigrant mother, Brina's identity was always a negotiation of race, class, privilege. By opening her stupendous book with her maternal grandmother and leading into the 1945 Battle of Okinawa ("Okinawa had never known such carnage"), Brina adroitly announces her literary intentions: "I had not learned this history, my mother's history, my history, until I was thirty-four years old. Which is to say I grew up not knowing my mother or myself." The knowledge she reveals here--about herself, her complex heritage, her history--proves breathtaking.

Brina grew up in a "ninety-nine percent white" Rochester, N.Y., suburb and recognized racial disparity early: "White was always what I strived to be." That longing estranged Brina from her not-white, not-American, not-English-fluent, not-assimilated mother, Kyoko. As a teenage nightclub waitress supporting her destitute family in U.S.-occupied Okinawa, Kyoko dreamed of escape by marrying an American; her wish fulfilled left her a lonely, isolated alcoholic shamefully dismissed by her only child. Brina's father was the heroic protector, until Brina came to realize, decades later, that Kyoko "is the one who is stronger now."

"By being aware, being honest.... By apologizing. By forgiving," Brina begins her own restorative transformation. Interwoven with her nuanced metamorphosis is the inseparable history of Okinawa, colonized by China and Japan and, since World War II, with an unpopular, large U.S. military presence, despite its status as a Japanese prefecture. Moving fluidly between intimate memories and documented history, Brina creates a multi-layered literary gift. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

In Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water, Kazim Ali explores how a sense of place shapes one's identity. "I've always had a hard time answering the question, 'Where are you from?' " he writes. Born in the U.K. to political refugees from India, Ali eventually migrated to Canada with his family. There, his father worked as an electrical engineer for Manitoba Hydro, the province's electrical authority. Decades later, Ali finds himself recalling his childhood years in the remote town of Jenpeg with fondness, "drawn back to a place that for years I had not thought of."

Jenpeg, however, is gone, having been constructed to last only as long as Hydro needed employees in the area to build a dam across the nearby Nelson River. The town site, on unceded Pimicikamak Cree land, is hours from the nearest provincial town, but the town of Cross Lake, on the Cross Lake Indian Reserve, is much closer, and so Ali ends up visiting there to learn more about his childhood home. He is welcomed and embraced by the people of Cross Lake, who open his eyes to a place steeped in centuries of systemic racism and discriminatory policy.

In Cross Lake, Ali finds himself "awash in remembrance"--of his childhood memories, but also in the collective memories of the Pimicikamak Cree people who still live there and hold the memory of the land in their stories. This remembrance forms the backbone of Northern Light, as Ali moves from writing a memoir to something else, something larger than the story of one person, one family, or even one place. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Tola, a young girl who lives in Lagos, Nigeria, with her Grandmommy, brother and sister, shares what her life is like in this #OwnVoices early chapter book. Atinuke (Anna Hibiscus series; Catch that Chicken!) uses wit and exactly the right amount of light-heartedness to bring each character in Too Small Tola to exuberant life.

In the titular first chapter, Atinuke introduces Tola as the smallest member of her family (thus the nickname "Too Small Tola"). When Tola goes shopping with Grandmommy, who "is not much taller than her," she watches the woman carry heavy items despite her small stature and remembers that "Grandmommy can pound enough yams to feed a gathering of the Neighborhood Association." This inspires Tola and, even when she feels the weight of their purchases, she is determined to help Grandmommy carry home the groceries. In this way, Tola learns that although she is small, she is also very strong.

Atinuke's use of Nigerian words throughout, accompanied by Onyinye Iwu's illustrations, immerse readers in Nigerian culture. The grayscale illustrations are stylized with realistic elements: characters wear traditional African garments such as wrap-around skirts, head scarves and dashikis, and have natural hairstyles--braids, puffs and afros. Iwu's focus on expressive faces and body language adds realism to the work, as does her attention to setting. Atinuke uses child-friendly, entertaining dialogue and incorporates accessible themes such as bullying and helping others in need. Her inclusion of rounded and well-developed secondary characters also helps Tola recognize that strength might come not necessarily from the muscles, but the heart. --Kharissa Kenner, children's librarian, Bank Street School for Children

Human and civil rights attorney Shelley Anand joins the children's literary world with Laxmi's Mooch, a funny, body-positive book about loving all of you.

Four-year-old Indian American Laxmi has tiny hairs above her lip: a "mooch," or mustache in Hindi. Laxmi isn't initially aware of her mooch. But when playing farm animals with her friends, they suggest that she be a cat instead of a chicken because she has "little hairs on [her] lip, like cat whiskers." Laxmi, mortified, suddenly notices that she has hair all over her body: on her arms, legs, knuckles and "even in the space between my eyebrows!" Devastated by her newly revealed hairiness, she complains to her mother.. Mummy reminds Laxmi that she, too, has a mustache and that they "come from a long line of women with moochay." Mummy's pep talk works, and the next day Laxmi returns to school proudly flaunting her mooch. Soon enough, all the other kids want a mooch, too.

Anand fills Laxmi's Mooch with encouraging and affirming words. Illustrator Nabi H. Ali (All the Way to the Top) perfectly matches and reflects Anand's text with his vibrant digital illustrations. Ali's art both spans double-page spreads, depicting details of Laxmi's busy school and comfortable Indian American home, and pulls in close to show emotion through knitted brows, red cheeks or tear-filled eyes. Readers invited to watch Laxmi grow may also gain some confidence to celebrate their own bodies no matter what they look like--or where their hair may grow. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer