Mercury Pictures Presents is the outstanding third work of fiction from Anthony Marra (A Constellation of Vital Phenomena; The Tsar of Love & Techno). Although Marra may have panned away from the distressed Chechen settings of his first two books, instead choosing to focus on grandiose Hollywood backdrops for this novel, the treacheries of war and propaganda continue to emerge as a profound theme in his work.

Maria Lagana is an Italian émigré who works for Mercury Pictures, a B-grade studio owned and operated by the unscrupulous Feldman brothers, Artie and Ned. Her job is to slip illicit content past the stringent Production Code censors of 1941. One such film illustrates the power of propaganda and happens to explode into the mainstream at a crucial moment in history. Soon after, the U.S. War Department taps Mercury to make pictures that promise to drum up support for American involvement in World War II.

Marra quickly and nimbly expands this premise into CinemaScope, establishing depth and nuance for even his most marginal characters. Throughout the novel, foreign nationals who had narrowly escaped the rise of fascism in Europe awaken to an adoptive country spiraling into its own forms of jingoistic paranoia. Yet Marra's belief that hope and the human spirit can triumph over hatred and cynicism never falters. He has crafted a dazzling historical novel that sparkles with buoyant humor and resilient characters, in spite of the atrocities that entangle them. Mercury Pictures Presents is a marvelously smart and delightfully absorbing novel from a writer who continues to one-up himself, and appears to take great joy in doing so. --Dave Wheeler, associate editor, Shelf Awareness

It happens to a lot of authors: sooner or later, they try Kafka on for size, as Mohsin Hamid has done (sort of) in The Last White Man. The opening is--it's impossible to avoid the word--Kafkaesque: "One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown." Yet Anders, a trainer at an essentially all-white gym, isn't the only person in the unnamed town whose skin suddenly darkens. His transformation affects not only himself but also other white people in his life, including girlfriend Oona, a yoga instructor still processing her younger brother's drug-related death; Anders's father, "gaunt and ill," who--now that his son is a "dark man"--gives him cash and a rifle for protection; and Oona's mother, who complains that "our people" are changing, and is disturbed by the increase in "the dark faces on her street." As more of those faces darken, white militants try to run the transformed, including Anders, out of town.

Despite its Kafkaesque beginning, the novel, due to its depiction of town-wide transformations and subsequent social breakdown, bears a closer resemblance to Blindness, José Saramago's masterwork about a similar development. Hamid (Exit West; Discontent and Its Civilizations; How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia) even uses the term "a kind of blindness," also noting that, "as with actual blindness," changes can lead to a new kind of seeing. The result is a frighteningly timely allegory about welcome forms of progress and the fears of people unable or unwilling to grow. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Through the first half of her spare, intricate novella Only the Cat Knows--recipient of the 2020 Red Hen Press Novella Award--Ruyan Meng brilliantly builds a mounting sense of claustrophobia. A factory worker labors hard every day but is unable to sustain his family. His wife can't work because their two younger children are seriously ill; meanwhile, their older daughter seethes with resentment. He already owes his younger sister more than he can repay, a fact she uses to berate him even as she relies on him to be her on-demand handyman, as he is for many of his neighbors.

While dreaming one night of finally receiving his long-awaited (though paltry) raise, he's awakened by his wife at 3:30 a.m. and sent for their rations and staples. Somehow, he loses the 10 yuan that is all they have for an entire month of food. His desperate reaction to this loss, one that accelerates the narrative toward horrific tragedy, fuels the novella's second half. "Life isn't living anymore," his sister had recently remarked, "but, it's only a long, resigned period of waiting for something better, something that will probably never happen." He can wait no more.

Meng writes with impressively taut control: her pacing--from stifling to breathtaking--is especially remarkable, as is her vocabulary (thaumaturgic, adamantine). Born and educated in China, Meng crafts fiction with factual provenance: her bio reveals that her stories are inspired by true events in a Chinese "worker village" of the 1950s. And yet geography matters little here: Meng presents a universal catastrophe in which she deftly proves 10 yuan is the breaking point of humanity. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

"On the first of October they arrived." Leigh Welles has just returned home to the island of her birth for her father's funeral, and the crows have returned as they do each October, but she finds nearly everything else changed since the war. So begins Emma Seckel's first novel, The Wild Hunt, an atmospheric story of place, family, home and belonging.

This small, isolated Scottish island lost many of its young men, "nearly an entire generation off to fight for a country they'd barely thought of until now," in World War II. Leigh's brother had gone, and though he survived, he did not come home, and all they've done since is argue. Leaving has in fact been a family trait, beginning with their mother's mysterious departure when Leigh was a girl. Later, Leigh committed the sin (in island eyes) of moving to the mainland, where she'd been miserable. Now she's returned to the Welles home, "a run-down sheep farm with no sheep." Her mother gone, her brother gone, her father dead, the island haunted by its absent young men and by the sluagh--those crows who group in threes and beat upon windows and strike at eyes and kill.

The Wild Hunt is part ghost story, part elegy to war and traditional lifestyles, dreamlike even in its horrors. Seckel weaves historical fiction with mystery and fantastic elements and threads of romance in this tale of love, grief, attachment to place and resistance to change. Her island setting is both otherworldly and firmly rooted, and her prose style is lushly evocative. This imaginative novel is memorable and wild indeed. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Author Emiko Jean transfers the effusive charm of her YA novels (Tokyo Ever After; Tokyo Dreaming) into her first adult fiction, Mika in Real Life. At age 35, Japanese American Mika is once again jobless. Her career's been erratic: fired from her job at a donut shop and a nannying gig, and for allegedly writing "X-rated Predator fan fiction... on [her] work computer." She is shopping at Target for a bottle of cheap wine when she answers a call from "a hyper-positive young voice" announcing, "I think I'm your daughter."

Sixteen years earlier, 19-year-old college freshman Mika surrendered Penny in a closed adoption to a Dayton, Ohio, white couple. Curious Penny's request--"I'd like to keep talking"--manifests as engaging video chats, which lead to discussions of an in-person visit. Rather than reveal "her unimpressive life résumé" as an "unemployment enthusiast," Mika manages--with the help of supportive friends--to present a "life she might have had": one as a home-owning travel expert with an adoring boyfriend. But when Penny discovers Mika is "a lying liar who lies," how will Mika regain her daughter's trust?

In addition to a satisfying reunion story, Jean provides a poignant and layered examination of many aspects of motherhood (whether by force, nature or choice). She deftly weaves multiple relationships--between Mika and Penny, Mika and her own critical mother, and Penny and her (late) adoptive mother. The story captures disappointments, forgiveness and unconditional connection, all complicated by differences in culture and race. Jean's persuasive characters excel in vivacious banter and vulnerable reveals, populating a rewarding narrative about crucial learning and absolute loving. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

Saeed Teebi's Her First Palestinian is a deeply moving collection of Palestinian diaspora stories set in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Bustling with the everyday drama of people who are at various stages of assimilating to their adopted homes, the stories include doctors, lawyers and teachers at the cusp of their professional lives, tending generational wounds of traumatic displacement from a homeland under occupation.

Teebi, a Canadian attorney and writer of Palestinian heritage by way of Kuwait, spins tender tales--from the title story, which captures the romanticization of the Palestinian cause by an idealistic lawyer, to that of a schoolgirl swept up in racial justice protests that alarm her Middle Eastern father in "Enjoy Your Life, Capo"--and illuminates Arabic history in the context of the contemporary cultural challenges that face his protagonists. Infused with enchanting emotional energy, "Ushanka" consists of e-mails between a grandfather and his beloved granddaughter Dasha. An aura of bewilderment colors their communication as Dasha tries to convince her impulsive grandfather, who fled to Moscow to search for an actress he once knew, to come home to Montreal. The grandfather, an aspiring citrus magnate who was forced out of his home city of Yafa, carries memories that are as fragrant and sweet as the oranges he once proudly sold.

One of the nine stories in Teebi's debut collection transports readers to an unnamed Middle Eastern kingdom where family members await the outcome of their asylum application. For refugees who settle in Canada, the prospect of a peaceful and prosperous future is some consolation for a homeland that now exists only in their dreams. --Shahina Piyarali, reviewer

Sara Ackerman (Radar Girls) provides a fast-paced, lushly described historical adventure in her fifth World War II novel, The Codebreaker's Secret. After losing her beloved brother, Walt, at Pearl Harbor, codebreaker Isabel Cooper accepts an assignment in Hawai'i to help defeat the Japanese. There, she navigates brain-bending codes as the only woman in "the Dungeon," an underground bunker staffed with brilliant men none too thrilled by her presence. Two decades later, Luana Freitas, an ambitious young reporter on assignment at a swank Hawaiian hotel, becomes a friend of a hotel guest who goes missing. Lu, with the help of veteran photographer (and former flyboy) Matteo Russi, digs into the mystery, uncovering some secrets that may connect the missing guest to Isabel--and put Lu herself in danger.

Ackerman skillfully shifts back and forth between her narratives, creating two female protagonists who are both driven and compassionate. Isabel's deep grief over her brother's death conflicts with her joy at making friends with Matteo and savoring Hawai'i's natural beauty. Both Isabel's efforts to be fully accepted by her fellow cryptanalysts and Lu's struggle to figure out what she wants from her journalism career feel achingly timely. Meanwhile, both women are also wrestling with more personal desires, even as the war (for Isabel) and the events at the hotel (for Lu) pull them in different directions than expected.

Thoughtful, romantic and ultimately hopeful, The Codebreaker's Secret is a riveting story of intrigue and love in wartime. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

John Dickson Carr (1906-1977), author of The Corpse in the Waxworks and many other books and stories, was considered by the New York Times to be "a master of the locked-door mystery." His 1944 whodunit, Till Death Do Us Part, is a doozy of an impossible mystery, and it is beautifully written, ingeniously plotted and compelling. Best of all, it doesn't cheat with the clues, which are all laid out in plain sight. But few readers will be able to put these puzzle pieces together before Carr's master detective, Dr. Gideon Fell, gathers everyone around to reveal all.

After an introduction by CWA Diamond Dagger Award-winning author Martin Edwards, the story begins at an outdoor fair where local celebrity and playwright Dick Markham and his new fiancée, Lesley Grant, visit a fortune-teller. Lesley has a very agitating solo session and leaves in a panic. Before the fortune-teller--who is really Sir Harvey Gilman, "one of the greatest living authorities on crime"--can reveal anything to Dick, Lesley shoots Dick in the shoulder. Gilman summons Dick to his home and tells him that his fiancée is actually a murderer who killed two husbands and a boyfriend. But she evaded conviction by somehow convincing the men to inject themselves with poison while inside locked rooms. The following morning, Gilman is found dead in a locked and sealed room, a hypodermic syringe lying near him. This brings amateur sleuth Dr. Fell to town.

This skillfully plotted, thoroughly enchanting, crackerjack entertainment will have mystery fans rejoicing that Poisoned Pen Press has reissued a neglected treasure. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

A tidy ending is elusive in this book of the same name, the third novel from Joanna Cannon. It thrums with uneasiness as an unreliable narrator relates her version of the serial murders of four women in her Scottish town. As in her previous novels (The Trouble with Goats and Sheep; Three Things about Elsie), Cannon brings intrigue to the ordinary citizens of quiet villages.

A Tidy Ending opens with a "Now" chapter in which Linda, age 43, refers to being in an apparent place of confinement where it feels "everyone has been sealed into some kind of vacuum and lost to the world forever." Such periodic "Now" chapters are rife with foreshadowing, as is Linda's unconventional behavior. Of her indifferent husband, Terry, she wonders "what my life would have been like if he wasn't in it." Dark references to a childhood tragedy in Wales that sent her to resettle in Scotland grow increasingly detailed, suggesting a link to Linda's reaction to the murders. With no friends besides Terry and her hypercritical mother, Linda develops a fascination with glossy catalogs, fantasizes a new self-image and nurtures an unlikely friendship with an intriguing couple. She touts her germophobic obsession with "hoovering" and sanitizing, and is soon cleaning the couple's apartment, an arrangement that feels sinister but delights Linda.  

Cannon, a psychiatrist, draws a character with fascinating contradictions: naïve but clever, awkward yet wily, aloof yet observant. "Everything you do and say and think is tied and knotted forever to something that went before," Linda cryptically notes. Readers will agree with her observation that summarizes this gripping novel: "You never see it coming." --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

In the eerily realistic thriller A Simple Choice, a brilliant doctor--whose methods are unethical and whose enablers will destroy anyone in their way--is on the verge of curing cancer. When beloved Senator Duke Garber jumps off a cliff in Maine, D.C. reporter Palmer Knight is on a mission to find out why. Suddenly, he's the victim of a deepfake scandal and his network suspends him.

Meanwhile, Amity Jones grows suspicious of her mother's neighbor, who has been receiving regular visits from medical personnel in a mysterious dark van. Colin Gentry, the neighbor's kid, had been diagnosed with cancer but, thanks to the visits, is now cancer-free. Amity's mother and Colin share the same doctor, but her mother's cancer is getting worse and, when asked how Colin recovered, the doctor responds cagily. Amity decides to follow the van and is caught. Her captors promise to cure her mother as long as she remains quiet, but Amity knows they can't be trusted and reaches out to Palmer Knight. Soon, both Amity and Palmer are under threat and out of their league in this riveting thriller. 

Author David Pepper (The Voter File) presents a real-life conundrum that illustrates how curing cancer is not--and never will be--simple. His characters face impossible ethical, moral and life-ending decisions while making a mad rush against time to do the right thing. The author challenges preconceived notions about a horrible, multifaceted disease and combines this with car chases and behind-the-scenes political skullduggery, making the choice to read A Simple Choice a simple one. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer

Sunyi Dean's debut novel, The Book Eaters, is a surprisingly moving horror-fantasy hybrid that envisions a society where the titular book eaters consume books in place of food. The book eaters are unmistakably vampiric creations, both in their ancient fustiness and their secretive role behind the scenes of human civilization--but more explicitly in the introduction of a kind of subspecies called mind eaters, who prey on people. An early, disturbing scene portrays the book-eater protagonist, Devon, feeding a vicar to her ravenous mind-eater son, leaving the vicar a barely living husk.

Perhaps even more of a threat than her son's monstrous hunger are the clans of book eaters that Devon left behind. Dean alternates between chapters set in the present and in the past, in which readers are introduced to the book eaters' suffocating patriarchal society, a rule-bound world where there is no room for assertive women or queer love. The book eaters consume not only physical books but also the words and stories inside, which gives Dean a handy way to ruminate on the importance of narrative. Book-eater women like Devon have their diet limited to a highly gendered selection of fairy tales and the like--a sly way of constricting their understanding of possibilities.

After an act of rebellion sends Devon into hiding, she is forced to construct a new sense of herself while desperately evading the book eater foot soldiers who pursue her and her son. The Book Eaters is an exciting and grotesque novel with an open, earnest heart. --Hank Stephenson, manuscript reader, the Sun magazine

Alexis Hall (A Lady for a Duke) brings readers a hilariously neurotic romance in Husband Material. Lucien O'Donnell, son of rock stars and chaotic in every way, cleaned up his act by fake-dating well-behaved barrister Oliver Blackwood in Boyfriend Material. But the fake-dating turned to real love, and now Luc and Oliver have been together for two years. They cook for each other and shop at IKEA; Luc can't remember the last time he went to a glamorous, queer party. Luc's also noticing that nearly everyone they know is getting married. He's the maid of honor for his best friend, Bridget; his posh coworker Alex is marrying the daughter of an earl; and even his evil ex, Miles (who sold their relationship to the tabloids), has found true love. Feeling societal pressure, Luc finds himself getting down on one knee and proposing to Oliver. But now he can't help but wonder: Is he, Luc, actually husband material?

Snarky and insightful, Husband Material is the story of a man who is truly trying to improve himself but who always wonders if he's getting it wrong. The London setting is irresistible, as are Luc's attempts to make sure that he's adulting properly. Full of a string of wonderfully odd characters--Baby J (who looks "ever so slightly like something Jim Henson had built out of foam and ping-pong balls"), whose parents are both named James Royce and each go by the name James Royce-Royce; Luc's unbelievably inept coworkers; and Oliver's judgmental family--there's never a dull moment. --Jessica Howard, freelance book reviewer

"When we open our hearts to animals, death is the inevitable price," writes E.B. Bartels, a former bookseller at Newtonville Books, Mass. Good Grief, her impeccably researched first book, offers deeply personal stories about the many ways companion animals enrich lives and how animal lovers must ultimately cope with the pain of their loss.

Having a pet is a choice, and mourning pets is nothing new. Bartels, a lifelong and devout animal lover, has grappled with this predicament since she was a child. Her father loved animals, but her mother claimed she was "violently allergic" to "anything with fur, feathers, or hair." That left young animal-loving Bartels to cultivate freshwater fish in tabletop aquariums. When "trouble in (fish) paradise" began and occupants were found floating in the tank and/or were swallowed up by larger fish, Bartels became intrigued by the nature of loss and grief. Starting in kindergarten, she developed something of a "pet aftercare industry," where she assisted with animal funerals and burials with peers at school.

This in-depth, splendidly informative narrative is replete with down-to-earth stories from Bartels herself and those of ordinary pet owners, pet care professionals, celebrities and historians. The pivotal roles pet birds, reptiles, rodents, horses, dogs and cats have played in personal lives--and how they are ultimately grieved and remembered--are interspersed with fascinating historical facts. Readers, like Bartels, who long to comprehend the pet-human bond--why people care so much for their pets, in life and in death, and what makes the bond so worthwhile and why--will be well educated and find much to reflect upon in Good Grief. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Most homes have had previous residents, although new occupants put their own touches on each room. It's those past tenants--and what happened to them--that worry Alice Dawson, who's bought a beautiful house with her boyfriend, Leo Curtis, in The Circle, a London gated community of 12 homes that B.A. Paris (Behind Closed Doors) explores in The Therapist, her fifth engrossing psychological thriller.

After a few nights, Alice starts to hate the house and discovers the neighbors are standoffish, and a few times Leo believes someone else is in their home. Then, Alice learns that therapist Nina Maxwell was murdered upstairs the year before; her husband, Oliver, committed suicide after being accused of the crime. Alice is furious that Leo didn't mention the murder, and her reactions intensify because she feels connected with women named Nina: her sister, Nina, was killed in a car accident along with their parents. She agrees to help investigator Thomas Grainger, hired by Oliver's sister, find the killer.

Paris creates vivid character studies for each resident of The Circle, including the murdered Nina. Alice could use a therapist herself as her anxiety and obsession are out of control, yet she still engenders sympathy. Alice desperately wants love and friendship, and to be accepted by her neighbors--though she suspects one of them is Nina's murderer. The Circle's secluded location isn't exactly a Peyton Place, but each resident has secrets, including Leo.

The Therapist skillfully melds a twisty, psychological thriller with a contemporary approach to the locked-room mystery. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer

If there were a formula for war novels, it might include a healthy dose of Ernest Hemingway and a splash of Tim O'Brien mixed with a subtle tincture of Leo Tolstoy. In writing, however, following a formula rarely produces anything exceptional. Author Salar Abdoh (Tehran at Twilight) defies all formulaic constructions, despite the very real influence of these seminal writers in Out of Mesopotamia. The result is an unblinking look at the realities of war and the impossibility of ever leaving war behind.

Abdoh, drawing on his experiences as an embedded journalist in Iraq and Syria, positions protagonist Saleh as a witness to the constant machinery of active combat--the damage, loss and necessarily loose camaraderie of those living (and dying) in it. Saleh's role as witness is somewhat comic, as his sight is often blurred, distorted or completely lost in one eye. Even his role as a writer is tenuous; he is able neither to embrace his peacetime job as art critic and television writer nor to tell the truth of what he has seen in battle: "I do not know how to translate any of this. I do not know in how many worlds a person can live simultaneously before they lose themselves completely. There is not language enough to explain all of this." Though Saleh may doubt the sufficiency of language, Out of Mesopotamia--a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice--provides a wrenching examination of war and of the way humanity can't ever manage to be done with violent conflict. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian

Tamron Hall draws on the depth of her own experience as a broadcast journalist in As the Wicked Watch, in which a Black female reporter goes above and beyond the parameters of her job to help solve the gruesome murder of a Black teen in Chicago. Crime reporter Jordan Manning first covers the story of 15-year-old Masey James as a missing persons case--one that crawls under Jordan's skin, especially after her exclusive interview with Masey's mother. When Masey's body is eventually located in an abandoned playground, Jordan is the first on the scene: "I couldn't ignore what I recognized as a plea for help, for the police to care, for attention from the media, for answers."

Recognizing that her role in television gives her not only access, but the ability to put pressure on the people and groups that tend to ignore cases of missing--or murdered--Black girls, Jordan takes action: interviewing police leads, connecting with Masey's family, tracking down loose ends in Masey's case--and all in her signature stiletto heels. Throughout, Hall's experience in journalism is evident; Jordan's tracking of the clues makes for a compelling mystery, just as they offer a fascinating look behind the scenes of what it takes to get the perfect broadcast story--hours and hours of work often distilled down into minutes or seconds of television coverage. The first in a planned series featuring reporter Jordan Manning, As the Wicked Watch is a well-paced and thoughtful crime novel that probes questions of race, representation and community care. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Intergalactic travel, Faustian bargains and the misunderstood music of Béla Bartók commingle in a delightfully offbeat celebration of life, the universe and the quest for the perfect donut from Ryka Aoki (He Mele a Hilo).

Renowned violin teacher Shizuka Satomi, known as the "Queen of Hell" for her seemingly supernatural star-making power, searches the world for a last and seventh student, ending up back in her hometown of Los Angeles. There she stumbles across teen violinist Katrina Nguyen in a park. The trans girl, alone in the world after fleeing her abusive father, has tremendous musical talent, and Shizuka takes her under her wing. To traumatized, desperate Katrina, becoming the famous woman's student and finding safe haven under her roof feels too good to be true. It is. Shizuka's deal with the devil is no mere figure of speech. She owes hell seven souls and needs to pay only once more. "Souls are cheap. The trick is finding the right soul," and brilliant, guileless Katrina fits the bill perfectly. As she comes to know better Katrina's careworn but gentle heart, Shizuka finds herself having second thoughts. Her budding romance with Lan Tran, an indie donut shop entrepreneur who's secretly an extraterrestrial refugee, further leads her to wonder, what does it take for a soul to be saved?

This fresh, exuberant tribute to found family and the joy of self-love moves with surety and grace through depictions of trauma and anxiety, and elegant contemplation of performance as profession. The Light from Uncommon Stars--an Indie Next Pick, a 2022 Stonewall Book Award winner and a finalist for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novel--will leave readers with the breathless feeling of watching a virtuoso perform. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

"One person seems small, quiet, and insignificant," but two-time Newbery Honoree Christina Soontornvat (The Last Mapmaker; All Thirteen) gracefully illuminates how "when one person, and one person... become many" they "can change a planet." Soontornvat's sparse text packs a powerful punch and allows Rahele Jomepour Bell (Our Favorite Day of the Year) the space to construct sublime illustrations that deliver an equally effective blow. Author and illustrator tag team on their collaboration--in much the same way they encourage others to cooperate--and they deftly educate young readers about the lethal dangers of climate change.

Soontornvat's clean, straightforward prose about the global crisis makes this alluring picture book accessible to early readers. The heft of her message, though, has the potential to inspire all: "When many cars, many factories, and many cities let loose millions and billions and trillions [of carbon dioxide molecules], they trap and stifle, like a too-warm blanket." The cogency of Bell's mixed-media illustrations cannot be exaggerated. The blend of realism (heartbreaking polar bears) and metaphor (a blanket covering Earth) portray the text succinctly. Her striking colors, rich detail and lush textures pull readers into both the planet's beauty (a star-filled night sky) and its devastation (a raging wildfire).

To Change a Planet might be small and quiet, but it is anything but insignificant. Choice words and stellar art create the kind of reading experience that sticks with a person, that inspires one to believe they really can "change a planet." These pages will almost certainly breed future environmental activists. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

The Witchery is a delightfully dark take on magic and boarding school tropes, wherein a coven of student witches feels compelled to end a bloody, annually recurring curse that's destroying their adopted hometown.

Sixteen-year-old blonde and "pale"-skinned Logan Wyatt is still new to Mesmortes Coven Academy in the "fiendish little witchtown" of Haelsford, Fla., when the Red Three invite her to join their circle. "Sociable and ambitious" Jailah Simmons, greenwitch Thalia Blackwood and deathwitch Iris Keaton-Foster are three powerful Black students who are determined to end the Haunting Season, a "yearly hex that plague[s] Haelsford" in which "monstrous" Wolves emerge from the Swamp and kill. Logan's own magic is weak, but she's also a proxy, someone who holds "the power to manipulate magic against its own rules." With the aid of a powerful amplyfyr stone, and a couple of unexpectedly useful boys from nearby non-magical Hammersmitt School, the witches seek out the enigmatic Wolf Boy, who's prophesied to end the curse. But as bodies begin to accumulate, the magic gets darker and the Wolf Boy proves difficult to control, the struggling coven-mates fear they may be in way over their heads.

S. Isabelle's debut delivers a wonderfully atmospheric and inclusive magical world, full of danger, drama and forever friendship. Multiple POVs allow each distinct voice to provide crucial motivation as they drive the spellbinding plot forward. The Witchery is a thoroughly modern novel steeped in satisfyingly classic witch lore. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger and children's book author

Though Charlotte Salomon, a German-Jewish woman, did not survive the Holocaust, her distinctive art did. The 769 paintings that compose her autobiographical series titled Life? or Theater? reveal her tragic story. Susan Wider uses Salomon's art along with meticulous research to guide readers through the young painter's fateful life during World War II.

Charlotte acquired her love of art at a young age when her governess introduced her to painting. She was hooked immediately and extremely passionate about her art. Wider effectively relates Charlotte's intensity with anecdotes that describe events like hearing her stepmother sing in concert for the first time: "The glorious tone of Paula's voice soaring over the rich music from the orchestra sounded like colors.... She heard blues and reds and yellows showering over her." Wider also illuminates Charlotte's dogged determination to follow her dreams and say something to humanity. Charlotte fought to get into art school after failing the entrance exam, obsessively painted hidden away in a hotel room and left her extraordinary legacy with her doctor before being arrested and sent "with her unborn child... to the gas chamber on arrival at Auschwitz."

Accompanying Wider's narration are color photographs of selected paintings from Life? or Theater?, allowing the audience to fully appreciate the singularity of Salomon's work. This debut is an excellent introduction to an artist with whom young readers may not be well acquainted, and it's a haunting reminder of how much talent and beauty was lost in the Holocaust. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

Malachi wants everyone to understand he's not a demon. Neither are his friends. Yes, they live in Hell and their parents work in Hell. But they're not demons. They're simply regular kids enjoying one last school break together before job training begins in this acerbic and spooky middle-grade adventure by Darcy Marks.

Mal and his friends are powers, beings destined to guard the imprisoned souls held in the circles of Hell. When Samuel Parris, one such soul, escapes the Pit, the kids' parents join Hell's forces to find him. Meanwhile, Mal, Lilith, Crowley and Aleister give their babysitters the slip so they can explore suddenly-adult-free areas of Hell. Unfortunately, they accidentally fall through a doorway between worlds and end up on Earth, a place Mal's babysitter, Methuselah, describes as "terrible... Mostly uninhabited and smelling of goat... no plumbing... wrath of God everywhere... chickens...." They're stuck--specifically in Salem, Mass., on Halloween--and they've unwittingly brought Parris with them. If the four don't catch the escaped soul and bring it back to Hell, their parents are going to be so mad....

Marks's thrilling debut includes edgy, subversive themes and perspectives that blend seamlessly with history and classic tropes. The immortal kids fit the Brat Pack mold but with black wings and destined positions as guardians of Hell. Setting a story in Salem on Halloween risks coming across as trite, but Marks pulls it off in a bold and inventive way that effectively and brilliantly uses the Salem witch trials. The atmospheric and haunting Grounded for All Eternity is a thrill that lasts long past Halloween. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer

Lio Min's soulful debut novel, Beating Heart Baby, highlights music, art and the love of family--by birth, yes, but more significantly by circumstance and choice. Their emotive narrative spotlights Filipino American artist Santi and Korean Japanese American musician Suwa, playing out a tumultuous relationship that begins online and unknowingly (initially) continues in real life.

Since age seven, Santi's guardian has been his late mother's best friend, Aya. At 12, Santi encounters @EmoOcean on an anime fan website; through the distance of screens (and thousands of miles), the pair become virtually inseparable as Canti and Memo. For "three years of memes and late-night spirals and shared dreams," they're soulmates--until a misunderstanding causes them to sever all communication.

At 17, Aya moves Santi home to Los Angeles, where he joins the high school marching band and meets Suwa. They start as contentious strangers and become lovers, only to recognize one another as Canti and Memo. Recognizing their younger selves leads to another wrenching separation. Perhaps, though, being apart (again) is the only way back together.

Min--who, like Suwa, is a trans Asian Angeleno musician--cleverly structures their dual-perspective novel like an old-school album--Side A by Santi, Side B by Suwa. Min, like Suwa, uses the handle @EmoOcean on social media. Those personal overlaps add a raw vulnerability to their fiction with an aching longing for unguarded connection haunting every track. Min drops an impressively empathic first novel. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon